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Maria Temming

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cell-tweezers

These so-called tweezers can take out single molecules or structures from individual cells — such as mitochondria from nerve cells (illustrated here).

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

 Technology
Electro-tweezers let scientists safely probe cells
They allow repeated sampling of materials from the same living cell over time
a horse stuffed animal with white wraps around its legs is walking across a the screen against a black background, electric wires trail behind it

A new bendable, stretchable skin can wrap around inanimate objects — such as this stuffed horse’s legs — creating a soft robot.

J.W. Booth et al./Sci Robotics 2018

 Robotics
Soft robots get their power from the skin they’re in
Given bendy, stretchy skin, everyday objects can morph into useful — or just adorable — robots
chemistry nobel

This year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry went to Frances Arnold (left), George P. Smith (middle) and Gregory P. Winter (right) for research on proteins, including enzymes and antibodies.

CalTech; University of Missouri; Aga Machaj/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

 Chemistry
Three take home chemistry Nobel for harnessing protein ‘evolution’
The scientists created bio-based techniques to speed up the development of drugs, fuels and more
spaghetti machine

Researchers used a custom spaghetti-snapping machine (above) to discover the best way to break dry spaghetti in half.

RONALD HEISSER AND VISHAL PATIL

 Physics
The perfect spaghetti snap starts with a twist
Novel machine reveals secret to cleanly breaking the dry pasta in half
fake news

Researchers are building computer algorithms that can check the veracity of online news.

juststock/iStockphoto

 Technology
Scientists enlist computers to hunt down fake news
And these automatons tend to outperform people at scouting out bogus claims
Obama and Putin

A new computer program can manipulate the subjects in a video so that one of them mirrors the movements of someone else in some other video. Here, images of Russian President Vladimir Putin are altered to match those of former President Barack Obama.

H. KIM ET AL/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON GRAPHICS 2018

 Computers & Electronics
Computers can now make fool-the-eye fake videos
It can put expressions and movements — even from other people — onto people on screen