Lifeboat Foundation

The algorithm lets robots find the shortest route in unfamiliar environments, opening the door to robots that can work inside homes and offices.

The news: A team at Facebook AI has created a reinforcement learning algorithm that lets a robot find its way in an unfamiliar environment without using a map. Using just a depth-sensing camera, GPS, and compass data, the algorithm gets a robot to its goal 99.9% of the time along a route that is very close to the shortest possible path, which means no wrong turns, no backtracking, and no exploration. This is a big improvement over previous best efforts.

Why it matters: Mapless route-finding is essential for next-gen robots like autonomous delivery drones or robots that work inside homes and offices. Some of the best robots available today, such as Spot and Atlas made by Boston Dynamics and Digit made by Agility Robotics, are packed with sensors that make them pretty good at keeping their balance and avoiding obstacles. But if you dropped them off at an unfamiliar street corner and left them to find their way home, they’d be screwed. While Facebook’s algorithm does not yet handle outside environments, it is a promising step in that direction and could probably be adapted to urban spaces.

Researchers at the Montpellier Cancer Research Institute (IRCM) have discovered a new component in blood that has never been detected there before. Mitochondria are normally found inside cells, but the team has now discovered them floating around on their own in the bloodstream.

Often referred to as the power houses of cells, mitochondria are organelles that play a key role in metabolizing energy and cell signaling. Occasionally they are found outside of cells, but usually only as fragments within platelets.

But after a seven-year study, an IRCM team has now found complete and fully-functioning mitochondria in blood plasma, contained inside highly-stable structures. Using electron microscopy, the researchers analyzed plasma samples from about 100 people, and found up to 3.7 million of these mitochondria-containing structures per milliliter of plasma.

CHICAGO/LONDON (Reuters) — When a newly organized vaccine research group at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) met for the first time this week, its members had expected to be able to ease into their work. But their mandate is to conduct human trials for emerging health threats — and their first assignment came at shocking speed.

Corpses of coronavirus victims are being left unattended in a corridor of a hospital flooded with patients in Wuhan as the Chinese city is ravaged by the deadly infection, it has been revealed.

The chilling scene, captured by a woman who claims to be a nurse, was posted on the country’s social media network today but quickly censored.

Continue reading “Chinese ‘nurse’ claims corpses of coronavirus victims are left lying on hospital floor” »

BioIoT!!

The internet of things connects devices across the globe. Now researchers are considering how bacteria can join the network.

Different kinds of materials can play different roles when it comes to controlling heat. If we want to keep our home warm in the depths of winter, insulating layers in our walls can help to lock it in. If we want to keep things cool, thermally conductive materials like those used in computer processors can help carry it away. But could one material have it both ways? A new breakthrough suggests that it could, made by a team of scientists who believe heat needn’t just be a one way street.

The research was carried out by scientists at the University of Bayreuth and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, who sought to combine the thermally insulating properties of materials like polystyrene, with the thermally conductive properties of heavy metals often used to dissipate heat.

Their breakthrough boils down to a way of manipulating the way heat travels, which is through the oscillation of individual molecules that pass on their movement to neighboring molecules.

Ancient burials in a Cameroon rock shelter are shedding light on the humans who lived in western Central Africa thousands of years ago.

The municipality of Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh has partnered IBM to facilitate government services and transactions on a blockchain.

Under terms of the partnership, early blockchain-tech mover IBM will work with Elm Company, the municipality’s technology partner, to develop an implementation strategy to plug government transactions and commercial services to citizens and residents on a blockchain, ITP.net reports.

The city administration, IBM and Elm will further sync with key government departments and private and semi-government sectors over a number of workshops to determine the services that can be transformed by blockchain.

Closed-door reviews of risks and benefits of studies should be made public, some scientists say.