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Octopuses and most other cephalopods are colorblind, as they only have one visual pigment. Scientists have suggested two hypotheses for how these animals can camouflage in spite of their…
Octopuses and most other cephalopods are colorblind, as they only have one visual pigment. Scientists have suggested two hypotheses for how these animals can camouflage in spite of their…
Earlier this year, we reviewed the SwitchBot S10, a vacuuming and wet mopping robot that uses a water-integrated docking system to autonomously manage both clean and dirty water for you. It’s a pretty clever solution, and we appreciated that…
This weekend, I’m on my way to Las Vegas to cover this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. I’ve scoured the CES schedule and lists of exhibitors in preparation for the event, where I hope to find fascinating new tech. After all, some prep is…
Farmers are receiving less of what consumers spend on food, as modern food systems increasingly direct costs toward value-added components like processing, transport, and marketing. A new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research…
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Buried in the inner workings of your laptop is a secret blueprint, dictating the set of instructions the computer can execute and serving as the interface between hardware and software. The instructions are immutable and hidden behind proprietary…
Hula hooping is so commonplace that we may overlook some interesting questions it raises: “What keeps a hula hoop up against gravity?” and “Are some body types better for hula hooping than others?” A team of mathematicians explored and answered…
University of California, Santa Barbara’s Professor Soojin Yi and colleagues aimed to determine how genes in different types of brain cells have evolved compared to those in chimpanzees. They found that, while our genes code for almost all…
Tea (Camellia sinensis), originating in China over 3,000 years ago, has transitioned from a medicinal herb to a widely consumed beverage. Despite considerable research focusing on tea plants in southwestern China, little attention has been…