A new study by Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Integrated System Technologies Ltd has developed a low-cost, privacy-preserving home monitoring system that could help older people live independently for longer. The technology combines millimetre-wave radar, thermal sensors and smart plugs, using artificial intelligence to build a picture of a person's daily routines and identify potential health emergencies such as falls, strokes and heart attacks, without relying on cameras or wearable devices.

The researchers found that integrating data from all three technologies provided the most accurate monitoring of movement, posture and everyday activities. By learning an individual's normal behaviour patterns, the system can detect sudden emergencies as well as gradual declines in mobility or wellbeing, alerting carers or family members when intervention may be needed. The team believes the technology could form part of future assisted-living homes, enabling older adults to remain safely in their own homes while protecting their privacy.

Most of us now carry in our pockets devices capable of running small AI chatbots. These chatbots have little safety oversight to ensure they don’t provide information and answers with the potential to encourage self-harm, financial loss, or other extremist notions—especially when operating offline. Now, a team of two physicists publishing in the Cell Press journal Patterns on October 8 have developed a mathematical formula that predicts when AI models will switch from appropriate responses to potentially dangerous ones.  

A new approach to producing ammonia using renewable electricity has overcome a fundamental energy limitation of the technology, opening new possibilities for cleaner and potentially more cost-effective production of one of the world’s most important chemicals.

Concordia researchers have found that red mud, a waste product from aluminum production, can help transform dredged sediment and low-quality clay into lower-carbon cement. By combining heat-treated waste materials, the team developed formulations that could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 to 50 per cent while maintaining or improving material strength.

LMU researchers challenge a decades-old model: genetically modified embryos lacking interferon tau can establish pregnancies and develop into healthy calves.

Public health and law enforcement agencies face a growing challenge in combating the fentanyl epidemic: They lack detailed and timely information on the harmful and potentially deadly substances that drug suppliers increasingly mix into the illicit fentanyl supply. 

Now, a new study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reveals how the prevalence of these adulterants changes over time and across different regions of the country.  Alerting first responders to the prevalence of specific adulterants in local supplies of fentanyl may make the difference between life and death.

“Our goal is that if some new additive pops up, say in Philadelphia, we’ll be able to tell public health officials when that additive is likely to show up in Delaware, Maryland or the West Coast,” said NIST chemist Ed Sisco.