By watching their own motions with a camera, robots can teach themselves about the structure of their own bodies and how they move, a new study from researchers at Columbia Engineering now reveals. Equipped with this knowledge, the robots could not only plan their own actions, but also overcome damage to their bodies.

"Like humans learning to dance by watching their mirror reflection, robots now use raw video to build kinematic self-awareness," says study lead author Yuhang Hu, a doctoral student at the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, directed by Hod Lipson, James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. "Our goal is a robot that understands its own body, adapts to damage, and learns new skills without constant human programming."

This work provides a novel class of photoactivable fluorescent probes (photocages) based on a thioketal. In this series of photocages, the thioketal moiety serves as a component for regulating the fluorescence signal switch and enabling light responsiveness. These thioketal-based photocages exhibit unique photoresponsiveness, distinct from traditional thioketal, and can undergo deprotection independently under UV-visible light and in the presence of oxygen. The researchers have constructed a library of thioketal photocage molecules based on various heteroatom-substituted azaindole dyes and applied them for subcellular structure and specific protein imaging in live cells. The fluorescence signal switching demonstrates high selectivity towards external light signals, allowing for precise spatiotemporal control of photocage activation and imaging. This work presents a new photocage design strategy based on thioketal, offering a novel molecular platform for the developing photochemical tools.

In a paper published in National Science Review, Zang's group reports on two atomically precise bimetallic clusters, namely Ag₁₄Pd and Ag₁₃Au₅, both featuring icosahedral cores and similar ligands. Furthermore, the study unveils the influence of charge polarization, induced by hetero-metal doping, on the selectivity of electrocatalytic urea synthesis.