It might look like something out of Blade Runner, but new research from Duke University suggests that athletes who train with strobe-embedded eyewear may see improvements in their visual perception over time.

 

Wheeled robots are nothing new. Flying bots are old-hat, too. But this is new: a dumbbell-shaped hybrid bot that can roll on thin, end-mounted wheels … and fly with two sets of counter-rotating chopper blades.

Switching between the two modes involves a Rube Goldberg-esque series of maneuvers and contraptions. It ain’t elegant, but it works. And as a result, the foot-long automaton — designed by a team led by Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos at the University of Minnesota — boasts the freedom of movement of a flying drone with the long endurance and stability of a ground bot.