A Insta360lançou hoje o Insta360 Mic, adição intermediária à sua linha de microfones (que já inclui o Mic Air e o Mic Pro), contando com uma tela eink personalizável e armazenamento expansível via microSD.
Pensado para criadores de conteúdo que buscam recursos mais sofisticados de áudio sem investir em um modelo topo de linha, ele é ideal para vlogs do cotidiano, gravações de esportes nos fins de semana, viagens, transmissões ao vivo e conversas em grupo.
O painel eink customizável permite a inserção de logos, emojis, animais de estimação, paisagens ou elementos da identidade visual do criador.
Divulgação/Insta360
Para quem adquirir apenas o receptor, é possível utilizar o Insta360 Mic com as câmeras da fabricante — Insta360 X6, X5, Luna Ultra, Luna Pro, GO Ultra e Ace Pro 2 —, bem como com smartphones, tudo via Bluetooth. Outra alternativa para as gravações é o cartão microSD, que permite armazenar os áudios capturados pelo produto.
Com o cartão microSD inserido, o Mic é capaz de gravar áudios em ponto flutuante de 32 bits diretamente no transmissor e conta com um chip dedicado à supressão de ruído, baseada na NPU 1Neural processing unit, ou unidade de processamento neural. do microfone, que reduz sons ambiente com maior intensidade.
Divulgação/Insta360
O dispositivo tem dois modos de ganho automático: o Dynamic equilibra as variações de volume para manter a coesão sonora, enquanto o modo Auto ajuda a evitar a saturação de som.
Ele conta ainda com três predefinições de timbre (Regular, Rich e Bright) para ajudar a preservar as características naturais da sonoridade captada.
Assim como o do Mic Pro, um único receptor do Mic se conecta a até quatro transmissores ao mesmo tempo, o que inclui produções com múltiplas câmeras (que podem receber o áudio de até dois receptores simultaneamente).
Divulgação/Insta360
De acordo com a fabricante, cada transmissor possui até 13 horas de bateria com uma única carga, enquanto a case de carregamento amplia essa autonomia para até 34 horas.
Preço e disponibilidade
O Insta360 Mic está disponível na loja oficial da Insta360, com a seguinte relação de valores (em dólares) para o Brasil:
Insta360 Mic (dois transmissores + um receptor): US$250;
Insta360 Mic (um transmissor + um receptor): US$140;
Um transmissor Insta360 Mic: US$80.
NOTA DE TRANSPARÊNCIA: O MacMagazine recebe uma pequena comissão sobre vendas concluídas por meio de links deste post, mas você, como consumidor, não paga nada a mais pelos produtos/serviços ao usar os nossos links de afiliado.
Notas de rodapé
1
Neural processing unit, ou unidade de processamento neural.
Researchers at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, have produced a high-intensity beam of muonium atoms in a cold state, an experimental advance that could enable a direct test of whether gravity acts differently on second-generation matter. The peer-reviewed study in Nature Physics describes a new method for generating muonium in superfluid helium. The resulting atoms travel at similar speeds and almost parallel to one another, properties required for a future interferometer that would measure the tiny influence of gravity on muonium.
The study did not conduct that gravitational measurement or find evidence that gravity departs from its expected behavior for ordinary matter; it instead developed the beam source needed for the proposed test. The experiment is designed to examine the universality of free fall and the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass, a cornerstone of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravitation. In ordinary matter, bodies fall at the same rate at a given point within a gravitational field, while the equivalence principle links gravitational mass with inertial mass.
According to the research team, this principle has so far been demonstrated only with ordinary matter or first-generation antimatter. Muonium is a neutral atom formed from a positively charged antimuon and a negatively charged electron, making it a second-generation probe. A gravity experiment with this exotic atom would test whether the equivalence continues to hold for particles outside the first generation.
Muonium has two characteristics that make it useful for this test: it is neutral, and it belongs to a heavier and less familiar generation of particles. A neutral object allows gravitational behavior to be studied without the weak gravitational signal being masked by stray electromagnetic fields, which can dominate the behavior of charged particles. At the same time, muonium is exceptionally difficult to produce and control.
Its constituent muon decays after only about 2.2 microseconds. Earlier sources generated muonium atoms that flew off in many directions at different speeds and were therefore unsuitable for the precision required in a gravity experiment. The researchers addressed this problem by creating a cold, intense and well-directed beam.
The antimuons were directed into a thin layer of superfluid helium that had been cooled close to absolute zero, at minus 273 degrees Celsius. Superfluid helium is a quantum fluid in which individual helium atoms lose their identity and in which impurities are not tolerated. Lead author Jesse Zhang said the researchers used the superfluid as an “atomic cannon,” exploiting the conversion of chemical potential into kinetic energy to propel the newly formed muonium atoms out of the liquid.
When an antimuon encounters a free electron in the superfluid helium, it forms a neutral muonium atom with positive chemical potential. The atom is forced out of the liquid, and as it reaches the surface, that chemical potential is converted into kinetic energy. The resulting boost sends the muonium vertically out of the helium.
Importantly, the atoms must move through the quantum liquid at a suitable speed without collisions, because excessive scattering would prevent them from reaching the surface within their very short lifetime. The high-intensity antimuon beam from PSI allows many muonium atoms to be generated for the planned experiments. Anna Soter, a professor of physics at ETH Zurich and member of the research team, said the cold state is what makes the proposed gravity experiment possible.
In this context, “cold” does not mean that the atoms are motionless; it means that they propagate at similar speeds and nearly parallel to one another. This improved control over direction and velocity is important because the planned instrument will use the wave properties of the atoms to create an interference pattern. A very small shift in that pattern caused by Earth’s gravitational pull would provide a measure of gravity’s effect on muonium.
The study establishes the upstream beam capability rather than reporting the result of that comparison. The next stage of the program is the development of a muonium interferometer. According to the researchers, they hoped to test the method for the first time with the atomic beam in the year of the announcement and, if that worked as expected, to carry out the actual gravity experiment two or three years later.
Those are planned milestones rather than completed measurements. If the interference pattern of muonium shifts differently from the pattern expected for ordinary matter, Soter said the result would be surprising and could, among other theoretical possibilities, point toward the existence of a fifth force. No fifth force has been proven, and the present work provides no evidence for one.
The team’s primary aim is to measure whether the equivalence between gravitational and inertial mass applies to a second-generation particle. Physics recognizes four fundamental interactions: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong interaction and the weak interaction. A fifth force has been proposed repeatedly, but it has never been established.
Soter emphasized that the researchers are open-minded about what the measurement may show while keeping the immediate objective focused on the first such test. The new beam is therefore an enabling experimental result, not a demonstration that Einstein’s theory has been challenged or overturned. Beyond the planned gravity measurement, the high-intensity muonium beam is expected to enable more precise laser-spectroscopy experiments.
These could allow muonium to be measured more accurately than in previous work and provide information about the muon’s mass and fundamental physical constants, which are stated goals of the research group. The same experimental source can thus serve two purposes: supplying a cold, directed beam for a gravitational comparison and providing a larger, better-controlled population of muonium for detailed spectroscopic study. The reported advance addresses a major technical obstacle while leaving the central scientific question unresolved.
A successful gravitational test will still require an interferometer capable of resolving a minuscule shift in an interference pattern while dealing with muonium’s short lifetime, beam quality and other sources of uncertainty. The study’s demonstrated result is the generation of a high-intensity, superthermal muonium beam in superfluid helium, with atoms emerging in the cold state needed for future work. Whether muonium falls exactly as expected for ordinary matter remains to be measured.
The beam nevertheless supplies the experimental foundation for testing gravitational universality in a second-generation particle, a comparison that had not previously been carried out with muonium.
Subject of Research: A cold muonium beam developed for future tests of gravitational universality and laser spectroscopy
Article Title: Novel particle beam could challenge Einstein’s Theory of Gravity
Article References: Novel particle beam could challenge Einstein’s Theory of Gravity. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: Not provided
Keywords: muonium, muon beam, gravity, gravitational universality, equivalence principle, interferometry, superfluid helium, laser spectroscopy, ETH Zurich, Paul Scherrer Institute, Novel, particle
Tech billionaires have raised more than $340m to defeat Prop 40, a one-time 5% wealth tax that will fund healthcare and education
Tech billionaires have been dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the fight against a wealth tax in California. They’ve raised more than $340m, and the campaign they’re funding is spending more than $1m a day to defeat the measure, according to state financial disclosures.
With the election less than a month away, those funds are being spent at a stepped-up pace. During the first 19 days of September, according to the most recent campaign filings, the opposition campaign plowed through at least $21.2m to fight the billionaire tax – surpassing $1m per day. Voters are being inundated with robotexts, mailers and advertisements that warn a tax on billionaires would “expose all Californians to higher taxes”, as one ad reads.
The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich
Burning Man, the infamous arts festival in the Nevada desert, turned 40 this year, and it’s showing some distinct signs of middle age.
It’s not just the tech billionaires who show up to party, the chartered flights straight to the desert or the HBO documentary about behind-the-scenes power struggles. The tens of thousands of people who assemble each year to create a tent city in the wilderness appear to be growing older, and it doesn’t seem that they’re being replaced by as many younger “burners”, as festival participants are called.
By burying thousands of pairs of cotton underwear across Switzerland, scientists uncovered striking differences in biological activity from one type of land to another. The results showed that gardens had especially active soils, while lawns were much quieter underground. Soil supports the global food system while also storing water, carbon, and essential nutrients. It is [...]
It’s simple, says the SpaceX boss – according to something called the ‘Kardashev scale’, we just have to move energy production ‘off-planet’
Next time the weather gives the UK 61 days without rain and we wonder idly if this is the end, there is a term we may whistle up to soothe us. Like murmuring the rosary, or putting our fingers in our ears and humming, this phrase is to be mumbled on repeat – “the Kardashev scale, the Kardashev scale” – a buzzy concept in tech, much favoured by Elon Musk, and precisely the thing we’ve been waiting for. The Kardashev scale is the answer both to our impending doom and our anxiety around it – and if we decide to believe in it, we won’t have to give the climate crisis a single thought until the last drip falls from the tap.
This is the idea and it’s a familiar one to anyone who has watched tech billionaires take intractable, commonplace crises and decide that, among the measures and proposals in play, the vital missing ingredient so far has been them. Do you remember when Jeff Bezos, rather than doing something quotidian and loserish like funding public education by ensuring Amazon pays the same tax rate as regular Americans, decided instead to reinvent preschools?
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
In April, Gil Durán was permanently banned from Elon Musk’s X for posting just two words. Durán was responding to a post from the tech company Palantir outlining its 22‑point “technological manifesto”, which praised American “hard power”, western culture and AI weapons, denounced inclusivity and called for compulsory national service. Durán responded: “TLDR: Fascism” (TLDR is short for “too long, didn’t read”).
Durán didn’t break any of X’s written rules, he points out over a video call from San Francisco – so much for Musk’s “free-speech absolutism”. His ban might just have had something to do with his preceding tweet, showing the cover of his new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. The book’s central argument is that big tech is no longer our friend, as many of its billionaire owners have seized economic and political control and are steering the fate of the planet towards their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions.
Scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), conducting a new series of experiments with millions of ultracold neutrons, have determined that the neutral particles do not switch between our universe and a theoretical “mirror universe” containing oppositely charged, identical counterparts of all elementary particles previously proposed by theoretical physicists.
Although the new experiments do not completely disprove the concept of a mirror universe, the experiments do cast doubt on one of the idea’s fundamental principles, making its existence less likely. The team behind the new study said their findings also aid future experiments by eliminating one potential area of inquiry.
Neutrons Are the Perfect Candidate to Test for a Mirror Universe
Although theoretical physicists sometimes propose radical concepts, one such idea proposes a mirror universe where every elemental particle has a “twin.” For example, the authors of the new study explain, there would be mirror protons, mirror electrons, and mirror neutrons. Still, they note, interaction between the particles in our universe and their mirror universe companions is likely to be minimal.
Geza Zsigmond, a researcher at the PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences, said the theory suggests that the two mirror particles “sense each other’s presence” through gravity. Some physicists have even suggested that gravitational interaction with mirror-universe particles could explain dark matter. Unfortunately, experiments designed to hunt for the mirror universe have returned zero positive results.
Bernhard Lauss, leader of the research group for ultracold neutron physics at the PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences, said, “There is no way of proving the existence of mirror particles using gravitational interaction alone.” Fortunately, the theory also offers a second testing possibility.
According to Zsigmond and colleagues, mirror universe particles would interact with our universe either through gravitation or through what they described as a “rare” oscillation of neutrons. This means that neutral particles like a neutron could occasionally disappear from our universe and reappear in the mirror universe. Even more surprisingly, the same theory says that these particles could magically return to our universe as well.
“Based on this hypothesis, neutral particles might oscillate to and fro between our normal matter world and the mirror world,” Lauss said.
The team said that this possibility, combined with new experiments at the Institut Laue-Langevin in France that “rekindled” speculation about the mirror universe, focused their new efforts on this “other” property of mirror universe particles.
Study Finds No Evidence for Neutral Particle Oscillations
After joining up with researchers from ETH Zurich and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the PSI team designed a series of experiments that should show if neutrons are zipping back and forth between universes. Zsigmond said that neutrons are ideal to test the concept for two reasons. First, they are neutral particles, and second, the researcher said they have a “strange property” the team hoped to exploit.
“Neutrons appear to have different lifetimes, depending on how this is measured,” Zsigmond explained.
Although several theories have been proposed to explain this discrepancy, the team acknowledged that the varying neutron lifetimes could be caused by some of these neutral particles disappearing from our universe and entering the mirror universe.
First, the team used the high-intensity proton accelerator at PSI to generate the millions of neutrons needed for their experiments. Next, the team slowed the neutrons down, creating what scientists call “ultracold” neutrons.
Next, the researchers trapped the ultracold neutrons in a specially designed non-magnetic stainless steel vacuum chamber. Because the theory suggests that the probability of neutrons jumping between universes is extremely sensitive to magnetic fields, the vacuum chamber was surrounded by magnetic field coils that the researchers could control with the required precision.
Throughout the experimentation phase, the researchers stored 1.5 million ultracold neutrons in the chamber every five minutes. After about 200 seconds, the team would empty the chamber and count how many neutrons remained. The team repeated this process over several months, resulting in the creation, storage, and measurement of approximately 25 billion neutrons.
Lauss said the researchers gradually varied the strength and direction of the magnetic field throughout the process to “scan all the relevant regions in which one might expect oscillations between neutrons and mirror neutrons to occur.” However, Lauss said, “we saw no evidence at all of such oscillations.”
Experiments “Set the Standard” For the Foreseeable Future
When discussing the significance of their findings, the PSI-led team said the lack of evidence of mirror universe oscillation by ultracold neutrons suggests a very high probability that such mirror universe neutral particle roundtrips “can be ruled out.” They also note that failing to find evidence of a mirror universe still resulted in benefits for particle physics by eliminating an area of inquiry.
“By restricting the scope for certain speculations, we are showing researchers in theoretical physics that they need to explore new avenues,” Zsigmond explained. “Physics needs that kind of impetus if it is to continue to evolve.”
Moving forward, the team said that “substantial improvements” to their experiments would require a much more elaborate setup. Until then, they said their experiment and its results are “the best of its kind in the world and will set the standard for the foreseeable future.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org
New computer models of Venus’s surface features, including ridges likely caused by volcanic activity, have determined that the second rock from the Sun remains geologically active to this day.
The ETH Zurich research team behind the new Venusian models, which suggest that Venus may still have active volcanoes, said their findings could help planned NASA and ESA missions select the most promising targets. The new models could also help in the search for rocky planets outside of our Solar System, including those that may support life.
Venus Previously Considered Geologically Dormant for Over 100 Million Years
Venus has long fascinated planetary scientists due to its similarities. For example, the planet’s mass and circumference make it roughly 95% the same size as Earth overall. However, although Venus’ elliptical orbit brings it closer to Earth than any other planet in the Solar System, its extreme surface temperatures and toxic atmosphere make it inhospitable to life as we know it.
Ground and space observations have detected rift valleys on Venus’s surface, which the research team notes indicate tectonic activity. Some can measure up to 10,000 kilometers and resemble the longest ridges on Earth. Although the timing of Venus’ rift formations remains uncertain, the team said most scientists have typically considered the planet to be geologically dormant. Some estimates have put their formation more than 100 million years ago.
Curious if data captured by space and ground-based observatories could provide enough information to answer the timing question, a research team from ETH led by Taras Gerya, a Professor of Geodynamics at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, decided to plug that data into computer models. According to their results, the reports of Venus’ demise may have been greatly exaggerated.
Models Reveal Planet Likely Supports Active Volcanoes
Working under Professor Gerya’s supervision, Master’s candidate and lead author of the paper detailing the team’s work, Xi Yang, and colleagues employed computer models to simulate the planet’s rifts in high-resolution and 3D. The team said these models allowed them to “accurately replicate these rift structures” in a level of detail never achieved. The data also allowed them to perform simulations to best determine how they originally formed.
Critically, the team notes that earlier attempts to model Venus’ tectonic history and potential ongoing activity had been mostly two-dimensional. Yang’s team also said those earlier models had relied on “simplified material assumptions” that his team was able to expand upon.
After completion, the models yielded several compelling results. First, they indicated that the broad ridges geologists call ‘rift flanks’ form along the edges of rift valleys at a time when the rifts are still “geologically young.” Specifically, the team’s models suggested that these flanks formed when Venus was still either actively moving or had only recently stopped moving.
A closer look at the simulations also suggested that these geological rifts open over a much shorter time scale than previously assumed, with an estimated rate between 3 and 10 centimeters per year. The models also indicated that rift flanks tend to flatten very quickly once the movement ends.
“The older the rift system, the less steep and narrow its flanks,” they explained.
A comparison to erosion patterns on Earth also supported a more recent time frame for the rift flank formations spotted on the Venusian surface from the Magellan probe during its 1990s mission. The team said that these formations and their models suggest that “Venus remains an active planet with a more dynamic interior than had been previously believed.”
“Venus remains geologically “alive” and even hosts active volcanoes,” they explained.
Planned NASA & ESA Missions Could Confirm Models
When discussing the implications of their work, Professor Gerya said the findings “help us to better assess the tectonic activity on Venus.” The team noted that their models could also guide future missions by pinpointing potentially active regions worthy of closer examination.
The ETH team said their study also has planetary formation implications, particularly for rocky planets like Venus and Earth. Such data could prove valuable in the search for rocky exoplanets, including the type that may host life.
Moving forward, the study authors noted that NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are actively preparing “multiple missions” to explore Venus in further detail. ETH geophysics professors Paul Tackley and Gerya, and their team of collaborators, are already participating in ESA’s EnVision mission.
The work includes developing instruments for the orbiter to analyze the surface in greater detail. Scheduled for launch in the early 2030s, the team said that EnVision will explore the planet more thoroughly than previous efforts “from its core to its upper atmosphere.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.
The lovefest from Musk’s conservative fans completely overlooks the unscrupulous tactics behind his immense wealth
For 12 glorious days in June, Elon Musk experienced something nobody else in the history of humankind has ever experienced: trillionaire status.
Did all those zeros make Musk happy? Did the army of children he has sired love him more? Did he find inner peace? We’ll never know because Musk was dragged back to being a boring old billionaire last Wednesday, after shares in Tesla and SpaceX plunged amid a broader tech sell-off.
Food waste may become a powerful climate tool thanks to tiny reusable beads that capture carbon directly from the air. Keeping global warming below 1.5°C over the long term will require more than major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. According to climate scenarios outlined in the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate [...]
A study at one of Earth’s most isolated research stations offers new clues about how teams adapt during long periods of confinement. When people are isolated in extreme environments, it seems intuitive that spending more time together would strengthen social bonds. But new research suggests that under the right conditions, constant contact may actually create [...]
Scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland have announced a series of successful experiments involving the repair of injured spinal cords in zebrafish and mice after being injected with magnetically controlled microrobots containing pluripotent stem cells.
According to a statement announcing the ETH team’s work, both the zebrafish and mice injected with the microrobots showed improved movement and normalized exploratory behavior within just a few days after treatment.
Although the initial studies were confined to lab animals, the team hopes their magnetically controlled microrobot approach to the precision delivery of pluripotent stem cells could eventually be adapted for humans with spinal cord injuries.
Spinal Cord Repair Microrobots Treat Nerve Cells That Resist Regeneration
Unlike some cells in the human body, nerve cells within the spinal cord rarely regenerate on their own. If the spinal cord is injured, scarring can further reduce the ability of the nerve fibers within the cord to regrow. For people living with spinal cord injuries, this scenario can offer a bleak prognosis for recovery.
In recent decades, scientists have turned to the natural regenerative properties of pluripotent stem cells. Although the use of stem cells was initially controversial due to the need to extract neonatal stem cells, scientists ultimately learned to convert ordinary stem cells into pluripotent stem cells capable of becoming any cell type in the human body.
The most promising approach involves implanting stem cells at the site of the injury and then using electrical stimulation to promote the growth of new cells. However, according to the ETH team behind the new approach, the current method has several drawbacks.
First, stimulating the cells requires the use of implanted electrodes. Second, the team notes that after transplantation, many of the stem cells “do not always survive or integrate properly into the existing tissue.”
To improve healing and increase the chance of restoring spinal cord nerve cell function, they said their new approach combines therapeutic stem cells with magnetoelectric nanoparticles and uses magnetic fields to guide them to the “precise site of an injury” and “stimulate the stem cells to accelerate repair.”
NPCbots Combine Stem Cells and Magnetically Controlled Nanoparticles
To construct their magnetically guided spinal cord repairing robot, the team built what they termed a “biohybrid microrobot.”
First, the team creates pluripotent stem cells from adult cells by genetically manipulating them in the lab. The result is what researchers call an “induced” pluripotent stem cell (iPS). According to the study authors, these newly pluripotent iPS cells are used to derive living neural progenitor cells (NPCs), meaning “they have the potential to differentiate into various types of nervous system cells.”
Next, the team creates customized magnetic nanoparticles consisting of two layers. The inner layer responds to the “commands” from the magnetic fields used to control them, and an outer layer that converts this response into an electrical signal.
According to Professor Salvador Pané i Vidal of the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, each tiny robot has a reservoir near the center “where we trap the cells.” The professor said the best way to accomplish this is to inject the nanoparticles into a solution with the NPC, “and wait for the two components to bind.”
After 30 minutes, the process is complete, and the team is left with a batch of nanobots, each around 6 micrometers in size. Since the new robots combine a magnetic bot and a reservoir of NPCs, the team named them ‘NPCbots.’
In preparatory cellular experiments, the researchers used hundreds of thousands of NPCbots. However, several million were required for animal trials.
Zebrafish and Mice Regain Movement After Injections
To test the efficacy of their new NPCbots, the ETH team injected millions of them into the spinal cord of zebrafish larvae with spinal cord injuries. To improve the chances of nerve regeneration, the NPCbots were injected directly into the site of the injury.
After injecting the microrobots, the injury site was subjected to electromagnetic fields. Although the repair was not immediately evident, the team noted that after three days, the zebrafish with the injured spinal cords “exhibited nearly normal swimming and exploratory behaviour.”
At the start and after three days: the top images show the uninjured spinal cord of a zebrafish; those in the middle show the injured spinal cord; and those at the bottom illustrate how the nerve cells grow thanks to the microrobots. Image Credit: ETH Zurich.
Next, the team injected millions of NPCbots into mice with completely separated spinal cords. According to the team, the results were “very promising.”
“After 28 days, the animals’ nerve cells had reconnected at the site of the injury,” they explained.
The team said further observation of the treated mice revealed “increasingly normal movement patterns,” including improvements in gait, stride length, and coordination. The ETH team also noted that the mice’s exploratory behavior “improved significantly.”
Schematic illustration of nerve cell recovery in zebrafish and mice. Image Credit: ETH Zurich.
When discussing the mouse experiments, the team described the result as “particularly significant” because zebrafish spinal cords regenerate, whereas mouse spinal cords do not. They also noted that the treatment was “well tolerated by the animals,” with no reported immune reactions or adverse effects.
Minimally Invasive and More Precise Treatments with Microbots
Unlike science fiction movies, where tiny robots repair tissue mechanically, the research team said that the stem cells carried by the NPCbots are exposed to electrical stimulation, “greatly enhancing their differentiation after transplantation.” This means the nanoparticles convert the electric signals from the EM field into electrical impulses, stimulating healing.
Unlike more complicated stem cell procedures that use implanted electrodes and cables, the team said they only needed to apply external magnetic fields around the spinal cord injury site. The team said this simplification was “crucial,” since the spinal cord is considered extremely sensitive. They also note that the ability to manipulate the frequency and field strength of magnetic fields, combined with their ability to penetrate deeply into tissue, makes the entire process safe and easy to control.
“Microrobotic guidance makes the treatment more precise and minimally invasive,” Hao explained.
After the NPC bots have delivered and stimulated the stem cells, the team said they “essentially dissolve” within the tissue. Because the bots contain a barium titanate coating, the researchers also believe that they will be “stable and minimally reactive” with surrounding tissue. Still, they concede that “further studies will determine whether and how the particles are degraded or excreted over the long term.”
Expanding NPCbot Therapies to Increase the Effectiveness of Other Targeted Therapies
Although the team described the animal trials of their NPCbots as “promising,” they noted that further research is needed before the process can be attempted on human patients with spinal cord injuries. For example, Hao noted that in addition to ‘clinical aspects’ that require more exploration, the team needs to start by determining which magnetic fields “work best in humans” and determining the “optimal stimulation duration” for human NPCs. Nevertheless, the team noted, they are “already considering further applications.”
“The reproducible and scalable production of microrobots using our lab-on-a-chip system demonstrates that the platform’s application potential extends beyond basic research,” Professor Vidal explained.
Some potential biomedical applications mentioned by the RETH team include cardiology, oncology, wound healing, “and other targeted therapies,” adding that their process could make such treatments “safer, more controllable and more effective.”
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.
Ezekiel's vision is discussed, questioning whether it depicts a divine encounter or ancient astronauts. I critique Erich von Däniken's theories on UFOs, emphasize that advanced propulsion technologies have military origins, and confirm that true anti-gravity remains unattainable within known physics, dismissing claims of reverse-engineered alien technology.
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