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A small team of roboticists at Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, has designed, built and tested a four-legged robot capable of playing badminton with human players.

In their study, published in the journal Science Robotics, the group used a reinforcement learning-based controller to give the robot the ability to track, predict and respond to the movement of a shuttlecock in play, demonstrating the feasibility of using multi-legged robots in dynamic sports scenarios.

Badminton is a sport similar to tennis, the main difference being the use of a shuttlecock rather than a . The goal is the same: to hit the shuttlecock over a net placed midcourt to an awaiting opponent.

Threat actors linked to lesser-known ransomware and malware projects now use AI tools as lures to infect unsuspecting victims with malicious payloads.

This development follows a trend that has been growing since last year, starting with advanced threat actors using deepfake content generators to infect victims with malware.

These lures have become widely adopted by info-stealer malware operators and ransomware operations attempting to breach corporate networks.

Long-read sequencing technologies analyze long, continuous stretches of DNA. These methods have the potential to improve researchers’ ability to detect complex genetic alterations in cancer genomes. However, the complex structure of cancer genomes means that standard analysis tools, including existing methods specifically developed to analyze long-read sequencing data, often fall short, leading to false-positive results and unreliable interpretations of the data.

These misleading results can compromise our understanding of how tumors evolve, respond to treatment, and ultimately how patients are diagnosed and treated.

To address this challenge, researchers developed SAVANA, a new algorithm which they describe in the journal Nature Methods.

A “fine-tuned” artificial intelligence (AI) tool shows promise for objective evaluation of patients with facial palsy, reports an experimental study in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

“We believe that our research offers valuable insights into the realm of facial palsy evaluation and presents a significant advancement in leveraging AI for clinical applications,” comments lead author Takeichiro Kimura, MD, of Kyorin University, Mitaka, Tokyo.

Patients with facial palsy have paralysis or partial loss of movement of the face, caused by nerve injury due to tumors, surgery, trauma, or other causes. Detailed assessment is essential for evaluating , such as nerve transfer surgery, but poses difficult challenges.

While there are many potential uses for soft-bodied robots, the things are still typically only built in small experimental batches. Scottish scientists are out to change that, with a mass-production-capable soft bot that is 3D-printed in a single piece which then walks off of the print bed.

Before we go any further, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about a soft robot that was printed in one piece.

It was just this March that we told you about a hexapod bot created at UC San Diego, which was 3D-printed in one continuous 58-hour step. That robot was powered not by a motor but by compressed air, which sequentially moves its legs forward.

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Why is there something rather than nothing? Robert Lawrence Kuhn, creator of Closer To Truth, joins John Michael Godier to explore one of the most profound questions in science and philosophy. The discussion moves through materialism, idealism, panpsychism, and quantum perspectives, asking whether consciousness is merely a byproduct of evolution or a fundamental aspect of reality, and what that could mean for the universe, artificial intelligence, and the nature of mind. Kuhn discusses his recent paper, A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications, which maps the full range of consciousness theories and explores their broader significance.

Links:
Closer to Truth.
https://www.youtube.com/c/CloserToTruthTV

Homepage

A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications by Robert Lawrence Kuhn https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610723001128?via%3Dihub.

Seeing the consciousness forest for the trees by Àlex Gómez-Marín.
https://iai.tv/articles/seeing-the-consciousness-forest-for-the-trees-auid-2901

00:00:00 Introduction to Robert Lawrence Kuhn and consciousness.