Introducing the maple-seed-inspired Ulrich flyer, the world’s first controllable robotic monocopter. The monocopter’s inventors studied the way a maple seed whirls and twirls as it falls to the ground, and designed their flyer based on that biological blueprint. In this video, watch the little aircraft rise through the air with its single blade spinning furiously–accompanied by an epic soundtrack that ranges from techno to symphonic grandeur.
Robotic airships and satellites will fly above the surface of the distant world, commanding squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats…The systems will transform planetary exploration, says [Wolfgang] Fink, who envisages the cybernetic adventurers mapping the land and seascapes of Saturn’s moon, Titan—believed to have lakes of standing liquid—as well as closer planetary neighbors like Mars.
Researchers say the robots could command themselves and other robots with little input from ground control. All of which seems like a great idea, since the human space flight program isn’t likely to take off anytime soon.
• Hit the red-light district on the cheap: Berlin brothels are offering discounts to “green” customers that arrive on bike.
• New robotic prosthetic hand lets users regain their sense of touch.
• Do space flights make people crazy? The European Space Agency is looking for a few volunteers to spend 520 days in total isolation to study space travel’s psychological effects.
• Going green? Not if you own a pet. A new book argues that owning a dog has the same carbon footprint as driving 6,000 miles a year in a Land Rover.
• Mix & match brains: Scientists try to create a bird chimera to study the evolution of birdsong.
The palm-sized amorphous Chembot is the latest disarmingly cute military robot from iRobot. This little ball of cutting-edge technology—funded with $3.3 million from DARPA—debuted this week, and man, this is one bizarre robot.
The bot, which was shown off at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems this week, has a silicone skin, and moves by selectively inflating and deflating parts of its spherical body. But the locomotion system entails more than simple puffing and rolling: The video [see below] explains the “particle jamming” system of locomotion, “a mechanism by which material can transition from a liquid-like to a solid-like state.”
(According to IEEE, the video below is a little dated, but it’s still a good primer on “jamming.” The cool stuff starts at around 1:50.)
We never eat 27 percent of the food that exists on the shelves in grocery stores or that is served in restaurants and kitchens. There is one way to save the fate of wasted food ending up in landfills. You’ve all heard of it, but probably never tried it: composting.
People who do compost know that it smells terrible and requires a host of bacteria, earthworms, and fruit flies to turn into soil—which is why apartment and city dwellers typically avoid the practice. But now those problems may be eliminated. The San Francisco-based company NatureMill is selling a composting “robot” to make composting hassle-free, and the machine might soon become an American household mainstay.
All you have to do is plug it in, and the robot does all the work. The machine can chomp on up to 5 pounds of food a day— turning dinner leftovers into soil in less than two weeks.
DiscoBlog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's edited by Eliza Strickland, and written by Brett Israel and Andrew Moseman.
Instead of spending time and money 
• Hit the red-light district on the cheap: 
