Robot mimics water skimming insect

Researchers Yun Seong Song and Metin Sitti at Carnegie Mellon University have created a new prototype robot that walks on water. It does this by mimicking the design of the water strider insect(pictured above). Water striders can effectively skim across the top of water using surface tension force to stay afloat. The new robot is the first of it's kind to do the same. The researchers hope in the near future to be able to deploy hundreds of these robots with sensors to monitor environmental conditions on lakes and shallow seas.
What caught my eye in this story is that like other recent advances in both nanotech and robotics, this design is based on an organic natural creatures design. Seems like more and more, scientists are attempting to mimic nature in their designs rather than start from scratch.

Via PhysOrg: Robot walks on water

Earthlike planet discovered

Astronomers in Europe claim to have discovered a planet that is in the habitable zone orbiting a red dwarf star. This is the first planet that has been found that is warm enough to have the possibility of liquid water. As you probably recall, it was only earlier this month that evidence of water outside of our solar system was confirmed. Now a planet that is warm enough to have that water in liquid form has been discovered. So far, the planet has only been confirmed to be warm enough. So there may not be any water available on the planet, but this is still a big discovery.

Check out the article at Scientific American: All Wet? Astronomers Claim Discovery of Earth-like Planet