Today in Science: Meet your future robot servants

Robots may soon play a much bigger role at home and in the world ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­

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December 16, 2025—When will robots start doing our chores? Plus, the Arctic is in trouble, and your last chance to see comet 3I/ATLAS.  —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor TODAY'S NEWS 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 More News Support independent science journalism this holiday season with a subscription to Scientific American. TOP STORIES 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. 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.  The OceanOne robot's anthropomorphic face is designed to reassure human divers underwater. Christie Hemm Klok

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PUZZLER 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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