A cafe with an all-robot staff controlled by paralyzed people has opened in Tokyo. The cafe, called Dawn ver.β, held its ribbon cutting ceremony on Nov. 26. Ten people with conditions like ALS and other spinal cord injuries are currently employed at Dawn, according to Sankei. From home, they operate the OriHime-D, a 120-centimeter (4-foot)... Continue Reading →
An advantage of indoor plumbing is that you never have to think about what you flushed away. In urban areas, the contaminated water flows into sewer pipes to treatment plants. Sewage treatment plants produce thousands of tons of waste product every day, which ends up in landfills, dumped in the ocean and, in some cases,... Continue Reading →
Researchers in the field of quantum communication have recently made great strides, taking us closer to a perfectly secure method of communication. For years, researchers struggled to find ways to amplify quantum signals, store large amounts of quantum data, and allow for more than two nodes in a quantum network. However, in the last two months,... Continue Reading →
If Congress doesn't act soon, tens of millions of Americans will only receive about three-quarters of their Social Security benefits when they retire. Social Security's trust funds will be tapped out by 2035, according to an annual report released Monday by trustees of the government's two largest entitlement programs, the other being Medicare. That's one... Continue Reading →
We’ve spent years watching fictional spaceships zipping through portals and hurtling through cyberspace, but now scientists think rotating black holes could actually be portals to other galaxies. Black holes are formed by gravity crushing a dying star. The matter is squeezed into a tiny space, and as a result gravity pulls so much that not even light... Continue Reading →
Dr. Jack Gilbert wants to make our hospitals dirty. His idea runs counter to hundreds of years of scientific practice. Since a surgeon named Joseph Lister became the first to use antiseptic techniques in 1867 and save thousands of lives, modern medicine has worked tirelessly to create sterile medical environments — free of micro-organisms. It... Continue Reading →
A team of Israeli researchers has "printed" the world's first 3-D vascularized, engineered heart. On Monday, a team of Tel Aviv University researchers revealed the heart, which was made using a patient's own cells and biological material. Until now, scientists have successfully printed only simple tissues without blood vessels. "This is the first time anyone... Continue Reading →
At a recent technology show in Tokyo, a large robot arm reached into a full-sized mockup of a shipping container and began unloading boxes from it. Set on a platform that moved back and forth, the robot was doing a job usually carried out by warehouse workers and forklift operators. The goal of the company... Continue Reading →
An international team of more than 200 scientists have made history by capturing the first-ever image of a black hole. The much-awaited photo, seen above, was released this morning by the National Science Foundation (NSF) after the agency announced last week that it would be revealing the groundbreaking finding. Previously, the only pictures of black holes were... Continue Reading →
