Humanoid robots still have problems staying upright, especially in tricky situations, but it's evident that they're making some progress. IHMC has posted a video showing Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot balancing on one foot on the edge of a plywood board about 0.8 inches thick. The feat is a "lucky run," IHMC admits (it's rare that the robot stays poised for so long), but it's relatively effortless. The worst you see before the fall is shaking as IHMC's algorithm sometimes makes poor estimates of the robot's state. As brief as the balancing act is, it's telling.

Steam rolled out of the pot, and my kitchen was filled with an intoxicating blend of scents. I'd cooked a turkey ragu before, but as soon as I opened the pot, I knew this would be an entirely different experience. There were the familiar, comforting notes of ground turkey and mushrooms, but there was also earthiness from the beets, the fire of serrano chile, and an unexpected brightness from the coriander seed (coriander seed!). My dinner wouldn't have been out of place at one of San Francisco's trendy food trucks or upscale restaurants, but coming out of my 15 IKEA pot, it was unbelievable. As I mixed in the pasta and ricotta cheese and took the first incredible bite, I realized that A.I. could do a lot more for me than just beating me at Go.

It's been a good week for whales. NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries took nine of 14 populations of humpback whales off the endangered species list. It's a place that humpback whales have occupied since the Endangered Species Act was signed in 1973. The Marine Mammal Protection Act still applies to all humpback whale populations, and the whales will continue to be protected from hunting and other activities. New regulations will also limit the distance at which vessels can approach humpback whales in Alaska and Hawaii, where whales are frequently spotted.

NOTE: This is an extract from our chapter on Healthcare in The Fourth Transformation: Why AR & AI Will Change Everything. In the fourth transformation, people will be leading healthier and longer lives. Of course, AR/VR will play roles in this, as will other enhanced technologies that tap directly into the human brain and nanotech devices that will swim around our bodies hunting down cancer cells and other malicious attackers. In addition, when things inside our bodies become irreparably broken, we will bypass them with external solutions that connect to the brain. This is a chapter that deals with personal and emotional issues related to healthcare, but also, keeps in mind that it is a huge industry.

FILE - This Monday, Feb. 8, 2016, file photo shows a sign on the window at a Chipotle Mexican Grill in Brandon, Fla. Chipotle is taking part in a test in September 2016 that will let some Virginia Tech students and staff have their favorite tortilla-wrapped meal delivered by drone. Virginia Tech is conducting the test with Project Wing, a unit of Google owner Alphabet Inc., which makes self-flying devices that deliver food, medicine and other goods. Chipotle's burritos will be put together at a food truck and then loaded on a drone.

AI-enabled messaging programs that respond to text-based requests -- are the latest innovation that startups and corporations are using to serve existing customers and bring in new ones. Companies across a wide variety of industries are building these tools on popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Kik, and Hipchat, as well as on their own websites and apps. Some are even available by text, to help users do things like fight parking tickets, respond to customer service inquiries, and order tacos. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you see we're missing a chatbot that's currently up and running, please share the link with us in the comments section. We'll add new, significant chatbots to the list over time.

Robots and drones have already started to quietly transform many aspects of agriculture. And now a new report is predicting the agricultural robotics industry, now serving a 3 billion market, will grow to 10 billion by 2022. The report, by IDTechEx Research in Britain, is called Agricultural Robots and Drones 2016-2026: Technologies, Markets, and Players. It analyses how robotic market and technology developments will change agriculture, enabling ultra-precision farming and helping address key global challenges. It describes how robotic technology will enter into different aspects of agriculture, how it will change the way farming is done and transform its value chain, how it becomes the future of agrochemicals business and modifies the way we design agricultural machinery.

Last month, 50 former national security officials who had served at high levels in Republican administrations from Richard Nixon to George W Bush published a letter saying that they would not vote for their party's presidential nominee, Donald Trump. In their words, "a president must be disciplined, control emotions, and act only after reflection and careful deliberation". Simply put, "Trump lacks the temperament to be president". In the terminology of modern leadership theory, Trump is deficient in emotional intelligence - the self-mastery, discipline and empathic capacity that allows leaders to channel their personal passions and attract others. Contrary to the view that feelings interfere with thinking, emotional intelligence - which includes two major components, mastery of the self and outreach to others - suggests that the ability to understand and regulate emotions can make overall thinking more effective.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, is joining hands with fast food chain Chipotle to deliver food using drones, Bloomberg reported. The hybrid aircraft can both fly and hover in place. The experimental delivery by Alphabet's Project Wing will be available only for select employees and students at Virginia Tech. The trials are due to start this month and will last a couple of weeks. Deliveries will be made from a Chipotle delivery truck and the drones will lower the food using a winch while hovering overhead.

On a summer day in 1968, professor Julian Stanley met a brilliant but bored 12-year-old named Joseph Bates. The Baltimore student was so far ahead of his classmates in mathematics that his parents had arranged for him to take a computer-science course at Johns Hopkins University, where Stanley taught. Having leapfrogged ahead of the adults in the class, the child kept himself busy by teaching the FORTRAN programming language to graduate students. Unsure of what to do with Bates, his computer instructor introduced him to Stanley, a researcher well known for his work in psychometrics -- the study of cognitive performance. To discover more about the young prodigy's talent, Stanley gave Bates a battery of tests that included the SAT college-admissions exam, normally taken by university-bound 16- to 18-year-olds in the United States. Bates's score was well above the threshold for admission to Johns Hopkins, and prompted Stanley to search for a local high school that would let the child take advanced mathematics and science classes.