A crash test dummy gets hit in its "head" by a drone. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wants to know, so they conducted a study to understand and mitigate the risks of drones flying over people, and what happens if a drone loses connection to its pilot or just crashes to the ground. It turns out that small drones are safer near people than was thought. "We were able to identify blunt force trauma, penetration injuries and lacerations as the most significant threats to people on the ground," said David Arterburn, an engineer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and lead investigator for the study, which was conducted by several universities and released Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. As part of the test, the researchers dropped a typical drone (a Phantom 3, weighing 2.7 pounds) on a crash test dummy at a typical speed of about 34 mph.

Origami is an old Japanese art of folding paper into various decorative shapes, and requires a certain amount of nimbleness of the fingers. But a new method developed by researchers uses layers of a thin polymer that fold themselves into origami structures under the effect of light. The self-folding origami technique was developed by researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Peking University in China, who published a paper on the subject Friday in the journal Science Advances. And the possible applications of the technique aren't just decorative -- it can find uses in a range of fields, including "soft robots, microelectronics, soft actuators, mechanical metamaterials and biomedical devices," according to the researchers. The paper, titled "Origami by frontal photopolymerization," explains the method.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chatmeter, the leader in local search marketing and review management, today revealed new research proving the trustworthiness of online reviews and the impact they have on consumers' trust in a brand. In advance of National Honesty Day (April 30th), these findings combined with the launch of Chatmeter Pulse, a sentiment analysis engine, will help businesses understand first-hand what their customers are experiencing and how they make actionable decisions on where to improve the customer experience, products, marketing messaging, and operations. By becoming familiar with the needs and wants of their customers, this will naturally increase loyalty and trust with the brand itself. With National Honesty Day approaching, Chatmeter further examined if fake reviews are a real issue, or just the latest in fake news. There are plenty of headlines and even some lawsuits around fake review ramifications.

Over three-quarters of consumers in the U.S. have used voice commands to operate a digital device, indicating a comfort with voice-activated services -- but adoption of digital home assistants is still comparatively low, with only 11 percent of consumers saying they own an Amazon Echo/Dot or Google Home, according to new research from GfK. Put simply, people are used to the idea that they can command a device with their voice: 69 percent have used speech to send a text, ask a question, or make a search on a smartphone. But with digital home assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home introduced less than two years ago, it may take a little bit longer for the average consumer to warm up to the idea of using voice-activated intelligent assistants to power more aspects of their daily lives. But while these devices haven't reach critical mass yet, the bridge is there: As stated, a majority of consumers already use voice commands on their smartphones. And, moreover, voice commands have an inherently "human" element; unlike VR or Google Glass, people ask for information using their voice absolutely everywhere, everyday, and they always have.

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has sent back stunning images from its descent down a mysterious gap between Saturn and its rings. The images provide'our closest look ever at Saturn's atmosphere and giant hurricane,' Nasa said. The spacecraft executed the daredevil plunge yesterday in the build up to its final'death dive' in September. Communications with the spacecraft went dark during the dive, but Nasa announced today that it has picked up radio signals from Cassini. Nasa's 70m-wide Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna at Goldstone, California, managed to re-establish communications just after 08:00 BST (03:00 EST) today, and stunning images are already flooding in. Communications with the spacecraft went dark during the dive, but Nasa has today announced that it has picked up radio signals from Cassini.

Smart speakers are getting increasingly popular and tech giants Google and Apple could not have been left behind in the race. While Amazon was the first to operate in the segment, Google jumped onto the bandwagon last year and now Apple is ready to give it competition. According to Apple tipster Sonny Dickson, Apple is all set to release its smart speakers soon. Dickson tweeted Thursday saying: "Apple is currently finalizing designs for their Alexa competitor, expected to be marketed as a Siri/AirPlay device." He further added that the device would be using Beats technology, which the company uses for some iPhone accessories and will run on iOS.

Honda Motor Co. reported Friday a ¥95.9 billion ($864 million) profit for January-March, a turnaround from the ¥93.4 billion loss it racked up a year earlier, as the automaker recovers from costs for a massive air bag recall. Quarterly sales rose 2.9 percent to ¥3.76 trillion ($33.9 billion) from ¥3.66 trillion. The performance exceeded forecasts by analysts at FactSet. Tokyo-based Honda, which makes the Accord sedan, Odyssey minivan and Asimo robot, said an unfavorable exchange rate and research spending that chipped away at profits were offset by lower recall expenses and cost cuts. Honda is the biggest customer of Japanese air bag maker Takata Corp., which is recalling millions of defective air bags whose inflators can explode with too much force, spewing shrapnel. For the fiscal year through March, Honda posted a ¥616.5 billion ($5.6 billion) profit, up dramatically from ¥344.5 billion the previous fiscal year, and better than the company or analyst forecasts.

The purpose of language is to reveal the contents of our minds, says Julie Sedivy. We are social animals and language is what springs us from our isolated selves and unites us with others. Sedivy has taught linguistics and psychology at Brown University and the University of Calgary. She specializes in psycholinguistics, the psychology of language, notably the psychological pressures that give birth to language and comprehension. More recently Sedivy has been writing about language in her own life. She was born in Czechoslovakia, spent time as a kid in Austria and Italy, and came of age in Canada. She speaks Czech, French, and English, and gets by in Spanish, Italian, and German.

Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is a restaurant specializing in insects. Stepping inside on a cool June evening in 2014, my friend Stephen Wood and I were immersed in the colors and smells of Oaxaca, Mexico. Oyamel is the name of the fir tree native to central Mexico where monarch butterflies rest upon migrating from the United States and Canada, and the décor had a lepidopteran theme: The glass door at the entrance was studded with transparent red, yellow, and pink butterflies, and butterfly mobiles hung from the ceiling. But it wasn't butterflies that Stephen and I had come to sample. Our quest focused on chapulines, soft tacos stuffed with grasshoppers. Taking our order, the waitress noted our luck: The grasshoppers sometimes get held up coming through customs from Mexico, but that night they were readily available. Stephen and I ordered a number of small, tapas-like dishes, and when the chapulines arrived, I saw insect body parts right away. A delicate grasshopper leg tumbled onto the table when I raised the taco to my mouth.