A robot cafe in Tokyo is making work possible for people with disabilities.

A robot cafe in Tokyo is making work possible for people with disabilities.

A robot server, controlled remotely by a disabled worker, delivers drinks to patrons at the DAWN cafe in Tokyo.

Photo courtesy of dawn2021.orylab.com.

A sleek, four-foot tall white robot glides across a cafe storefront in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, holding a two-tiered serving tray full of tea sandwiches and pastries. The cafe’s patrons smile and say thanks as they take the tray—but it’s not the robot they’re thanking. Instead, the patrons are talking to the person controlling the robot—a restaurant employee who operates the avatar from the comfort of their home.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.

How old fishing nets turn into chairs, car mats and Prada bags

A company called Aquafil is turning the fibers from fishing nets and old carpets into new threads for chairs, car mats, bikinis and Prada bags.

Aquafil

Discarded nylon fishing nets in the oceans are among the most harmful forms of plastic pollution. Every year, about 640,000 tons of fishing gear are left in our oceans and other water bodies to turn into death traps for marine life. London-based non-profit World Animal Protection estimates that entanglement in this “ghost gear” kills at least 136,000 seals, sea lions and large whales every year. Experts are challenged to estimate how many birds, turtles, fish and other species meet the same fate because the numbers are so high.

Since 2009, Giulio Bonazzi, the son of a small textile producer in northern Italy, has been working on a solution: an efficient recycling process for nylon. As CEO and chairman of a company called Aquafil, Bonazzi is turning the fibers from fishing nets – and old carpets – into new threads for car mats, Adidas bikinis, environmentally friendly carpets and Prada bags.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Michaela Haas
Michaela Haas, PhD, is an award-winning reporter and author, most recently of Bouncing Forward: The Art and Science of Cultivating Resilience (Atria). Her work has been published in the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Huffington Post, and numerous other media. Find her at www.MichaelaHaas.com and Twitter @MichaelaHaas!
Fast for Longevity, with Less Hunger, with Dr. Valter Longo

Valter Longo, a biogerontologist at USC, and centenarian Rocco Longo (no relation) appear together in Italy in 2021. The elder Longo is from a part of Italy where people have fasted regularly and are enjoying long lifespans.

Valter Longo

You’ve probably heard about intermittent fasting, where you don’t eat for about 16 hours each day and limit the window where you’re taking in food to the remaining eight hours.

But there’s another type of fasting, called a fasting-mimicking diet, with studies pointing to important benefits. For today’s podcast episode, I chatted with Dr. Valter Longo, a biogerontologist at the University of Southern California, about all kinds of fasting, and particularly the fasting-mimicking diet, which minimizes hunger as much as possible. Going without food for a period of time is an example of good stress: challenges that work at the cellular level to boost health and longevity.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Matt Fuchs
Matt Fuchs is the host of the Making Sense of Science podcast and served previously as the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org. He writes as a contributor to the Washington Post, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Nautilus Magazine, Fortune Magazine and TIME Magazine. Follow him @fuchswriter.