Monthly Archives: May 2022

Remember and honor our veterans on Memorial Day, and celebrate the U.S.A. We wish everyone a safe, meaningful, and enjoyable holiday.

Researchers at Northwestern University have created the smallest-ever remote-controlled robot. It’s just half a millimeter across and can move across human skin without even being felt. This is not the smallest robot ever. Nanorobots have been created that are smaller than that. Medical delivery robots can be just as small. What makes this robot stand… Read more »

Shift work is hard on human beings. Working nights is associated with shorter lifespans, with increased incidence of heart disease and certain cancers, as well as industrial accidents caused by fatigue. We know that night shifts have health and safety consequences, but 15 million Americans work evening or night shifts. An additional 3% work rotating… Read more »

Printing technology has come a long way since the days of this photo. One of the biggest changes in the printing world was the shaftless drive. With shaftless drives, much established printing technology went out the window and new technology was put in place. The last big innovation in printing, however, happened in 1994 with… Read more »

Many companies now use AI for hiring. Often, software does the first sort of applications, eliminating those that don’t have the necessary credentials or highlighting the ones that are like successful hires from the past. Machine learning is often a part of the process, with algorithms using past hires to find the characteristics that most… Read more »

Robotics-assisted surgery is now mainstream in modern hospitals, with the Da Vinci platform in use around the world. The Da Vinci system isn’t robotic surgery, though. It can’t be programmed, it can’t make decisions, and the surgeon is still at work throughout the operation. The Da Vinci system allows a surgeon to work comfortably at… Read more »

Manufacturing currently accounts for just about 10% of the jobs in the United States. In 1910, 32% of jobs apart from agriculture were in manufacturing. Would it be better for Americans if more of our labor force was in manufacturing? McKinsey & Co. claims that increasing manufacturing jobs would help with the problem of inequality…. Read more »

Earthquakes can’t really be predicted. There’s no option to batten down the hatches or even to lay in a good supply of milk and toilet paper when a big one is on its way. There are areas where earthquakes are more frequent and therefore more likely to take place, however, and it makes sense if… Read more »

Employers are finding it hard to get workers, and raising wages is one way they’re coping. A movement to raise the minimum wage, rising inflation, and a desire to get people who stopped working during the pandemic back to work have all combined to encourage employers to raise wages. Manufacturing has long been one of… Read more »

James Watt, as we probably all know, was the first person to invent a servomechanism. A servo is of course a system that uses automatic feedback to regulate aspects of the system. While Indramat was a pioneering participant in motion control in the 20th century, the first servo was James Watt’s steam engine. The Newcomen… Read more »