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Autonomous robots can inspect nuclear power plants, clean up oil spills in the ocean, accompany fighter planes into combat and explore the surface of Mars.

Yet for all their talents, robots still can’t make a cup of tea.

That’s because tasks such as turning the stove on, fetching the kettle and finding the milk and sugar require perceptual abilities that, for most machines, are still a fantasy.

Four out of 10 Americans live in “double whammy” counties where unhealthy smog and pollen-producing ragweed– both tied to the growing climate crisis – combine to threaten respiratory health, a Natural Resources Defense Council mapping project released today shows. 

NRDC’s analysis found air quality “hot spots” in states and areas with the greatest percentages of people living in areas with both ragweed and unhealthy ozone days. Ironically, Washington, D.C., -- where climate action is being rolled back — leads the rankings followed by  Connecticut, Rhode Island, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

127 million Americans live in zones where increased carbon dioxide and ozone smog pollution largely from burning fossil fuels, combined with more ragweed pollen, can worsen respiratory allergies and asthma. That can lead to more sick days, higher medical costs, and a rise in the number of heart problems and premature deaths each year.   

Heavy rain resulted in significant flooding in the U.S. Midwest over the week of July 7 to 14, 2017. Using satellite data, NASA estimated the amount of rain that fell over those areas and used satellite data to create 3-D imagery of severe storms.

NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) data were used to show estimates of rainfall accumulation in the Midwest during the period from July 7 to 14, 2017. The analysis was conducted at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and indicates that parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio had the highest rainfall totals during the period with more than 6 inches (152.4 mm) of rain being seen in many areas.

NOAA and its research partners predict that western Lake Erie will experience a significant harmful algal bloom this summer, potentially reaching levels last seen in 2013 and 2014, though smaller than the record bloom of 2015.

This year’s bloom is expected to measure 7.5 on the severity index, but could range between six and 9.5. An index above five indicates a potentially harmful bloom. The severity index is based on a bloom’s biomass – the amount of its harmful algae – over a sustained period. The largest blooms, 2011 and 2015, were 10 and 10.5, respectively.

A new algorithm developed by Stanford computer scientists can sift through hours of heart rhythm data generated by some wearable monitors to find sometimes life-threatening irregular heartbeats, called arrhythmias. The algorithm, detailed in an arXiv paper, performs better than trained cardiologists, and has the added benefit of being able to sort through data from remote locations where people don’t have routine access to cardiologists.