Tootfinder

The recording of my IDEA talk is up on the #Evol2025 YouTube channel, and I've thrown that together with a PDF copy of the slide deck and a bibliography: https://lab.jbyoder.org/2025/06/21…

Back in 1964, microbiologist Tom Brock received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study how life works at high temperatures,
a question that took him to Yellowstone’s hot springs in search of extremophiles.
There, he and his student discovered a bacteria they called Thermus aquaticus,
which had enzymes that could work at incredibly high temperatures.
Two decades later, this discovery paved the way for the development of a technique called polymerase ch…

What It Would Mean To Lose The National Science Foundation
In a companion piece to our previous article on the NIH, we discuss the importance of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and how the agency is currently being affected by political interference.

The Property Trio (Formerly The Property Planner, Buyer And Professor)
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/the-property-planner-buyer-and-professor/

3D Vision-tactile Reconstruction from Infrared and Visible Images for Robotic Fine-grained Tactile Perception
Yuankai Lin, Xiaofan Lu, Jiahui Chen, Hua Yang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15087

3D Vision-tactile Reconstruction from Infrared and Visible Images for Robotic Fine-grained Tactile Perception
To achieve human-like haptic perception in anthropomorphic grippers, the compliant sensing surfaces of vision tactile sensor (VTS) must evolve from conventional planar configurations to biomimetically curved topographies with continuous surface gradients. However, planar VTSs have challenges when extended to curved surfaces, including insufficient lighting of surfaces, blurring in reconstruction, and complex spatial boundary conditions for surface structures. With an end goal of constructing a …

Models for cyclic infinity operads
Brandon Doherty, Philip Hackney
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15622 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.15622

Models for cyclic infinity operads
We construct model structures on cyclic dendroidal sets and cyclic dendroidal spaces for cyclic quasi-operads and complete cyclic dendroidal Segal spaces, respectively. We show these models are Quillen equivalent to the model structure for simplicial cyclic operads. This answers in the affirmative a question of the second author and Drummond-Cole concerning model structures for cyclic $\infty$-operads. We infer similar statements for planar cyclic $\infty$-operads, providing the model-categoric…

Inverse method for determining general molecular weight distribution from polymer rheology
Nihal Pushkar, Xin C. Yee, Jena McCollum, Brandon Runnels
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14926

Inverse method for determining general molecular weight distribution from polymer rheology
Determination of polymer molecular weight distribution (MWD) from rheological measurements is desirable due to the ease and low cost of rheometry compared to other methods such as gel permeation chromatography. However, relating MWD to rheology requires the inversion of rheological models, for which there is no analytic solution. Prior approaches assume a functional form for the MWD (such as a lognormal or generalized exponential distribution), minimizing the error with respect to the functiona…

Sources: Palmer Luckey's stablecoin startup Atticus raised ~$250M at a $2.25B valuation, and will merge into Erebor, formed by Luckey to get a banking license (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/fintech-deals/2025/06/13/palmer-luckey-er…

Scoop: New details on Palmer Luckey's crypto unicorn
Atticus will merge into Erebor, recently formed by Luckey with plans to get a banking license.

Tensor product modules over the planar Galilean conformal algebra from free modules of rank one
Jin Cheng, Dongfang Gao, Ziting Zeng
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14893

Tensor product modules over the planar Galilean conformal algebra from free modules of rank one
In this paper, we investigate the irreducible tensor product modules over the planar Galilean conformal algebra $\mathcal{G}$ named by Aizawa, which is the infinite-dimensional Galilean conformal algebra introduced by Bagchi-Gopakumar in $(2+1)$ dimensional space-time. We give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the tensor product modules of any two of $\mathcal{U}(\mathfrak{h})$-free modules of rank one over $\mathcal{G}$ to be irreducible, where $\mathfrak{h}$ is the Cartan subalgebra…

Socially-aware Object Transportation by a Mobile Manipulator in Static Planar Environments with Obstacles
Caio C. G. Ribeiro, Leonardo R. D. Paes, Douglas G. Macharet
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13953

Socially-aware Object Transportation by a Mobile Manipulator in Static Planar Environments with Obstacles
Socially-aware robotic navigation is essential in environments where humans and robots coexist, ensuring both safety and comfort. However, most existing approaches have been primarily developed for mobile robots, leaving a significant gap in research that addresses the unique challenges posed by mobile manipulators. In this paper, we tackle the challenge of navigating a robotic mobile manipulator, carrying a non-negligible load, within a static human-populated environment while adhering to soci…

Whole-Body Control Framework for Humanoid Robots with Heavy Limbs: A Model-Based Approach
Tianlin Zhang, Linzhu Yue, Hongbo Zhang, Lingwei Zhang, Xuanqi Zeng, Zhitao Song, Yun-Hui Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14278

Whole-Body Control Framework for Humanoid Robots with Heavy Limbs: A Model-Based Approach
Humanoid robots often face significant balance issues due to the motion of their heavy limbs. These challenges are particularly pronounced when attempting dynamic motion or operating in environments with irregular terrain. To address this challenge, this manuscript proposes a whole-body control framework for humanoid robots with heavy limbs, using a model-based approach that combines a kino-dynamics planner and a hierarchical optimization problem. The kino-dynamics planner is designed as a mode…