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A swarm of micro-robots, directed by magnets, can break apart and remove dental biofilm, or plaque, from a tooth. The innovation arose from a cross-disciplinary partnership among dentists, biologists, and engineers.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2IJd0ZN

A simple injection that can help regrow damaged tissue has long been the dream of physicians and patients alike. A new study moves that dream closer to reality with a device that makes encapsulating cells much faster, cheaper and more effective.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2PuUVPE

Chemical engineers have recreated collaboration and competition responses within a microchamber environment of microscopic particles, sheets, and catalysts, effectively mimicking responses of feeding, fighting, and fleeing.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2GJ5rA9

Researchers have developed a process to use magnetics with brain-like networks to program and teach devices such as personal robots, self-driving cars and drones to better generalize about different objects.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2XF1XUM

Bioengineers report the first demonstration of a robot able to navigate autonomously inside the body. In an animal model of cardiac valve repair, the team programmed a robotic catheter to find its way along the walls of a beating, blood-filled heart to a leaky valve -- without a surgeon's guidance.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2UHcZXz

Researchers have developed an automated approach that significantly cuts down on, and expands, the types of microrobots they can manufacture.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2UxlYe0

Scientists have invented a new technology that could lead to the development of a new generation of smart surgical glues and dressings for chronic wounds. The new method involves re-engineering the membranes of stem cells to effectively 'weld' the cells together.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2GJx0bp

Atomic beams conjure fantasies of gigantic Space Force canons. But there are real tiny atomic beams that shoot out of newly engineered collimators, a kind of tiny silicon peashooter, that could land in handheld devices. The beams streaming out of them create precise inertia much better than a gyroscope's that could help spacecraft navigate the solar system. The atomic beams from the new collimators could also let physicist cheaply and easily produce exotic quantum mechanical states.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2IX4GVk

A biologist invented an inexpensive and environmentally friendly method for making artificial nacre using an innovative component: bacteria. The artificial nacre is made of biologically produced materials and has the toughness of natural nacre, while also being stiff and, surprisingly, bendable. The method used to create the novel material could lead to new applications in medicine, engineering -- and even constructing buildings on the moon.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2UVqp7q

A recent discovery explains a new family of gravitational instabilities in granular particles of different densities that are driven by a gas-channeling mechanism not seen in fluids. The team observed an unexpected Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T)-like instability in which lighter grains rise through heavier grains in the form of 'fingers' and ''granular bubbles, similar to the bubbles that form and rise in lava lamps.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2IMUbUJ

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new and improved snake-inspired soft robot that is faster and more precise than its predecessor.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2DrAkH8

A pair of researchers describes a way of making a submicron-sized cylinder disappear without using any specialized coating. Their findings could enable invisibility of natural materials at optical frequency and eventually lead to a simpler way of enhancing optoelectronic devices, including sensing and communication technologies.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2W0LHNo

Using network science -- part of a larger mathematical field called graph theory -- a professor mapped long range atomic forces onto an incredibly complex graph to simulate macroscopic material behavior.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2GvCVSr

Researchers tested bacteria commonly found inside homes on samples of drywall coated with antimicrobial, synthetic latex paints. Within 24 hours, all bacteria died except for Bacillus timonensis, a spore-forming bacterium.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2XsJ5s5

A low-tech problem troubles the high-tech world of digital pathology imaging: There are no reliable standards for the quality of digitized tissue slides comprising the source material for computers reading and analyzing vast numbers of images. Poor-quality slides get mixed in with accurate slides, potentially confusing a computer program trying to learn what a cancerous cell looks like. Researchers are trying to fix this, sharing an open-source quality control standard.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2UqXpzh

Engineers are developing a smart robotic system for sniffing out pollution hotspots and sources of toxic leaks. Their approach enables a robot to incorporate calculations made on the fly to account for the complex airflows of confined spaces rather than simply 'following its nose.'

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2DlLUDG

The inside of a fire might be the last place one would explore, but a new method to do just that could lead to advances in fighting fires, creating cleaner engines and even space travel.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2DnGHLH

Climate engineering research is too focused on specific aspects of individual projects, argues an expert. She believes broader studies about the impacts of these efforts will have on other Earth system variables.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2UEg13P

Creating a lithium-ion battery that can charge in a matter of minutes but still operate at a high capacity is possible. This development has the potential to improve battery performance for consumer electronics, solar grid storage, and electric vehicles.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2Pa0WRu

Tapping into the unique nature of DNA, engineers have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things.

from Engineering News -- ScienceDaily http://bit.ly/2IAbEiZ