Best of Last Week—James Webb first assignment, 3D printing opaque resin, pulling drinking water from desert air

May 30, 2022 • by Bob Yirka

It was a good week for space science as the team at NASA working with the James Webb Telescope announced its initial assignment for its first year of studies—two hot exoplanets classified as "super-Earths." Also, a team at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies announced that the largest asteroid to approach Earth in 2022 will fly past our planet this week. The 1,800 meter long object is expected to come no closer than 10 times the distance to the moon. And a team with members from several institutions in the U.S. found evidence suggesting that the reason Mars dried out was because of the loss of some other unknown ingredient in its atmosphere besides carbon dioxide.

In technology news, a team at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne developed a way to 3D print objects in opaque resin, an advance that could lead to breakthroughs in developing applications in the biomedical industry, such as making artificial arteries. And a team of engineers at Northwestern University designed and built the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot that resembled a tiny, adorable peekytoe crab. Also, a group at the Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab developed physics-inspired graph neural networks for use in solving combinatorial optimization problems. Also, a combined team from the University of Bari and the University of Parma explored the ways older adults react while interacting with humanoid robots, finding that most seniors display both negative and positive emotions during interactions.

In other news, a team at the University of Glasgow, working with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, found that one in eight people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 between May 2020 and March 2021 were later diagnosed with heart inflammation. Also, a team at The University of Texas at Austin, designed and developed a low-cost gel film that could pull drinking water from desert air. And finally, a team at the University of Missouri School of Medicine found that a drug already approved by the FDA for lowering blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes also reduces blood vessel dysfunction related to aging.