What’s new: It’s tough to get robots to do issues in environments they’ve by no means seen earlier than. Usually, researchers want to coach them on new knowledge for each new place they encounter, which may develop into very time-consuming and costly. Now, researchers have developed a sequence of AI fashions that train robots to finish primary duties in new environment with out additional coaching or fine-tuning.
What they achieved: The 5 AI fashions, referred to as robotic utility fashions, (RUMs), permit machines to finish 5 separate duties: opening doorways and drawers, and selecting up tissues, baggage and cylindrical objects in unfamiliar environments with a 90% success fee.
The large image: The crew hope their findings will make it faster and simpler to show robots new expertise whereas serving to them perform inside previously-unseen domains. The strategy may make it simpler and cheaper to deploy robots in our houses in future. Learn the total story.
—Rhiannon Williams
Flu season is coming—and so is the chance of an all-new chicken flu
September will quickly be drawing to an in depth. The children are again to high school, and people of us within the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing the thrill the tip of summer season brings: the cooling temperatures, the falling leaves, and, inevitably, the beginning of flu season.
Within the US, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends the flu vaccine for everybody over six months outdated. This yr, following the unfold of the “chicken flu” H5N1 in cattle, the CDC is particularly urging dairy farm employees to get vaccinated.
The aim isn’t solely to guard these employees from seasonal flu, however to guard us all from a probably extra devastating consequence: the emergence of a brand new type of flu that might set off one other pandemic. That hasn’t occurred but, however sadly, it’s trying more and more doable. Learn the total story.