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Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Empathizing with Human-like Robots

James Coan, a psychology professor at the Univ. of Virginia, claims empathy is hardwired into the human brain. Given enough time and familiarity, you begin associating friends, spouses and lovers with yourself. A lover’s pain becomes your pain; their joy, your joy, and so forth.

Using electroencephalography (EEG) studies on 15 adults, Japanese researchers found neurophysiological evidence of humans’ ability to empathize with robots in perceived painful situations. Albeit, there are still some differences when it comes to human-human empathy versus human-robot.

Study participants were shown a series of photographs showing human and robot hands cutting fruit with knives. In four photos, the human and robot hands are positioned in such a manner it appears as if they’ll cut their fingers.

Nanotweezer to create advanced plasmonic technologies

A new type of "nanotweezer" capable of positioning tiny objects quickly and accurately and freezing them in place could enable improved nanoscale sensing methods and aid research to manufacture advanced technologies such as quantum computers and ultra-high-resolution displays.

The device, fabricated at Purdue Univ.'s Birck Nanotechnology Center, uses a cylindrical gold "nanoantenna" with a diameter of 320 nm, or about 1/300th the width of a human hair. The structures concentrate and absorb light, resulting in "plasmonic hotspots" and making it possible to manipulate nanometer-scale objects suspended in a fluid.

"The proposed approach enables the immediate implementation of a myriad of exciting applications," said Alexandra Boltasseva, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Findings are detailed in a paper appearing online in Nature Nanotechnology.


NanoGriptech: Gecko-Inspired Adhesives

Dexterous climbers, geckos have long been a source of inspiration for materials scientists. The lizards boast a unique sticking ability, allowing them to climb walls and hang upside down.

“Nature’s had millions of years to evolve solutions” and “humans have been engineering only for hundreds,” says Paul Glass, vice president of engineering at nanoGriptech, in an interview with R&D Magazine. “I think there’s limits to what we can learn from nature, but it’s a fantastic starting point.”

For close to a year, nanoGriptech has been offering the world’s first commercially available dry adhesive technology inspired by geckos. Called Setex, the product has applications in a variety of industries from sports and apparel to upholstery and manufacturing.

NanoGriptech’s beginnings lie at Carnegie Mellon Univ.’s campus. At the time, Glass was a PhD student studying biomedical engineering. His thesis research focused on applying biologically inspired materials to medical devices. On top of exploring gecko-inspired microstructure materials, he delved into polymers inspired by marine mussels.