Category: Senses
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Touching. Not-touching. Sensing.
Through the crafty use of magnetic fields, scientists have developed the first electronic sensor that can simultaneously process both touchless and tactile stimuli. Prior attempts have so far failed to combine these functions on a single device due to overlapping signals of the various stimuli. As the sensor is readily applied to the human skin,…
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Seeing what cannot be seen…
Identifying geological features in a densely vegetated, steep, and rough terrain can be almost impossible. Imagery like LiDAR can help researchers see through the tree cover, but subtle landforms can often be missed by the human eye. A team of scientists has tapped into the power of machine learning to identify hidden geologic features. Specifically,…
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Self-reference. Beauty.
When something pleases us visually - whether it's a fine piece of artwork, a beautiful feat of architecture, or an untouched natural landscape - new research demonstrates there is a pattern of activity in what's known as the default mode network (DMN). The DMN is a large-scale system of interacting regions in the brain that…
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Touching the untouched.
Jellyfish are about 95% water, which makes them very difficult to study because most of the underwater tools available to marine biologists are clunky, heavy, and often shred jellyfish and other delicate creatures to pieces. A new ultra-soft gripper uses fettuccini-like 'fingers' inflated with water to gently grasp jellyfish and release them without harm, allowing…
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Seeing better. And better. And better. Until we see nothing at all…
A few years ago, a team of scientists at EPFL's Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, headed by Aleksandra Radenovic in the School of Engineering, developed an algorithm that can estimate a microscope's resolution in just a few seconds based on a single image. The algorithm's result indicates how closely a microscope is operating to its full…
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