"The U.S. is currently home to more than 18 million cancer survivors," reports the Wall Street Journal, "over 5% of the total population" (including those who are living with the disease).

Their article tells the story of Gwen Orilio, who was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer at age 31. Ten years later she's still alive — and she still has metastatic cancer... Keeping her going is a string of new treatments that don't cure the disease but can buy months — even years — of time, with the hope that once one drug stops working a new one will come along. Orilio started on chemotherapy, and then switched to a new treatment, and then another, and another, and another... A small but growing population is living longer with incurable or advanced cancer, navigating the rest of their lives with a disease increasingly akin to a chronic illness. The trend, which started in breast cancer, has expanded to patients with melanoma, kidney cancer, lung cancer and others. The new drugs can add years to a life, even for some diagnoses like Orilio's that were once swift death sentences. They also put people in a state of limbo, living on a knife's edge waiting for the next scan to say a drug has stopped working and doctors need to find a new one. The wide range of survival times has made it more difficult for cancer doctors to predict how much time a patient might have left. For most, the options eventually run out....

More than 690,000 people were projected to be living with stage-four or metastatic disease of the six most common cancers — melanoma, breast, bladder, colorectal, prostate or lung cancer — in 2025, according to a 2022 report from the National Cancer Institute. That's an increase from 623,000 in 2018 and a significant rise since 1990, the report found... Nearly 30% of survivors diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and 20% of those diagnosed with metastatic colorectal or breast cancer had been living with their disease for a decade or more, the NCI paper estimated... Even for lung cancer, the biggest U.S. cancer killer, the five-year relative survival rate for advanced disease has inched up, from 3.7% for patients diagnosed in 2004 to 9.2% for patients diagnosed in 2017, federal data show. The overall lung cancer survival rate has risen by 26% in the past five years, according to the American Lung Association, as declining cigarette use, screening and new drugs have driven down deaths.

The expanding number of therapies that target a cancer's mutations or boost the immune system are improving the outlook for several cancers. In breast cancer, treatment for metastatic disease accounted for 29% of the drop in deaths between 1975 and 2019, according to one 2024 estimate, with screening and treatment for early-stage disease accounting for the rest.
The number of American cancer survivors (or those living with cancer) is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040," the article points out.

Take a look at what being called "a stunning phenomenon," captured in a photo taken from the International Space Station as it passed above a thunderstorm over Mexico and the American Southwest.

So what was it? "A rare form of Transient Luminous Event (TLE) called a gigantic jet," according to a new blog post at Notebookcheck.net: A gigantic jet happens above thunderstorms, firing powerful bursts of electrical charge from the top of the thunderstorm (about 20 km [12.4 miles] above the ground) into the upper atmosphere (about 100 km [62.1 miles] above the ground). The upper part of gigantic jets produces red emissions identical to sprites [large-scale electric discharges above thunderclouds]. But while gigantic jets burst directly from the top of thunderstorms, sprites form independently, much higher in the atmosphere, appearing around 50 miles (80 km) above the Earth's surface.
"If ordinary lightning seems pretty ordinary, upper-atmosphere lightning is something else — an entire zoo of various upper-atmosphere electrical discharges," writes the Severe Weather Europe site.

And NASA made a request in a new blog post this week to any aspiring citizen scientists. "Have you captured an image of a jet, sprite, or other type of TLE? Submit your photos to Spritacular.org to help scientists study these fascinating night sky phenomena!"

Click here to see some of the photos from around the world that have already been uploaded and collected at Spritacular.org.

Sunlight becomes energy when plants convert four photons of light. But unfortunately, most attempts at synthetic light-absorbing chemicals can only absorb one photon at a time, write two researchers from the University of Melbourne. "In the Polyzos research group at the School of Chemistry, we have developed a new class of photocatalysts that, like plants, can absorb energy from multiple photons." This breakthrough allows us to harness light energy more effectively, driving challenging and energy-demanding chemical reactions.

We have applied this technology to generate carbanions — negatively charged carbon atoms that serve as crucial building blocks in the creation, or synthesis, of carbon- and hydrogen-rich chemicals known as organic chemicals. Carbanions are vital in making drugs, polymers and many other important materials. However, traditional methods to produce carbanions often require lots of energy and dangerous reagents, and generate significant chemical waste, posing environmental and safety challenges... Our new method offers a greener, safer alternative [using visible light and renewable starting materials]...

We've used it to synthesize important drug molecules, including antihistamines, in a single step using simple, cheap and commonly available "commodity chemicals" — amines and alkenes. And importantly, the reaction scales well in commercial-scale continuous flow reactors, highlighting its potential for industrial applications.
"By learning from the subtle mastery of photosynthesis," the researchers write, their group "is forging a new paradigm for chemical manufacturing — one where sunlight powers sustainable and elegant solutions for the molecules that shape our world."

"The planet Uranus emits more heat than it gets from the Sun," reports Science Daily , citing a new study led by University of Houston researchers, in collaboration with planetary scientists worldwide. "This means it's still slowly losing leftover heat from its early history," says the first author on the paper, "a key piece of the puzzle that helps us understand its origins and how it has changed over time."

The study found the planet emitting about 12.5% more heat than it absorbs via sunlight, which "suggests Uranus does have its own internal heat — an advance that not only informs NASA's future missions but also deepens scientists' understanding of planetary systems, including processes that influence Earth's climate and atmospheric evolution." The discovery resolves a long-standing scientific mystery about the giant planet, because observational analyses from Voyager 2 in 1986 didn't suggest the presence of significant internal heat — contradicting scientists' understanding of how giant planets form and evolve...

Additionally, the team's methodology provides testable theories and models that could also be applied to explore radiant energy of other planets within and beyond our solar system... It could even impact technology innovation and climate understanding on Earth [giving insights into "the fundamental processes that shape planetary atmospheres, weather systems and climate systems," said one of the paper's authors.]
The article adds that the researchers now think the planet "may have a different interior structure or evolutionary history compared to the other giant planets."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Drug treatment can help people newly diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to reduce their risk of substance misuse, suicidal behavior, transport accidents and criminality, a study suggests. These issues are linked to common ADHD symptoms such as acting impulsively and becoming easily distracted. Some 5% of children and 2.5% of adults worldwide are thought to be affected by the disorder -- and growing numbers are being diagnosed. The findings, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), confirm the wider potential benefits of drug treatment and could help patients decide whether to start medication, the researchers say. The researchers found taking ADHD medication was linked to reductions of first-time instances of:
- suicidal behavior - 17%
- substance misuse - 15%
- transport accidents - 12%
- criminal behavior - 13%

When recurrent events were analyzed, the researchers found ADHD medication was linked to reductions of:
- 15% for suicide attempts
- 25% for substance misuses
- 4% for accidental injuries
- 16% for transport accidents
- 25% for criminal behavior

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Take note of the name: ReHMGB1. A new study pinpoints this protein as being able to spread the wear and tear that comes with time as it quietly travels through the bloodstream. This adds significantly to our understanding of aging. The researchers were able to identify ReHMGB1 as a critical messenger passing on the senescence signal by analyzing different types of human cells grown in the lab and conducting a variety of tests on mice. When ReHMGB1 transmission was blocked in mice with muscle injuries, muscle regeneration happened more quickly, while the animals showed improved physical performance, fewer signs of cellular aging, and reduced systemic inflammation. The findings have been published in the journal Metabolism.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScientificAmerican: After a brain stem stroke left him almost entirely paralyzed in the 1990s, French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote a book about his experiences -- letter by letter, blinking his left eye in response to a helper who repeatedly recited the alphabet. Today people with similar conditions often have far more communication options. Some devices, for example, track eye movements or other small muscle twitches to let users select words from a screen. And on the cutting edge of this field, neuroscientists have more recently developed brain implants that can turn neural signals directly into whole words. These brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) largely require users to physically attempt to speak, however -- and that can be a slow and tiring process. But now a new development in neural prosthetics changes that, allowing users to communicate by simply thinking what they want to say.

The new system relies on much of the same technology as the more common "attempted speech" devices. Both use sensors implanted in a part of the brain called the motor cortex, which sends motion commands to the vocal tract. The brain activation detected by these sensors is then fed into a machine-learning model to interpret which brain signals correspond to which sounds for an individual user. It then uses those data to predict which word the user is attempting to say. But the motor cortex doesn't only light up when we attempt to speak; it's also involved, to a lesser extent, in imagined speech. The researchers took advantage of this to develop their "inner speech" decoding device and published the results on Thursday in Cell. The team studied three people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and one with a brain stem stroke, all of whom had previously had the sensors implanted. Using this new "inner speech" system, the participants needed only to think a sentence they wanted to say and it would appear on a screen in real time. While previous inner speech decoders were limited to only a handful of words, the new device allowed participants to draw from a dictionary of 125,000 words. To help keep private thoughts private, the researchers implemented a code phrase "chitty chitty bang bang" that participants could use to prompt the BCI to start or stop transcribing.

New research suggests exposure to some common Pfas or "forever chemical" compounds causes changes to gene activity, and those changes are linked to health problems including multiple cancers, neurological disorders and autoimmune disease. From a report: The findings are a major step toward determining the mechanism by which the chemicals cause disease and could help doctors identify, detect and treat health problems for those exposed to Pfas before the issues advance. The research may also point toward other diseases potentially caused by Pfas that have not yet been identified, the authors said.

The study is among the first to examine how Pfas chemicals impact gene activity, called epigenetics. "This gives us a hint as to which genes and which Pfas might be important," said Melissa Furlong, a University of Arizona College of Public Health Pfas researcher and study lead author.

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: In February 2023, a detector called KM3NeT, located deep under the Mediterranean Sea, picked up a signal that seemed to indicate a neutrino with a record-shattering energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV). For reference, the previous record was a mere 10 PeV. Now, an exhaustive analysis of all the data on and around the event, designated KM3-230213A, not only supports the conclusions that the signal was caused by a 220-PeV neutrino, but adds to the mystery about where the heck in the Universe it came from."The patterns of light detected for KM3-230213A show a clear match to what is expected from a relativistic particle crossing the detector, most likely a muon, ruling out the possibility of a glitch," the KM3NeT Collaboration told ScienceAlert. "Thanks to the reconstructed energy and direction of this muon, the most likely scenario by far is that the muon originated in the interaction of an astrophysical neutrino in proximity to the detector, making it the most natural explanation."

The scientists believe that it's very, very unlikely that the neutrino originated within the Milky Way galaxy. Work is underway to come closer to tracing its origin point. "KM3-230213A opened a new window on ultra-high-energy neutrino astronomy," the Collaboration said. "Our analysis is the first effort to combine the observations of multiple telescopes over a wide energy range to characterize the ultra-high-energy spectrum. This represents our best chance to gain knowledge on the most extreme objects that populate our Universe."

The research has been published in the journal Physical Review X.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Astronomers have observed the calamitous result of a star that picked the wrong dance partner. They have documented what appears to be a new type of supernova, as stellar explosions are known, that occurred when a massive star tried to swallow a black hole with which it had engaged in a lengthy pas de deux.

The star, which was at least 10 times as massive as our sun, and the black hole, which had a similar mass, were gravitationally bound to one another in what is called a binary system. But as the distance separating them gradually narrowed, the black hole's immense gravitational pull appears to have distorted the star -- stretching it out from its spherical shape -- and siphoned off material before causing it to explode. An AI algorithm detected the event in real time, enabling astronomers to conduct comprehensive observations. Data from four years before the supernova showed bright emissions as the black hole consumed its companion's outer hydrogen layer. The exact mechanism remains uncertain -- either gravitational distortion triggered the star's collapse or the black hole completely tore it apart first. Following the explosion, the black hole consumed residual stellar debris, growing more massive.

Twenty years after Michelin introduced the Tweel in 2005, airless tires remain absent from passenger vehicles despite their promise to "eliminate nearly 200 million scrap tires a year caused by flats and underinflation," according to Michelin's internal testing cited in a Jalopnik report. Current prototypes "tend to transfer more road noise and vibration into the cabin than traditional radials -- making the ride harsher, especially at highway speeds." Heat dissipation poses additional challenges as "airless designs -- particularly those with internal webbing or solid cores -- have fewer ways to shed thermal load." The added structural mass "can affect fuel economy and increase unsprung weight -- bad news for handling and suspension tuning." Federal regulations compound these technical barriers since vehicle tires are subject to rigorous performance standards, many of which assume air pressure as a baseline.

An anonymous reader New Atlas: An engineered protein that acts like a molecular sponge has the potential to change how carbon monoxide poisoning is treated, chasing down CO molecules in the bloodstream and helping the body flush them out in just minutes, without the risk of short- or long-term health issues that come with the current frontline treatment, pure oxygen. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) were focused on a natural protein known as RcoM, found in the bacterium Paraburkholderia xenovorans. In bacteria, RcoM detects trace amounts of CO in the environment, so the engineers believed this could be harnessed to scavenge for CO molecules attached to red blood cells instead.

The re-engineered protein is the basis of the therapy they call RcoM-HBD-CCC. While it's not exactly a catchy name, it possesses somewhat of a superpower when it comes to cleaning out CO. It selectively binds tightly to the poisonous CO molecules, while ignoring oxygen (O2) and other critical chemical compounds, such as blood-pressure-regulating nitric oxide (NO), in the body. [...] In mouse models, RcoM-HBD-CCC therapy was able to clear CO from the blood in minutes, with it safely flushed out of the body through urine. The engineered antidote acts like a sponge, seeking out and soaking up CO attached to red blood cells. In mice, half the CO in the bloodstream was cleared out in less than a minute, freeing the hemoglobin on the cells to once again start carrying O2.

Importantly, other experimental scavenger hemoproteins haven't been able to selectively target CO, and as a result also bind to NO – so infusions of such hemoproteins can lead to a reduction of NO in the blood, tightening blood vessels and spiking blood pressure. In the study, RcoM-HBD-CCC showed it didn't have this affinity with the vital molecule. "Unlike other protein-based treatments, we found the compound caused only minimal changes in blood pressure, which was an exciting finding and raised the potential for this new molecule to have clinical applications," said study corresponding author Dr Mark T. Gladwin, Dean of UMSOM. "This has the potential to become a rapid, intravenous antidote for carbon monoxide that could be given in the emergency department or even in the field by first-responders." The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

A countrywide study of smartphone users who relocated between US cities found that moving to more walkable environments increased daily walking by 1,100 steps on average. Stanford University researchers analyzed 248,266 days of step data from 5,424 users of the Azumio Argus smartphone app who relocated 7,447 times among 1,609 cities between March 2013 and February 2016. Participants who moved from cities at the 25th percentile of walkability to those at the 75th percentile sustained the increased activity levels for at least three months after relocation.

The additional steps consisted predominantly of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, with large walkability increases of 49-80 points associated with about one hour per week more of such activity. The study found that 42.5% of participants met national physical activity guidelines for moderate-to-vigorous activity after moving to highly walkable locations, compared to 21.5% before relocation. Computer simulations based on the data suggest that increasing all US cities to the walkability level of Chicago or Philadelphia could result in 36 million more Americans meeting aerobic physical activity guidelines.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Experts at the University of Edinburgh carried out a post-mortem brain examination on 25 cats which had symptoms of dementia in life, including confusion, sleep disruption and an increase in vocalization. They found a build-up of amyloid-beta, a toxic protein and one of the defining features of Alzheimer's disease. The discovery has been hailed as a "perfect natural model for Alzheimer's" by scientists who believe it will help them explore new treatments for humans.

Dr Robert McGeachan, study lead from the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, said: "Dementia is a devastating disease -- whether it affects humans, cats, or dogs. Our findings highlight the striking similarities between feline dementia and Alzheimer's disease in people. This opens the door to exploring whether promising new treatments for human Alzheimer's disease could also help our ageing pets." [...]

Previously, researchers have studied genetically-modified rodents, although the species does not naturally suffer from dementia. "Because cats naturally develop these brain changes, they may also offer a more accurate model of the disease than traditional laboratory animals, ultimately benefiting both species and their caregivers," Dr McGeachan said. [...] Prof Danielle Gunn-Moore, an expert in feline medicine at the vet school, said the discovery could also help to understand and manage feline dementia. The findings have been published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Can deleting old emails and photos help the UK tackle ongoing drought this year? That's the hope, according to recommendations for the public included in a press release today from the National Drought Group.

There are far bigger steps companies and policymakers can take to conserve water of course, but drought has gotten bad enough for officials to urge the average person to consider how their habits might help or hurt the situation. And the proliferation of data centers is raising concerns about how much water it takes to power servers and keep them cool.

"Simple, everyday choices -- such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails -- also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife," Helen Wakeham, Environment Agency Director of Water, said in the press release.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Physicists have created a new type of radar that could help improve underground imaging, using a cloud of atoms in a glass cell to detect reflected radio waves. The radar is a type of quantum sensor, an emerging technology that uses the quantum-mechanical properties of objects as measurement devices. It's still a prototype, but its intended use is to image buried objects in situations such as constructing underground utilities, drilling wells for natural gas, and excavating archaeological sites. [...] The glass cell that serves as the radar's quantum component is full of cesium atoms kept at room temperature. The researchers use lasers to get each individual cesium atom to swell to nearly the size of a bacterium, about 10,000 times bigger than the usual size. Atoms in this bloated condition are called Rydberg atoms.

When incoming radio waves hit Rydberg atoms, they disturb the distribution of electrons around their nuclei. Researchers can detect the disturbance by shining lasers on the atoms, causing them to emit light; when the atoms are interacting with a radio wave, the color of their emitted light changes. Monitoring the color of this light thus makes it possible to use the atoms as a radio receiver. Rydberg atoms are sensitive to a wide range of radio frequencies without needing to change the physical setup... This means a single compact radar device could potentially work at the multiple frequency bands required for different applications.

[Matthew Simons, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who was a member of the research team] tested the radar by placing it in a specially designed room with foam spikes on the floor, ceiling, and walls like stalactites and stalagmites. The spikes absorb, rather than reflect, nearly all the radio waves that hit them. This simulates the effect of a large open space, allowing the group to test the radar's imaging capability without unwanted reflections off walls.The researchers placed a radio wave transmitter in the room, along with their Rydberg atom receiver, which was hooked up to an optical table outside the room. They aimed radio waves at a copper plate about the size of a sheet of paper, some pipes, and a steel rod in the room, each placed up to five meters away. The radar allowed them to locate the objects to within 4.7 centimeters. The team posted a paper on the research to the arXiv preprint server in late June.

Researchers at Kyushu University have developed a solid-oxide fuel cell that operates at just 300C, less than half the usual operating temperature. The team was able to do this by engineering a "ScO6 highway" in the electrolyte, allowing protons to move quickly without losing performance. "The team expects that their new findings will lead to the development of low-cost, low-temperature SOFCs and greatly accelerate the practical application of these devices," said the researchers in a press release. Interesting Engineering reports: "While SOFCs are promising due to their high efficiency and long lifespan, one major drawback is that they require operation at high temperatures of around 700-800C (1292F-1472F)," added the researchers in a press release. Such heat requires costly, specialized heat-resistant materials, making the technology expensive for many applications. A lower operating temperature is expected to reduce these manufacturing costs.

The team's success comes from re-engineering the fuel cell's electrolyte, the ceramic layer that transports protons (hydrogen ions) to generate electricity. Previously, scientists faced a trade-off. Adding chemical dopants to an electrolyte increases the number of available protons but also tends to clog the material's crystal lattice, slowing proton movement and reducing performance. The Kyushu team worked to resolve this issue. "We looked for oxide crystals that could host many protons and let them move freely -- a balance that our new study finally struck," stated Yamazaki.

They found that by doping two compounds, barium stannate (BaSnO3) and barium titanate (BaTiO3), with high concentrations of scandium (Sc), they could create an efficient structure. Their analysis showed that the scandium atoms form what the researchers call a "ScO6 highway." This structure creates a wide and softly vibrating pathway through the material. "This pathway is both wide and softly vibrating, which prevents the proton-trapping that normally plagues heavily doped oxides," explained Yamazaki. The resulting material achieves a proton conductivity of more than 0.01 S/cm at 300C, a performance level comparable to conventional SOFC electrolytes that run at more than double the temperature. The research has been published in the journal Nature Materials.

Biochar produced from solid human excrement could supply up to 7% of global phosphorus fertilizer needs annually, according to a Cornell University study published in PNAS. When combined with nutrients extracted from urine, the process could provide 15% of phosphorus, 17% of nitrogen, and 25% of potassium used in agriculture worldwide.

The biochar production process reduces solid waste volume and weight by up to 90%, while allowing nutrient proportions to be adjusted for specific crop requirements.

Wedneday Beyond Meat "missed Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue," reports Reuters. "Consumers' growing concerns about processed foods are severely diminishing the appeal of Beyond Meat's product line, causing retailers and quick service restaurants to pull back sharply on orders," Rachel Wolff, analyst at Emarketer, said.

Retail sales of refrigerated plant-based meat alternative products in the U.S. have fallen 17.2% so far this year, and frozen plant-based meat alternatives have fallen 8.1%, according to data from SPINS... [Beyond's] revenue for the quarter ended June 28 fell nearly 20% to $75 million, compared with analysts' average estimate of $82 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
While the company arguably invented a new market for plant-based meat substitutes, it also "owns no real intellectual property," argues The Street. "And every company in the meat and grocery business (more or less) now sells a take-off of a product that already had limited appeal..." Beyond Meat has admitted it's in trouble by hiring corporate restructuring expert John Boken from consultancy AlixPartners as interim chief transformation officer [with a focus that includes "operating expense reduction" and "broader operational efficiency"]. It has also let go of 44 employees in North America (6% of its global workforce) as it seeks to cut operating expenses amid disappointing sales... Beyond Meat also has a significant cash problem. As of June 28, 2025, Beyond Meat's cash and cash equivalents balance was $117.3 million, and total outstanding debt was $1.2 billion. The company does have time to fend off a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, but it also has limited, if any, prospects to meet its impending cash needs.

Imagine this. Lightning sparks a wildfire, but "within seconds, a satellite dish swirling overhead picks up on the anomaly and triggers an alarm," writes the Los Angeles Times. "An autonomous helicopter takes flight and zooms toward the fire, using sensors to locate the blaze and AI to generate a plan of attack. It measures the wind speed and fire movement, communicating constantly with the unmanned helicopter behind it, and the one behind that. Once over the site, it drops a load of water and soon the flames are smoldering. Without deploying a single human, the fire never grows larger than 10 square feet.

"This is the future of firefighting." On a recent morning in San Bernardino, state and local fire experts gathered for a demonstration of the early iterations of this new reality. An autonomous Sikorski Black Hawk helicopter, powered by technology from Lockheed Martin and a California-based software company called Rain, is on display on the tarmac of a logistics airport in Victorville — the word "EXPERIMENTAL" painted on its military green-black door. It's one of many new tools on the front lines of firefighting technology, which experts say is evolving rapidly as private industry and government agencies come face-to-face with a worsening global climate crisis...

Scientific studies and climate research models have found that the number of extreme fires could increase by as much as 30% globally by 2050. By 2100, California alone could see a 50% increase in wildfire frequency and a 77% increase in average annual acres burned, according to the state's most recent climate report. That's largely because human-caused climate change is driving up temperatures and drying out the landscape, priming it to burn, according to Kate Dargan Marquis, a senior advisor with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation who served as California's state fire marshal from 2007 to 2010.... "[T]he policies of today and the technologies of today are not going to serve us tomorrow."

Today, more than 1,100 mountaintop cameras positioned across California are already using artificial intelligence to scan the landscape for the first sign of flames and prompt crews to spring into action. NASA's Earth-observing satellites are studying landscape conditions to help better predict fires before they ignite, while a new global satellite constellation recently launched by Google is helping to detect fires faster than ever before.
One 35-year fire service veteran who consults on fire service technologies even predicts fire-fighting robots will also be used in high-risk situations like the Colossus robot that battled flames searing through Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris...

And a bill moving through California's legislation "would direct the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a pilot program to assess the viability of incorporating autonomous firefighting helicopters in the state."