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Over the past decades, researchers have developed a wide range of advanced social and assistance robots that could soon be introduced into households worldwide. Understanding how the introduction of these systems might impact the lives of users and their interactions with others living in their homes is crucial, as it could inform the further improvement of robots before their widespread deployment.

Recent studies suggest that household robot companions could foster educational conversations between parents and children, particularly during story-reading sessions. By actively participating in these sessions, for instance by asking questions or assuming the role of a playmate, robots were found to augment interactions between children and their caregivers, enriching their conversations and supporting the children’s acquisition of new vocabulary.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently carried out a study to further explore the potential of social robots as catalysts and tools to enhance interactions between children and parents. Their findings, published in Science Robotics, suggest that English-speaking robots can improve the quality of dialogue between parents and children, with families that fluently speak English benefitting more from their use.

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The use of virtual reality haptic simulators can enhance skill acquisition and reduce stress among dental students during preclinical endodontic training, according to a new study published in the International Endodontic Journal. The study was based on collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Health Sciences and the University of Ondokuz Mayıs in Turkey as well as Grande Rio University in Brazil.

The study aimed to evaluate the influence of virtual reality (VR) haptic simulators on skill acquisition and stress reduction in endodontic preclinical education of dental students.

During preclinical training, dental students develop manual dexterity, psychomotor skills and confidence essential in clinical practice. VR and haptic technology are increasingly used alongside conventional methods, enabling more repetition and standardised feedback, among other things.

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A new approach to streaming technology may significantly improve how users experience virtual reality and augmented reality environments, according to a study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

The research—presented in a paper at the 16th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (ACM MMSys 2025) on April 1, 2025—describes a method for directly predicting visible content in immersive 3D environments, potentially reducing bandwidth requirements by up to 7-fold while maintaining visual quality.

The technology is being applied in an ongoing NYU Tandon project to bring point cloud video to dance education, making 3D dance instruction streamable on standard devices with lower bandwidth requirements.

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Niels Henrik David Bohr was born in Copenhagen on October 7, 1885, as the son of Christian Bohr, Professor of Physiology at Copenhagen University, and his wife Ellen, née Adler. Niels, together with his younger brother Harald (the future Professor in Mathematics), grew up in an atmosphere most favourable to the development of his genius – his father was an eminent physiologist and was largely responsible for awakening his interest in physics while still at school, his mother came from a family distinguished in the field of education.

After matriculation at the Gammelholm Grammar School in 1903, he entered Copenhagen University where he came under the guidance of Professor C. Christiansen, a profoundly original and highly endowed physicist, and took his Master’s degree in Physics in 1909 and his Doctor’s degree in 1911.

While still a student, the announcement by the Academy of Sciences in Copenhagen of a prize to be awarded for the solution of a certain scientific problem, caused him to take up an experimental and theoretical investigation of the surface tension by means of oscillating fluid jets. This work, which he carried out in his father’s laboratory and for which he received the prize offered (a gold medal), was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, 1908.

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Heaviside was born in Camden Town, London, at 55 Kings Street [ 3 ] : 13 (now Plender Street), the youngest of three children of Thomas, a draughtsman and wood engraver, and Rachel Elizabeth (née West). He was a short and red-headed child, and suffered from scarlet fever when young, which left him with a hearing impairment. A small legacy enabled the family to move to a better part of Camden when he was thirteen and he was sent to Camden House Grammar School. He was a good student, placing fifth out of five hundred students in 1865, but his parents could not keep him at school after he was 16, so he continued studying for a year by himself and had no further formal education. [ 4 ] : 51

Heaviside’s uncle by marriage was Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875), an internationally celebrated expert in telegraphy and electromagnetism, and the original co-inventor of the first commercially successful telegraph in the mid-1830s. Wheatstone took a strong interest in his nephew’s education [ 5 ] and in 1867 sent him north to work with his older brother Arthur Wheatstone, who was managing one of Charles’ telegraph companies in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. [ 4 ] : 53

Two years later he took a job as a telegraph operator with the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company laying a cable from Newcastle to Denmark using British contractors. He soon became an electrician. Heaviside continued to study while working, and by the age of 22 he published an article in the prestigious Philosophical Magazine on ‘The Best Arrangement of Wheatstone’s Bridge for measuring a Given Resistance with a Given Galvanometer and Battery’ [ 6 ] which received positive comments from physicists who had unsuccessfully tried to solve this algebraic problem, including Sir William Thomson, to whom he gave a copy of the paper, and James Clerk Maxwell. When he published an article on the duplex method of using a telegraph cable, [ 7 ] he poked fun at R. S. Culley, the engineer in chief of the Post Office telegraph system, who had been dismissing duplex as impractical.

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I very much enjoyed reading this nicely done preclinical study on using nebulized vasopressin to improve social cognition in low-sociality rhesus monkeys. Reading about their study design in particular was highly informative/educational! #preclinical #medicine #biomedicine

Low cerebrospinal (CSF) arginine vasopressin (AVP) concentration is a biomarker of social impairment in low-social monkeys and children with autism, suggesting that AVP administration may improve primate social functioning. However, AVP administration also increases aggression, at least in “neurotypical” animals with intact AVP signaling. Here, we tested the effects of a voluntary drug administration method in low-social male rhesus monkeys with high autistic-like trait burden. Monkeys received nebulized AVP or placebo, using a within-subjects design. Study 1 (N = 8) investigated the effects of AVP administration on social cognition in two tests comparing responses to social versus nonsocial stimuli. Test 1: Placebo-administered monkeys lacked face recognition memory, whereas face recognition memory was “rescued” following AVP administration.

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This Product is supported by the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT), part of NASA’s Science Activation portfolio.
The material contained in this document is based upon work supported by a National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA) grant or cooperative agreement. Any questions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this materials are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.

Without eclipses, our world would be a lot different because eclipses give us the ability to do science we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Corona: the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere.
- General Relativity: a theory of gravitation developed by Albert Einstein that says that the observed gravitational effect between masses results from their warping of spacetime.
- Lunar Eclipse: an eclipse in which the moon appears darkened as it passes into the earth’s shadow.
- Solar Eclipse : an eclipse in which the sun is obscured by the moon.
- Tidal Friction: strain produced in a celestial body (such as the Earth or Moon) that undergoes cyclic variations in gravitational attraction as it orbits, or is orbited by, a second body.

CREDITS
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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director.
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation.
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
https://neptunestudios.info.

OTHER CREDITS

Continue reading “How eclipses proved that the Earth is slowing down” | >

Lei Xia et al. report on a B7H3-targeting radiotracer for PET imaging of various malignant tumors and for non-invasive screening of B7H3 expression:

The figure shows dynamic PET imaging of selected organs using the radiolabled 68Ga-B7H3-BCH probe.

1Key laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Beijing Key Laboratory of Research, Investigation and Evaluation of Radiopharmaceuticals, NMPA Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Radiopharmaceuticals (National Medical Products Administration), Department of Nuclear Medicine, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing, China and.

2Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education, Beijing), Department of Pathology, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing, China.

3Department of Nuclear Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou, China.

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Summary: ChatGPT4 has demonstrated superiority in various student exams, revealing its potential to support academic learning and improve educational outcomes, particularly in test preparation. With its accessibility and affordability compared to traditional tutoring services, AI tutoring can help address the increasing demand for academic support, especially as universities begin to reinstate standardized testing requirements.

In 2023, OpenAI shook the foundation of the education system by releasing ChatGPT4. The previous model of ChatGPT had already disrupted classrooms K–12 and beyond by offering a free academic tool capable of writing essays and answering exam questions. Teachers struggled with the idea that widely accessible artificial intelligence (AI) technology could meet the demands of most traditional classroom work and academic skills. GPT3.5 was far from perfect, though, and lacked creativity, nuance, and reliability. However, reports showed that GPT4 could score better than 90 percent of participants on the bar exam, LSAT, SAT reading and writing and math, and several Advanced Placement (AP) exams. This showed a significant improvement from GPT3.5, which struggled to score as well as 50 percent of participants.

This marked a major shift in the role of AI, from it being an easy way out of busy work to a tool that could improve your chances of getting into college. The US Department of Education published a report noting several areas where AI could support teacher instruction and student learning. Among the top examples was intelligent tutoring systems. Early models of these systems showed that an AI tutor could not only recognize when a student was right or wrong in a mathematical problem but also identify the steps a student took and guide them through an explanation of the process.

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