Mighty Morphin' Turtle Robot Goes Amphibious by Shifting Leg Shape

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December 13, 2022

Dear Reader, If a robot wants to move from one environment to another, it usually needs to tote an extra means of locomotion. But a new turtle-inspired bot avoids this requirement by shifting the shape of its legs to navigate on land, at sea and in the transitional zone between the two.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Engineering Mighty Morphin' Turtle Robot Goes Amphibious by Shifting Leg Shape A turtle-inspired robot can morph its legs to move from land to water and back By Sophie Bushwick

Astronomy 9 Science Stories That Restore Our Faith in Humanity A river's "gut" revived, snake-saving social media, an intragalactic donut, and more success stories of the year By Sarah Lewin Frasier

Archaeology An Archeological Dig in Michigan Turns Up Some Surprising Artifacts Archeologists have found a small mountain of artifacts buried in a farm field that show the presence of some of the first peoples to inhabit the Americas. By Aaron Martin

Sponsor Content Provided by Phenome Health The New Science of Disease Prevention Medicine today treats the sick, but the ultimate goal is to keep people well. The new field of phenomics aims to do that by crunching data on a person's genetics, biomarkers, lifestyle and environment. Learn more

Automobiles Forest Service to Explore a New Frontier--Electric Trucks As part of the push to electrify government fleets, employees at three national forests will test out Ford F-150 Lightnings for field operations in rugged and remote areas By Andres Picon,E&E News

Robotics Transforming Robots Help to Transfer Skills How do you teach a new robot old tricks? By Matthew Hutson

Arts If Future Humans Terraformed a New Earth, Could They Get It Right? A novel that redefines personhood, greed and despair in biotech, arguing for a singular reality, and more books By Amy Brady

Computing Discovery Helps Computers Draw Intricate Two-Dimensional Animations A new algorithm solves the long-standing "hidden line problem" of computer graphics By Lyndie Chiou

Conservation Saving Coral Reefs with Dental Tech Dental scanners could help researchers diagnose stressed-out baby corals By Susan Cosier

Space Exploration NASA's Artemis I Mission Successfully Returns from the Moon After a 26-day journey that took it to lunar orbit and back, the uncrewed Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday afternoon, paving the way for future astronaut voyages to Earth's satellite By Nadia Drake

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 328, Issue 1

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Because the internet is overflowing with images of naked or barely dressed women, and pictures reflecting sexist, racist stereotypes, the data set is also skewed toward these kinds of images. This leads to AI models that sexualize women regardless of whether they want to be depicted that way, Caliskan says--especially women with identities that have been historically disadvantaged." Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review

FROM THE ARCHIVE Soft Robot Hand Is First to Be Fully 3-D-Printed in a Single Step Then it played Super Mario Bros. By Sophie Bushwick | July 2021

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