An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment -- but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots' movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots.

The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas.

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Dat AI van alles ingrijpend kan gaan veranderen, wordt steeds duidelijker. Maar hoe verandert AI onszelf, als mens? Wat doet het met onze nieuwsgierigheid? En met ons vertrouwen in wat we de hele dag zien, horen en lezen?

Deze vrijdag om 10.00 uur gaan de verhoren van de parlementaire enquêtecommissie Corona verder met Robèr Willemsen, die tijdens de coronapandemie voorzitter was van Koninklijke…

Waar zou de mens zijn zonder vuur? Zo’n 400.000 jaar geleden ging het los, om nooit meer weg te gaan. Eerste deel van een zomerserie over vuur.

In verschillende grote steden in Nederland is het even onrustig geweest na de uitschakeling van Marokko op het WK voetbal.

In Den Haag probeerden tientallen vrijwilligers in gele hesjes te voorkomen dat het rond de WK-wedstrijd Frankrijk - Marokko uit zou lopen op ongeregeldheden. Hoewel de ME uiteindelijk kortstondig moest ingrijpen, bleven confrontaties uit.

Het dorp Moerdijk dreigt plaats te moeten maken voor een uitgebreid industrieterrein. Redacteur Lize Geurts verbleef een week in het dorp en maakte van dichtbij mee wat deze…

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handwritten on negative sleeve, "October 1986"

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aging is not about how many years have passed, but how much life you’ve embraced, age wisely

the SQUARE
MUTED
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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

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The Earth is dragging spacetime around its orbit, just as Einstein predicted: "The famed physicist's revolutionary general theory of relativity debuted in 1915, positing that gravity can be understood as objects falling along the curvature of spacetime. One well-tested product of this is frame-dragging, in which a heavy, rotating object—like a black hole or the Earth itself—drags spacetime and anything in its orbit around with it. (Some researchers have compared the effect to a spoon spinning in honey, moving the honey and anything in the honey as it turns.) Now researchers have managed to measure this phenomenon with more precision than ever before, confirming Einstein's greatest theory once again in a study published Wednesday in Nature."

The Trump administration's COVID lab-leak retribution is in full swing: a flu expert was hauled off by the FBI, a coronavirus researcher was indicted in Detroit, two prominent virologists stepped down or were removed from senior roles, and Anthony Fauci, MD, has been subpoenaed to appear before the U.S. Senate. (The Atlantic)

An excerpt: Even if this thirst for COVID retribution could be satisfied, its supposed higher purpose—to help prevent the next pandemic, by promoting more responsible research—hasn't yet been served. Despite the years of Sturm und Drang about pandemic origins, and the wholesale adoption of the lab-leak theory by the party that controls both Congress and the White House, a shaky status quo still persists in biosafety. The rules for how to work on dangerous pathogens and which sorts of experiments should be allowed aren't clear; oversight is spotty. A better, more comprehensive system remains a worthy goal. Shortly after President Trump took office, his administration took a few half steps in that direction. Last May, the president issued an executive order meant to limit and track all research that involves the potential enhancement of dangerous pathogens. "This is an historic day—the end of gain-of-function-research funding by the federal government," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters at the signing ceremony; NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said gain-of-function work would "go away forever." Yet Ebright and others told me that this project has stalled out. The Office of Science and Technology Policy had been placed in charge of revising the rules on this research by the end of last summer and implementing a national strategy for tracking all gain-of-function research before the end of last year. Those deadlines came and went. No such policies were put in place. (In response to a request for comment on this delay, the White House said that the administration "continues to implement our updated framework to govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States.") In the absence of that administrative work and with little progress being made on the various biosafety laws that have been proposed in Congress, the nation has been left with just the vengeful spectacle of lab-leak prosecutions. In effect, research policy is being handled by the Department of Justice. America's doctor may soon be dragged out to testify once more: The science that he championed appears to be unfettered; the scientists he funded are at risk of ending up in chains. *** The Atlantic link is a gift article via via MedPage Today, which linked to this stories in the same issue: Are MAGA and MAHA Heading for Divorce? (Rolling Stone) Firing Cancer Screening Experts Will Not Make Us Healthy Again (NYT Opinion) NIH likely to award fewer grants as it races to spend 2026 budget (Science.org) Palantir Has a Hand in NIH's Most Ambitious Health Initiative (Mother Jones) Provision buried in controversial U.S. rule change would help people legally challenge 'woke' federal research (Science.org) A congressional committee has opened an inquiry into Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer's use of clinical trial sites in China (Endpoints News). If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might see the pattern emerging from these headlines, too; but maybe this is too obvious, too mainstream, not sexy or exciting enough.