The Obtain: Coaching robots for unfamiliar environments, and all-new chicken flu

The Obtain: Coaching robots for unfamiliar environments, and all-new chicken flu
The Obtain: Coaching robots for unfamiliar environments, and all-new chicken flu


What’s new: It’s tough to get robots to do issues in environments they’ve by no means seen earlier than. Sometimes, researchers want to coach them on new information for each new place they encounter, which might change into very time-consuming and costly. Now, researchers have developed a collection of AI fashions that educate robots to finish fundamental duties in new environment with out additional coaching or fine-tuning.

What they achieved: The 5 AI fashions, known as robotic utility fashions, (RUMs), permit machines to finish 5 separate duties: opening doorways and drawers, and choosing up tissues, luggage and cylindrical objects in unfamiliar environments with a 90% success charge. 

The massive 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 method may make it simpler and cheaper to deploy robots in our houses in future. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Flu season is coming—and so is the chance of an all-new chicken flu

September will quickly be drawing to a detailed. The youngsters are again to high school, and people of us within the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing the fun the top 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the US, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends the flu vaccine for everybody over six months outdated.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 “bird flu” H5N1 in cattle, the CDC is very urging dairy farm staff to get vaccinated.

The objective shouldn’t be solely to guard these staff from seasonal flu, however to guard us all from a probably extra devastating consequence: the emergence of a brand new type of flu that would set off one other pandemic. That hasn’t occurred but, however sadly, it’s wanting more and more doable. Read the full story.

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