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Some educators view finger counting as a sign of mathematical struggle in children, while others see it as evidence of advanced numerical understanding. New research indicates that teaching finger counting can significantly enhance children’s arithmetic skills.

Swiss and French researchers explored whether finger counting could aid primary school children with math problems. Adults often avoid using fingers for basic calculations, associating this behavior with cognitive issues. However, children under eight who use finger counting demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of quantities, recognizing that they can be represented in various ways.
The study, published in the journal Child Development, involved 328 kindergarteners aged five to six in France, assessed on simple addition tasks. Participants were recruited through their teachers for an experiment comprising a pre-test, two weeks of training, a post-test, and a delayed post-test. Results showed a marked improvement in trained children who initially did not use finger counting, with correct responses rising from 37% to 77%. In contrast, non-finger users in the control group showed no significant gains.

Dr. Catherine Thevenot, the study’s lead researcher, emphasized the importance of these findings, stating, “Finger calculation training is effective for over 75% of kindergartners. The next step is to support the remaining 25% who didn’t respond as well to the intervention.”

Researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Australia have made a significant breakthrough in bone marrow transplants by developing a new method to convert personalized stem cells into hematopoietic stem cells, which are crucial for treating various blood and bone marrow diseases like leukemia.

Currently, bone marrow transplants are the main treatment for these diseases, but they carry serious risks, including graft-versus-host disease, where donor cells attack the recipient’s body. To address this issue, the MCRI team reprogrammed cells obtained from hair, skin, and nails into pluripotent stem cells, which can transform into any cell type. While creating pluripotent stem cells has been successful for over a decade, converting them into hematopoietic stem cells has proven difficult.

The researchers believe that standardizing this conversion process could greatly improve transplant outcomes, especially for children with leukemia. Lead author Elizabeth Ng emphasized the potential of generating patient-specific blood stem cells, which could reduce complications from donor mismatches. The team successfully transformed pluripotent stem cells into hematopoietic stem cells and tested them in immune-deficient mice after freezing, showing results comparable to standard transplants using umbilical cord blood. MCRI Professor Ed Stanley noted that refining these techniques could lead to personalized treatments for various blood disorders, addressing donor shortages and issues with mismatched transplants. Dr. Andrew Elefanty, another researcher, mentioned that these patient-specific stem cells could also be used for genome editing to correct genetic defects.

The study highlighted the case of an 11-year-old girl named Riya, who endured a long recovery after receiving a bone marrow transplant from her mother. This research aims to improve outcomes for patients like her, showcasing the promising future of personalized medicine in treating blood diseases.

Spanish archaeologists have used AI to locate ancient underground irrigation systems, known as qanats, in desert regions around the world.

The AI was trained to analyze Cold War-era satellite photos and detect signs of underground aqueducts that transported water from mountains to dry plains. Unlike Roman aqueducts, qanats were dug below ground, protected from the desert sun by vertical shafts for airflow and maintenance. Qanats, which date back 3,000 years, are hard to spot unless standing near their access points. Despite this, the AI correctly identified qanats in 88% of cases, analyzing images from spy satellites like HEXAGON, which surveyed the Middle East and North Africa between 1959 and 1986.

Hector Orengo from the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology led the study, highlighting how these systems allowed survival in previously uninhabitable areas. The AI will now continue to search for undiscovered qanats in these regions, offering a faster, safer alternative to human surveyors.

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking nuclear battery that’s 8,000 times more efficient than previous models. A team at Soochow University in China designed this battery to harness energy from radioactive decay—a process commonly associated with nuclear waste.

“Micronuclear batteries harness energy from the radioactive decay of radioisotopes to generate electricity on a small scale, typically in the nanowatt or microwatt range,” the researchers explained.

What makes this technology especially promising is that radioactive decay remains unaffected by environmental conditions like temperature, pressure, or magnetic fields. This makes the micronuclear battery a long-lasting and dependable power source in situations where traditional batteries are impractical or difficult to replace such as space or deep sea environments. This brings us closer to a future where miniature batteries can run for decades without needing a recharge.

Breakthrough in Design
While the concept of using radioactive decay for long-lasting batteries has intrigued scientists for over a century, low efficiency has always been a roadblock. This new design overcomes that issue by strategically combining materials.

The researchers used americium, a radioactive element typically regarded as nuclear waste, which emits energy in the form of alpha particles. These particles carry a lot of energy but tend to lose it quickly to their surroundings, making them hard to harness efficiently.

To solve this, the team embedded the americium in a specially designed polymer crystal that acts like a transformer. It converts the fleeting energy of alpha particles into a stable green luminescence. This glowing crystal is then paired with a photovoltaic cell—similar to a tiny solar panel, that is powered by the green glow instead of sunlight. The entire system is encased in a quartz cell, resulting in a micro-nuclear battery that, despite its small size, can provide a stable power supply for decades.

Tests showed that the battery could deliver a steady power supply for more than 200 hours, proving its remarkable longevity. It achieves this with only a small amount of radioactive material, making it a safer and more sustainable option.

While americium has a half-life of 7,380 years, the battery’s lifespan will be limited to a few decades due to the gradual degradation of the materials surrounding the radioactive core. Nonetheless, this marks a significant leap forward in the development of long-lasting, miniature power sources.

Organic and regenerative farming is gaining momentum in Ventura County, California, where industrial agriculture has left a heavy toll on the environment. Pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides have contaminated the soil and groundwater, harming local wildlife. The Rodale Institute and its California Organic Center have been working to change this. With $1 million from Patagonia and $1.5 million from the state of California, they are now able to assist farmers in transitioning to sustainable farming practices that restore soil health and biodiversity, with most startup costs covered.

It’s been just over two years since Patagonia’s founder, Yves Chouinard, declared that 98% company profits would go toward environmental causes, making Earth the company’s bigest shareholder. Since then, the Holdfast Collective, Patagonia’s non-profit arm, has quietly distributed $70 million to major conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and Re:Wild. Holdfast Collective’s executive director Greg Curtis praised the Rodale Institute, calling them “peerless” in their success over the past five years in helping farmers adopt regenerative practices. This made them an obvious choice for Patagonia’s first investment in the agricultural sector since Chouinard’s announcement.

Fast Company reports that the funding from Holdfast and the state will provide farmers with business planning support, long-term produce contracts, and grants for equipment and pest management.