(Press-News.org) The Dying Swan is sometimes moving smoothly and gently, sometimes in a dramatic and fiery manner, as Tchaikovsky´s majestic music from the ballet Swan Lake is playing. Yet this is no ordinary ballet dancer, but a robot in the form of a swan, created at Mälardalen University and choreographed by professional dancer Åsa Unander-Scharin.
The swan robot´s just over four-minute-long dance has so far been seen only by a select few. But it has already made a big impression. Tearful eyes and words like "touching", "fascinating" and "beautiful" are some of the reactions.
- We want to explore the limits of what a robot can do, what human expressions it can mimic, and how it affects people's perception of the robot when it makes an appearance in art and dance, says Lars Asplund, Professor of Computer Science at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden.
His research field is robotics and he has designed the approximately one-metre-tall dancing swan on the basis of a robot that was previously a student´s degree project. The robot was built by a modular system and in the white wings, neck, beak and feet there are a total of 19 different joints, which makes it very flexible.
The idea for the dancing robot was hatched jointly by Lars Asplund and his colleague Kerstin Gauffin, who works with theatre at Mälardalen University.
- With our swan we are showing that we can use robots in new ways – simply because they are beautiful and give the audience new experiences, says Kerstin Gauffin, who wants to see robots appear on stages along with "ordinary" actors.
She got in touch with the professional dancer and choreographer Åsa Unander-Scharin, who now has designed the robot's special dance to the tunes of the famous composer Tchaikovsky. By systematically having the robot swan perform each movement by itself – right wing up, neck down, etc – Unander-Scharin has "taught" the robot swan her choreography because the computer inside it "recalls" the movement pattern and then plays it as an entire dance program.
Åsa Unander-Scharin is used to working with stage performances in which the choreography interacts with music, scene space and new technology. She has also done research in the field and wrote the thesis "Human mechanics and soulful machines: choreographic perspectives on human qualities in body movement".
- I think it's exciting to see how emotionally touched people can get by machines, and to do the choreography for the swan robot has been great fun, says Åsa Unander-Scharin.
On September 23-26, Mälardalen University´s dancing robot will be shown for the first time in public, at Sweden's largest book fair in Gothenburg. It is hoped, obviously, that the swan robot will be a great success with the public.
INFORMATION:
Dancing robot swan triggers emotions
'The Dying Swan' is sometimes moving smoothly and gently, sometimes in a dramatic and fiery manner, as Tchaikovsky's majestic music from the ballet Swan Lake is playing; yet this is no ordinary ballet dancer, but a robot in the form of a swan
2010-09-22
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Paper highlights need for new studies and guidelines around oxygen therapy during MI
2010-09-22
Sophia Antipolis, 21 September 2010: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) welcomes a paper published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC )(1) highlighting concerns over the use of oxygen therapy during MI in patients with normal oxygen levels. The publication adds to calls for revision of the STEMI guidelines around oxygen therapy and for a prospective, large scale randomised trials, issues that were both first raised in a Cochrane Review published in June (2).
"The upcoming ESC Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of STEMI, ...
Genomic 'haircut' makes world's tiniest genome even smaller: UBC research
2010-09-22
The world's tiniest nuclear genome appears to have "snipped off the ends" of its chromosomes and evolved into a lean, mean, genome machine that infects human cells, according to research published today by University of British Columbia scientists.
Until recently, E. cuniculi, a parasitic fungus commonly found in rabbits that can also be fatal to immunocompromised humans, has been widely regarded as having the smallest known nuclear genome. At 2.9 millions base pairs (Mbp) and approximately 2,000 genes, the genome of E. cuniculi is less than one-two thousandth the size ...
Training the trainers: How to minimize stress when horses are first ridden
2010-09-22
The horse was domesticated many thousands of years ago and has been hugely important in the development of human civilization. It is hard to overstate its role in agriculture, in transport and communications and even in military operations. More recently, equestrian sports have gained markedly in popularity, so even though the horse has largely been superseded in modern farming and military practice its connection to man remains as close as ever.
Nevertheless, the horse retains at least some aspects of its wild origins. It is clear that horses are frequently subjected ...
NIH study models H1N1 flu spread
2010-09-22
As the United States prepares for the upcoming flu season, a group of researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health continues to model how H1N1 may spread.
The work is part of an effort, called the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS), to develop computational models for conducting virtual experiments of how emerging pathogens could spread with and without interventions. The study involves more than 50 scientists with expertise in epidemiology, infectious diseases, computational biology, statistics, social sciences, physics, computer sciences ...
New research improves ability to detect malware in cloud-computing systems
2010-09-22
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new software that offers significantly enhanced security for cloud-computing systems. The software is much better at detecting viruses or other malware in the "hypervisors" that are critical to cloud computing, and does so without alerting the malware that it is being examined.
Cloud computing is being hailed as a flexible, affordable way of offering computer resources to consumers. Under the cloud-computing paradigm, the computational power and storage of multiple computers is pooled, and can be shared by ...
MRI could be used for routine surveillance of great vessel stents
2010-09-22
Researchers have found that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be sufficient for the routine surveillance of some great vessel (primary blood vessels [e.g., aorta and vena cavae]) stents that are commonly used to treat congenital heart defects (a defect in the structure of the heart and great vessels that is present at birth) in children and young adults, according to a study in the October issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (www.ajronline.org). MRI is a noninvasive medical test that helps physicians diagnose and treat medical conditions.
"Computed tomography ...
New therapy found for lung and skin cancer, based on suicide gene E
2010-09-22
Scientists at the University of Granada have developed a new therapy for the treatment of skin and lung cancer. This therapy involves the use of a suicide coliphage-gene (gene E) that can induce death to cells transfected with it.. Their studies have demostrated that this technique is not only effective in vitro (using tumour cell cultures), but also in vivo through the use of experimental animals in which tumours were induced.
Although further research is required, the results obtained at the University of Granada revealed gene E's intensive antitumour activity, which ...
First observation of the folding of a nucleic acid
2010-09-22
The prediction of the structure and function of biological macromolecules (i.e., the machinery of life) is of foremost importance in the field of structural biology. Since the elucidation of the three-dimensional structure of DNA (the molecule that carries all genetic information) by Watson and Crick, scientists have strived to decipher the hidden code that determines the evolution of the spatial arrangement of these molecules towards their functional native state. Attempts to follow these structural transitions experimentally and with atomic resolution are hampered by ...
'Halfalogue': Overheard cell-phone conversations are not only annoying but reduce our attention
2010-09-22
"Yeah, I'm on my way home." "That's funny." "Uh-huh." "What? No! I thought you were – " "Oh, ok." Listening to someone talk on a cell phone is very annoying. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds out why: Hearing just one side of a conversation is much more distracting than hearing both sides and reduces our attention in other tasks.
Lauren Emberson, a psychology Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, came up with the idea for the study when she was taking the bus as an undergraduate student at the ...
War on cancer produces collateral damage to the heart
2010-09-22
Philadelphia, PA, September 21, 2010 – For the past two decades, cancer therapy has become more sophisticated and effective, resulting in an ever-expanding group of long-term cancer survivors. There is also a growing awareness of the potentially negative effects of cancer treatment on the heart and the management of cardiac disease during and after cancer therapy. In the September/October issue of Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases an international group of experts takes an in-depth look at the ways in which cancer treatment profoundly impacts patients' cardiovascular ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Brain stimulation can boost math learning in people with weaker neural connections
Inhibiting enzyme could halt cell death in Parkinson’s disease, study finds
Neurotechnology reverses biological disadvantage in maths learning
UNDER EMBARGO: Neurotechnology reverses biological disadvantage in maths learning
Scientists target ‘molecular machine’ in the war against antimicrobial resistance
Extending classical CNOP method for deep-learning atmospheric and oceanic forecasting
Aston University research: Parents should encourage structure and independence around food to support children’s healthy eating
Thunderstorms are a major driver of tree death in tropical forests
Danforth Plant Science Center adds two new faculty members
Robotic eyes mimic human vision for superfast response to extreme lighting
Racial inequities and access to COVID-19 treatment
Residential segregation and lung cancer risk in African American adults
Scientists wipe out aggressive brain cancer tumors by targeting cellular ‘motors’
Capturability distinction analysis of continuous and pulsed guidance laws
CHEST expands Bridging Specialties Initiative to include NTM disease and bronchiectasis on World Bronchiectasis Day
Exposure to air pollution may cause heart damage
SwRI, UTSA selected by NASA to test electrolyzer technology aboard parabolic flight
Prebiotics might be a factor in preventing or treating issues caused by low brain GABA
Youngest in class at higher risk of mental health problems
American Heart Association announces new volunteer leaders for 2025-26
Gut microbiota analysis can help catch gestational diabetes
FAU’s Paulina DeVito awarded prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Champions for change – Paid time off initiative just made clinical trials participation easier
Fentanyl detection through packaging
Prof. Eran Meshorer elected to EMBO for pioneering work in epigenetics
New 3D glacier visualizations provide insights into a hotter Earth
Creativity across disciplines
Consequences of low Antarctic sea ice
Hear here: How loudness and acoustic cues help us judge where a speaker is facing
A unique method of rare-earth recycling can strengthen the raw material independence of Europe and America
[Press-News.org] Dancing robot swan triggers emotions'The Dying Swan' is sometimes moving smoothly and gently, sometimes in a dramatic and fiery manner, as Tchaikovsky's majestic music from the ballet Swan Lake is playing; yet this is no ordinary ballet dancer, but a robot in the form of a swan