Built from flexible, compliant materials, soft robots are gaining relevance for tasks ranging from minimally invasive surgery to deep-sea exploration but remain held back by a fundamental constraint. To sense their surroundings and react, most soft robots rely on separate electronic sensors, signal-processing circuits and powered actuators, all coordinated by computers. This chain of components adds weight, complexity and points of failure, particularly in wet, hot or high-pressure settings where electronics are highly susceptible to disruption.

A research team at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS CDE), has developed a mechanical soft force sensor that eliminates this electronic chain entirely. The sensor converts an applied force directly into fluid flow that drives actuators, creating a complete sensing-to-action loop with no computation or external energy. The approach could lead to soft robots that are simpler to build and capable of operating in environments that compromise conventional electronics.

A high-performance biodegradable pressure sensor has been developed as a key technology for wearable AI healthcare robotics and user-friendly robotic systems.

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a research team led by Professor Tae-Woo Lee in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has developed an eco-friendly artificial spiderweb pressure sensor* inspired by the multiscale architecture of natural spiderwebs. The sensor simultaneously achieves high sensitivity, fast response time, and excellent mechanical stability.

* Artificial spiderweb pressure sensor: A flexible pressure sensor that mimics the multilayered fiber and mesh structures of spiderwebs to efficiently transmit pressure and convert it into electrical signals.

Capable of real-time detection of human pulse, respiration, vocalization, and finger movements, the sensor can be integrated with robotic hand control systems and is expected to find broad applications in Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation assistive devices, eco-friendly wearable devices, and user-friendly robotics.

The research was published on July 4 in Nature Communications, a world-renowned international academic journal.

Researchers from Donghua University (Shanghai, China) have developed a high-performance and sustainable food packaging film based on deacidified chitin nanofibers (ChNFs) and tannic acid (TA), termed as CTF. The novel CTF film exhibits outstanding mechanical properties (tensile strength of 145.1 MPa), excellent antioxidant activity (>95% free-radical scavenging rate), significant antibacterial effects, and effective UV shielding. In strawberry preservation tests, the CTF film kept fruits intact and mold-free for 7 days, outperforming commercial polyethylene (PE) films and demonstrating great potential as an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based packaging materials.

A recent study by the University of Granada reveals that the fall in water levels in Mediterranean reservoirs is causing a dramatic increase in methane emissions. Using a floating platform equipped with advanced technology, scientists were able to continuously monitor gas exchange between the water and the atmosphere for the first time in Spain. The findings show that, whilst carbon dioxide levels remain stable, methane levels surge during droughts due to biogeochemical processes in the sediments. This research highlights that climate change and water scarcity could turn these ecosystems into sources of pollution far more potent than previously estimated. Understanding these dynamics is essential for developing water management strategies that help to mitigate global warming more effectively.

CHANGWON, South Korea — Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by President Chul-jin Choi, announced that a research team led by Minyoung Lee and Sunggyu Park of the Bio & Health Materials Research Division has developed a plasmonic-based liquid biopsy platform capable of ultrasensitive detection of KRAS mutations in the blood and urine of patients with early-stage colorectal cancer. By analyzing matched tumor tissue, plasma, and urine samples from patients with Stage 0 and Stage I colorectal cancer, the researchers demonstrated over 90% concordance in KRAS mutation status across the three specimen types, supporting the platform's potential as a non-invasive precision cancer diagnostic technology.