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Whiskers meet wireless

The UAE is home to an estimated 100,000-150,000 stray animals. The population is largely managed and cared for through trap, neuter, return (TNR) programs, but once cared for and returned to their communities, these fur babies need to eat. Thanks to Dubai’s new AI feeder program, these needs will now be met.

Dubai Municipality has launched a pilot program that includes a dozen AI feeding stations around the city at strategic locations including 10 public parks and two within Dubai Holding residential communities.

The stations are equipped with sensors that detect an animal approaching and dispense adequate portions of food and water.

According to local news agencies, Naseem Mohammed Rafee, Acting CEO of Dubai Municipality’s Environment, Health and Safety Agency, says, “The pilot initiative combines advanced technology with humane practices to manage stray animal populations, protect public health and support ecological balance.”

The Ehsan stations monitor feeding, detect strays and collect data to keep feeding organized and less random. Ehsan, an Arabic term implying doing good deeds with the utmost sincerity, represents the UAE’s commitment to animal welfare and sustainability.

And the new stations that provide food and water are in conjunction with the Fountains of Mercy water dispensers also provided by the municipality.

The 50 fountains that provide clean drinking water are evenly distributed among desert/rural areas for wild animals and urban locations to serve the local bird population. They are high-quality, solar-powered and built with sustainable materials for long-term animal care and sustainable practice.

Animal care in the UAE has become a matter of keen focus for the Animal Welfare Agencies in recent years. The feeding and water stations not only provide vital nutritional care for the animals but important data integrating the TNR program. This allows people to track, monitor and provide much needed healthcare to stray animals, ultimately contributing to the safeguarding of public health.

More like this: Healthier cats, healthier communities

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Let’s decode the planet’s nitrogen problem

Through fertilizers, fossil fuels and agriculture, the planet’s nitrogen system has been in supercharge mode since the Industrial Revolution. This means more air pollution, burdened ecosystems and excess greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists are working hard to combat the fallout, and it seems tiny chemical isotopes may come in with the assist.

Isotopes are like tiny barcodes that scientists use to track the source of all that nitrogen and where it ends up. Each isotope acts like a fingerprint that helps researchers determine which pollution comes from cars, factories, forests or soil.

The recent review published in Nitrogen Cycling shows that forests actively modify incoming nitrogen rather than simply letting it fall straight through.

It also shows plants may use more nitrate than we thought and that processing nitrogen takes up a large amount of plants’ energy.

By connecting climate models and isotope tracking, scientists aim to better predict how nitrogen pollution will impact our warming world, and how we might ultimately curb it.

More like this: A reforestation goldmine

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Print, magnetize and go

An electric motor is typically built in a factory full of stamped steel and copper wire, but MIT researchers recently produced their own linear motor — it was cheap, fully functioning and produced from a 3D printer.

The outcome stems from teaching the printer new tricks.

The team used a commercial extrusion system that could handle the full caboodle of materials, including plastic filament, magnetic pellets and conductive silver ink and produced all of the structural parts: printed coils, permanent magnets, a flexible spring and soft magnetic cores.

The only thing left to do was magnetize the printed magnets.

The resulting linear actuator was able to move back and forth by 318 micrometers at 41.6 hertz. The produced solenoids (coils) generated magnetic intensity up to 2.03 millitesla and the permanent magnets reached 71 millitesla.

These numbers are small, but the proof of concept is anything but.

Other 3D-printed motors rely on store-bought magnets and copper coils, but these mechanical necessities were printed in-house and on the same platform.

Though this won’t power a car in the very near future, the big-picture implications could be significant. Printed motors and other electromechanical systems may one day be printed completely on-site. This could reduce costs and reliance on complicated global supply chains for fields including robotics and space-based manufacturing.

More like this: Mini 3D-printed lings enhance disease research

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Probiotic switcheroo

Saccharomyces boulardii is often used to treat digestive woes. Like most yeasts, in the lab it happily runs on glucose, but scientists discovered that once it arrives in your intestines, it changes its MO.

A recent study published in BMC Genomics uncovered that once the research team places yeast into germ-free mice and waits a week to see which genes it switches on, the diet of choice isn’t sugar as expected, but rather fatty acids (fats) and amino acids (protein building blocks).

It also reduced energy-hungry activities and launched stress-survival systems — kind of like moving from bakery mode to survival mode.

The number of engineered probiotics to deliver medicines inside the body are increasing and the results of this study show what works in a lab isn’t always the same as what works in the gut.

It is imperative to understand how next-gen designer probiotics behave in the real world to gauge their impact.

More like this: Trust your gut?

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History you can walk through
(and talk to)

AI helped scientists create a video game that lets users walk through the past. And the tech could help change the way students learn in the future.

The experts have no background in game development but AI helped them create a demo that lets users explore a Neolithic stone monument in Denmark in the past and the present.

The idea behind this experiment, creating an interactive history lesson, was brought to life by archaeologists using AI and simple game tools, showing that it doesn’t take an expert to create interactive 3D games set in real archaeological sites.

In this scenario, players explore the landscape and speak freely with two AI-powered characters. One is a modern archaeologist who explains the science behind the site and the other is a Neolithic woman who shares a spiritual, lived perspective of ancient life with the user. There are no preset answers or scripts, just flowing, natural conversation.

Oral conversation can now be created by beginners with free software such as Unreal Engine, Reality Capture and ConvAI

– Research team, University of Copenhagen

So, rather than memorizing dates and facts, players can learn through their own curiosity. They can ask questions about the purpose of the building of the monument, how the people lived and what they believed, and the AI will adapt responses in real time. Because there are no scripts, each conversation is different and every playthrough feels personal, encouraging active exploration rather than passive learning.

Users showed strong interest during testing, especially for museum and classroom settings. The researchers see clear potential for further immersive, inquiry-based education, yet stress the importance of ethical safeguards.

Perhaps most notably, this approach is cost effective and accessible as it uses mostly free software and standard computers.

“Oral conversation can now be created by beginners with free software such as Unreal Engine, Reality Capture and ConvAI,” the University of Copenhagen research team reports. So, archaeologists and educators can create their own precise and interactive encounters without depending on costly commercial developers.

The paper, published by the Society for American Archaeology, suggests that “Museum curators, educators and researchers can also grasp this opportunity to become more active in defining this new dissemination space to ensure that fun, but fact-based content (clearly labeled as such) is widely available alongside purely imaginative reconstructions.”

While it’s still early, this step indicates learning history in the future might mean stepping inside it and exploring the past for yourself.

More like this: Going new school