Computers

More people could be protected from life-threatening rabies thanks to an agile approach to dog vaccination using smart phone technology to spot areas of low vaccination coverage in real time. Vets used a smart phone app to help them halve the time it takes to complete dog vaccination programmes in the Malawian city of Blantyre. The custom-made app lets them quickly spot areas … [Read more...] about Smart vaccine scheme quick to curb rabies threat in African cities

For the first time, scientists have successfully used satellite cameras coupled with deep learning to count animals in complex geographical landscapes, taking conservationists an important step forward in monitoring populations of endangered species. For this research, the satellite Worldview 3 used high-resolution imagery to capture African elephants moving through forests and … [Read more...] about Counting elephants from space: Satellite images processed with the help of computer algorithms are a promising new tool for surveying endangered wildlife

Following a series of studies on termite mound physiology and morphogenesis over the past decade, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have now developed a mathematical model to help explain how termites construct their intricate mounds. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Termite … [Read more...] about Constructing termite turrets without a blueprint: Researchers develop a mathematical model to explain the complex architecture of termite mounds

Before he joined the University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and founded the Robotic Vision Laboratory there, William Beksi interned at iRobot, the world's largest producer of consumer robots (mainly through its Roomba robotic vacuum). To navigate built environments, robots must be able to sense and make … [Read more...] about How to train a robot (using AI and supercomputers)

Even if you weren't a physics major, you've probably heard something about the Higgs boson. There was the title of a 1993 book by Nobel laureate Leon Lederman that dubbed the Higgs "The God Particle." There was the search for the Higgs particle that launched after 2009's first collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. There was the 2013 announcement that Peter … [Read more...] about Light-controlled Higgs modes found in superconductors; potential sensor, computing uses

If you ever saw a honeybee hopping elegantly from flower to flower or avoiding you as you passed by, you may have wondered how such a tiny insect has such perfect navigation skills. These flying insects' skills are partially explained by the concept of optical flow: they perceive the speed with which objects move through their field of view. Robotics researchers have tried to … [Read more...] about Appreciating a flower’s texture, color, and shape leads to better drone landings

Quantum nanowires -- which have length but no width or height-provide a unique environment for the formation and detection of a quasiparticle known as a Majorana zero mode. A new UNSW-led study overcomes previous difficulty detecting the Majorana zero mode, and produces a significant improvement in device reproducibility. Potential applications for Majorana zero modes include … [Read more...] about One-dimensional quantum nanowires fertile ground for Majorana zero modes: Important step towards fault-tolerant quantum computing

A student infected with COVID-19 returning home from university for Christmas would, on average, have infected just less than one other household member with the virus, according to a new model devised by mathematicians at Cardiff University and published in Health Systems. Professor Paul Harper and colleagues defined an equation to predict the number of secondary household … [Read more...] about Students returning home may have caused 9,400 secondary COVID-19 infections across UK

Scientists are combining artificial intelligence and advanced computer technology with biological know how to identify insects with supernatural speed. This opens up new possibilities for describing unknown species and for tracking the life of insects across space and time Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth and only a small fraction of these have been found … [Read more...] about Artificial intelligence puts focus on the life of insects

One reason it's so difficult to produce effective vaccines against some viruses, including influenza and HIV, is that these viruses mutate very rapidly. This allows them to evade the antibodies generated by a particular vaccine, through a process known as "viral escape." MIT researchers have now devised a new way to computationally model viral escape, based on models that were … [Read more...] about Model analyzes how viruses escape the immune system: Using this computational system, researchers can identify viral protein sequences that could make better vaccine targets