tool

NASA’s DART asteroid-slamming mission builds on tiny diamond-tipped tool tech

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A NASA spacecraft is on its way to slam into a space rock, but what happens next is still unclear. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission launched in November and will arrive at its destination in late September. If all goes well, the impact will change the orbit of a small asteroid, Dimorphos, around … Read more

The Touching Reason Prehistoric People May Have Collected And Reused Old Tools

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Prehistoric sites are full of stone tools that appear to have two life cycles: They’ve been crafted, used, and discarded before being picked up a second time and used again. A new study puts forward an interesting hypothesis as to why this is.   The research suggests that the recycling of these tools is about … Read more

Wastewater Monitoring Offers Powerful Tool for Tracking COVID and Other Diseases

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In 2020 experts at the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and other public health agencies watched a presentation that many thought was impractical at the time. Several companies proposed to regularly sample wastewater from sewers and treatment plants and run tests to detect SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19. People excrete the virus … Read more

Scientists Teach Cockatoos to Play ‘Golf’, Showing Off The Birds’ Clever Tool Use

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Goffin’s cockatoos have edged parrots closer to corvids in the battle of the brainiest birds, by revealing their extraordinary ability to use composite tools.  Using more than one tool simultaneously played a huge role in humanity’s technological development, but it’s a skill that’s rarely been observed in other animals. Chimps are a rare example, using … Read more

Vaccine development: Process could be fast-tracked using antibody imaging tool

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A new imaging approach monitors antibody responses to vaccines more quickly than current techniques, which could accelerate vaccine design 19 January 2022 By Carissa Wong An artist’s illustration of antibodies (red and blue) responding to an infection with SARS-CoV-2 (purple) SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY By analysing high-resolution images, a computer can quickly predict the sequence of … Read more

Crows Are So Smart They Seem to Understand The Concept of Tool Value

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A new study has demonstrated crows can assign value to their tools just like we do. “Many of us will fuss about a brand-new phone, making sure it does not get scratched, dropped or lost. But we may handle an old phone with a cracked screen quite carelessly,” said behavioral ecologist Barbara Klump now at … Read more

DeepMind AI: Machine learning tool helps study strange electrons in chemical reactions

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Strange so-called fractional electrons are crucial to many chemical reactions, but traditional methods cannot model them – a problem that DeepMind has used machine learning to fix Physics 9 December 2021 By Leah Crane An artistic representation of molecules interacting DeepMind Machine-learning tools have taken us closer to understanding electrons and how they behave in … Read more