Impact Lab – Page 338 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Future Buildings Could Be Made From 3D Printed Microbes

December 10, 2021

New “living materials” could be used to make new objects ranging from small medical devices to skyscrapers.

The hype around 3D printing shows no signs of waning anytime soon, and for good reason: It’s a fast, inexpensive way to manufacture all kinds of different objects and structures, especially when conventional building materials are unavailable. A few scientists have a radical idea for what the next big leap in 3D printing could be: making things using living microbes.

Yes, it sounds weird as hell and not just a little creepy, but stay with us here. A group of researchers in the U.S. have just proved it’s possible to create 3D printed structures using E. coli. These “living materials,” illustrated in a new Nature Communications paper, could pave a path for more sustainable construction of objects that could also be programmed to help improve people’s health or remove toxins from the environment.

“Our group has always been interested in engineering biology to make materials,” Northeastern University chemist and study co-author Neel Joshi told The Daily Beast. “In the same way that a seed has a set of genetic instructions to produce a tree, we want to provide biological cells with a set of genetic instructions that program them to make material structures with prescribed properties.”

Robots, Science & Technology News

Team builds first living robots—that can reproduce

December 10, 2021

AI-designed Xenobots reveal entirely new form of biological self-replication—promising for regenerative medicine

By Joshua Brown, University of Vermont Communications

(BURLINGTON, Vermont) – To persist, life must reproduce. Over billions of years, organisms have evolved many ways of replicating, from budding plants to sexual animals to invading viruses.

Now scientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered an entirely new form of biological reproduction—and applied their discovery to create the first-ever, self-replicating living robots.

The same team that built the first living robots (“Xenobots,” assembled from frog cells—reported in 2020) has discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped “mouth”—that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves.

And then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves. Again and again.

“With the right design—they will spontaneously self-replicate,” says Joshua Bongard, Ph.D., a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research.

The results of the new research were published November 29, 2021, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Virtual Reality

A virtual world pioneer has doubts about the metaverse

December 9, 2021

Philip Rosedale American businessman, founder of Second Life

By Stephen Totilo

Early metaverse architect Philip Rosedale is no longer confident the metaverse will be a huge hit, despite the surging interest from Meta (fka Facebook) and many other companies.

Driving the news: Rosedale, who evangelized the concept of an immersive virtual world while overseeing the storied platform “Second Life” a decade ago, shared more tempered thoughts in an interview with Axios.

Of the metaverse, he says: “I think what we’ve learned — and somewhat with some sadness, given the work that I’ve done, I would have to agree — is that it’s not for everybody, and maybe it’s never for everybody.”
And of Meta’s chances of succeeding with their new metaverse project: “Well, I hope they don’t.”

Aviation

Zuri’s Hybrid VTOL Nailed Its First Hover Flight, It Boasts a Range of 447 Miles

December 9, 2021

By Cristina Mircea

It started in 2017 with a simple sketch and three years later, an experimental aircraft was born. Now, Czech Republic-based manufacturer Zuri releases a video with the first hover test of its hybrid VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) flying machine. 7 photos

Zuri carried the test back in September, but it only shared the video now, boasting of achieving a true milestone in developing its aircraft.

The VTOL with a wingspan of 36 ft (11 m) took off and achieved its first hover flight at an airport near Zbraslavice. Even though it was just a short hover up to 9.8 ft (3 m) altitude, it was still a great opportunity for the team to measure several performance parameters of the motors and control systems, parameters they couldn’t obtain during the aircraft’s ground performance tests.

Driverless cars

Baidu, Pony AI granted China’s first licences to charge passengers for self-driving taxis in Beijing

December 9, 2021

By Daniel Ren

Two operators including Chinese internet search giant Baidu have been given the green light to start charging passengers to use their autonomous taxis in Beijing.

Baidu and Pony AI became the first companies to be granted licences by mainland Chinese authorities to launch their driverless cab services commercially following successful trial periods.

On Thursday, the Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area gave permission for Baidu and Pony AI to charge fees for their so-called robotaxis in a designated area of the capital covering 60 square kilometres.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

The plan, according to an announcement from Baidu, is to expand the service rapidly.

AI

Albertsons launches AI-powered grocery cart in local store, aims to merge ‘online and offline’ shopping

December 8, 2021

A set of Veeve AI-powered cars at the Albertsons store in Eagle, Idaho. Photo: Don Day/BoiseDev

By Don Day

At the Albertsons store in Eagle, shoppers are trying out a new technology that could mark a significant change to the in-store shopping experience: a high-tech cart.

The shopping cart is a fundamental part of the experience of going to the grocery store and has been for decades. But other than a place for little ones to sit, the invention hasn’t changed much over the decades.

Seattle-based startup Veeve and Boise-based Albertsons Companies hope to change that. Albertsons is trialing Veeve’s AI-powered shopping cart, complete with a large iPad-style screen, scale, cameras, and other gadgets designed to transform the shopping experience.

AI

AI will soon oversee its own data management

December 8, 2021

By Arthur Cole

AI thrives on data. The more data it can access, and the more accurate and contextual that data is, the better the results will be.

The problem is that the data volumes currently being generated by the global digital footprint are so vast that it would take literally millions, if not billions, of data scientists to crunch it all — and it still would not happen fast enough to make a meaningful impact of AI-driven processes.

Travel

The future of stress-free travel? Silent airports are appearing all over the world

December 8, 2021

By Maeve Campbell

Airports aren’t famed for being peaceful spaces – but they do give us the rush we all associate with going on holiday.

Noise and crowds are to be expected. Children are screaming, wheely luggage is reverberating across the floors and announcements can be heard every few minutes, alerting new customers to their boarding gate.

Imagine if you could mute that all out – as if you had put on noise-cancelling headphones and everything became quiet.

That’s now a reality in a select few airports around the world which have declared themselves ‘silent airports’.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk doubles down on plan to build ‘permanent moon base’ and ‘city on Mars’

December 8, 2021

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, once again took to Twitter to reaffirm his pledge to make humanity a ‘multi-planet species’ with bases on both the Moon and Mars

By Ethan Blackshaw

Elon Musk has doubled down on his pledge to build permanent bases on the Moon and Mars and to make us a “multi- planet species”.

As per usual, the world’s richest man took to Twitter to communicate his plans.

One user tweeted the Tesla CEO with a quote of his from April which read: “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the moon.

“That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the moon — again, like a big permanently occupied base on the moon.

“And then build a city on Mars to become a space-faring civilisation, a multi-planet species.”

Musk replied to the tweet yesterday simply with: “Absolutely!”

Great New Product

Honda Just Invented a Self-Balancing Motorcycle That Never Falls Over

December 8, 2021

The Honda Riding Assist concept motorcycle keeps itself upright at a stop or during low-speed maneuvers.

BY BOB SOROKANICH

Dropping your bike at a stop sign or during a low-speed maneuver is the fear of any new motorcyclist. It’s easy enough to keep your bike upright at speed, but sneaking through a parking lot, all that mass is dying to tumble. Honda seems to have the perfect solution, with a new concept bike that can balance itself either during a low-speed crawl or when stopped completely.

Honda Riding Assist was first demonstrated today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The system is brilliantly simple: When engaged, the system increases the fork angle, lengthening the bike’s wheelbase and, apparently, disconnecting the front forks from the handlebars. The system then uses minute steering inputs to keep the bike perfectly balanced, without the use of heavy gyroscopes or other mass-shifting devices. The concept bike Honda built to demonstrate the tech can even silently propel itself along, following its owner through a hallway like an obedient puppy.

3D Printer

“WORLD’S FIRST” 3D PRINTED IMMUNIZED SKIN MODEL ENABLES COLD PLASMA WOUND HEALING TREATMENT FOR BURNS

December 8, 2021

CTIBIOTECH is producing hundreds of CTISkin models for the NOVOPLASM project

By HAYLEY EVERETT

The NOVOPLASM consortium has announced it is the “first in the world” to develop cold plasma technology for the treatment of infected burns and the wound healing of skin grafts.

Regenerative medicine firm CTIBIOTECH, the French Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute, École Polytechnique and Institut Pasteur make up the consortium, which is leveraging an immunized human skin model produced by 3D bioprinting to aid the development of the cold plasma treatment.

CTIBIOTECH claims to be the first in the world to 3D bioprint complete immunized human skin, called CTISkin, and is providing hundreds of models to the consortium to enable it to validate its cold plasma technology.

“Regenerative medicine is the future of healthcare,” said Professor Colin McGuckin, President and Chief Scientific Officer of CTIBIOTECH. “At CTIBIOTECH we advance these models to help personalized medicine and to support hospitals in the short term, not just the future. NOVOPLASM uses our models to accelerate new devices to protect human health.”

Crypto-Technology

Japanese firms will test a bank-backed cryptocurrency in 2022

December 6, 2021

Three of the country’s largest banks are working together on ‘DCJPY.’

By I. Bonifacic

Japan is about to take a significant step toward developing a digital currency. Per Reuters, a consortium made up of approximately 70 Japanese firms said this week they plan to launch a yen-based cryptocurrency in 2022. What’s notable about the project, tentatively called “DCJPY,” is that three of the country’s largest banks will back it. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group said they’ve been meeting since last year to build a shared settlement infrastructure for digital payments.