2025 – Page 2 – TechieTonics

The Anatomy of Resistance: We The Living, Revisited

June 5, 2025June 5, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

I have this inherent pull towards classic literature that I try to read at least one classic every three months, else, something is missing in life. There’s something about them that I still can’t explain, the time-worn pages, the echo of old thoughts, the slow paced plotlines, and at times, the characters are also slow in terms of how they operate in their respective worlds. Every revisit feels like a reunion with long-lost companions. I find myself re-acquainted with characters with a feeling that we might have when we meet…

Book Review: Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman

June 4, 2025June 4, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

What if time wasn’t just a constant, straight line moving forward, but a strange and flexible thing that can bend and change in ways we never expected? This is what Alan Lightman offers in his 1993 novel Einstein’s Dreams. I love books that make me see the world, and ourselves, in a new way, and this novel has always been one of my favorites. It’s a small book packed with big ideas, and filled with creative worlds that stay in mind even after the pages of the book have run…

Ping Pong Power: MIT’s Robot Is Getting Really Good at Table Tennis

June 1, 2025June 1, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

MIT engineers have built a robot that can seriously play ping pong, and not just bat the ball back. This bot can understand the spin, predicts where the ball is going, and interestingly puts its own spin on returns. The whole project is from MIT’s Biomimetic Robotics Lab. It surely must be fun to build such robots, but embedding dexterousness through table tennis is a smart move as it pushes the robot to deal with speed, spin, unpredictability, and quick decision-making, all at once.

Book Review: Your Brain Is a Time Machine by Dean Buonomano

May 17, 2025May 17, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

If you’ve ever wondered why time flies during vacations but crawls during awkward silences or like me if you often engage in thought experiments related to time, then you’ll surely like Dean Buonomano’s Your Brain Is a Time Machine, first published in 2017.

A Surprising New Theory About Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Inspired by Superconductors

May 17, 2025May 17, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

We understand dark matter and dark energy as those invisible things in space that we can’t see but know are out there. As per the scientists dark matter helps hold galaxies together, and dark energy is somehow making the universe expand faster.

Interview: Dohyeon Lee, Robotics Scientist at Pohang University of Science & Tech, South Korea

May 11, 2025May 12, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Last week, I came across something that genuinely blew my mind – a flying squirrel-inspired drone with foldable wings. Yep, a drone that mimics how a squirrel glides through the air. It was one of those rare “wait, what?” moments that made me want to dig deeper. So, I reached out to the team behind it. Dohyeon Lee, one of the researchers on the project, said yes to an email interview.

Terrell-Penrose Effect: Visualizing High-Speed Relativity

May 10, 2025May 10, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

I’ll be honest, I have always thought ‘thought-experiments’ can never be visually demonstrated. And so, we would have to keep imagining intangible concepts in our minds, like, what happens to an object traveling at the speed of light, where time would seemingly stop and length would contract. However, a group of researchers in Austria did something unbelievable. They visually demonstrated the Terrell-Penrose effect, a phenomenon predicted all the way back in 1959 but never actually observed.

Making Terahertz Waves Work on a Chip, Without the Bulk

May 4, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Researchers at MIT have built a small chip that can generate terahertz waves more effectively and more affordably than what’s currently out there. That’s huge, ‘cause terahertz waves sit between radio and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, so they can carry more data than radio waves and see through more materials than infrared light. This makes them a promising candidate for faster wireless communication, sharper medical imaging, better security scanners, and smarter environmental monitoring.

Book Review: The Great Unknown by Marcus du Sautoy

May 4, 2025May 4, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Have you ever felt that curious while looking up at the night sky? The idea that we are so puny in the vastness of space doesn’t make you wonder sometimes about the mysteries that lie beyond our understanding? That’s exactly the idea Marcus du Sautoy explores in The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science, first published in 2016. He has tried to explore the limits of human knowledge. And somehow, it’s both humbling and electrifying, which makes the book so fascinating to read.

Scientists Use VR to Teach Robots Swarming Behavior by Studying Fish

May 3, 2025May 3, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

A team of biologists and robotic engineers recently used virtual reality (VR) to crack the code of how fish school, with the goal of teaching robots to swarm in the same way. Imagine you’re at a party where everyone’s dancing to the same rhythm, but there’s no DJ or leader telling people what to do. Everyone just knows how to stay in sync, avoid bumping into each other, and respond to changes in the crowd. That’s basically what schools of fish do, and it’s something that robots have struggled to…

Northeastern Researchers Enhance LiDAR-Based Robot Navigation Efficiency

May 3, 2025May 3, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

A paper from Northeastern University looks at how to improve the way robots and self-driving systems determine their location and build maps using LiDAR and IMU sensors. LiDAR sensors measure distance by bouncing laser pulses off objects, while IMU sensors track motion using accelerometers and gyroscopes. So, the paper tackles a common issue in robotics called SLAM, which is, simultaneous localization and mapping. Basically, how can a robot know where it is while it’s still building the map?

Biomimicry: Squirrel Drone with Foldable Wings Shows Superior Maneuverability

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Drones that we see today are very well equipped with focusing systems that allow for high-resolution imaging, precise navigation, and advanced object tracking capabilities. However, when it comes to executing sharp turns, a key limitation of today’s drones, the tech is still in its early stages of development.

Smarter Connections: A Step Closer to Practical Quantum Machines

April 30, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Have you ever watched two kids on swings, tied together by a spring? When one swings, the other starts moving too. That’s how scientists often imagine the relationship between light and matter at the quantum level. They call this a coupling , a way for two systems to influence each other.

ComMAND Circuit Enables More Precise Control Of Gene Therapy

April 30, 2025April 30, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

For years, researchers have been trying to fix genetic diseases by simply adding back the missing gene. The idea is pretty straightforward, if a disease is caused by a faulty or missing gene, just give the patient a working copy. But the tricky part has always been figuring out how to control how much of that gene gets used in the body.

Learning Together and Alone: How We Dynamically Adjust Our Strategies

April 27, 2025April 27, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Have you ever found yourself trying to solve a problem on your own, sticking with your gut and your own trial-and-error? But then there are times when you just can’t figure it out and end up watching what others are doing, hoping to pick up some clues? That back-and-forth between figuring things out solo and learning from others is what this study really dives into. It looks at how people balance learning on their own versus copying others depending on how well they’re doing.