Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers in China have developed an AI model that can discern species and larval stage of four lepidopteran corn pests with 96 percent accuracy.

Fitzgerald says cyborg search and rescue beetles or cockroaches might be able to help in disaster situations by finding and reporting the location of survivors and delivering lifesaving drugs to them before human rescuers can get there.

But first, the Australian researchers must master the ability to direct the movements of the insects, which could take a while. Fitzgerald says that although the work might seem futuristic now, in a few decades, cyborg insects could be saving lives.

He’s not the only roboticist creating robots from living organisms. Academics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), for example, are implanting electronic pacemakers into jellyfish to control their swimming speed. They hope the bionic jellies could help collect data about the ocean far below the surface.

Summary: A new study highlights how brain age models can track healthy infant development and reveal environmental influences. Using MRI data from over 600 term and preterm infants, researchers trained machine learning models to predict brain age and identify gaps between predicted and actual ages.

These brain age gaps can indicate whether an infant’s development is faster or slower than expected, with maternal age emerging as a significant influencing factor. Advanced brain development was linked to better cognitive abilities but poorer emotional regulation, suggesting that following normative developmental trajectories may be ideal.

Chinese researchers have created the BHMbot-B, a 15 mm long microrobot with quick forward and backward movements, which is ideal for navigating small places.

The robot effectively switches between forward and backward movement by aligning the vibratory motions of its magnet, cantilever, and linkages using vibration mode transition control.

The Beihnag University team claims that the device combines a battery, a control circuit for wireless operation, and two electromagnetic actuators for a high load capacity.

Huge datasets containing hundreds of millions of posts were discovered online.

The quarks that make up the nuclei of all atoms around us are known to “mix”: the different types of quark occasionally change into one another. The amounts in which these processes happen are not very well known, though—and the theoretical values don’t even add up to 100%. UvA-IoP physicist Jordy de Vries and colleagues from Los Alamos, Seattle, and Bern have now published work that takes a step towards solving these mysteries.

All good things come in threes. The Standard Model of particle physics takes this motto to heart: it contains three so-called generations of elementary particles. Take the quarks as an example. In addition to the pair of quark types known as “up” and “down,” which make up the core of atomic nuclei, there exist two additional quark pairs: “charm” and “strange,” as well as “top” and “bottom.” Together, these six types of quarks are known as the six quark flavors.

The Standard Model predicts that one quark flavor can transmute into another, a phenomenon called quark mixing, but the model does not predict how often different transmutations happen. In fact, the current state-of-the-art analysis indicates that something is afoot: the probabilities of all mixings do not add up to 100%. What is going on? Could this be a signal of new physics outside of the Standard Model?

In today’s world, the fight against counterfeiting is more critical than ever. Counterfeiting affects about 3% of global trade, posing significant risks to the economy and public safety. From fake pharmaceuticals to counterfeit currency, the need for secure and reliable authentication methods is paramount. Authentication labels are commonly used—such as holograms on bank notes and passports—but there is always a need for new unfalsifiable technologies.

This is where research recently published in Applied Sciences comes into play. Led by a team of scientists from Oxford University, the University of Southampton, and Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, the work focuses on developing a new technology for writing and reading covert information on authentication labels.

This technology leverages the unique properties of Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ thin films, which can change their structure when exposed to specific types of laser light. By using circularly or linearly polarized laser light, the researchers can encode hidden information in these thin films. This information can then be revealed using a simple reading device, making the technology both advanced and accessible.

Researchers have shown that optical spring tracking is a promising way to improve the signal clarity of gravitational-wave detectors. The advance could one day allow scientists to see farther into the universe and provide more information about how black holes and neutron stars behave as they merge.

Large-scale interferometers such as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) detect subtle distortions in spacetime, known as gravitational waves, generated by distant cosmic events. By allowing scientists to study phenomena that do not emit light, gravitational wave measurements have opened a new window for understanding extreme astrophysical events, the nature of gravity and the origins of the universe.

“Quantum noise has become a limiting noise source when measuring gravitational waves,” said Scott M. Aronson, a member of the research team from Louisiana State University. “By tuning the system to respond at a desired frequency, we show that you can reduce this noise by using an optical spring to track a signal coming from a compact binary system. In the future, this binary system could be two black holes orbiting each other—within our galaxy or beyond.”

New research from the Human Cell Atlas offers insights into cell development, disease mechanisms, and genetic influences, enhancing our understanding of human biology and health.

The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) consortium has made significant progress in its mission to better understand the cells of the human body in health and disease, with a recent publication of a Collection of more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in Nature and other Nature Portfolio journals.

The Collection showcases a range of large-scale datasets, artificial intelligence algorithms, and biomedical discoveries from the HCA that are enhancing our understanding of the human body. The studies reveal insights into how the placenta and skeleton form, changes during brain maturation, new gut and vascular cell states, lung responses to COVID-19, and the effects of genetic variation on disease, among others.