Chimpanzees learn rock-paper-scissors

New study shows that chimps’ ability to learn simple circular relationships is on a par with that of 4-year-old children

Chimpanzees of all ages and all sexes can learn the simple circular relationship between the three different hand signals used in the well-known game rock-paper-scissors. Even though it might take them longer, they are indeed able to learn the game as well as a young child. Jie Gao of Kyoto University in Japan and Peking University in China is lead author of a study in the journal Primates, which is the official journal of the Japan Monkey Centre, and is published by Springer. The research compares the ability of chimpanzees and children to learn the rock-paper-scissors game.

Read Article:  https://davidloteacher.wordpress.com/2017/08/18/chimpanzees-learn-rock-paper-scissors/

Amazing soft robots whose creation was inspired by plants.

Robots are branching out. A new prototype soft robot takes inspiration from plants by growing to explore its environment.

Vines and some fungi extend from their tips to explore their surroundings. Elliot Hawkes of the University of California in Santa Barbara and his colleagues designed a bot that works on similar principles. Its mechanical body sits inside a plastic tube reel that extends through pressurized inflation, a method that some invertebrates like peanut worms (Sipunculus nudus) also use to extend their appendages. The plastic tubing has two compartments, and inflating one side or the other changes the extension direction. A camera sensor at the tip alerts the bot when it’s about to run into something.

In the lab, Hawkes and his colleagues programmed the robot to form 3-D structures such as a radio antenna, turn off a valve, navigate a maze, swim through glue, act as a fire extinguisher, squeeze through tight gaps, shimmy through fly paper and slither across a bed of nails. The soft bot can extend up to 72 meters, and unlike plants, it can grow at a speed of 10 meters per second, the team reports July 19 in Science Robotics. The design could serve as a model for building robots that can traverse constrained environments.

Read Article:  https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/robot-grows-plant?mode=topic&context=96

An amazing innovation that allows the levitation of small amounts of matter.

Levitation techniques are no longer confined to the laboratory thanks to University of Bristol engineers who have developed an easier way for suspending matter in mid-air by developing a 3D-printed acoustic levitator.

Read Article:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170815111129.htm