Ecology: Endangered Species Environmental: Ecosystems
Published

Uncovering plant invasions in the tropics      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An international collaboration of scientists has created the first inventory of flora introduced to the tropics, filling a knowledge gap about invasive plants in the tropics.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineering: Robotics Research
Published

Soft robot detects damage, heals itself      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Engineers have created a soft robot capable of detecting when and where it was damaged -- and then healing itself on the spot.

Ecology: Endangered Species Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Climate Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified -- opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution. Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone. The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change.

Ecology: Endangered Species Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Dinosaurs Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds Paleontology: General
Published

Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Rhino conservation in Nepal creates a burden for communities, infrastructure and other species, study warns      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Efforts to conserve rhinos in Nepal have put a burden on communities, infrastructure and other wildlife in Nepal, a new study warns.

Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

New research shows people, wildlife, and marine environment benefit when island-ocean connections are restored      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new perspective shows that linking land and sea through coordinated conservation efforts may offer unrealized and amplified benefits for biodiversity, human wellbeing, climate resilience and ocean health, and provides a microcosm for the untapped potential of ecosystem restoration on a larger scale.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computer Science: Quantum Computers Engineering: Robotics Research
Published

Pulses driven by artificial intelligence tame quantum systems      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Machine learning drives self-discovery of pulses that stabilize quantum systems in the face of environmental noise.

Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Large terrestrial mammals are more vulnerable to the acoustic impact of drones than to the visual impact, study finds      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Large terrestrial mammals are vulnerable to the acoustic sounds of drones, technological systems which are increasingly used to study the wildlife in open habitats such as the savanna and marshes, according to a new study.

Ecology: Endangered Species Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Climate Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds Paleontology: Fossils
Published

Mammoth problem with extinction timeline      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Paleontologists say environmental DNA is not always helpful in identifying when animals like mammoths went extinct because genetic material found in sediment could have come from animals that died thousands of years earlier.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Published

Making 'transport' robots smarter      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Imagine a team of humans and robots working together to process online orders -- real-life workers strategically positioned among their automated coworkers who are moving intelligently back and forth in a warehouse space, picking items for shipping to the customer. This could become a reality sooner than later, thanks to researchers who are working to speed up the online delivery process by developing a software model designed to make 'transport' robots smarter.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mathematics: Modeling
Published

A simpler path to better computer vision      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Research finds using a large collection of simple, un-curated synthetic image generation programs to pretrain a computer vision model for image classification yields greater accuracy than employing other pretraining methods that are more costly and time consuming, and less scalable.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Published

A far-sighted approach to machine learning      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new technique enables artificial intelligence agents to think much farther into the future when considering how their behaviors can influence the behaviors of other AI agents, toward the completion of a task. This approach improves long-term performance of cooperative or competitive AI agents.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computer Science: Quantum Computers
Published

Quantum algorithms save time in the calculation of electron dynamics      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Quantum computers promise significantly shorter computing times for complex problems. But there are still only a few quantum computers worldwide with a limited number of so-called qubits. However, quantum computer algorithms can already run on conventional servers that simulate a quantum computer. A team has succeeded in calculating the electron orbitals and their dynamic development using an example of a small molecule after a laser pulse excitation. In principle, the method is also suitable for investigating larger molecules that cannot be calculated using conventional methods.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Published

Self-organization: What robotics can learn from amoebae      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have developed a new model to describe how biological or technical systems form complex structures without external guidance.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Published

Artificial neural networks learn better when they spend time not learning at all      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers discuss how mimicking sleep patterns of the human brain in artificial neural networks may help mitigate the threat of catastrophic forgetting in the latter, boosting their utility across a spectrum of research interests.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Published

'Butterfly bot' is fastest swimming soft robot yet      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Inspired by the biomechanics of the manta ray, researchers have developed an energy-efficient soft robot that can swim more than four times faster than previous swimming soft robots. The robots are called 'butterfly bots,' because their swimming motion resembles the way a person's arms move when they are swimming the butterfly stroke.