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A robot is helping an ailing couple stay in their home. Are more to come for an aging population?

A robot is helping an ailing couple stay in their home. Are more to come for an aging population?
A robot operated by a robotics engineer, rear, brings a drink to colleague during a demonstration at the University of New Hampshire, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Durham, N.H. Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

After outliving Booker T. Bones, their second service dog, Brenda and Brian Marquis still needed help with some of the more difficult parts of daily life.

They found Robbie, a robot that rolls out of a hallway into their living room several times a day.

“Do you want to exercise now? Please answer yes or no,” the caregiver robot asks 59-year-old Brian Marquis, who has been living with a traumatic brain injury since a 2012 car crash.

“Yes,” he responds...

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How swarms of tiny light-controlled robots could revolutionize wound care

How swarms of tiny light-controlled robots could revolutionize wound care
Demonstration of algae swarming for tailored wound dressing. Credit: Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed0994

Having a swarm of microbots moving across your body may sound like the stuff of a horror movie, but it could actually be the future of targeted drug delivery and advanced wound healing. Scientists have developed a way to use blue and red light as a remote control to assemble and disperse swarms of biohybrid microrobots that could one day transform how we treat injuries.

Details of the research are in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

The microrobots come in two parts...

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Copper’s biggest rival yet? New carbon nanotube fibers could reshape wiring for EVs, drones and aircraft

IMDEA Materials researchers develop, for the first time, CNT fibres rivalling the electrical conductivity of copper
Conceptual view of an intercalated CNT fibre cable, showing how the intercalant occupies the interstitial spaces between highly aligned nanotubes within the fibre, yielding conductivity comparable to that of commercial metal cables. Credit: IMDEA Materials Institute

Spanish researchers have demonstrated a scalable manufacturing process for carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers with electrical conductivity comparable to that of copper and aluminum. The result, published in Science, is a breakthrough for the future of electrification in aerospace, electric vehicles (EVs), drones and related applications, which require lightweight and high-strength electrical wiring.

CNTs have long been considered as ideal building blocks for electrical conductors, owing to their unique combination of low densi...

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Massive black hole ‘waking up’ in Virgo constellation

From boring to bursting: a giant black hole awakens
Artist’s impression of the accretion disc around the massive black hole Ansky and its interaction with a small celestial object. Credit: European Space Agency

A massive black hole at the heart of a galaxy in the Virgo constellation is waking up, shooting out intense Xray flares at regular intervals that have puzzled scientists, a study said Friday.

Astronomers previously had little reason to pay any attention to galaxy SDSS1335+0728, which is 300 million light years from Earth.

But in 2019, the galaxy suddenly started shining with a brightness that turned some telescopes its way.

Then in February last year, Chilean astronomers started noticing regular bursts of X-rays coming from the galaxy.

This was a sign that the galaxy’s sleeping black hole was waking from its slumber, ...

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