A Smart Glue That Works Under Water

Scientists are developing a “smart glue” – using mussel proteins – that can bond securely underwater and may be turned on and off with electricity. There is no smart adhesive out there that can perform underwater. The chemistry that researchers can potentially incorporate into the adhesive, causing it to reversibly bond and de-bond is quite new. Such“smart glue” can bind underwater sensors and devices to the hulls of ships and submarines and help unmanned vehicles dock along rocky coastlines or in remote locations. The adhesive can also lead to new kinds of bandages that will stay attached when someone sweats or gets wet, and make it less painful to remove a dressing. The smart glue may even be used to attach prosthetic limbs and biometric sensors or seal surgical wounds.

New VR System Lets You Feel Rain, Beating Heart

Researchers have developed a 360-degree virtual reality application using a unique chair to provide full body sensations that enables users to add customizable “feel effects” such as raindrops or a beating heart. Virtual reality has seen a renaissance in recent years as advancements in computer graphics, computing platforms and the seamless flow of information between hardware and software have come together in a powerful way. Researchers team is working to make VR haptic sensations just as rich as the 360 degree visual media now available. Current VR systems provide ‘buzz like’ haptic sensations through hand controllers. But technology exists for much richer sensations. Researchers have created a framework that would enable users to select form a wide range of meaningful sensations that can be adjusted to complement the visual scene and to play them through a variety of haptic feedback devices. The haptic playback and authoring plug-in developed by the researchers connects a VR game engine to a customized haptic device. It allows users to create, personalize and associate haptic feedback to the events triggered in the VR game engine. The haptic definition app, called VR360HD, was developed and tested using a consumer headset and Disney researcher’s haptic chair. The chair features a grid of six vibrotactile actuators in its back and two subwoofers or “shakers” in the seat and back. The grid produces localized moving sensations in the back, while the subwoofers shake two different regions of the body and can create a sensation of motion. Users were able to select from a library of feel effects tested by the team.

This Rewritable Paper Can Be Used More Than 40 Times

Scientists have developed a low-cost, environmentally friendly way to create printed material with rewritable paper that can reduce paper wastage. Even in the present digital age, the world still relies on paper and ink, most of which ends up in landfills or recycling centers. Researchers made the new material by mixing low-toxicity tungsten oxide and polyvinyl pyrrolidone, a common polymer used in medicines and food. To “print” on it, they exposed the material to ultraviolet light for 30 seconds, and it changed from white to a deep blue. To make pictures or words, a stencil can be used so that only the exposed parts turn blue. To erase them, the material can be put in ambient conditions for a day or two. To speed up the erasing, the researchers added heat to make the color disappear in 30 minutes. Alternatively, adding a small amount of polyacrylonitrile to the material can make the designs last for up to 10 days. Tests showed that the material can be printed on and erased 40 times before the quality started to decline. More paper is now recovered for recycling than almost all other materials combined, researchers said. The new material saves energy, water, and landfill space and greenhouse gas emissions.

When The Planet Spun 10 Times Faster

A cataclysmic collision not only created Earth’s moon, but may have also knocked Earth over on its side. In a paper published by the journal Nature, scientists say their numerical simulations indicate that the collision of a Mars size object with the early Earth left our planet tilted at an angle of 60 to 80 degrees and spinning rapidly, once every 2.5 hours, almost 10 times as fast as today. But the simulations also show how the dynamics of the moon and Earth slowed down over the next four billion years of the solar system. For the first time, this paper has a model that says researcher can start in one place; explain all of that without invoking any other follow-on event. “Where did the moon come from?” has been a persistent question over the eons. Among the rocky planets of the inner solar system, Earth is an anomaly. Mercury and Venus have no moons at all, and Mars only has a couple of tiny moons that may be captured asteroids. Earth’s moon, by comparison, is a giant, more than 2,000 miles in diameter. Recently the preferred explanation for the origin of the moon has been “the big whack”: soon after the formation of the solar system, the Mars-size interloper that astronomers have named Theia bumped into Earth. The resulting slosh of debris coalesced into a slightly larger Earth and the moon in orbit around the Earth.