Robotics and AI
26 Jun 2026
AI use in research is now the norm, but the boundaries of acceptable use remain unclear. If trust in the academic record is to be maintained, the research community needs clearer and more consistent ways to distinguish responsible use from poor practice, misuse and deliberate misconduct.
Robotics and AI
16 Dec 2025
AI hardware needs to become more brain-like to meet the growing energy demands of real-world applications, according to researchers.
Engineering
08 Aug 2025
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.
Robotics and AI
19 Jun 2025
Researchers found some LLMs create four times the amount of CO2 emissions than other models with comparable accuracy. Their findings allow users to make informed decisions about their own LLM use.
Robotics and AI
30 Apr 2025
Current algorithms for the detection of deepfakes increasingly rely on remote pulse reading to distinguish them from genuine videos of people. Here, scientists show for the first time that the most recent deepfakes feature a global pulse rate which appears realistic. This worrying development makes it necessary for deepfake detectors to become more powerful, for example, by focusing on local variations in blood flow within the face.
Engineering
03 Dec 2024
Crucial advances in technology could allow us to harness the power of the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and siphon off renewable fuel
Engineering
05 Sep 2024
Scientists find that a lie that protects someone’s feelings is acceptable, but lies which misrepresent a robot’s abilities aren’t.
Engineering
10 Jul 2024
Scientists find that interplanetary shocks which strike Earth’s magnetic field head-on cause more powerful ground-level electric currents, threatening pipelines and submarine cables.
Robotics and AI
20 Mar 2024
Scientists showed that machine learning tools can identify emotions from audio fragments lasting just 1.5 seconds on par with human ratings
Engineering
12 Mar 2024
Scientists use spent brewer’s yeast, left over from manufacturing beer, to filter out metal from waste streams.
Engineering
29 Jan 2024
People who speak the Berlin dialect trust social robots speaking the same dialect more than social robots speaking standard German.
Robotics and AI
22 Dec 2023
Researchers have developed the Dragon Firefighter, a flying firehose that can aid human firefighters to put out the most dangerous fires. Because the design is Open Science, researchers around the world can use these plans to build their own Dragon Firefighters. The authors expect that real-world applications will be possible within a decade.
Engineering
30 Nov 2023
Researchers tested the suitability of a mix of rice husks and cellulose – materials commonly sent to landfills or garbage incineration plants – and found it had good thermal and mechanical properties, making it suitable to be used in a range of applications.
Engineering
03 Nov 2023
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Losing your sense of where you are can be fatal enough for aircraft pilots: spatial disorientation is a leading cause of fatal aircraft accidents. But losing your orientation in space itself is even more dangerous. Scientists have now developed wearable devices called vibrotactors that, combined with specialized training, improve people’s ability to fight spatial disorientation and could help astronauts correct themselves when their perceptions can no longer be relied upon. The sky is no longer the limit — but taking flight is dangerous. In leaving the Earth’s surface, we lose many of the cues we need to orient ourselves, and that spatial disorientation can be deadly. Astronauts normally need intensive training to protect against it. But scientists have now found that wearable devices which vibrate to give orientation cues may boost the efficacy of this training significantly, making spaceflight slightly safer. “Long duration spaceflight will cause many physiological and psychological stressors which will make astronauts very susceptible to spatial disorientation,” said Dr Vivekanand P. Vimal of Brandeis University in the United States, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Physiology. “When disoriented, an astronaut will no longer be able to rely […]
Engineering
18 Oct 2023
by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com ‘Social loafing’ is a phenomenon which happens when members of a team start to put less effort in because they know others will cover for them. Scientists investigating whether this happens in teams which combine work by robots and humans found that humans carrying out quality assurance tasks spotted fewer errors when they had been told that robots had already checked a piece, suggesting they relied on the robots and paid less attention to the work. Now that improvements in technology mean that some robots work alongside humans, there is evidence that those humans have learned to see them as team-mates — and teamwork can have negative as well as positive effects on people’s performance. People sometimes relax, letting their colleagues do the work instead. This is called ‘social loafing’, and it’s common where people know their contribution won’t be noticed or they’ve acclimatized to another team member’s high performance. Scientists at the Technical University of Berlin investigated whether humans social loaf when they work with robots. “Teamwork is a mixed blessing,” said Dietlind Helene Cymek, first author of the study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI. “Working together can motivate people […]
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