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Categories: Ecology: General, Engineering: Robotics Research

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Record breaking marine heatwaves will cause devastating mass coral bleaching worldwide in the next few years, according to a coral reef scientist.

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Engineers developed a robotic replica of the heart's right ventricle, which mimics the beating and blood-pumping action of live hearts. The device could be used for studying right ventricle disorders and testing devices and therapies aimed at treating those disorders.

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Tropical coral reefs are among our most spectacular ecosystems, yet a rapidly warming planet threatens the future survival of many reefs. However, there may be hope for some tropical reefs in the form of feathered friends. A new study has found that the presence of seabirds on islands adjacent to tropical coral reefs can boost coral growth rates on those reefs by more than double.

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The ocean is a global life-support system, and climate change causes such as ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and nitrogen-deposition alter the delicate microbial population in oceans. The marine microbial community plays an important role in the production of greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane. Scientists have explored the climate change impact on marine microbes. Their research helps raise awareness about climate change severity and the importance of ocean resources.

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Artificial hands can be operated via app or with sensors placed in the muscles of the forearm. New research shows: a better understanding of muscle activity patterns in the forearm supports a more intuitive and natural control of artificial limbs. This requires a network of 128 sensors and artificial intelligence based techniques.

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Seeing robots made with soft, flexible parts in action appears to lower people's anxiety about working with them or even being replaced by them. A study found that watching videos of a soft robot working with a person at picking and placing tasks lowered the viewers' safety concerns and feelings of job insecurity. This was true even when the soft robot was shown working in close proximity to the person. This finding shows soft robots hold a potential psychological advantage over rigid robots made of metal or other hard materials.

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Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) are used around the world to conduct difficult environmental, remote, oceanic, defense and rescue missions in often unpredictable and harsh conditions.  A new study has now used a novel bio-inspired computing artificial intelligence solution to improve the potential of UUVs and other adaptive control systems to operate more reliability in rough seas and other unpredictable conditions.  

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A new sensor on the submersible Alvin discovered reactive oxygen species for the first time in deep-sea corals, broadening our understanding of fundamental coral physiology.

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Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot protype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas and lakes.

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In a step toward more autonomous soft robots and wearable technologies, researchers have created a device that uses color to simultaneously sense multiple mechanical and temperature stimuli.

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By studying the skull shapes of dipsadine snakes, researchers have found how these species of snakes in Central and South America have evolved and adapted to meet the demands of their habitats and food sources.

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Autonomous vehicles require object detection systems to navigate traffic and avoid obstacles on the road. However, current detection methods often suffer from diminished detection capabilities due to bad weather, unstructured roads, or occlusion. Now, a team of researchers has developed a novel Internet-of-Things-enabled deep learning-based end-to-end 3D object detection system with improved detection capabilities even under unfavorable conditions. This study marks a significant step in autonomous vehicle object detection technology.

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There's a species of ant that is so rare, only a handful of records exist from across the entire eastern United States. North Carolina State University researcher Michelle Kirchner not only found these ants in the Triangle region of North Carolina, she is the first to document an entire colony for scientists, taxonomists and ant-thusiasts everywhere. It is the first time males of the species have been collected or photographed.

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Playing an essential foundational role in an ecosystem, plants contribute to the well-being of human health by helping create resources like food and medicine. Therefore, to better understand how plants can maintain resiliency in the face of challenges like climate change, researchers recently developed an innovative mathematical model that can provide fast and reliable predictions of how far wind can carry a plant's seeds.

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World War II concluded decades ago, but live mines lurking on the ocean floor still pose threats, potentially spewing unexpected geysers or releasing contaminants into the water. Experts conduct controlled explosions to clear underwater munitions, but concerns have arisen over the environmental impacts from these blasts. New results show that the contamination produced by detonation depends on the blast type, with weaker explosions leaving behind more potentially toxic residues.

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New technology often calls for new materials -- and with supercomputers and simulations, researchers don't have to wade through inefficient guesswork to invent them from scratch.

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An inspection design method and procedure by which mobile robots can inspect large pipe structures has been demonstrated with the successful inspection of multiple defects on a three-meter long steel pipe using guided acoustic wave sensors.

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Engineers have come up with a new way to teach robots to know when they don't know. The technique involves quantifying the fuzziness of human language and using that measurement to tell robots when to ask for further directions. Telling a robot to pick up a bowl from a table with only one bowl is fairly clear. But telling a robot to pick up a bowl when there are five bowls on the table generates a much higher degree of uncertainty -- and triggers the robot to ask for clarification.

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The slash-and-burn agriculture practiced by many Indigenous societies across the world can actually have a positive impact on forests, according to a new study done in Belize. Researchers found that in areas of the rainforest in which Indigenous farmers using slash-and-burn techniques created intermediate-sized farm patches -- neither too small nor too large -- there were increases in forest plant diversity.

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Researchers report that they have developed a new composite material designed to change behaviors depending on temperature in order to perform specific tasks. These materials are poised to be part of the next generation of autonomous robotics that will interact with the environment.