Daily Archives: March 10, 2017

The evolution of Michigan State basketball’s Miles Bridges – Detroit Free Press

Posted: March 10, 2017 at 3:15 am

Tom Izzo and players liked what they saw in MSU's 78-51 win over Penn State in the second round of the Big Ten tournament Thursday, March 9 in Washington D.C. Video by Chris Solari, DFP.

Michigan State forward Miles Bridges celebrates after scoring against Penn State during MSU's 78-51 win in the Big Ten tournament at Verizon Center on March 9, 2017 in Washington, DC.(Photo: Rob Carr, Getty Images)

WASHINGTON Miles Bridges ran through the tunnel in the Verizon Center, sprinting ahead of Michigan State coach Tom Izzo.

Hey! Izzo yelled, after MSUs 78-51 victory over Penn State on Thursday in the Big Ten tournament.

Bridges froze.

He thought he was in trouble.

He turned and sprinted back to Izzo.

Good job! Izzo beamed.

They slapped hands and shared a quick hug.

I thought he was going to yell at me; he was giving me a compliment for the first time, Bridges said, cracking a joke. He just said, Good job, keep these guys together.

Related:

Tom Izzo says no one asked Michigan State to flip games with Michigan

Izzo kept walking down the hallway and reached a group of reporters.

Still probably on the bubble, Izzo said, in jest.

The Spartans improved to 19-13, and there should be no doubt they are headed for the NCAA tournament after this win.

We are taking it one game at a time, Bridges said. It would have been a bad loss, if we lost. But we won.

Miles of growth

Before the game, Bridges was excited. This is his first college postseason.

He was jacked before the game started, Izzo said. This means a lot to Miles, as it does our other guys.

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

But he calmed down after the first defensive stop. Defending and rebounding, thats all we needed to do to win, Bridges said. We wanted to take the fight to them. We didnt want to give in. We didnt want to give them room to breathe.

Bridges had another impressive, all-around stat line: 15 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two blocks, one steal and one turnover.

But this game was an example of how much he has grown as a player in ways that cant be measured by stats.

Hes starting to understand when he has a shot, where he needs to get to get a shot, assistant Mike Garland said. Hes starting to understand his advantages over his opponents, how they are playing him.

2017 Big Ten basketball tournament results, schedule

Early in the game, Bridges was far more concerned getting others involved than scoring.

He knows once Nick (Ward) gets going, it makes it easier for him, Garland said. He was trying to get him the ball, and he was doing it in an intelligent way. He wasnt forcing it. He picked his opportunities to get it in there, or when to take the shot or drive the ball. That shows a lot of growth.

Bridges is a humble superstar, a guy who might even be too nice, if thats possible. Hes just such a good kid, Izzo said.

I dont know. You can get on him, and he doesnt waver. A couple times he didnt rebound well enough. A couple times he wasnt ready to shoot. You dont have to say, Miles, will you please do this? Pamper him like a superstar. You can coach him, talk to him, tell him.

Now, lets go back to that scene in the tunnel.

Izzo told Bridges to keep this team together, to keep it focused, and that is a lesson that goes beyond this season.

Hes growing with his leadership, too, Izzo said. I told him its going to be very important for his present, his future, his long-time future. You know, I felt good how he played. ... Miles is a special guy.

The Spartans will play Minnesota, a team they have beaten twice this season.

We arent satisfied, Bridges said. They are one of the hottest teams. They got two great guards, and they explode at any minute. We have to have the same defensive mentality and rebounding mentality.

It was a smart answer, from a smart young player, who just keeps getting smarter.

Michigan State sophomores three-pointers, defense aid cause

Couch: MSU takes notable step in thumping Penn State

Lansing State Journal sports columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press / LSJ MSU beat writer Chris Solari break down the Spartans' 78-51 win over Penn State and look ahead to Friday's Big Ten quarterfinal against Minnesota. Graham Couch / Lansing State Journal

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go tofreep.com/sports/jeff-seidel.

Read the rest here:

The evolution of Michigan State basketball's Miles Bridges - Detroit Free Press

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on The evolution of Michigan State basketball’s Miles Bridges – Detroit Free Press

Optical evolution may have helped fish transition onto land – – Science Recorder

Posted: at 3:15 am

While scientists have long been believed that the evolution of fins into limbs is the main reason organisms were first able to come out of the water and up onto land, a new study from researchers at Northwestern University suggests that better eyes may have been just as important.

All four-limbed vertebrates come from a group known as tetrapods. Tetrapods evolved from early fish that slowly came up out of the sea and onto land. However, they were not the first animals to make this transition. A wide range of invertebrates including arachnids, crustaceans, and insects accomplished this about 50 million years before our ancestors.

To explain this, the researchers have come up with the buenva vista theory, which states our early ancestors crawled onto land only after they evolved eyes that allowed them to see the numerous food sources existing out of the water.

Why did we come up onto land 385 million years ago? asked lead author Malcolm MacIver, professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University, in a statement. We are the first to think that vision might have something to do with it. We found a huge increase in visual capability in vertebrates just before the transition from water to land. Our hypothesis is that maybe it was seeing an unexploited cornucopia of food on land millipedes, centipedes, spiders and more that drove evolution to come up with limbs from fins.

The team came to this conclusion by looking at both the eye sockets and head length in 59 fossils dating back to the periods before, during, and after tetrapods evolved. They found that the average eye socket measured roughly 0.5 inches across before the shift and 1.4 inches after,New Atlasreports.

This is an important distinction because bigger eyes would have had no evolutionary advantage underwater. As a result, there must have been another reason the animals evolved that feature. Researchers tested this by running a number of simulations that showed larger eyes could see almost 70 times further through the air than they could in water.

In addition, eyes also moved up on the skull over time, placing them in an area where they see over the surface. This would have pushed natural selection in a way so the limbed animals that could access more food were favored.

Bigger eyes are almost worthless in water because vision is largely limited to whats directly in front of the animal, said study co-author Lars Schmitz, assistant professor of biology at the W.M. Keck Science Department. But larger eye size is very valuable when viewing through air. In evolution, it often comes down to a trade-off. Is it worth the metabolic toll to enlarge your eyes? Whats the point? Here we think the point was to be able to search out prey on land.

The team also found evidence that the transition onto land led to more developed brains. This is because, while fish have to react quickly as a result of their short visual range, better eyesight may have given land-dwelling tetrapods more ways to detect predators. Without having to spend as much time worrying about being hunted, they could have allocated more energy towards developing complex cognition.

The findingswerepublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Joseph Scalise is an experienced writer who has worked for many different online websites across many different mediums. While his background is mainly rooted in sports writing, he has also written and edited guides, ebooks, short stories and screenplays. In addition, he performs and writes poetry, and has won numerous contests. Joseph is a dedicated writer, sports lover and avid reader who covers all different topics, ranging from space exploration to his personal favorite science, microbiology.

See more here:

Optical evolution may have helped fish transition onto land - - Science Recorder

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on Optical evolution may have helped fish transition onto land – – Science Recorder

Is it time for an update to evolutionary theory? – Science Weekly podcast – The Guardian

Posted: at 3:15 am

Subscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter

On 24 November 1859, Charles Darwin published his seminal work On the Origin of Species, laying out what would later become the foundations of our understanding of evolution. Over 150 years later and many of Darwins ideas still underpin evolutionary theory. But a group of academics are beginning to challenge this with something they call the extended evolutionary synthesis. But is an update needed? And if so, why? More importantly, why have so many in the field branded the ideas of extended synthesis both unnecessary and counter-intuitive?

In search of answers, Nicola Davis speaks to one of key spokespeople for the extended synthesis theory, City College of New Yorks K.D. Irani professor of philosophy Massimo Pigluicci. We also hear about the potential similarities between learning theory and natural selection from the University of Southamptons Dr Richard Watson. Finally, evolutionary biologist Professor Joan Strassmann, the Charles Rebstock chair of biology at Washington University, St Louis, explains why she opposes this call for an update.

Read this article:

Is it time for an update to evolutionary theory? - Science Weekly podcast - The Guardian

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on Is it time for an update to evolutionary theory? – Science Weekly podcast – The Guardian

Cross-species jumps may play unexpectedly big role in virus evolution – Phys.Org

Posted: at 3:15 am

March 9, 2017 Tanglegrams of rooted phylogenetic trees for each virus family. Credit: Geoghegan JL, et al. (2017)

On occasion, a virus may jump from one host species to another and adapt to the new host. Such cross-species transmission happens more often than expected, according to new research published in PLOS Pathogens, and it may play a much bigger role in virus evolution than previously thought.

Understanding how viruses evolve and how often they jump to new hosts is important for studying emerging viral diseases. Scientists have hypothesized that viruses usually co-diverge with their hosts, forming new viral species as their hosts evolve into new species. It has been assumed that cross-species jumps are relatively rare and contribute less to virus evolution.

To better understand how viruses evolve, Jemma Geoghegan of the University of Sydney, Australia, and colleagues compared the evolutionary histories of viruses and host species. Previous studies had focused on narrow groups of viruses; for a broader picture, Geoghegan's team studied 19 virus families that infect a variety of hosts, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, plants, and insects.

The researchers began with branching "tree" diagrams that illustrated the evolutionary history of each virus family and its host species. Like family trees, these evolutionary trees trace the lineage of species back through common ancestors that later evolved into new species.

The scientists then used a previously developed method to compare the evolutionary trees of viruses and hosts. The method measures similarity between trees; co-divergence results in host and virus trees with similar branching patterns, as the virus evolves alongside the host. Meanwhile, cross-species jumps result in dissimilar host and virus trees, as new viruses evolve and jump from host to host.

The scientists found that cross-species transmission has played a central role in evolution for all 19 virus families, while co-divergence is relatively rare. Cross-species jumps were especially frequent in virus families whose genetic material is encoded in RNA rather than DNA. The findings also revealed which virus families may be more likely to jump hosts and evolve to infect new species.

'An important implication from our work is that the more new viruses we discover, then the more examples of species jumping we are likely to see' said project leader Professor Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney. 'Jumping hosts is the way many RNA viruses live their life' he continued.

This research was performed at the level of virus families, and not for individual viral species. Further studies with larger datasets could help confirm the findings and provide further insight into virus evolution.

Explore further: Two major groups of rabies virus display distinct evolutionary trends

More information: Jemma L. Geoghegan et al, Comparative analysis estimates the relative frequencies of co-divergence and cross-species transmission within viral families, PLOS Pathogens (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006215

Using hundreds of viral genome sequences, scientists have shown that two major groups of rabies virus have unique evolutionary tendencies. Their findings are presented in a new study published in PLOS Pathogens.

Kent researchers have identified how few mutations it can take for Ebolaviruses to adapt to affect previously resistant species.

Few influenza viruses are as widespread and adaptable as avian influenza viruses, and scientists are not entirely sure why.

Virus multiplication continually generates new variants at a rate that is much faster than their hosts. One consequence of their higher mutation rate is that many viruses can rapidly adapt to new hosts. A study published ...

Humans have used Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast in baking, brewing and winemaking for millennia. New research from the University of Idaho and the University of Colorado Boulder reveals another way that yeast species can ...

When viruses such as influenza and Ebola jump from one species to another, their ability to cause harm can change dramatically, but research from the University of Cambridge shows that it may be possible to predict the virus's ...

A team of researchers with members from several institutions in India has found evidence of ostrich relatives living in India as far back as 25,000 years ago. In their paper uploaded to the open access site PLOS ONE, the ...

A global research team has built five new synthetic yeast chromosomes, meaning that 30 percent of a key organism's genetic material has now been swapped out for engineered replacements. This is one of several findings of ...

A new mathematical model could help clarify what drove the evolution of large brains in humans and other animals, according to a study published in PLOS Computational Biology.

Led by Tianjin University Professor Ying-Jin Yuan, TJU's synthetic biology team has completed the synthesis of redesigned yeast chromosomes synV and synX with the two studies published in Science on March 10, 2017.

A small fly the size of a grain of rice could be the Top Gun of the fly world, with a remarkable ability to detect and intercept its prey mid-air, changing direction mid-flight if necessary before sweeping round for the kill.

A specific protein inside cells senses threatening changes in its environment, such as heat or starvation, and triggers an adaptive response to help the cell continue to function and grow under stressful conditions, according ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

More here:

Cross-species jumps may play unexpectedly big role in virus evolution - Phys.Org

Posted in Evolution | Comments Off on Cross-species jumps may play unexpectedly big role in virus evolution – Phys.Org

Oklahoma students programming their future with robotics – kfor.com

Posted: at 3:14 am

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

MOORE, Okla. -Our world is changing fast with advances in technology and robots are a big part of that change

From building the cars we drive to helping police, robots make our lives easier. But designing and making them requires a lot of brain power and hard work.

At Moore West Junior High the Tiger robotics club is busy working on creating their own robots.

Theyre learning problem solving, creative intuition, and theyre learning to project manage and get along with others. And develop those skills that they can actually use in a career today, said Donna Haworth, Robotics Coach.

The kids must design, program and then built a robot for competition.

They start in a start box and they have 60 seconds to move the hexballs that are on the board to scoring position, said Haworth.

As for the students, they love the work and find it anything but robotic.

We can express ourselves through robots. And build and learn about robots, and STEM projects, said Cheyanne Sutton, Moore West 7th grader.

But more than helping them develop those STEM skills, students are having their minds open to the possibilities of what robots can really do.

As my STEM project is, its cerebral palsy. With robots helping toddlers and babieshelp develop those muscle coordination skills, said Camden Miller, Moore west 7th grader.

Principal Jeni Dutton says The robotics program is a highlight of our school. These students are really truly the geniuses who walk these hallways and solve problems. Theyre resourceful and they know it.

McDonald's has partnered with KFOR for this spotlight series of 'What's Right With Our Schools' and presented a check of $600 to the school.

If you have an idea of a program to highlight please click here and send us a short note.

More:

Oklahoma students programming their future with robotics - kfor.com

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Oklahoma students programming their future with robotics – kfor.com

Windsor-based Black Diamond Robotics prepares for tech championship – Greeley Tribune

Posted: at 3:14 am

A group of students worked late last week in Windsor to solve an odd problem: How to get through airport security with a robot and its jumble of wires, batteries and motors connected to a cellphone.

The students four in high school and one middle school together make up Windsor-based Black Diamonds Robotics. This past month, the team and its robot simply designated Black Diamond Robotics No. 9899 took first place at the state's FIRST Tech Challenge.

That means these kids built, programmed and piloted a robot against 59 other teams from across Colorado in a high-stakes arena challenge and came out on top.

The team's victory at the state competition earned them a chance to compete this weekend in the FTC West Super-Regional Championship in Tacoma, Wash. If they do well enough there, they'll advance to international-level competition.

Getting a robot through airport security is just one of the many challenges they've faced together as a team. The students essentially worked as engineers to design and create a robot to solve this year's challenge. Robots in this competition had to be capable of picking up plastic balls of the correct color, launching the balls into a goal a few feet off the ground and moving a yoga ball.

Building Colorado's top robot took hundreds of hours from each team member, said Joshua Rohrbaugh, a sophomore at Liberty Common High School in Fort Collins.

In competition, the robots compete head-to-head in teams of two. Each team can remotely pilot their machine for part of the challenge, but rules require the robot to compete on its own for a round, operating solely on the team's programming.

Just getting the robot to drive in a straight line can be challenging, said Joshua Rohrbaugh's brother, David Rohrbaugh, a senior at Liberty Common and the team's software specialist.

The 30-pound plastic and metal robot functions well without a remote control. Everyone on the team agrees No. 9899's autonomous operation is one of its strengths. However, there were a lot of bugs to find and fix in the programming code, David admitted.

His dad, John Rohrbaugh, helped.

John and his fellow coach, Tom Schmerge both engineers spend a lot of time with the team. They enjoy it. John gets to explore engineering and teach his trade to his sons. Schmerge's daughter, Aubrey, a junior at Windsor High School, is on the team, too. She's the robot's pilot, and does much of the team's fabrication work.

Brecken and Kayden Housden a freshman at Windsor High and seventh-grader at Windsor Middle School, respectively round out the team. They're the newest additions, so they do a little of everything to help and learn where they can.

Black Diamond Robotics isn't affiliated with a school. The team operates out of Schmerge's garage in south Windsor.

Tom and John have put in just as many hours as each of the kids at least 300, they estimate.

"I think that creates a wonderful parent-child connection," said John's wife, Janelle Rohrbaugh. "It's our family hobby."

After a bit more work and collaboration, the Black Diamond Robotics team sussed out another solution on the airport dilemma: a wooden, wheeled box to carry No. 9899 through the airport.

It took a bit of work, but the team managed to get airport security and the airline to let them gate-check the robot. That way, the students and their coaches could explain to airport security what their collection of wires, motors and metal is: a solution.

Read more here:

Windsor-based Black Diamond Robotics prepares for tech championship - Greeley Tribune

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Windsor-based Black Diamond Robotics prepares for tech championship – Greeley Tribune

Robotics teams set to compete next week – UpperMichigansSource.com

Posted: at 3:14 am

EWEN, Mich. (WLUC) - The robotics team of the Ewen-Trout Creek School District will be heading to Escanaba for their FIRST Robotics competition.

This is only the second year the Ontonagon County school team has participated. The competition combines sport with hands-on training in science and technology. Students at the school only had six weeks to put together their remote-controlled robot and learn how to pilot it.

This year, the robots had to be designed relying on steam power, and the team is pretty confident in what they have been able to construct.

It does exactly what we want, perfectly, FIRST Robotics, Team 5989 member Gentry Brand said. I honestly do not think we'd change anything."

We took two of the three main tasks you can do and got them down to where we could do it, I would say, 99 percent of the time, FIRST Robotics, Team 5989 member Lucas Burrows said.

The Ewen-Trout Creek team, along with several other teams from across the state will take part in the competition March 16th. For more information on the competition, visit this website.

For the latest News, Weather and Sports, tune into your TV6 News and FOX UP News.

Read the original:

Robotics teams set to compete next week - UpperMichigansSource.com

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Robotics teams set to compete next week – UpperMichigansSource.com

Leominster Youth Robotics team again qualifies for worlds – Leominster Champion

Posted: at 3:14 am

The middle school team from Leominster that qualified for the VAX Robotics World Championship: From left, Sam Bartow, Maggie Cunningham (kneeling), Charlotte Weldon, Josh Iacoboni, Lucas Rabello and Andrew Fielo. SUBMITTED PHOTO Sam Bartow and Andrew Fielo drive, while Charlotte Weldon is in the coachs position and has just loaded the orange cube onto their robot during a qualifying match. SUBMITTED PHOTO The high school team that advanced to regionals last weekend: Caleb Weldon, Lucas Lanzdorf and Sam DeCarolis. SUBMITTED PHOTO

The Leominster Youth Robotics middle school team, officially known as Vex Team 549C Robo Mayhem, has qualified for the second straight year for the VEX Robotics World Championship, to be held in April.

The team made it to the semifinals in the regional championship, held Saturday, Feb. 25 in Framingham, and won the skills competition.

In its 10th year, the VEX Robotics World Championship will include about 1,400 student-led robotics teams from Asia, North America and Europe. It will be held April 19-25 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Robo Mayhem is raising money so team members Charlotte Weldon, Maggie Cunningham, Josh Iacoboni, Lucas Rabello, Sam Bartow and Andrew Fielo can travel to Kentucky. Donations may be made online at https://www.gofundme.com/RoboMayhem549c, or by mail to Leominster Youth Robotics, c/o Jim Cunningham, 24 Church St., Leominster, MA 01453. Checks should be made out to Leominster Youth Robotics.

In addition, one of the Leominster Youth Robotics high school teams, Vex Team 549K Kinetic Karbonites, advanced to the high school division regional tournament, held the weekend of March 4-5.

Read the original post:

Leominster Youth Robotics team again qualifies for worlds - Leominster Champion

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Leominster Youth Robotics team again qualifies for worlds – Leominster Champion

Are Robotics a Key to the Next Phase of Recycling? – waste360

Posted: at 3:14 am

About 10 years ago, computer scientist Matanya Horowitz became intrigued at how far robotics had come within some industries and he started thinking about its potential in recycling, particularly for recognizing and sorting materials. Horowitz postulated that intelligent systems could have a huge impact if they could be designed to identify any material in a waste stream and pull it out.

But there were unique challenges to address within the recycling niche, and Horowitz went to work to troubleshoot them. After years of tweaking, the proprietary technology he created under the Denver-based company, AMP Robotics, is running in several material recovery facilities (MRFs). The robotic system, called the AMP Cortex Robotic Sorter, has the attention of several stakeholders, including the Closed Loop Foundation and a federal government agency.

Horowitz says the automated system cuts sorting costs by 50 percent. But the smart technologys main sell is that not only does it recognize any material coming into a MRF today, it shows potential to be able to identify virtually any item it has yet to encounter.

Early on, a main problem in developing automated sorting was that there was no vision system that could look into the waste stream and identify multiple, specific materials or their location on a conveyor belt.

To this day, with optical sorters materials must be physically separated before they are scanned. And optical sorters require their own special belts.

AMPs robot can detect unseparated materials and it can be installed on existing conveyor belts while.

And while most individual optical sorters can identify one material, one of AMPs robot can pick multiple materials. In essence, the system detects a materials location on the conveyor belt; the robot moves to intercept it, its then picked using grippers.

AMPs robotic sorter leverages a concept from the field of robotics called deep learning, which relies on algorithms to automatically perform various tasks, such as identifying examples of various materials.

We have applied this deep learning concept to recycling. You show the system individual examples, and it has the ability to learn what is unique about them, Horowitz says. For instance, PET is shiny, and we can program the system to look for shininess. It can learn to pick up on labels or cap colors. And it can figure out different combinations of featuresfor instance shapes and the specific shininess of aluminum.

The AMP team started its lab-based research early in 2015 with a National Science Foundation grant. The company has since completed projects in several recycling facilities under confidential agreements.

The Closed Loop Foundation has gotten behind AMPs efforts to lead innovation in the recycling space. It has awarded the company a grant and also invested in the technology through its venture fund.

AMP Robotics has developed a catalytic technology that we expect will drastically reduce contamination and increase yields at MRFs, thereby improving MRF profitability, says Ron Gonen, managing partner of Closed Loop Partners.

Once the product moved from the lab and was put to the test in MRFs there were hurdles to overcome. A big one was improving the ability to grip a wide variety of materials, which is still being fine-tuned. So far the system can handle multiple items in municipal solid waste streams, as well as e-waste and construction and demolition waste.

We have seen the technology work in the real-world conditions of a recycling facility, says Horowitz.

AMPs robotic system has been designed to recognize multiple materials and their features and to continually learn, which opens up potential opportunity to receive a whole spectrum of end of life products and materials, says Horowitz.

So, for instance, if a new piece of packaging comes down, our system may not recognize it at first, but once we learn what it does not recognize, we add that material or the materials feature to the learning algorithms, he says. Whats as exciting is that what will work at one facility can be applied to other facilities.

AMP Robotics is in active negotiations with a few MRFs interested in the technology, and hopes to roll its innovation to market in 2017.

The firmis not the only robotics solution on the market.

Finland-based ZenRobotics was founded in 2007. Its systems incorporate robotic sorters with sensors and arms for specific applications, such as construction and demoliton waste.

The ZenRobotics Recycler reclaims aw materials from waste with the help of advanced machine learning technology, sorting metal, wood and stone fractions. ZenRobotics Recycler uses multiple sensors (visible spectrum cameras, NIR, 3D laser scanners, haptic sensors, etc). to create a real-time analysis of the waste stream being currently processed. Based on the analysis, the system makes autonomous decisions on what objects to pick and how.

The ZenRobotics Recycler can separate large and heavy objects of up to 45 pounds. The robots gripper opens from to 20. Each robot arm has a 6.5-ft. by 6.5-ft. working area and can throw sorted objects into several waste chutes.

In 2016, ZenRobotics and ML Environmental LLC partnered to bring the ZenRobotics Recycler to the U.S. The technology was then introduced at WasteExpo in June.

In November, Recon Services Inc./973 Materials, announced it would be the first facility in the U.S. to install a ZenRobotics sorting line. It would be put in place at a C&D recycling facility.

Then there are tasks beyond sorting, such as disassembling iPhones, that are under exploration.

Meanwhile, Volvo Group is testing a Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling (ROAR) system that would deploy robots as part of collections efforts. Instead of a team of human workers, Volvos robots will receive instructions from operating systems to do the heavy lifting and dumping. Drivers stay put, overseeing the controls.

See more here:

Are Robotics a Key to the Next Phase of Recycling? - waste360

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on Are Robotics a Key to the Next Phase of Recycling? – waste360

These New Robots Look Freaky But Can Do Amazing Things – NBCNews.com

Posted: at 3:14 am

Cassie Mitch Bernards / Agility Robotics

Agility Robotics took another approach

"The outdoors is complicated, and you're always going to slip and fall and tumble," Shelton says. "You wouldn't think of designing a car to be wrecked 20 times a day, whereas that is a specific design goal for Cassie." It can also stand in place, crouch, and keep its balance on a gently rocking dock; in the future, Shelton says, Cassie will also sport little arms.

Agility Robotics is planning to use future generations of Cassie for tasks like telepresence, inspecting industrial sites, and curb-to-doorstep package delivery. Cassie wouldn't replace people, Shelton says, but work alongside them to take over tedious tasks like hoisting packages.

Related:

"A big portion of their jobis scheduling pickups, dealing with customer service issues, and that's not something that's quite as easy to automate," Shelton says.

Cassie comes from a line of robots inspired by flightless birds, but its ostrich-like appearnce was a bit of a coincidence. "In the case of Cassie you start with a biological system, do some math and turn it back into a design, and get something back that looks physically what you started with," Shelton says.

Nature doesn't always provide the ideal blueprint for machines. Airplanes were inspired by birds, but don't flap their wings to fly. "If you want to build a better horse you do a bunch of math...and you turn it into an internal combustion engine powered car," Shelton says. "We're not all riding around in things that look horses."

Related:

But sometimes, robots that share an unsettling resemblance with living creatures are the best tools to get the job done. These agile, legged robots will prove their mettle on mundane stairs and driveways and in dangerous sites inaccessible to wheeled or tracked robots.

"There's so many areas where we still have to send humans to do the work where we really don't want to have humans," Hutter says.

One day, we may be able to remove workers from harm's way, and instead send legged robots galloping into burning buildings, over rubble, and into sewers or sites steeped in nuclear waste. These robots are still learning to walk, but wherever people go, they will follow.

Follow NBC MACH on

Read the original here:

These New Robots Look Freaky But Can Do Amazing Things - NBCNews.com

Posted in Robotics | Comments Off on These New Robots Look Freaky But Can Do Amazing Things – NBCNews.com