As engineers increasingly turn to machine learning methods to develop adaptable robots, new work makes progress on safety and performance guarantees for robots operating in novel environments with diverse types of obstacles and constraints.

Researchers using a model of airway tissue created from human stem cells have pinpointed how smoking cigarettes causes more severe infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the airways of the lungs.

Researchers, armed with artificial intelligence tools, can rate a movie's content in a matter of seconds, based on the movie script and before a single scene is shot.

Researchers enrolled 5,000 patients in a remote, cholesterol and blood pressure management program utilizing care navigators and pharmacists, supported by specialists and using specialist-designed algorithms to initiate and adjust medications. Participants who completed the cholesterol program achieved a 52 mg/dl (42%) reduction in LDL cholesterol levels. Participants who completed the blood...

A study has identified certain regions in the retina - the lining found in the back of the eye - that are more affected by Alzheimer's disease than other areas. The findings may help physicians predict changes in the brain as well as cognitive deterioration, even for patients experiencing the earliest signs of mild impairment.

Researchers have invented a miniature thermometer with big potential applications such as monitoring the temperature of processor chips in superconductor-based quantum computers, which must stay cold to work properly.

Researchers say that more epidemics resulting from animal hosts are inevitable unless urgent action is taken. To protect against future pandemics, they call for governments to establish effective legislation addressing wildlife trade, protection of habitats and reduction of interaction between people, wildlife and livestock.

Urban planners may soon have a new way to measure traffic congestion. By capturing the different routes by which vehicles can travel between locations, researchers have developed a new computer algorithm that helps quantify regions of congestion in urban areas and suggests ways around them.

Researchers found that Black and Hispanic people made up 58 percent of all patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and 53 percent of those who died from the disease.

March through May saw a significant increase in deaths over previous years -- and not just from COVID-19, says a new study. When deaths attributed to COVID-19 were removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention totals, the death rate in several demographics outpaced the same period in 2019, the study found.

A new multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay performs as well as the modified Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assay, yet can test three times more patients per run, scientists report.

Learning a language later in life changes how the two halves of the brain contribute. As skills improve, language comprehension changes hemisphere specialization, but production does not, according to new research.

An expedition finds that holes in the Greenland ice sheet, called moulins, are much larger than previously thought.

Using computer models to generate a COVID-free 2020 for comparison, NASA researchers found that since February, pandemic restrictions have reduced global nitrogen dioxide concentrations by nearly 20 percent.

Materials consisting of inorganic and organic components can combine the best of two worlds: under certain circumstances, the so-called MOFs - short for metal-organic frameworks - are structured in the same order as crystals and are at the same time porous and deformable. This opens up the prospect of intelligent materials for energy-saving technical applications. However, so far only a few...

To find out just how well the aging-in-community strategy is working, a University of Central Florida health management and informatics researcher examined three aging-in-community programs in Florida. Her study is among the first to examine some key variables for these programs.

Which photophysical properties does carbyne have? New research has led to a greater understanding of the properties of this unusual form of carbon.

Researchers explore new ways to rid the environment of co-occurring toxic chemicals, TCE and perchlorate. To accomplish this, Fe0 in combination with microbial cultures containing an unusual microbe known as Dehalococcoides mccartyi were added to soil and groundwater samples from a contaminated Superfund site in Goodyear, Arizona. The contaminated site had formerly been involved in defense and...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, closing national borders and borders between states and regions has been prevalent. But does it help? In a new paper, researchers decided to put this hypothesis to the test and discover if confinement and travels bans are really effective ways to limit the spread of a pandemic disease. Specifically, they focused on the movement of people from larger cities to smaller...

Scientists have discovered an extremely rare species of cymothoid from the mouth of a museum specimen of a deep-sea shark caught from the East China Sea, suggesting its wide distribution around the globe.

Analysis of an ancient meteorite from Mars suggests that the mineral zircon may be abundant on the surface of the red planet. By determining the age and hafnium isotope composition of these zircons, researchers have shown that a population of these crystals were sourced from the deep interior of Mars. If the researchers are correct, it means that the young zircons contain information about the...

Alzheimer's disease develops over decades. It begins with a fatal chain reaction in which masses of misfolded beta-amyloid proteins are produced that in the end literally flood the brain. Researchers now show that this chain reaction starts much earlier in mice than commonly assumed.

A team of scientists collaborated to analyze breeding bird data gathered by citizen scientists. They found that the abundance of invertebrates such as insects or spiders as prey is a key factor affecting bird diversity in the city. The more prey is available, the more diverse the urban bird communities are.

Scientists have shown that sex-specific differences in variability depend on individual physical and physiological features in mice, debunking competing theories that either males or females are more variable.