A precision arm for miniature robots

Until now, microscopic robotic systems have had to make do without arms. Now researchers have developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.

‘Artificial intuition’ delivers better answers to thorny parking-lot optimization problem

Assessing the optimal location for parking lots is surprisingly mathematically challenging, and a subset of a classic computational complexity problem with far wider applications. A team of data scientists has combined quantum annealing with a process that attempts to mimic the underlying processes of human intuition in a technique that delivers a solution accuracy that’s …