Inflatable suitcase

A US inventor has come up with an inflatable suitcase that folds flat and small when empty but becomes big and strong when pumped up. The walls of each case are made from flat rubber air chambers sandwiched between two tough canvas sheets. They are hinged together and all the chambers are connected to a valve. Hand-pumping air through the main valve, or releasing it from a compressed gas cylinder, inflates the air chambers, making a rigid rectangular wall on each side of the bag, reports the New Scientist.

3-D scanner

Engineers at Duke University have shown that a three-dimensional ultrasound scanner they developed can successfully guide a surgical robot. The researchers say the scanner may ultimately enable surgeries to be performed without surgeons, a capability that could prove valuable in space stations or other remote locations. “It’s the first time that anyone has used the information in a 3-D ultrasound scan to actually guide a robot,” the engineers write in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency.