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Maybe something to look at for Ricarda? Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a first-of-its-kind self-healing gel that repairs and connects electronic circuits, creating opportunities to advance the development of flexible electronics, biosensors and batteries as energy storage devices. "There's no need for heat or light to fix the crack or break in a circuit or battery, which is often required by previously developed self-healing materials." Yu and his team created the self-healing gel by combining two gels: a self-assembling metal-ligand gel that provides self-healing properties and a polymer hydrogel that is a conductor.

Ricarda??

With self-assembly guiding the steps and synchronization providing the rhythm, a new class of materials forms dynamic, moving structures in an intricate dance. Researchers have demonstrated tiny spheres that synchronize their movements as they self-assemble into a spinning microtube.

This is quite similar to the following paper. Here they show how tiny variations of particle parameters can produce clearly distinct structures: Thermal and Athermal Swarms of Self-Propelled Particles --> http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.0180

The Florida team generated a specially shaped laser beam that could self-accelerate, or bend, sideways.

very nice!!! read this e.g. "In addition to this self-bending, the beam's intensity pattern also has a couple of other intriguing characteristics. One is that it is non-diffracting, which means that the width of each intensity region does not appreciably increase as the beam travels forwards. This is unlike a normal beam - even a tightly collimated laser beam - which spreads as it propagates. The other unusual property is that of self-healing. This means that if part of the beam is blocked by opaque objects, then any disruptions to the beam's intensity pattern could gradually recover as the beam travels forward."

A crack team of engineers at the University of Illinois has developed an electronic circuit that autonomously self-heals when its metal wires are broken.

This is related to the "Verified Software" item in NewScientist's list of ideas that will change science. At the link below you'll find the text of the patents being auctioned: http://icapoceantomo.com/item-for-sale/exclusive-license-related-improved-methodology-formally-developing-control-systems :) Patent #7,627,538 ("Swarm autonomic agents with self-destruct capability") makes for quite an interesting read: "This invention relates generally to artificial intelligence and, more particularly, to architecture for collective interactions between autonomous entities." "In some embodiments, an evolvable synthetic neural system is operably coupled to one or more evolvable synthetic neural systems in a hierarchy." "In yet another aspect, an autonomous nanotechnology swarm may comprise a plurality of workers composed of self-similar autonomic components that are arranged to perform individual tasks in furtherance of a desired objective." "In still yet another aspect, a process to construct an environment to satisfy increasingly demanding external requirements may include instantiating an embryonic evolvable neural interface and evolving the embryonic evolvable neural interface towards complex complete connectivity." "In some embodiments, NBF 500 also includes genetic algorithms (GA) 504 at each interface between autonomic components. The GAs 504 may modify the intra-ENI 202 to satisfy requirements of the SALs 502 during learning, task execution or impairment of other subsystems."

Here we go! AI for Mario has arrived. What is still missing is the Italian accent in his robo-voice though. To compensate for that, we have a lot of German accent in the Youtube-video. Make sure to check it out if you always liked the background music from the games. Putting the trolling aside, I honestly like the idea! There is still some way to go, but maybe we will watch and even pay to be able to see twitch-streams of self-ware bots one day?

I'm actually considering doing an twitch-bot channel. Why pay when you can cash in? Kind of lazy tho`

Droplets can be made to chase each other around a track and even self-assemble into devices, simply by mixing two everyday liquids. This remarkable discovery made by scientists in the US has already been used to create beautiful shapes and patterns, and could also be exploited to create optical components that assemble themselves and even to clean surfaces. It looks very like Jojo's self-assembling balls :p

Self-destruct options from the Mission: Impossible movies could become a reality for even the most common smartphones and laptops used by government officials or corporate employees. A new self-destruct mechanism can destroy electronics within 10 seconds through wireless commands or the triggering of certain sensors. Just don't leave your computer sitting in the sun for long...

CubeSats + 3D printing... for space. I'm surprised this isn't an ACT project :) more info: SpiderFab: Process for On-Orbit Construction of Kilometer-Scale Apertures

$100,000 from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program to hammer out a design and figure out whether spacecraft self-construction makes business sense .... I can answer for 0$ ..... NO Infact the question is just stupid: a) spacecraft self-construction exist: then it is a no brainer to decide wether it makes business sense b) it does not: then there is no business

Quote: "This is exactly what we are pursuing - self-assembling materials that organize at smaller sizes, say, less than 20 or even 10 nanometers"

Direct Self-Assembly (DSA) is one of the competitors for the next-generation 'lithography' together with direct-write via electron beam and the more traditional extreme UV (EUV) lithography. Although there are huge benefits to use DSA, the technology does have some drawbacks when it comes to line edge roughness. It seems however particularly good for repetitive structures that are used in memory chips. As long as EUV is struggling to get it working, DSA definitely has a fighting chance to enter the market one day.

don't have access to the full paper myself. found from article in (ahem) the daily mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1260870/Nuclear-reactors-safer-scientists-discover-effect-self-repairs-radiation-damaged-materials.html

...This slippery surface was bio-inspired by the carnivorous plant I showed you sometimes ago! I was sure it was a good idea! next time I will be quicker!!

And a good lesson that it is important to proceed quickly when you have an idea and don't wait ...

Yes, I will see what we could do, but they really did a good job, from the biomimetic of the surface, up to the realization of the material, and the tests...

A toc of a spcial issue on synthetic biology: How to assemble organisms from scratch. Could one day be intersting for large scale deterministic self assembly or some other crazy idea...

The authors report a simple self-assembly technique for fabricating antireflection coatings that mimic antireflective moth eyes. Wafer-scale, nonclose-packed colloidal crystals with remarkable large hexagonal domains are created by a spin-coating technolo

Looks like a combo of several ideas in our stock: nanomat + dna + self assembly...

Regarding our discussion on resource self-sufficiency of a Mars colony. Would it ever be possible (from a resource perspective that is..) A NASA report on availability of resources. A self-sufficiency trade study described in Boston (1996) identifies the mission duration at which the development of local life support resources becomes advantageous. Within 30 days, without recycling, or with the equivalent leakage, it becomes advantageous to derive oxygen from local resources. The time constants for water and food are about 6 months and 3 years, respectively.

I guess it depends on the number of astronauts that have to be supporte ... 3 years for food looks like a lot

Based in OxRAM... Looking forward to further details.

beautiful research, and fascinating how fast these polymers seem to self assemble at exit ...

Chips are able to compensate for very large damage and continue working at high performance