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“You can think of curiosity as a kind of reward which the agent generates internally on its own, so that it can go explore more about its world,” Agrawal said. This internally generated reward signal is known in cognitive psychology as “intrinsic motivation.” The feeling you may have vicariously experienced while reading the game-play description above — an urge to reveal more of whatever’s waiting just out of sight, or just beyond your reach, just to see what happens — that’s intrinsic motivation.

Humans also respond to extrinsic motivations, which originate in the environment. Examples of these include everything from the salary you receive at work to a demand delivered at gunpoint. Computer scientists apply a similar approach called reinforcement learning to train their algorithms: The software gets “points” when it performs a desired task, while penalties follow unwanted behavior.

There may be renewed hope for people with untreatable cancers. According to a report published by the BBC on Friday, patients have had their immune system…

Vaccine rates for COVID-19 show that the majority of adults accept immunization for themselves while hesitant for their children. Why?

In an unprecedented experiment, two teams of scientists on either sides of the Atlantic have replicated a material that was previously not produced anywhere on Earth.

As NPR reports, the replication of this powerful compound could have huge implications not just for the manufacturing of high-end machinery, but also for international relations to boot.

Called tetrataenite, the primarily iron-and-nickel compound is normally able to cool for millions of years as it tumbles around in asteroids. As a press release out of the University of Cambridge notes, the researchers who worked in tandem with Boston’s Northeastern University found that if they add phosphorous to the mix, they were able to make synthetic tetrataenite.

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Some interpretations of quantum mechanics propose that our entire universe is described by a single universal wave function that constantly splits and multiplies, producing a new reality for every possible quantum interaction. That’s quite a bold statement. So how do we get there?

One of the earliest realizations in the history of quantum mechanics is that matter has a wave-like property. The first to propose this was French physicist Louis de Broglie, who argued that every subatomic particle has a wave associated with it, just like light can behave like both a particle and a wave.

Iran’s priority in entering the Ukrainian war arena was to test NATO’s defenses against its drones, to assess the strength of these defenses in the face of Iranian offensive capabilities. It can be said that in the initial stages, the Shahed-136 drone actually managed to achieve exceptional success against NATO air defense employed by the Ukrainian army. This marks a victory for Tehran.

However, the ultimate evaluation of the Shahed-136 drone’s capability against NATO defenses will have to wait until NATO supplies Ukraine with more air defenses in the days ahead. The implications of these advances for the balance of power between Russian and Ukrainian forces, as well as the reputation of the types of weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military, were certainly realized by NATO’s leadership in the wake of these drone attacks. NATO swiftly rushed to implement additional air defense systems designed to deal with such small, drones that are capable of flying at low altitudes.

Continue reading “Iran‘s Combat Drones in Ukraine War, a New Market” »

A new study by Missouri S&T researchers shows how human subjects, walking hand-in-hand with a robot guide, stiffen or relax their arms at different times during the walk. The researchers’ analysis of these movements could aid in the design of smarter, more humanlike robot guides and assistants.

“This work presents the first measurement and analysis of human arm stiffness during overground physical interaction between a robot leader and a human follower,” the Missouri S&T researchers write in a paper recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The lead researcher, Dr. Yun Seong Song, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Missouri S&T, describes the findings as “an early step in developing a robot that is humanlike when it physically interacts with a human partner.”

Hyderabad-based private space startup, Skyroot Aerospace, is set to launch its, and India’s first private rocket between November 12 and 16 from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Sriharikota launchpad. The rocket, named Vikram-S, will be the first space launch vehicle manufactured and operated entirely by a private company in the country — making this the first launch of its kind since the union government opened up the space sector for private industry participation in June 2020.

The final date of the launch mission will be confirmed depending on the prevalent weather conditions during the mentioned launch window. Naga Bharath Daka, chief operating officer of Skyroot, confirmed in a statement that the launch mission will be a suborbital spaceflight, and will carry three customer payloads to the intended orbit.

Typically, a suborbital spaceflight refers to a height of around 100km from the Earth surface, and is done at a lower altitude than an orbital flight, which reaches at least a low-Earth orbit — between around 200km to 2,000km from Earth.