Lifeboat Foundation

Raspberries are the ultimate summer fruit. Famous for their eye-catching scarlet color and distinctive structure, they consist of dozens of fleshy drupelets with a sweet yet slightly acidic pulp. But this delicate structure is also their primary weakness, as it leaves them vulnerable to even the slightest scratch or bruise. Farmers know all too well that raspberries are a difficult fruit to harvest—and that’s reflected in their price tag. But what if robots, equipped with advanced actuators and sensors, could lend a helping hand? Engineers at EPFL’s Computational Robot Design & Fabrication (CREATE) lab have set out to tackle this very challenge.

Sky-high labor costs and shortages of workers cause farmers to lose millions of dollars’ worth of produce each year—and the problem is even more acute when it comes to delicate crops such as raspberries. But for now, there’s no viable alternative to harvesting the fruit by hand. “It’s an exciting dilemma for us as robotics engineers,” says Josie Hughes, a professor at CREATE. “The raspberry harvesting season is so short, and the fruit is so valuable, that wasting them simply isn’t an option. What’s more, the cost and logistical challenges of testing different options out in the field are prohibitive. That’s why we decided to run our tests in the lab and develop a replica raspberry for training harvesting robots.”

Scientists have been trying to locate the final pieces of the human genome for nearly 20 years, coming close to decoding it but never fully succeeding. Until now.

Scientists said this full picture of the genome will give humanity a greater understanding of our evolution and biology while also opening the door to medical discoveries in areas like aging, neurodegenerative conditions, cancer and heart disease.

“We’re just broadening our opportunities to understand human disease,” said Karen Miga, an author of one of the six studies published Thursday.

The research caps off decades of work. The first draft of the human genome was announced in a White House ceremony in 2000 by leaders of two competing entities: an international publicly funded project led by an agency of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a private company, Maryland-based Celera Genomics.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by insulin deficiency resulting from immune-mediated destruction of pancreatic beta cells. Its cause is multifactorial, with complex genetic factors and a strong influence of certain HLA types that probably indicates T-cell-mediated disease.1 Despite attempts to halt the autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic islet at disease onset with immunotherapeutic approaches, 1 recovery of pancreatic beta-cell function remains a challenge because type 1 diabetes is not reversible, even early in the disease.

Correspondence from The New England Journal of Medicine — STAT1 Gain of Function, Type 1 Diabetes, and Reversal with JAK Inhibition.

Kyte’s Tesla Model 3 subscription aims to remove some of the headaches of car buying and leasing. A 3-month term costs $1,350 per month.

A 50-year-old woman was buried with a unique “male” pendant.

A 50-year-old woman was buried with a unique “male” pendant.

Archaeologists have discovered a large burial mound in the Siberian “Valley of the Kings” dating to more than 2,500 years ago. The ancient tomb holds the remains of five people, including those of a woman and toddler who were buried with an array of grave goods, such as a crescent moon-shaped pendant, bronze mirror and gold earrings.

The mounds were made by the Scythians — a term used to describe culturally-related nomadic groups that lived on the steppes between the Black Sea and China from about 800 B.C. to about A.D. 300.

As humanity’s spaceward expansion accelerates in the coming decades, somebody’s going to have to keep all those commercial astronauts alive.

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman says it’s still considering whether to rejoin a Blue Origin-led team for a second Artemis lunar lander competition or to go on its own.

In a media briefing March 30 about the company’s overall contributions to the Artemis program, executives said they were “encouraged and excited” about NASA’s plans to procure a second lander through the new Sustaining Lunar Development effort announced March 23. That lander will join the one being developed by SpaceX and based on its Starship vehicle through Option A of the Human Landing System (HLS) program.

Northrop Grumman competed for the original HLS award as part of a “National Team” led by Blue Origin that also included Lockheed Martin and Draper. Northrop’s role in that effort was to provide a transfer element that would transport the lunar module from the Gateway to low lunar orbit.

It was Blue Origin’s fourth crewed spaceflight, and its first that didn’t feature a celebrity passenger.

A New Shepard rocket-capsule combo lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas on Thursday morning (March 31), carrying six people to suborbital space.