Robots Go Head-to-Head at the World Humanoid Games
If humans have the Olympics, robots have their own ultimate showdown: the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, China. It’s a high-energy mix of sport and science where humanoid robots sprint, box, and compete in athletic challenges designed to test just how “human-like” they really are.
But this isn’t just for fun (though it definitely looks fun to watch). Engineers use the competition to push their robots to the limit — testing speed, balance, coordination, and decision-making. Every stumble or success helps them figure out how to build smarter, stronger machines for the future. There’s prize money and recognition on the line too, which helps fuel a fast-growing robotics industry already backed by billions of dollars.
And no, this doesn’t mean robot athletes are about to take over your school sports day. Experts say humanoid robots are still mostly heading toward factories and specialized jobs — not everyday life. So for now, the biggest robot “athlete” you’ll probably meet is still your vacuum cleaner doing laps around the living room.
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The UK wants to see more hedgehogs, and it’s not because hedgehogs are incredibly cute. Well, not just because of that. The UK’s hedgehog population is in dangerous decline, but part of the solution could be an AI tool called Tessera that uses satellite images to help build a map of hedgehog habitats.
Before Tessera can work its magic, it needs some input. Researchers need to find and learn hedgehogs’ preferred environments by identifying the habitat’s fingerprint. A fingerprint, in this case, is a pattern or collection of characteristics generally found in hedgehog habitats. Maybe your habitat fingerprint would include a freezer full of ice cream and trampoline floors! It has nothing to do with actual fingers, even though that would be a great excuse to spend all day looking at hedgehog paws.
Researchers do their field work in small areas, then input their findings into the software that can extrapolate, show where the other similar habitats are, and record changes over time. The project will hopefully help us learn about where hedgehogs live, how we can help them survive, and how we can set up our homes to comfortably accommodate a hedgehog houseguest.
Feeling the heat lately? It might be because of El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It can affect the trade winds. These are the permanent, normally easterly winds that flow around the Earth's equator.
When we track the water temperature using tools like satellites, buoys, and ocean floats to measure temperatures below the ocean's surface, they show a large body of unusually hot water. Way bigger than the pot of water you’re boiling for your mac and cheese. Yes, even if you’re making extra mac and cheese. This is serious business! It can cause the sea-surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific to rise by more than 2°C (about 3.6°F) above average, suggesting this year's El Niño is unusually strong, and could make 2027 one of the hottest years on record.
Depending on where you are in the world, El Niño is associated with both droughts and floods. These affect the lives of people living in those places, as well as their agriculture and food production, so the whole world feels the El Niño effects.
Your parents or grandparents probably talk about growing up outside — riding bikes, climbing trees, scraping up knees. Turns out, they were onto something.
The Wildlife Trusts, a UK conservation group, just wrapped up "30 Days Wild," the UK's biggest nature challenge. Millions of people, including tens of thousands of schools, took part by doing one "wild" activity a day — noticing, appreciating, or exploring nature. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust runs a similar effort called The Greenhouse Project, where people learn to grow food and care for nature together.
The idea: the more connected people feel to nature, the more likely they are to protect it. But a recent poll found that while almost all adults have fond memories of playing outside as kids, nearly half now spend just three hours outside per week — less than 30 minutes a day.
The DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a large central African country now facing an Ebola outbreak along with neighboring Uganda. Ebola is a serious virus spread through contact with infected blood or body fluids, causing fever, vomiting, and bleeding. This outbreak's strain has no approved vaccine or treatment.
This isn't the DRC's first health crisis — and it's not bad luck. Three main factors are at play: the DRC borders nine countries with heavy cross-border movement and conflict-driven displacement, making disease spread easy; its health system is stretched thin, so early symptoms (which mimic other illnesses) often go unnoticed; and close contact with wildlife in its vast forests — including hunting and eating bushmeat — raises the risk of animal-to-human disease jumps.
Together, these factors explain why outbreaks keep happening — and why this one deserves close attention.
The UK wants to see more hedgehogs, and it’s not because hedgehogs are incredibly cute. Well, not just because of that. The UK’s hedgehog population is in dangerous decline, but part of the solution could be an AI tool called Tessera that uses satellite images to help build a map of hedgehog habitats.
Before Tessera can work its magic, it needs some input. Researchers need to find and learn hedgehogs’ preferred environments by identifying the habitat’s fingerprint. A fingerprint, in this case, is a pattern or collection of characteristics generally found in hedgehog habitats. Maybe your habitat fingerprint would include a freezer full of ice cream and trampoline floors! It has nothing to do with actual fingers, even though that would be a great excuse to spend all day looking at hedgehog paws.
Researchers do their field work in small areas, then input their findings into the software that can extrapolate, show where the other similar habitats are, and record changes over time. The project will hopefully help us learn about where hedgehogs live, how we can help them survive, and how we can set up our homes to comfortably accommodate a hedgehog houseguest.
Feeling the heat lately? It might be because of El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It can affect the trade winds. These are the permanent, normally easterly winds that flow around the Earth's equator.
When we track the water temperature using tools like satellites, buoys, and ocean floats to measure temperatures below the ocean's surface, they show a large body of unusually hot water. Way bigger than the pot of water you’re boiling for your mac and cheese. Yes, even if you’re making extra mac and cheese. This is serious business! It can cause the sea-surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific to rise by more than 2°C (about 3.6°F) above average, suggesting this year's El Niño is unusually strong, and could make 2027 one of the hottest years on record.
Depending on where you are in the world, El Niño is associated with both droughts and floods. These affect the lives of people living in those places, as well as their agriculture and food production, so the whole world feels the El Niño effects.
Your parents or grandparents probably talk about growing up outside — riding bikes, climbing trees, scraping up knees. Turns out, they were onto something.
The Wildlife Trusts, a UK conservation group, just wrapped up "30 Days Wild," the UK's biggest nature challenge. Millions of people, including tens of thousands of schools, took part by doing one "wild" activity a day — noticing, appreciating, or exploring nature. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust runs a similar effort called The Greenhouse Project, where people learn to grow food and care for nature together.
The idea: the more connected people feel to nature, the more likely they are to protect it. But a recent poll found that while almost all adults have fond memories of playing outside as kids, nearly half now spend just three hours outside per week — less than 30 minutes a day.
The DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a large central African country now facing an Ebola outbreak along with neighboring Uganda. Ebola is a serious virus spread through contact with infected blood or body fluids, causing fever, vomiting, and bleeding. This outbreak's strain has no approved vaccine or treatment.
This isn't the DRC's first health crisis — and it's not bad luck. Three main factors are at play: the DRC borders nine countries with heavy cross-border movement and conflict-driven displacement, making disease spread easy; its health system is stretched thin, so early symptoms (which mimic other illnesses) often go unnoticed; and close contact with wildlife in its vast forests — including hunting and eating bushmeat — raises the risk of animal-to-human disease jumps.
Together, these factors explain why outbreaks keep happening — and why this one deserves close attention.