Lightning dart across the sky in a flash. And even though we can use lightning rods to increase the probability of it striking at a specific location, its exact path remains unpredictable. At a smaller scale, discharges between ...
General Physics
Jun 19, 2015
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The MAVEN spacecraft and all of its science instruments have completed their initial checkout, and all of them are working as expected. This means that MAVEN is on track to carry out its full science mission as originally ...
Space Exploration
Feb 4, 2014
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Cornell University engineers have taught a robot to work in a mock-supermarket checkout line, modifying a Baxter robot from Rethink Robotics in Boston to "coactively learn" from humans and make adjustments while an action ...
Robotics
Nov 5, 2013
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(Phys.org) —A team of physicists at the University of California has devised a means for allowing the observation of the quantum trajectory of a superconducting quantum bit. In their paper published in the journal Nature, ...
Researchers have found that bipedal desert rodents manage to compete with their quadrupedal counterparts by using a diverse set of jumps, hops and skips. A new study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 5, 2013
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An unmanned Russian carrier rocket exploded Tuesday on takeoff at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, releasing tonnes of highly toxic fuel into the air in the space programme's latest disaster caught on live television.
Space Exploration
Jul 2, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have released a second, longer, more refined movie clip of asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon. The 55 individual ...
Space Exploration
Jun 7, 2013
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When a robot is moving one of its limbs through free space, its behavior is well-described by a few simple equations. But as soon as it strikes something solid—when a walking robot's foot hits the ground, or a grasping ...
Robotics
Mar 21, 2013
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(Phys.org) —After tornadoes touched down in the Southeast on April 27, 2011, many people in the storm's path did the most logical thing they could-they posted images of the aftermath on Facebook.
Earth Sciences
Mar 7, 2013
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Many commercial robotic arms perform what roboticists call "pick and place" tasks: The arm picks up an object in one location and places it in another. Usually, the objects—say, automobile components along an assembly line—are ...
Robotics
Feb 25, 2013
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