Researchers learn why robots get stuck in the sand -- and how to keep them...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Today's advanced mobile robots explore complex terrains across the globe and even on Mars, but have difficulty traversing sand and other granular media like dirt, rubble or slippery...
View ArticleUnifying The Animate And The Inanimate Designs Of Nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Living beings and inanimate phenomena may have more in common than previously thought.
View ArticleNatural-born divers and the molecular traces of evolution
An aquatic lifestyle imposes serious demands for the organism, and this is true even for the tiniest molecules that form our body. When the ancestors of present marine mammals initiated their return to...
View ArticleWhy Winning Athletes Are Getting Bigger
While watching swimmers line up during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, former Olympic swimmer and NBC Sports commentator Rowdy Gaines quipped that swimmers keep getting bigger, with the shortest one...
View ArticleWhy being big like an elephant puts a spring in your step
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large, lumbering animals such as elephants move much more efficiently than small, agile ones such as mice, University of Manchester scientists have shown.
View ArticleTailoring physical therapy can restore more functions after neurological injury
New research suggests a tailored approach to physical therapy after a neurological injury such as a stroke, traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury could help restore a wider variety of functions.
View ArticleNew study further disputes notion that amputee runners gain advantage from...
A study by six researchers, including a University of Colorado at Boulder associate professor and his former doctoral student, shows that amputees who use running-specific prosthetic legs have no...
View ArticleMore Realistic Biomechanics In New Computer Locomotion Model
(PhysOrg.com) -- No one has ever won a race on peg legs if they were running against others with flexible legs. But, until now, mathematical locomotion models predicted that stiff legs were the most...
View ArticleBrazil experts find fossils of pre-dinosaur creature
Brazilian paleontologists announced Tuesday they discovered the well-preserved and near-complete fossils of a pre-dinosaur predator that lived some 238 million years ago.
View ArticleAdvances made in walking, running robots
Researchers at Oregon State University have made an important fundamental advance in robotics, in work that should lead toward robots that not only can walk and run effectively, but use little energy...
View Article3-legged dogs boost robot research
The new research looked at walking and running techniques in dogs with fore-limb or hind-limb amputations, using a treadmill and a set of high-tech infra-red cameras.
View ArticleFeathered friends: Ostriches provide clues to dinosaur movement
Once thought to be "evolutionary leftovers", new research has shown that ostriches in fact use their feathered forelimbs as sophisticated air-rudders and braking aids.
View ArticleA plane that lands like a bird (w/ Video)
Everyone knows what it's like for an airplane to land: the slow maneuvering into an approach pattern, the long descent, and the brakes slamming on as soon as the plane touches down, which seems to just...
View ArticleThe spice of life: Curry’s main ingredient has more to offer than good flavor
Mahtab Jafari's research shows curry's main ingredient has more to offer than good flavor. It extended the lifespan of fruit flies by up to 20 percent, while improving locomotion and having...
View ArticleComputational model of swimming fish could inspire design of robots, medical...
Scientists at the University of Maryland and Tulane University have developed a computational model of a swimming fish that is the first to address the interaction of both internal and external forces...
View ArticleStudying ants to find out how colony size affects patterns of behavior,...
(PhysOrg.com) -- How does size affect the organization and physiology of superorganisms such as bacterial communities, insect colonies or human cities? James Waters and Tate Holbrook, graduate students...
View ArticleScientists observe wind-powered wheel locomotion in tiger beetle larvae (w/...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Research conducted by Georgia Southern University associate professor of biology Alan Harvey, Ph.D. along with former Georgia Southern University biology graduate student Sarah Zukoff...
View ArticleThe search serpent: The next wave in robotics
How does one design a robot that maneuvers in three dimensions and navigates all manner of terrain? Those are the main challenges that Howie Choset at Carnegie Mellon University is attempting to tackle.
View ArticleThe decoding of slowness: Zoologists find out how sloths perfected energy saving
Zoologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena found out how sloths move and how their locomotive system adapted to their unhurried lifestyle in the course of evolution.
View ArticleHow early reptiles moved
Jena (Germany) Modern scientists would have loved the sight of early reptiles running across the Bromacker near Tambach-Dietharz (Germany) 300 million years ago. Unfortunately this journey through time...
View Article
