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A robot learns to imagine itself

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Our body image is not always correct or realistic, as every athlete or fashion-conscious person is aware, but it's a crucial piece of knowledge that affects how we behave in the outside world. Your brain continually plans ahead while you dress or play ball so that you may move your body without bumping, stumbling, or falling. As babies, we develop our ideal body types, and robots are doing the same. Today, a team from Columbia Engineering said that they had developed a robot that, for the first time, could learn a model of its whole body from scratch without the aid of humans. The researchers explain how their robot built a kinematic model of itself and utilized that model to plan movements, accomplish goals, and avoid obstacles in a range of scenarios in a new report published in Science Robotics. Even damage to its body was automatically detected, repaired, and then detected again. Robot looks at itself as if it were a baby discovering itself in a room full with mirrors. A roboti
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Newly documented polar bear population lives in a surprising place

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Southeast Greenland is home to a polar bear population that is isolated and genetically different. Researchers that saw and monitored the bears found that they rely on the freshwater ice provided by the Greenland ice sheet to live despite having little access to sea ice, which is essential for polar bears. The journal Science released a report on the bears on Thursday. "We never expected to find a new subpopulation living there," said lead study author Kristin Laidre, a polar research scientist at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement. "We wanted to survey this region because we didn't know much about the polar bears in Southeast Greenland. "Because of historical documents and Indigenous knowledge, we were aware that there were some bears in the region. We just were unaware of their uniqueness." An icy requirement The 19 populations of polar bears that are known to exist rely on sea ice to pursue their prey, such as r
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5 planets take center stage as they align in the night sky

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On June 24, a rare five-planet alignment will be at its zenith, providing an amazing opportunity to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn align in planetary order. According to Diana Hannikainen, observing editor of Sky & Telescope, the event started at the start of June and has gotten brighter and simpler to spot as the month has gone on. On Friday, another celestial object will join the celebration between Venus and Mars: a declining crescent moon. The moon will stand in for the Earth's relative location in the alignment, which indicates the place of our planet in the planetary hierarchy. According to Sky & Telescope, this unusual event won't happen this year since Mercury and Saturn are closer together than they were in 2004. Viewing the alignment To see the amazing phenomena, observers will require a clean view of the eastern horizon, according to Hannikainen. The planetary spectacle may be seen by anyone without glasses, but for the best viewing, she sugges
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Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets

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How woodpeckers can continuously strike tree trunks with their beaks without harming their brains has long been a mystery to scientists. Because of this, it was assumed that their skulls must function as shock-absorbing helmets. Researchers have already debunked this idea, claiming that their heads behave more like stiff hammers and published their findings in the journal Current Biology on July 14. Their calculations really reveal that any stress absorption would interfere with the woodpeckers' ability to peck. Sam Van Wassenbergh from the Universiteit Antwerpen in Belgium states, "We discovered that woodpeckers do not absorb the shock of the hit with the tree by studying high-speed footage of three species of woodpeckers. First, Van Wassenbergh and associates calculated the effects of pecking decelerations in three different woodpecker species. They built biomechanical models using the data and came to the conclusion that any stress absorption in the skull would be harmful t
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Paper wasps form abstract concept of 'same' and 'different'

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The University of Michigan evolutionary scientist Elizabeth Tibbetts and her colleagues have shown over the course of more than 20 years' worth of research that paper wasps, despite having tiny brains, have an outstanding ability for learning, memory, and social differences about others. The study demonstrated that paper wasps can distinguish between members of their species based on differences in face markings and that they are more hostile toward wasps with unusual markings. They demonstrated that paper wasps have unusually strong memory and that they guide their behavior based on what they recall from earlier contacts with other wasps. Additionally, they revealed the paper wasp as the first example of transitive inference, a nonvertebrate animal behavior that approaches logical reasoning. Paper wasps may now be used to create abstract notions, according to Tibbetts and her pupils. Surprisingly, the wasps demonstrated the ability to apply what they had learned through visual tra
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It doesn't matter much which fiber you choose -- just get more fiber!

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It might be daunting for customers to choose from the vast selection of dietary fiber supplements in the pharmacy or grocery aisle. They also offer a variety of health claims without getting FDA permission or evaluation. How then can you determine which supplement is effective and ideal for you? People who had been eating the least amount of fiber prior to the study showed the greatest benefit from supplements, regardless of which ones they consumed, according to a rigorous analysis of the gut microbes of study participants who were fed three different kinds of supplements in different sequences. According to research author and assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University Lawrence David, "The persons who responded the best had been consuming the least fiber to start with." Dietary fiber has advantages beyond the advertised easier defecation. Fermentable fiber, which is composed of dietary carbohydrates that some bacteria can digest but which
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No evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin levels, finds comprehensive review

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According to a comprehensive analysis of previous studies undertaken by UCL experts, there is still no conclusive proof that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are the cause of depression after decades of research. The new umbrella review, which provides a summary of previous meta-analyses and systematic reviews, was just published in Molecular Psychiatry. It questions the effects of antidepressants and contends that depression is not likely the result of a chemical imbalance. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which make up the majority of antidepressants, were once believed to function by restoring unusually low serotonin levels. No other recognized chemical mechanism exists for how antidepressants influence the signs and symptoms of depression. "It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abno
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