Tech Universe: Thursday 2 June

Whale sharks can be individually identified by their spots. Photo / Thinkstock

VORTEX CLIMBER: Researchers at the University of Canterbury can make a robot stick to walls through pressurised air. The non-contact adhesive pad, or air gripper, uses the Bernoulli principle. The feet of the robot don't actually touch the wall but are held 25 micrometers away - about 0.025 mm. Air is squirted out from the feet sideways at high speed, causing a low pressure vortex that creates a vacuum and sucks the robot feet near to the wall surface. The robot can even crawl across a ceiling and carry a small load. It blows and sucks. Details here and video proof here.

BINNED BOOKS: At the University of Chicago Library a robot may retrieve the books you need from a vast underground storage area.
Librarians load barcoded books into bins that hold around 100 items, then the bins are stored in huge racks. When a reader requests a book, perhaps by email, the robot retrieves the correct bin. A librarian get the book out, scans the barcode and an email lets you know to collect the item. Returned books must also be scanned by librarians and put back in bins. Which all sounds terribly manual. How about RFID tags and automated systems, folks? Bookworms check out Singularityhub.com and video here.

SHARK SPOTTING: You know a Whale Shark, like a Leopard, by its spots. People who take photos of a Whale Shark can upload those images to the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-Identification Library to help with research. Computer algorithms compare the skin patterning and scars evident in photos to distinguish between individual animals, allowing researchers to track them. If you submit data you can opt to receive emails about 'your' shark and what it's been up to. Citizen science is
great fun. More at Wired

EYE BRANCHES: A real human eye has a resolution of about 127 megapixels. Contrast that with current electronic eye implants that have a resolution of about 64 pixels - not mega: just pixels.
What's more the connections in real eyes are fractal, while in electronic eyes they are simply a square array. New research aims to make the eEye connections branch just like real ones with an algorithm called diffusion limited aggregation. The researchers include Professor Simon Brown at the University of Canterbury. Kiwi science is at the core of things again.

PLASTIC BUGS: Scientists in the US have figured out exactly how to genetically engineer the common E. Coli bacteria to create a chemical called Butanediol, also known as BDO. Usually oil and gas are the source for BDO, a fundamental ingredient in manufacturing plastic.
Bacteria farming has a nice ring to it, and doesn't need much land.
Details here.

- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz