After traveling 139 million miles in space for more than 10 months, Christina Koch is back home. The NASA astronaut and two of her International Space Station crewmates, Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, touched down in their Soyuz capsule southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Thursday.
Within three weeks of identifying the first case, Chinese officials had reported a new respiratory illness to the World Health Organization. Scientists identified the coronavirus a week later on Jan. 7. The country’s response to the new strain of viral pneumonia reveals the ways China—and the rest of the world—has improved responses to public health threats.
Researchers have refashioned frog stem cells into tiny robots that can move purposefully and heal themselves if injured. University of Vermont computer scientist Joshua Bongard admitted his team turned to biological organisms because life contains a complex artistry human technology cannot replicate. “There’s all of this innate creativity in life,” he said.
The 1-millimeter-wide robots, called xenobots, are “neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal,” Bongard said. “It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”
Technology | Will virtual “togetherness” replace real togetherness?
