Mind-Blowing Video Shows Micro Robots Actually Building Things

SRI International has unveiled micro robots that can actually put together mechanical assemblies and electronic circuits. Diamagnetic Micro Manipulation (DM3) utilizes small magnets that move under a circuit board to get the micro-robots to follow a set pattern based on a set of preprogrammed instructions. They may look miniscule, but these micro bots can move up to 1-foot every second to transport micro manufacturing supplies.

According to SRI and Dvice, "DM3 can be used for prototyping parts, electronics assembly, biotech lab-on-a-chip experiments, and assembling small mechanical systems in hostile environments. Eventually they plan to scale up the technology, by developing a manufacturing head containing thousands of the little buggers that can build much larger assemblies."

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Ultra Cool Floating Table Lamp Isn't an Optical Illusion, Just Science

No, this ultra cool floating table lamp isn't an optical illusion accomplished with wires or strings, but just science. What actually makes this $1300 lamp float is integrated levitation technology consisting of several electromagnetic components and a sophisticated control system.

Next to the fact that they employ the very latest LED technology, the lamp is low in power consumption too. With a touch of your fingertip, the lamp can be dimmed to the intensity you require.

The lamp consists out of a handcrafted wooden base with a high glossy black finish. Attached is a stylish black fabric covered power cable. The conical shaped lampshade is manufactured in matte black fabric with a pearl white inner side furnishing. The light flows through the openings of the mirror which covers the lower part of the lampshade.

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Gallium – The Rare Metal That Melts in Your Hand and Attacks Other Metals

Remember those liquid metal Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies? What if I told you that kind of material isn’t just the fruit of someone’s sci-fi imagination, but a real metal? It’s called Gallium and it has some pretty cool properties.
So what makes gallium so special? Well, first of all, the brittle metal has a melting point of just  29.76 °C (85.57 °F), so if you hold it in your hand long enough it will become liquid. That alone is pretty cool, but this rare metal has a few other amazing properties. For example, it “attacks” other metals, like aluminum. As you’re about to see in one of the videos below, just a drop of liquid gallium weakens the structure of a Coke can to the point where it can be pierced with the slight press of the thumb. Gallium infiltrates the aluminum structure, compromising its integrity and making the can feel like tin foil instead of metal. Another interesting experiment involving gallium is called the “beating heart”, in which the amazing element is made to look like an alien life form. When submerged in sulfuric acid and a dichromate solution, gallium looks like an organic beating heart, due to the gallium sulfate which increases surface tension.

The existence of gallium was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev, father of the Periodic Table of Elements, in 1871. Although it hadn’t yet been discovered, the Russian chemist also accurately predicted some of its key properties, like the density and low melting point. But it was French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran who actually discovered the rare element in 1875, while examining a sphalerite sample. From that point on, it was used in high-temperature thermometric applications, and in the preparation of alloys with special properties of stability and ease of melting. Today, gallium is mainly used in the semiconductor industry, and can be found in many of the gadgets and appliances we use every day.

Free form gallium doesn’t exist in nature, but it is extracted as a trace component in bauxite and to a small extent from sphalerite. The The United States Geological Survey estimates gallium reserves to exceed 1 million, and you can even find it for sale online, if you want to stage your own experiments. You should be careful with it though, because while metallic gallium is believed to be non-toxic, the data is currently inconclusive, and some sources claim prolonged exposure can cause skin conditions like dermatitis. Injected in high amounts it has also resulted in renal toxicity, in animals.

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Dogs much likely steal food in the dark

A recent study reveals that dogs are much likely to steal food in the dark when humans cannot notice them, indicating they understand a human's perspective.

The study, conducted by Dr. Juliane Kaminski of the University of Portsmouth's Department of Psychology, claims that when humans forbid the dog from eating the food, he is four times more likely to steal the food that he was forbidden to eat in the dark.

This behavior in dogs reveals that they can change their actions based on what humans think and feel. They take into account what humans can see and what they cannot.

"That's incredible because it implies dogs understand the human can't see them, meaning they might understand the human perspective," Dr. Kaminski said in a press statement.

This study, funded by the Max Planck Society, is the first that describes how dogs distinguish between different levels of light when they are making strategies to steal food.

According to Dr. Kaminski, humans attribute a few qualities and emotions to other living things. It is we who think that the dogs are clever or sensitive, not the dogs themselves.

A series of experiments were conducted in different light conditions. In each test, the humans forbade the dog from eating the food. On conducting these tests, she noticed that the dog ate more food in the dark and that too quickly, as compared to when the room was lit.

The study had 42 female and 42 male domestic dogs who were 1-year-old or more. She made sure she selected those dogs that were comfortable without their owner, even if it was a dark room.

The report states that the tests were complex and involved many variables to rule out that dogs were basing their decisions on simple associative rules, for example, that dark means food.

It is not known how well dogs can see in the dark, but the study shows that they can differentiate between light and dark.

The researcher concludes saying, "The results of these tests suggest that dogs are deciding it's safer to steal the food when the room is dark because they understand something of the human's perspective."

Further studies have to be conducted in order to discover the mechanism that controls the dog's behavior. Previous studies have indicated that dogs consider human's eyes as an important signal in deciding how to behave. For those people who are attentive toward dogs, the animal responds more willingly.

The study was published in the journal Animal Cognition.

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