Robotics

New rolling, hopping robots navigate via fungus

As drones get less expensive and computer vision systems improve, rescuers are getting help from artificial eyes in the sky

Students should learn about both the natural world and human-made—or engineered—one we live in

Is baby Skynet already here? We need robust laws now to withstand eliminating humans from nuclear decision-making

Autonomous and AI-enabled systems increasingly rely on optical and radio frequency sensors and significant computer power. They face growing vulnerabilities from directed-energy laser and microwave weapons

When human labor is hidden under the veneer of a robot or AI tool, that’s “fauxtomation”

This eight-legged probe would scour Mars’s underground lava tubes for places where explorers might camp—or for signs of past life

These bloblike bots have been optimized for speed

Robots that can fit multiple items into a limited space could help pack a suitcase or a rocket to Mars

Engineers and paleontologists teamed up to reconstruct an ancestor of starfish from the Paleozoic era and figure out how it moved

An AI used to build artificial neural networks can also create autonomous robot bodies with remarkable speed 

Researchers have created the first nerve-controlled prosthetic hand that can be used in daily life