Living

Scientists have managed to build an artificial jelly fish entirely from rat cells, which can pulse and swim when exposed to an electric field, just like its living counterpart. Taking cells from the heart of a rat, the team of scientists from Harvard University were able to grow a single layer of muscle on top of a patterned sheet of polydimethylsiloxane. The result mimics the bell of a juvenile moon jelly—a type of jelly of fish—which propels itself by sending electric signals through the structure to make it contract rapidly. When exposed to an electric field, the artificial creature—refereed to as medusoid—contracts rapidly, in the same way as the jellyfish does during its power stroke. The sheet of elastic silicone on which the muscle is built then pulls the medusoid back into shape ready for the next stroke. If you're unconvinced, watch the video above: this thing really does look just like a real jellyfish as it moves through the water. The research is published in Nature ...

Researchers are developing a sense of touch, at least, a sense of touch for robotic machinery. A group of 13 researchers are working on an international project to develop an artificial finger with a sense of touch. The finger would be directly connected to the nervous system, the researchers said. It would contain sensors on its surface in the same numbers as our fingers do. The sensors translate pressure and mechanical movement into an electronic code. This would then decoded by the wearers brain, once they were trained to interpret the signals. "Compared to the hand prostheses which are currently on the market, an integrated sense of touch would be a major improvement. It would be a truly modern and biometric device which would give the patient the feeling as if it belonged to his own body," says Dr. Lucia Beccai from the Centre for Micro-Robotics at the Italian Institute for Technology. The finger would be important for people who have lost fingers or hands. The prototy...