Frontiers | Science news

AI could soon detect early voice box cancer from the sound of your voice

Vocal fold lesions and early stages of laryngeal cancer alter acoustics of the voice, paving the way for AI recognition

'One child called the robot "my little brother"': can assistance tech become part of the family?

In a new article published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Dr Zhao Zhao and her colleagues investigate the long-term lifespan of a social robot given to 20 families in 2021 to see whether it could help their children learn to read. Four years after their previous study, the robot was no longer needed for its primary purpose, but that didn’t mean it was no longer wanted. In this guest editorial, Zhao explores the new roles the robot that stayed took on — as keepsake, pet, and companion — and how our relationships to technology can change over time.

Ready for your summer trip? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. Here are just five papers you won’t want to miss before embarking on this summer’s travels.

Health

Published on 06 Aug 2025

Living in hurricane affected areas could increase mortality of older people by 9% years after disaster

Researchers found increased, but regionally varying, risk of death from all causes for those who continued to live in flood-affected zip codes, highlighting the importance of region-specific disaster planning.