The more we interact with robots, the more human we perceive them to become—according to new research from the University of East Anglia, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
It may sound like a scene from Blade Runner, but psychologists have been investigating exactly what makes robot interactions feel more human.
The paper reveals that playing games with robots to “break the ice” can help bring out their human side.
Scientists are using a new approach to find the mysterious — if it exists — Planet Nine by hunting for its heat signature instead of reflected light. Using data from Japan’s AKARI space telescope, a team of researchers identified two promising candidates using their thermal detection method which is more effective than optical searches alone. But could these distant heat sources finally prove the existence of our Solar System’s most elusive world, or will they turn out to be yet another false alarm in the decades long search?
As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft traveled through the Kuiper Belt at a distance of 438 million miles from Earth, an international team of astronomers used the far-flung probe to conduct an unprecedented experiment: the first-ever successful demonstration of deep space stellar navigation.
A paper describing the results was accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. The pre-print is available on the server arXiv.
As a proof-of-concept test, the researchers took advantage of the spacecraft’s unique vantage point as it traveled toward interstellar space to image two of our nearest stellar neighbors, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light-years from Earth, and Wolf 359, which is 7.86 light-years away.
Researchers working on an incurable blood cancer can now use a new lab model that could make testing potential new treatments and diagnostics easier and quicker, new research has found.
In a paper published in Nature Communications, a team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham has studied blood cells from patients with a blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome disease (MDS). This disease often develops into a highly aggressive form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Working with this new model has led to confirmation that a mutation in the gene CEBPA causes progression from MDS to AML.
Just over 200 years after French engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot formulated the second law of thermodynamics, an international team of researchers has unveiled an analogous law for the quantum world. This second law of entanglement manipulation proves that, just like heat or energy in an idealized thermodynamics regime, entanglement can be reversibly manipulated, a statement which until now had been heavily contested.
New results published in the journal Physical Review Letters detail how a specially designed metamaterial was able to tip the normally equal balance between thermal absorption and emission, enabling the material to better emit infrared light than absorb it.
At first glance, these findings appear to violate Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation, which states that—under specific conditions—an object will absorb infrared light (absorptivity) in one direction and emit it (emissivity) with equal intensity in another, a phenomenon known as reciprocity.
Over the past decade, however, scientists have begun exploring theoretical designs that, under the right conditions, could allow materials to break reciprocity. Understanding how a material absorbs and emits infrared light (heat) is central to many fields of science and engineering. Controlling how a material absorbs and emits infrared light could pave the way for advances in solar energy harvesting, thermal cloaking devices, and other technologies.
Terahertz radiation (THz), electromagnetic radiation with frequencies ranging between 0.1 and 10 THz, could be leveraged to develop various new technologies, including imaging and communication systems. So far, however, a lack of fast and sensitive detectors that can detect radiation across a wide range of frequencies has limited the development of these THz-sensing technologies.
In a recent paper published in Nature Electronics, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Tennessee and other institutes have introduced new photodetectors made of tantalum iridium telluride (TaIrTe₄), a 2D-correlated topological semimetal that exhibits advantageous properties. Most notably, this material exhibits a strong nonlinear Hall effect, a physical effect that entails a transverse voltage in the absence of an external magnetic field, which is nonlinearly proportional to an applied electric field or current.
“THz technology is critical in quantum information technology and biomedical sensing because its frequency resonates with low-energy collective excitations in quantum materials and molecular vibrations in biological matters,” Jun Xiao, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.
Imagine you are about to confront a friend about a hurtful comment she made and are trying to predict her response. Depending on what you know about your friend, you might infer that she will understand where you’re coming from and apologize, get defensive, or respond with criticism of you.
This process of trying to predict other people’s beliefs, intentions, and emotions is known as mentalizing, and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) is one of the key brain regions that make up what is known as the “mentalizing network.” Studies have shown that the network is more engaged during mentalizing than when people make other kinds of inferences, such as about objects—like the comfort of a chair—or human physical traits.
But new research from psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania challenges the interpretation of these findings by highlighting a confounding variable in DMPFC activation: uncertainty.
Clean, safe water is vital for human health and well-being. It also plays a critical role in our food security, supports high-tech industries, and enables sustainable urbanization. However, detecting contamination quickly and accurately remains a major challenge in many parts of the world.
A new device developed by researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has the potential to significantly advance water quality monitoring and management.
Taking inspiration from the biological function of the oily protective layer found on human skin, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Benjamin Tee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Design and Engineering at NUS translated this concept into a versatile material, named ReSURF, capable of spontaneously forming a water-repellent interface.