The Robot Snake

Very, very cool.

Photos of Water on Mars

Liquid droplets seem to form and move on the leg of the Phoenix Mars lander, as seen in images taken on days 8, 31, and 44 (seen above from left to right) of the craft's mission.

Scientists think the water could stay liquid even in the frigid Martian arctic because of its high concentration of perchlorates, salts that acts like antifreeze.

See more at National Geographic.

Guy Gets Arm Replaced Luke Skywalker Style

Evan Reynolds, 19, got his hand and part of his arm ripped off in a car accident and has since been fitted with an i-LIMB, a robotic hand developed by an Apple/Star Wars fanboy.
The i-Limb was developed by a Scottish company, Touch Bionics, and has won awards for its innovative technology. The total cost including the hand itself and the fitting is about £30,000.
Time Magazine named the i-LIMB as one of the Top 50 inventions of 2008.

See video here.

Ugobe's Pleo Robotic Dinosaur

Brain Controlled Computers

Zeno - Cute or Creepy Robot?

Creepier:

$500,000 Prize for Space Elevator Climber

Now, another round of 20 teams will try to win $500,000 from the space agency for building a robotic climber that can hoist itself up on a thin carbon tether, under its own power source, 100 meters within 50 seconds. (Last year, a Canadian team lost the race by 2 seconds.)

The Spaceward Foundation, the nonprofit group that organizes the space elevator competition, said Tuesday that its third annual contest will be held October 19 to 21 in Salt Lake City. It's part of NASA's Centennial Challenges, a series of government-sponsored competitions that support space exploration by encouraging private industry and universities to develop related technologies for cash prizes.

More.

Real Transformer Robot

Liquid Robots

Remember the morphing robot T-1000 from the film Terminator 2? Could something like that ever become a reality? The folks at DARPA apparently think so. Last week they issued a request for proposals on developing so-called Chemical Robots (ChemBots), which would change shape in order to squeeze through tiny gaps.

The DARPA request states that ChemBots should be "soft, flexible, mobile objects that can identify and manoeuvre through openings smaller than their static structural dimensions". It goes on to add that, "nature provides many examples of ChemBot functionality. Many soft creatures, including mice, octopi, and insects, readily traverse openings barely larger than their largest 'hard' component."

So I wonder what the best approach might be. How about using shape-memory alloys, electro-active polymers, or even rheological substances? Are there other materials that might prove useful? And what would such a thing look like?

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BigDog -- A Robot Mule

Very interesting, although I wonder if it is at all more effective than a real mule...

More.