Bizarre Material Combines the Best Traits of Gel and Metal

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April 18, 2023

Squishy gels are great building materials for soft robots. But what if they could conduct electricity as well? Researchers incorporated liquid metal into a gel in order to produce a new substance that is soft, self-healing and electrically conductive. Then they used their new material in a biological monitor, a toy car and a snail-like crawling robot. Read more in this week's top story!

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology

Robotics Bizarre Material Combines the Best Traits of Gel and Metal A new material was used in a simple snail robot, but it could one day make artificial nervous systems for more complex machines By Sophie Bushwick

Artificial Intelligence What You Need to Know about GPT-4 The AI GPT-4 has emergent abilities—but that’s not why it’s scary.  By Sophie Bushwick,Kelso Harper,Tulika Bose | 09:27

Biotech Bionic Finger 'Sees' Inside Objects by Poking Them A robotic finger’s supersensitive touches could probe inside body parts and circuits By Simon Makin

Aerospace Early-Warning System Could Reduce Injuries from In-Flight Turbulence Ground-mounted microphones could pick up ultralow-frequency sound waves produced by clear-air turbulence, the leading cause of in-flight injuries and fatalities By Daniel Cusick,E&E News

Genetic Engineering Synthetic Morphology Lets Scientists Create New Life-Forms The emerging field of synthetic morphology bends boundaries between natural and artificial life By Philip Ball

Black Holes See the Sharp New Image of an Iconic Black Hole Using machine learning, researchers have now created a much sharper portrait of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87 By Meghan Bartels

Automobiles The EPA Wants Two Thirds of U.S. Car Sales to Be Electric by 2032 The Environmental Protection Agency has released draft regulations that set the stage for a huge transition to electric vehicles By Jeff Tollefson,Nature magazine

Engineering The NYPD's Robot Dog Was a Really Bad Idea: Here's What Went Wrong Design, context and timing influence whether humans embrace a robot or reject it By Sophie Bushwick

Arts Poem: 'Extravehicular Activity' Science in meter and verse By Howard V. Hendrix

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 328, Issue 5

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The further automation of swatting techniques threatens to make an already dangerous harassment technique more prevalent." Joseph Cox, Vice

FROM THE ARCHIVE 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: May 2023 King Tut’s bountiful tomb; music from fire By Mark Fischetti | May 2023

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