Government-backed incentives and funding are still the main engines driving Chinese manufacturers to replace humans with robots in industries including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, new infrastructure projects and food processing.
Trade war with US saw many companies relocate outside China, but orders came back last year as Chinese production rapidly rebounded from the coronavirus, and a robotics boom is expected in 2021.
Researchers at[ MIT have developed a new method for growing plant tissues in a lab](https://news.mit.edu/2021/lab-grown-plant-tissue-0120) — sort of like how companies and researchers are approaching lab-grown meat. The process would be able to produce wood and fibre in a lab environment, and researchers have already demonstrated how it works in concept by growing simple structures using cells harvested from zinnia leaves.
Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for growing plant tissues in a lab — sort of like how companies and researchers are approaching lab-grown meat. The process would be able to produce wood and fibre in a lab environment, and researchers have already demonstrated how it works in concept by growing simple structures using cells harvested from zinnia leaves.
This work is still in its very early stages, but the potential applications of lab-grown plant material are significant, and include possibilities in both agriculture and in construction materials. While traditional agricultural is much less ecologically damaging when compared to animal farming, it can still have a significant impact and cost, and it takes a lot of resources to maintain. Not to mention that even small environmental changes can have a significant effect on crop yield.
Forestry, meanwhile, has much more obvious negative environmental impacts. If the work of these researchers can eventually be used to create a way to produce lab-grown wood for use in construction and fabrication in a way that’s scalable and efficient, then there’s tremendous potential in terms of reducing the impact on forestry globally. Eventually, the team even theorizes you could coax the growth of plant-based materials into specific target shapes, so you could also do some of the manufacturing in the lab, by growing a wood table directly for instance.
How would you like to be able to create your own wine in only a couple of days? A new Kickstarter project called The Miracle Machine does just that.
McMaster researchers have developed a new form of cultivated meat using a method that promises more natural flavor and texture than other alternatives to traditional meat from animals.
Researchers Ravi Selvaganapathy and Alireza Shahin-Shamsabadi, both of the university’s School of Biomedical Engineering, have devised a way to make meat by stacking thin sheets of cultivated muscle and fat cells grown together in a lab setting. The technique is adapted from a method used to grow tissue for human transplants.
The sheets of living cells, each about the thickness of a sheet of printer paper, are first grown in culture and then concentrated on growth plates before being peeled off and stacked or folded together. The sheets naturally bond to one another before the cells die.
Rather than releasing any new cameras for CES 2021, Canon is doing something different: Letting you take pictures from space. The company has unveiled an [interactive site](https://redefinethelimits.us/space/cornerstone/experience) that allows you to use its CE-SAT-1 satellite, equipped with a lightly modified 5D Mark III DSLR, to grab simulated photos of locations including New York City, the Bahamas and Dubai.
Canon launched the wine barrel-sized microsatellite back in June of 2017. It holds an EOS 5D Mark III camera that’s fitted with a 40 cm Cassegrain-type (mirror) 3720mm telescope. Orbiting at a 600 km orbit (375 miles), it provides about a 36-inch ground resolution within a 3×2 mile frame, Canon claims. (By contrast, the world’s highest-resolution satellite, [WorldView-4](https://apollomapping.com/worldview-4-satellite-imagery?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8pSTqdud7gIVC5_VCh2KjA6NEAAYASAAEgLrT_D_BwE), can resolve down to 12 inches.) It also houses a PowerShot S110 for wider images.
Take ‘photos’ of Earth from space with Canon’s 5D Mark III camera.
Canon.
The interactive demo allows you take images from multiple locations, with each shot showing the location and altitude of the image. However, it uses pre-captured imagery, so you’re not actually grabbing live or unique photos. If it was live, CE-SAT-1 would be zipping around the Earth at nearly 17, 000 miles per hour, circling the globe in just over an hour and half. The demonstration does give you a feel for the satellite’s capabilities and resolution, however.
The experience is narrated by astronaut Marsha Ivins, who explains the satellite’s purpose and design. The microsatellites are much smaller and cheaper than regular satellites, and Canon hopes to build a [billion dollar business](https://en.canon-elec.co.jp/space/) around them by 2030. After launching the CE-SAT-1 in 2017, Canon attempted to launch an updated [CE-SAT-1B](https://www.engadget.com/watch-rocket-lab-canon-satellite-launch-191456033.html) last summer. However, it was lost when RocketLab’s Electron rocket [failed](https://www.engadget.com/rocket-lab-13th-mission-failure-142717244.html) shortly after launch.
We are creating compelling homegrown solutions in education, health care, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” Ambani said in his speech. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.
Mukesh Ambani has spent years trying to turn his inherited oil business into a tech empire. In 2020, that pivot really kicked into overdrive.
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that fruit flies with genetic modifications to enhance glucose uptake have significantly longer lifespans. Looking at the brain cells of aging flies, they found that better glucose uptake compensates for age-related deterioration in motor functions, and led to longer life. The effect was more pronounced when coupled with dietary restrictions. This suggests healthier eating plus improved glucose uptake in the brain might lead to enhanced lifespans.
The brain is a particularly power-hungry part of our bodies, consuming 20% of the oxygen we take in and 25% of the glucose. That’s why it’s so important that it can stay powered, using the glucose to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the “energy courier” of the body. This chemical process, known as glycolysis, happens in both the intracellular fluid and a part of cells known as the mitochondria. But as we get older, our brain cells become less adept at making ATP, something that broadly correlates with less glucose availability. That might suggest that more food for more glucose might actually be a good thing. On the other hand, it is known that a healthier diet actually leads to longer life. Unraveling the mystery surrounding these two contradictory pieces of knowledge might lead to a better understanding of healthier, longer lifespans.
A team led by Associate Professor Kanae Ando studied this problem using Drosophila fruit flies. Firstly, they confirmed that brain cells in older flies tended to have lower levels of ATP, and lower uptake of glucose. They specifically tied this down to lower amounts of the enzymes needed for glycolysis. To counteract this effect, they genetically modified flies to produce more of a glucose-transporting protein called hGut3. Amazingly, this increase in glucose uptake was all that was required to significantly improve the amount of ATP in cells. More specifically, they found that more hGut3 led to less decrease in the production of the enzymes, counteracting the decline with age. Though this did not lead to an improvement in age-related damage to mitochondria, they also suffered less deterioration in locomotor functions.
This eco village is 100% self-sufficient
Crafting organic containers by shaping the gourd fruit.
Take a sip of coffee from a cup that’s literally GROWN in nature! The gourd fruit can fill any form, making them perfect for crafting containers to hold food and liquids, no plastic needed!
The result was a bizarre, Lego-like human tissue that replicates the basic circuits behind how we decide to move. Without external prompting, when churned together like ice cream, the three ingredients physically linked up into a fully functional circuit. The 3D mini-brain, through the information highway formed by the artificial spinal cord, was able to make the lab-grown muscle twitch on demand.
In other words, if you think isolated mini-brains—known formally as brain organoids—floating in a jar is creepy, upgrade your nightmares. The next big thing in probing the brain is assembloids—free-floating brain circuits—that now combine brain tissue with an external output.
The end goal isn’t to freak people out. Rather, it’s to recapitulate our nervous system, from input to output, inside the controlled environment of a Petri dish. An autonomous, living brain-spinal cord-muscle entity is an invaluable model for figuring out how our own brains direct the intricate muscle movements that allow us stay upright, walk, or type on a keyboard.