Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Today in Science: Meet your future robot servants

TODAY'S NEWS

A polar bear swims next to a melting iceberg

Repulse Bay in Nunavut. Paul Souders/Getty Images

The Arctic is in dire straits. Nearly 95 percent of its thick sea ice has melted, water temperatures have warmed and gotten saltier, and air temps are increasing, according to the latest report. | 3 min read
A novel variant of flu called subclade K appears to be driving an uptick in cases and hospitalizations throughout the U.S. and other countries. | 3 min read
This Friday is your last chance to see comet 3I/ATLAS as it swings by Earth and then back out into interstellar space. | 2 min read
President Donald Trump is expected to sign a defense bill this week that orders an investigation into whether the U.S. military bioengineered Lyme disease—a conspiracy theory backed by RFK, Jr. | 2 min read
New studies suggest RNA may be common in the universe, especially on rocky planets like Earth, potentially seeding life. | 4 min read
The FDA is considering allowing bemotrizinol, a highly effective UV filter used throughout Europe and Asia, in its sunscreen products for the first time. | 2 min read

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Future Robots

Why don't we have robot home aides or robot housecleaners yet? Chatbot technology seems to be advancing at mind-bending speed, but creating a robot that can interact in the real world is much more complicated. To advance the technology, researchers are developing robot prototypes in simulated environments—in lab-created bedrooms, water tanks and aerial test sites—and even more are in the conceptual stage. Some experts believe that robots will soon become indispensable to modern life, especially in areas such as caregiving, which will need more workers as the world's population ages, as one robot scientist told our reporter Ben Guarino.

Robots and you: Future robots could be useful in nearly every corner of daily life. In the home, machines like Stanford Robotics Center's TidyBot would far outperform familiar robotic vacuums and are learning to tidy bedrooms, sort laundry, load dishwashers and even make beds. In caregiving and medicine, researchers envision robots that could help elderly people dress and move safely, as well as tiny magnet-guided machines that might one day travel through blood vessels to remove clots. At work and in factories, robots already assemble complex products, building on a lineage that stretches back to Unimate, the first industrial robot arm. In extreme environments, advanced machines such as OceanOne and its successor OceanOneK explore deep-sea wrecks with humanlike touch, while experimental drones and quadruped robots test new ways of moving through air, land and water.

A pair of robotic arms on both sides of a bed, moving the comforter

Bed making is one household task that could eventually be outsourced to robots such as TidyBot, a project led by Stanford University computer scientist Jeannette Bohg. Christie Hemm Klok

Drawbacks: Today's robots remain surprisingly fragile. During his visit to Stanford's robotics lab, Guarino watched as TidyBot was supposed to put away a yellow LEGO brick; it failed to find it when it was obscured behind a bed. During another demonstration in the center's kitchen, the dishwashing robot glitched because, with so many people observing it, it couldn't detect where to place dishes. "An easy task in a simulator can fail in reality because the real world contains countless tiny details—friction, squishy materials, lighting quirks," senior technology writer Deni Béchard wrote over the weekend.

An orange, humanoid-looking robot with arms outstretched in front of it, mounted on a black wagon-type assembly.

The OceanOne robot's anthropomorphic face is designed to reassure human divers underwater. Christie Hemm Klok

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PUZZLER

Black and white puzzle pieces arrayed on a gray background.

Unscramble this jigsaw puzzle of our April 1889 issue cover. The image shows a new treatment of the neurological disease ataxia—achieved by suspending people from the ceiling.

More Jigsaw Puzzles

The limitations of current-day robots really reveal the marvel of the human brain and body. We perceive, predict and react almost instantly, navigating cluttered rooms or busy streets with ease. It's the same hurdle that has slowed the adoption of self-driving cars for years: software struggles with quick intuition and the endless variability of the real world. Replicating that fluid human intelligence remains robotics' hardest—and most humbling—challenge.

Would you welcome a robot helper into your home? Let me know and send any other feedback on this newsletter to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow!

—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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Tuesday, December 16, 2025

🦖JWST finds evidence of "dinosaur-like" stars | 📺'Fallout' season 2 review | 🛰️Private satellites find emission sites

Space Force unveils new satellite names | Trivia Tuesday quiz: weird structures in space

Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version

December 16, 2025

Something amazing every day

The Launchpad

More Amazon satellites enter Earth's orbit

United Launch Alliance (ULA) sent another batch of Amazon's internet satellites to orbit early this morning (Dec. 16). Amazon Leo, previously known as Project Kuiper, is Amazon's planned satellite-internet megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Other stories for today include the James Webb Space Telescope looking at dark matter in a new way, a review of 'Fallout' Season 2 as a cautionary tale against tech billionaires and private satellites pinpointing emissions from fossil fuel sites.

For Trivia Tuesday we have a weird structures in space quiz. Think you know your Dyson spheres from your dark blobs? This cosmic crossword dives into the strangest, most mind-bending structures ever spotted — or imagined — in the universe. Try it out now.

We have all that and more for your daily read.
Keep looking up,
Kenna
Content Manager, Space.com

Webb telescope uncovers earliest 'dinosaur-like' stars

"A bit like dinosaurs on Earth -- they were enormous and primitive. And they had short lives, living for just a quarter of a million years."

Atlas V rocket launches 27 Amazon satellites to orbit

Liftoff occurred at 3:28 a.m. ET on Tuesday (Dec. 16).

Besides carbon dioxide, what is the second-largest contributor to human-caused global warming?

Click here for the answer!

Space deal of the day

Canon 18x50 binoculars: top stargazing pick on sale

They are at their cheapest price ahead of the Christmas holidays in this deal from Amazon, for only $11.

Skywatching

What to know about 3I/ATLAS' closest pass to Earth

The interstellar comet will pass safely by Earth on Dec. 19, giving astronomers their best chance to study it up close.

Spaceflight

US Space Force gives satellites ghostly, mythic names

"These symbols conjure the character of the systems, the importance of their mission, and the identity of the Guardians who employ them."

Science & Astronomy

Webb telescope could shed fresh light on dark matter

Smooth filaments stretching for many light-years, seen by the powerful space telescope, could indicate what the right "recipe" is for dark matter.

Sun's atmospheric edge mapped in detail for 1st time

"This work shows without a doubt that Parker Solar Probe is diving deep with every orbit into the region where the solar wind is born."

Technology

Satellites spot emissions from fossil fuel facilities

"The countries where we measure the largest oil and gas methane emissions are Turkmenistan, the U.S., Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan."

Entertainment

Fallout' S2 review: tech billionaires and our future

Amazon and Bethesda return to the Wasteland with a second Fallout season that's all about New Vegas and not letting businessmen and fanatics run the world.

Trivia Tuesday: Quiz of the week

Strange structures of space: a weird quiz

Think you know your Dyson spheres from your dark blobs? This cosmic crossword dives into the strangest, most mind-bending structures ever spotted -- or imagined -- in the universe.