Best of Last Week: 'Memory transistors, a moon map, and COVID-19 reinfection possible

It was a good week for technology development as a team at Carnegie Mellon University debuted PATRICK, an untethered soft robot that artificially replicates the structure and behavior of a starfish. And security researcher Mordechai Guri with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, reported that cyberattackers could steal data from a computer via cooling fan vibrations. Also, car maker Mazda filed a patent for a hybrid rotary engine, possibly signaling a return of the once popular novel engine design. And a team at Cornell University unveiled sensors that are so small that 30,000 of them could fit on a penny—and they were still able to harness light for power and communications.

In other news, a team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst unveiled electronics that mimic the human brain's learning efficiency—they were constructed using filaments that comprise "memory transistors," and according to the researchers, ran efficiently on low power. Also, the U.S. Geological Survey, working with NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute, released the first-ever comprehensive geologic map of the moon. And in a study that could have implications for the way the current pandemic plays out, a team led by researchers at The Ohio State University found that even though people may know the best decision to make, they may not make it—possibly due to a "gut feeling" or habit. Also, a team from the University of Georgia, the Florida Museum of Natural History and Flagler College, verified that Florida's Mound Key was the location of an elusive Spanish fort—called Fort San Antón de Carlos, it was the home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. And a team with members from Aarhus University, deCODE Genetics and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found evidence suggesting that Neandertals had older mothers and younger fathers.

And finally, if you are one of the many people infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, have recovered from it and now believe you are safe from infection, you might want to take a look at a report issued by the World Health Organization—they found "no evidence" people with coronavirus are immune.