Video: What are the northern lights?

Every winter, thousands of tourists head north hoping to catch a glimpse of the luminous auroras dancing in the sky.

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Is traffic-related air pollution killing us?

It's summer getaway season. According to AAA, two-thirds of American families are taking a summer vacation this year, and more than half of us are planning a road trip.

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Prescription drug costs steadily soar, yet price transparency is lacking

After reviewing tens of millions of insurance claims for the country's 49 most popular brand-name prescription drugs, a team from Scripps Research Translational Institute found that net prices rose by a median of 76 percent from January 2012 through December 2017—with most products going up once or twice per year.

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REPLAB: A low-cost benchmark platform for robotic learning

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a reproducible, low-cost and compact benchmark platform to evaluate robotic learning approaches, which they called REPLAB. Their recent study, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was supported by Berkeley DeepDrive, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Google, NVIDIA and Amazon.

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Only few hundred training samples bring human-sounding speech in Microsoft TTS feat

Microsoft Research Asia has been drawing applause for pulling off text to speech requiring little training—and showing "incredibly" realistic results.

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Sensor-packed glove learns signatures of the human grasp

Wearing a sensor-packed glove while handling a variety of objects, MIT researchers have compiled a massive dataset that enables an AI system to recognize objects through touch alone. The information could be leveraged to help robots identify and manipulate objects, and may aid in prosthetics design.

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Violent video games, unlocked guns a dangerous combo for kids

(HealthDay)—Shoot 'em up video games might be making your children far too comfortable with how they approach and handle real-life firearms, a new study argues.

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Is it fatigue or a stroke? Women shouldn't ignore these warning signs

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the U.S., and women make up nearly 60% of all stroke deaths.

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Using geography to explore land policy and management

One of the challenges for researchers is collaborating and communicating with communities to solve social and environmental problems. However, that challenge is what inspires and motivates scientists to keep investigating important questions.

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Research reveals role of fat storage cells in anti-obesity intervention

New research from a team at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine establishes a role of adipocyte Na/K-ATPase signaling in worsening obesity and its companion diseases, including neurodegeneration and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), that was enhanced by specific targeting of NaKtide, an antagonist of Na/K-ATPase signaling, to the adipocyte.

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Excess cause-specific mortality tied to chronic proton pump inhibitor use

(HealthDay)—Taking proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) is associated with an excess of cause-specific mortality, according to a study published online May 30 in The BMJ.

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Smoke from Canadian wildfires drifts into 5 US states

Smoke from large wildfires in Canada's Alberta province has drifted into five U.S. states and is causing haze and air quality issues.

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Guidelines for managing anaphylaxis in children need an update

Treatment guidelines for managing anaphylaxis in children should be reassessed, according to a new Canadian study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

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Classification system based on co-occurring conditions may provide insight into autism

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often affected by co-occurring conditions, such as epilepsy, immune disorders, gastrointestinal problems, and developmental delays. According to research published today in Autism Research, creating a classification system for ASD based on co-occurring conditions could provide useful insights into the underlying mechanics of ASD and these conditions.

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Physicists 'teleport' logic operation between separated ions

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have teleported a computer circuit instruction known as a quantum logic operation between two separated ions (electrically charged atoms), showcasing how quantum computer programs could carry out tasks in future large-scale quantum networks.

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An AI taught itself to play a video game and now it's beating humans

Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real world problems—such as automating complex tasks including driving and negotiation—these algorithms must navigate more complex environments than board games, and learn teamwork. Teaching AI how to work and interact with other players to succeed had been an insurmountable task—until now.

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Defense against wireless attacks using a deep neural network and game theory

A growing number of devices are now connected to the internet and are capable of collecting, sending and receiving data. This interconnection between devices, referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), poses serious security threats, as cyberattackers can now target computers and smartphones, but also a vast array of other devices, such as tablets, smart watches, smart home systems, transportation systems and so on.

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Transgender no longer classified as mental health disorder by WHO

(HealthDay)—Transgender people will no longer be classified as having a mental disorder by the World Health Organization.

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Swapping water for CO2 could make fracking greener and more effective

Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China University of Petroleum (Beijing) have demonstrated that CO2 may make a better hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluid than water. Their research, published May 30 in the journal Joule, could help pave the way for a more eco-friendly form of fracking that would double as a mechanism for storing captured atmospheric CO2.

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A 'Noah's Ark' project for corals: Scientists race to save Florida Reef from killer disease

On a sunny afternoon in Dania Beach, a dozen scientists unloaded crates full of corals from a dive boat and onto a pickup truck. They gently removed each piece from large tanks on the deck and placed them inside smaller containers, which were slowly taken onshore.

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