Putting the brakes on ‘budding’ viruses

Paramyxoviruses have the potential to trigger a devastating pandemic. This family of viruses includes measles, Nipah virus, mumps, Newcastle disease and canine distemper. An international team has examined key stage in the life cycles of measles and Ni…

Plant study hints evolution may be predictable

Evolution has long been viewed as a rather random process, with the traits of species shaped by chance mutations and environmental events — and therefore largely unpredictable. But an international team of scientists has found that a particular plant …

Robots learn household tasks by watching humans

Researchers have developed a new learning method for robots called WHIRL, short for In-the-Wild Human Imitating Robot Learning. WHIRL is an efficient algorithm for one-shot visual imitation. It can learn directly from human-interaction videos and gener…

Study details U.S. health spending by region

A new study provides the first nationwide, small-area analysis of the variation in spending by the three main funders of health care in the United States: Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. The researchers’ goal: to see whether there are regions…