Soft robotics is being used by the researches at University of California – San Diego to create a glove that give tactile feedback to the user while experiencing a Virtual Reality program. Jurgen Schulze, a researcher at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, has assembled the prototype of a glove which can realistically simulate the feeling of playing a virtual piano keyboard.

As of now most Virtual Reality environments use remote type devices that vibrate when the user touches a virtual surface. This is unrealistic as per Jurgen Schulze, who says with their prototype glove they  are trying to make the user feel like they’re in the actual environment from a tactile point of view.

Michael Tolley, a mechanical engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego says that the prototype is surprisingly effective. It has a Leap Motion sensor, a custom fluidic control board, and  soft robotic components in the glove that individually inflate or deflate. These allow the glove to mimic through virtual reality what the person would actually feel in the real world. This is an interesting science experiment that seeks to make virtual reality as real as possible.

Today the world has nearly three billion children and adolescents who are using mobile phones and technology associated with them. For these children mobiles are not something of a luxury, but a very much present part of daily life. Many grow up accessing their parent’s mobile phones from a very young age.

Society for Research in Child Development is trying to study the complexity in the effects of the continuous usage of mobile technology on the development of the current generation. Effects of mobile technology on cognitive control is of interest. As is the attention given by parents to early brain development.

Mobiles have been found to have a direct effect on the mood, amount of sleep and mental health of users. Now mobile usage needs to be examined in context of children as well. While the technology offers greater connectivity through cultures, it also increases potential security risks for the children.

One area of study that may have far reaching implications is how adolescents sexting may lead to more risky sexual behavior among teenagers and even younger children.  Not to mention the scientific study on how using mobiles can cause problems in the activities such as driving, walking, biking and jogging.

Electricity is the crux of all civilization as we know it today. If it was possible to transfer electric current in a wireless manner, it would truly revolutionize the way we live. Imagine being able to charge electric vehicles, mobile phones, medical implants and a whole lot more gadgets wirelessly?

A team of researchers at Stanford University have set the ball rolling to make this phenomenon possible. Professor Shanhui Fan and his student Sid Assawaworrarit have made the prototype of a device which can wirelessly charge a moving object at close range.

In the experiment a moving LED bulb was transferred a 1-milliwatt charge wirelessly by the device. While this science project builds on existing technology, there is still a long way to go for the researchers as electric vehicles require tens of kilowatts of electric power to work.

The team is now working on increasing the amount of electric charge that can be transferred by the device. Should they be successful, it will not only help with current gadgets that require recharging, but also open up the field to a host of new gadgets which may be designed without the limitation of having to be charged in a stationery position.

The Great Red Spot is a swirling anticyclonic storm that has been raging through Jupiter for centuries. It has been recorded and seen for years and now analysis of the data is showing that the storm is losing ground.

Apparently at one time the Great Red Spot was large enough for three Earths to fit inside it, but now the size has drastically reduced. It is now the width of merely one Earth. Researchers are now trying to figure what is causing the storm to lose it’s mammoth size.

Is there some unrecorded activity on Jupiter that is causing the energy from the storm to be drained? We don’t know for sure. However, the Great Red Spot is at it’s smallest recorded dimensions since 1930.  It’s diameter is now approximately 10,250 miles across.

Also the shape of the trademark red spot has changed from an oval to a circle. The waist of the Great Red Spot is losing 580 miles per year. Observations from the Hubble telescope have found small eddies feeding into the storm and these may be responsible for changing the internal dynamics of the storm.

It will make an interesting science project to find out exactly how the Great Red Spot has shrunk over the years. It may even shed light on why it is currently shrinking so much faster than ever before.