Artificially Intelligent Russian Robot Makes a Run for It … Again

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  383 words  |  Patria Henriques

A robot in Russia caused an unusual traffic jam last week after it "escaped" from a research lab, and now, the artificially intelligent bot is making headlines again after it reportedly tried to flee a second time, according to news reports. Engineers at the Russian lab reprogrammed the intelligent machine, dubbed Promobot IR77, after last week's incident, but the robot recently made a second escape attempt, The Mirror reported. Last week, the robot made it approximately 160 feet (50 meters) to the street, before it lost power and " [Read More]

Earth Day 2015: Our Favorite Photos of the Planet

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  983 words  |  Patria Henriques

Today, people around the world will celebrate the 45th Earth Day, an annual event designed to pay tribute to the environment and promote ways to protect our home planet. More than 1 billion people worldwide are expected to take part in Earth Day this year, with activities that include environmental rallies, tree planting and other service projects. At Live Science, we write about planet Earth every day, so to mark the occasion, we'd like to share some of our favorite photos of this beautiful world. [Read More]

Face Value: If You Look Old for Your Age, Are You Healthy?

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  320 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

If you look a little old for your age, that doesn't necessarily mean you have poor health, a new study finds. The finding challenges a long-held idea, said researchers from St. Michael's Hospital in Canada. "Physicians have simply assumed that their quick assessment of how old a person looks has diagnostic value," Dr. Stephen Hwang, a research scientist at St. Michael's and an associate professor at the University of Toronto, said in a statement. [Read More]

It Might Stress You Out to Know What Stress Is Doing to Your Brain

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  860 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

If you're already feeling stressed out, sorry, but there's one more thing you might need to worry about: A new study finds that stress may impair your memory now and quicken cognitive decline later in life. And if that's not stressful enough, stress might also be tied to a slight shrinking of the brain, according to the study, published today (Oct. 24) in the journal Neurology. In a study with more than 2,000 healthy, middle-age volunteers, doctors found that those with higher blood levels of the hormone cortisol — an indicator of stress — performed more poorly on memory tests and had a slightly shrunken brain volume compared to those with a normal level of the hormone. [Read More]

ITER Fusion Reactor to Postpone Basic Physics Research

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  1 minutes  |  183 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

In light of construction delays of the first fusion reactor being designed to generate self-sustaining reactions, a committee has decided to postpone some basic physics research and other studies considered non-essential to the project's target, Nature.com reports(opens in new tab). The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is being built in southern France to test the so-called tokamak method in which deuterium and tritium, two hydrogen isotopes, are heated to millions of degrees to form hot plasma; magnetic fields are then used to confine the plasma and produce energy from fusion reactions. [Read More]

Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  894 words  |  Trudie Dory

TORONTO — She's literally one in a million. The remains of a child, laid to rest more than 1,500 years ago when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was found in an ancient cemetery that contains more than 1 million mummies, according to a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The cemetery is now called Fag el-Gamous, which means "Way of the Water Buffalo," a title that comes from the name of a nearby road. [Read More]

New Biofuel Possibility in Horse Gut Fungus

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  342 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. At a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, scientists announced a potential new biofuels source — anaerobic gut fungus (yeast) found in horses' waste and digestive tracts. This news is exciting because the fungus makes enzymes that digest lignin — a protective barrier inside plant cell walls that is hard to separate from cellulose. [Read More]

New to Google Earth: Ancient Flying Reptiles

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  661 words  |  Patria Henriques

Want to find the nearest pterosaur? There's an app for that — or a database, at least. A newly developed website catalogs more than 1,300 specimens of extinct flying reptiles called pterosaurs, thus enabling users to map out the ancient creatures on Google Earth. The goal is to help researchers find trends in the evolution and diversity of these ancient winged reptiles. "Having a very specific database like this, which is just for looking at individual fossil specimens of pterosaurs, is very helpful, because you can ask questions that you couldn't have answered with bigger databases [of more animals]," [Read More]

Photos: Gorgeous Neon Malaysian Snails

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  1 minutes  |  196 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Plectostoma laidlawiThey look like ethereal beings from another planet, but they're actually newly discovered species of snails. And sadly, some of them are already going extinct.Read full story Plectostoma salpidomonA team of biologists catalogued 31 species of the snail genus Plectostoma from Malaysia, Sumatra and Thailand, 10 of which were new species. Read full story Plectostoma sinyumensisBut the snails live on limestone hills mined by cement companies, which threaten to destroy the snails and their habitat along with them. [Read More]

Study: Hundreds of Bird Species Endangered by 2050

 Posted on May 14, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  261 words  |  Trudie Dory

At least 400 species of birds could become endangered within the next 50 years as a result of global warming and changes in land use, a new study finds. Climate change and the destruction of habitats through deforestation and the conversion of grassland to cropland have already pushed many species to extinction, and the process will only accelerate over the next century, the authors of the study said. The extinction count grows much higher at the turn of the next century, they said. [Read More]