New Scientist - USA (2022-04-16)

16 April 2022 | New Scientist | 23

Robotics

A TWO-ARMED robot can dress a

medical mannequin lying on a bed

in a medical gown. The technology

isn’t yet ready for use on people, but

it is an experimental step towards

artificial nurses in hospitals.

Fan Zhang and Yiannis Demiris at

Imperial College London tested their

robot (pictured) in a scenario that

mimicked the Certified Nursing

Assistant test used in US healthcare,

in which a trainee nurse has to put

an open-backed robe on a person

with weak or paralysed arms.

Flexible objects like a gown are

difficult for robots to work with, as

their shape and size vary depending

on how they are draped. Instead of

trying to track the entire gown, the

robot focuses only on the key points

it needs to grasp and manipulate.

The pair partially trained the

robot’s artificial intelligence control

system using a computer simulation

of the problem before running any

physical trials. Once trained, the

robot dressed the simulated patient

90.5 per cent of the time (Science

Robotics, doi.org/hpnp).

“I don’t think we can say robotic

nurses are near,” says Mehmet

Dogar at the University of Leeds,

UK, “but these are all research

questions that we need to ask and

investigate so that we can move

towards that.” Matthew Sparkes

Robotic nurse can dress

a mannequin in a gown

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How dogs pull

human-like faces

The muscles around a

dog’s eyes and mouth

contain a higher proportion

of “fast-twitch” fibres

than is seen in the facial

muscles of wolves. This lets

the dogs pull human-like

faces, according to

research presented at

the Experimental Biology

2022 meeting held in

Pennsylvania last week.

Robot finds issues

with cancer studies

Fewer than 1 in 3 breast

cancer studies are

reproducible, according

to an analysis that used a

robot to partly automate

experiments. The finding

might not mean results lack

accuracy, but could suggest

work should be reported

more carefully (Journal of

the Royal Society Interface,

doi.org/hpkp).

Air pollution a killer

in tropical cities

Air pollution led to an

extra 24,000 people

dying prematurely in

Dhaka, Bangladesh,

between 2005 and 2018,

an analysis suggests. The

problem may worsen as

such cities in the tropics

grow, say the researchers

behind the study (Science

Advances, DOI: 10.1126/

sciadv.abm4435).

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Fertility

RAT sperm cells generated from

stem cells in the lab have been

used to produce fertile offspring

for the first time. The approach

could inform the artificial

production of human sperm

to treat infertility.

Until now, cells that give rise to

sperm and egg cells, called germ

cells, have only been produced

in the lab in mice.

Toshihiro Kobayashi at the

University of Tokyo and his

colleagues extracted stem cells

from rat embryos and grew them

in the lab to produce germ cells

that form sperm when implanted

into rat testes. They then collected

the sperm cells and injected them

into egg cells, before implanting

the embryos into female rats.

These grew into healthy adult rats

that were able to have offspring of

their own (Science, doi.org/hpr5).

Next, the team hopes to uncover

the common principles in sperm

generation that are shared across

rats and mice, which could inform

the development of similar

techniques in other mammals,

like humans, says Kobayashi.

Such research could then be used

to gain insight into how human

germ cells develop and what goes

wrong to cause infertility, he says.

Carissa Wong

Rat pups born from

lab-grown sperm

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Palaeontology

TRICERATOPS dinosaurs probably

did fight each other using their

horns, according to fossilised

bones with evidence of puncture

wounds sustained during life.

Triceratops lived just before all

non-bird dinosaurs were wiped

out 66 million years ago. It had

a bony neck frill and three horns

on its face: one on the snout and

one over each eye.

Several studies have suggested

that triceratops fought using its

horns, perhaps by locking them

together and wrestling. This was

based on triceratops fossils that

showed large-scale damage, as if

from impacts.

Ruggero D’Anastasio of the

D’Annunzio University of Chieti-

Pescara in Italy and his colleagues

have examined a Triceratops

horridus specimen nicknamed

Big John, which was discovered

in 2014 and was sold last year to

a private collector.

There is a large hole in the

right side of Big John’s neck frill.

D’Anastasio’s team found evidence

of newly formed bone around the

edges of the hole, as well as signs

of inflammation. This suggests

Big John experienced the injury

while still alive, and that the

wound partially healed before the

animal’s death (Scientific Reports,

doi.org/hpr9).

What caused the injury?

“The shape and size of the lesion

coincides perfectly with those of

a triceratops horn similar in size

to Big John,” says D’Anastasio.

This implies that Big John fought

another triceratops, and during

the battle it punctured Big John’s

neck frill with its horn.

Michael Marshall

Triceratops was

stabbed in the head