Ruth Seeley

The advantages of soft robots are myriad. The ability to pick up delicate objects, adjust to their environment, and work with both living cells and human bodies means soft robots are a new frontier in robotics. Recently, engineers at UNSW…

External sensors to measure patients’ health are invaluable, but they can also be inaccurate. Pulse oximeters, for example, can give false readings if the patient is a smoker or even wearing dark nail polish. And sensors that monitor a…

Organic semiconductors have been in use on a small scale since 2002, when Philips created an OLED display for one of its electric shavers. They’ve since been used in a Kodak digital camera and, more recently, in a Sony 27-inch prototype…

We lose about 13 million forest hectares per year, and of the 45% of our world’s original forest cover, most has been cleared within the last century. And when we lose forest cover, we also lose species biodiversity, as forest inhabitants…

The “super material” known as graphene, first created in 2004, is stronger than steel, highly flexible, and the best conductor of electricity yet. Its impacts on and applications for transportation, medicine, electronics, energy, defense,…

The first pacemaker was implanted in a patient in 1960. Since then, they’ve saved or extended the lives of millions, and there are currently more than 3 million people globally with pacemaker implants. But pacemakers and other implantable…

Hybrid animals can be strange, puzzling (why?), and disconcerting creatures. But biomimetics offers a less frightening combination of nature-inspired qualities that can solve real world problems. A new high-speed amphibious robot inspired…

The potential for volcanic eruptions to cause chaos isn’t limited to their immediate effects. The volcanic winter that followed the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora in 1815 led to global food shortages, riots, and famine throughout…

With their antibacterial qualities and the ability to track cells and molecules in real time over extended periods, quantum-dot technology holds great promise for monitoring and treating a variety of medical conditions: embryogenesis,…

Natural gas and petroleum systems, according to the EPA, are the largest anthropogenic source of methane in the U.S., and the second-largest globally. The vast networks of underground gas lines in the country leak it into the atmosphere…

We’re still a long way from the Star Trek food replicators that can produce an equally delicious cup of Earl Grey for Captain Picard and rokeg blood pie for Worf. But there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon with a smart fabric that can…

As we edge closer to the one-year mark of the global pandemic, how to ensure students get quality learning experiences becomes more and more challenging. The increase in online education has allowed a new type of teacher to emerge — an…

The World Health Organization estimates there are 30 million people globally who require prostheses, and the number of Americans who could lose a limb due to complications from diabetes could double by 2050. Upper limb forequarter…

It takes about six weeks to train a puppy using a system of rewards. Now, with a training technique commonly used to teach dogs to sit and stay, Johns Hopkins University computer scientists showed a robot how to teach itself several new…

As the first generation of electric vehicles starts to come to the end of usable battery life, early adopters are being hit with the high cost of replacing the batteries on cars they plan to drive for many more years. Now, a University of…