The Robot’s Small Probe Could Tell It When to Let Go Safely
A robot uses tiny, information-seeking motions to distinguish a firm human grasp from a touch, improving handoff reliability in lab tests.
Technology
A Glass Fan-Out Gives Tiny Atomic Sources a Fiber-Scale World
A glass waveguide bridges atomic-scale spacing to standard fibers, routing photons from 50 individually addressed rubidium atoms.
Why a 6G Signal Can Leave the Near Field, Then Re-enter It
A new analysis finds that a moving receiver can cross the far-field boundary twice, changing how future terahertz links should be modeled.
The Quantum Connection That Vanishes Before Its Photons Do
A superconducting-circuit experiment reveals how entanglement between two microwave modes can vanish suddenly even as photon loss continues gradually.
The Quantum Searchlight That Finds a Signal Without Scanning
A superconducting cavity uses Grover’s search to identify an unknown signal frequency, but scaling the quantum sensor remains difficult.
How a Locust’s Collision Alarm Could Help Cars Spot Danger
A locust-inspired vision model spots looming motion in dashcam clips, but false alarms show how far it is from road-ready.
Robot Models Failed Every Test—Then a Better View Helped
AI-built robot simulations revealed a surprising gap: powerful models failed every test, yet hidden-state coaching sharply improved learning.
A Radar Puzzle Reveals Why the Best Sensor Starts Blurry
A 16-cell radar puzzle shows why sensor hardware should be designed for the measurements that follow, not just the first signal.
A Salamander Robot Feels Its Way From Solid Ground Into Water
A salamander-inspired robot uses magnetic sensors to detect ground contact and water flow, then switches from walking to swimming.
A Photonic Chip Turns a Weak Random Seed Into a Secret
A silicon photonic chip uses quantum measurements to upgrade a biased, partly exposed random seed into a longer certified secret stream.
How a Self-Driving Lab Shrunk to Eight LEDs and a Sensor
An eight-LED, roughly $60 optical lab lets students watch algorithms measure, learn and correct a physical experiment in a closed loop.
The Tiny Oxide Cap That Could Make Fragile Quantum Materials Buildable
A thin evaporated oxide protects delicate quantum crystals and can double as a contact-patterning mask—but edge sealing and monolayers remain challenges.
A Wafer’s Hidden Defects Give Memristors More Than One Life
More than 50,000 memristor measurements reveal how plasma gradients and hidden oxide defects steer devices into different electrical behaviors.
When Quantum Friction Stops Being a Brake—and Starts Making Work
A trapped-ion engine turns measurement, coherence and quantum friction into work—while revealing the control and information costs ahead.
How One Sputtering Pulse Beat Its Steady-Power Benchmark
A titanium sputtering study finds some high-power pulses deposit films faster than steady current, with gas rarefaction offering a possible clue.
The Hidden Arithmetic That Lets Tiny Weights Do Big AI Work
A hardware study shows how three-valued AI weights can replace repeated multiplication with reusable lookup tables—and why the data type matters.
The Robot That Leaves Its Eyes Behind to Watch the Kitchen
A detachable camera lets a robot build task-specific viewpoints, keep watch after it leaves, and navigate blocked views in lab experiments.
The Robot Chip That Solved One Planning Puzzle—and Stalled at Another
A 45-spin Ising chip found a niche in robot planning—but its biggest route-planning claim comes with a hardware and energy-accounting caveat.
The Quantum Chip’s Weak Spots—and the Code That Routed Around Them
A quantum chip’s weakest qubits resisted better decoding—until researchers redesigned error checks to route around them.
A Fiber-Driven Chip Reaches the Terahertz—and Hits a Wall
A lithium tantalate chip uses fiber-fed light to generate, route, and detect terahertz signals—even inside a 4-kelvin refrigerator.