This is a fascinating video about building a cathedral without science or math…
It sounds impossible, but you might be surprised. Our modern idea of engineering is quite a bit different than it was when some of the most beautiful and impressive structures in the world were built.
As someone who is neither an engineer nor an architect, this video thoroughly fascinated me.
Before Hugh Herr became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was a promising rock climber. However, at age 17, he lost both his legs below the knee to frostbite after being trapped in a blizzard during a climb. Since then, he has dedicated himself to developing prosthetic legs that function and feel like natural limbs. His efforts appear to have succeeded.
State-of-the-art prosthetic limbs can help individuals with amputations achieve a natural walking gait, but they don’t provide full neural control. Instead, they rely on robotic sensors and controllers which do not allow for much agility.
MIT researchers, in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have developed a new surgical intervention and neuroprosthetic interface that allows a prosthetic leg to be driven by the body’s own nervous system. This surgery reconnects muscles in the residual limb, enabling patients to receive proprioceptive feedback about their prosthetic limb’s position.
In the study, published in Nature Medicine, seven patients underwent this surgery. The MIT team found they could walk faster, avoid obstacles, and climb stairs more naturally than those with traditional amputations.
“This is the first prosthetic study in history that shows a leg prosthesis under full neural modulation, where a biomimetic gait emerges. No one has been able to show this level of brain control that produces a natural gait, where the human’s nervous system is controlling the movement, not a robotic control algorithm,” says Herr, who is the co-director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics at MIT and senior author of the study.
Patients experienced less pain and muscle atrophy after the surgery, known as the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (AMI). So far, about 60 patients worldwide have received this surgery, also applicable for arm amputations.
The researchers found that patients with the AMI surgery could more precisely control their amputated limb muscles. These muscles produced electrical signals similar to those from intact limbs. Encouraged by those results, the researchers investigated whether the electrical signals could not only generate commands for a prosthetic limb but also provide the user with feedback about the limb’s position in space. This proprioceptive feedback would enable the wearer to adjust their gait voluntarily as needed.
This theory was validated when individuals with the AMI interface walked faster, navigated obstacles more easily, and exhibited more natural movements than those with traditional prosthetics. Despite providing less than 20 percent of the normal sensory feedback, the AMI interface enabled natural biomimetic behaviors to emerge.
During a routine clean-up by the non-profit Tangaroa Blue, GPS-tracking buoys were found washed up on Australian beaches. These buoys, manufactured in Spain by Satlink, were discovered in large numbers on the Cape York coast near Australia’s northeastern tip.
Instead of discarding them as e-waste, Tangaroa Blue founder Heidi Tait secured permission from Satlink to repurpose the buoys for tracking ‘ghost nets’—abandoned fishing nets that drift through the ocean, trapping sea life. These nets, often left behind after snagging on reefs or being displaced by weather, pose a significant threat to marine life and require specialized equipment to remove.
Tait organized a coalition of Australian mariners, including national park staff, Indigenous rangers, commercial fishermen, and charter boats, to use the buoys for tracking these ghost nets. By attaching a buoy to a found net, they can be precisely located and retrieved.
Project ReCon, a collaboration between Satlink, Tangaroa Blue, and around 100 commercial fishing vessels, aims to address this issue. Supported by The Nature Conservancy and The Pacific Community, the project has expanded to eight countries. As a result, Tait and her coalition have already removed three ghost nets, including one over 3 metric tons, and a 150-foot-long mooring rope.
Asteroid Bennu, recently sampled by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, may have originated from a water world, according to new research.
In 2020, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample of regolith—rocks and dust—from Bennu and brought it back to Earth, traveling 200 million miles. Researchers hoped the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) sample would reveal secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry that might have led to life on Earth.
An early analysis, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, found that Bennu’s regolith contains carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, essential for life. This composition offers a glimpse into the early solar system, with the rocks remaining unchanged for over 4.5 billion years.
However, the sample also contained magnesium-sodium phosphate, which wasn’t detected in previous remote sensing data. This suggests Bennu might have splintered off from a small, primitive ocean world. “The presence of phosphates and other elements suggests a watery past for Bennu,” said Dante Lauretta, co-lead author of the study and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator.
Meanwhile, scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified an ocean world candidate, K2-18b, 120 light-years away in the constellation Leo. This “sub-Neptune” planet, believed to be 8.6 times larger than Earth, shows signs of a water ocean under a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, supported by the abundance of methane and carbon dioxide and a shortage of ammonia detected.
A painting by Italian Renaissance master Titian, once found in a plastic bag at a London bus stop after being stolen twice, is expected to sell for up to $32 million at auction.
“The Rest on the Flight into Egypt” will be auctioned at Christie’s with an estimate of £15 million-£25 million ($19 million-$32 million), according to the auction house.
The painting, created in the early 16th century, depicts Jesus, Mary, and Joseph resting on their way to Egypt after learning that King Herod of Judea wanted to kill the young Christ.
Titian, whose real name was Tiziano Vecellio, made the small painting (18.25 inches by 24.75 inches) early in his career, before he became known for his larger works.
The oil-on-canvas has a notable history. After passing through various European aristocrats, it was looted by Napoleonic troops in 1809 and taken to Paris. It was returned to Vienna in 1815 and later owned by John Alexander Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath, in Wiltshire, England.
In 1995, the painting was stolen from Longleat, the home of Thynne’s descendants, and was missing for seven years before being found at a London bus stop by art detective Charles Hill.
“This painting has been coveted by aristocrats, archdukes, and emperors for its vividly colored scene of familial affection,” Christie’s said in a statement. “Like its subjects, ‘The Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ has been on a long and eventful journey — a journey that’s far from over.”
