This tiny robot monk could teach you something about Buddhism. Its name is Xian'er and it can perform a range of tasks, shown in the video above. Built over 1,000 years ago, this ancient sanctuary has grown into the most tech-savvy Buddhist temple in China. It promotes the collaboration of religion and technology--contrary to the traditional belief that Buddhists should be very secluded. Some of its study rooms even have fingerprint recognition systems (link in Chinese).

It was a fall night in 2006, when Bradley Waldroup walked out of his rural trailer in southeastern Tennessee, carrying his .22 His estranged wife and her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, had just pulled up to drop off the Waldroups' four children. Waldroup began arguing with his wife and Bradshaw, who was unloading the car. He used a knife to cut her head open. He then chased his wife with the knife and a machete, managing to slice off one of her pinkies before dragging her into the trailer. There, he told their frightened children, "Come tell your mama goodbye," because it was the last time they'd ever see her. Miraculously, his wife managed to slip his grasp and escape.

Scientists at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA have developed a new technique for identifying cancer cells in blood samples faster and more accurately than the current standard methods. In one common approach to testing for cancer, doctors add biochemicals to blood samples. Those biochemicals attach biological "labels" to the cancer cells, and those labels enable instruments to detect and identify them. However, the biochemicals can damage the cells and render the samples unusable for future analyses. There are other current techniques that don't use labeling but can be inaccurate because they identify cancer cells based only on one physical characteristic. The new technique images cells without destroying them and can identify 16 physical characteristics -- including size, granularity and biomass -- instead of just one.

Currently elevators go up and down. In the future, they'll go side to side too; in the near future, in fact. German multinational ThyssenKrupp has unveiled a new ropeless elevator or travellator which can move laterally as well as horizontally at up to 18 metres per second, allowing rapid transportation across large buildings. The absence of rope means multiple elevator boxes can travel in the same shaft, cutting waiting times to 15 seconds. Weight is reduced by 50 per cent, making the system more energy efficient.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Apple's focus on personal health through connected devices ramps up a little more today with the release of the first four third party apps to integrate its newly announced open source CareKit technologies. CareKit provides a series of Apple-designed modules healthcare organizations can weave into their apps. "One of the most important things affecting the outcome of surgery is what you do in the recovery process, yet we go from being monitored by a team of highly trained specialists using leading-edge technology to being discharged with a single sheet of paper." The first four apps created with the framework have been made available, and they help illustrate the potential for connected health and self care support. It will sync data from Bluetooth-enabled handheld blood glucose monitors, and provides schedules, insights and medication reminders.

Guided by a circular reticle that expanded and contracted along with the movements of my diaphragm, I floated gracefully through a Tron-like underwater world shaded by cool blues, cheerful pinks and relaxing purples as low-poly models of marine life swam about. It took only about 10 seconds or so for the game's breathing-based control scheme to become intuitive, at which point I'd become so engrossed in gliding through the environment and surrendering my mental state to the fuzzy murmur of binaural beats soundtracking it, that I'd forgotten about Tribeca and the media frenzy around me. In truth, I only took off the headset because I knew I had to make way for other journalists, not because I was ready to end my play session. When I did, Owen Harris, the video game designer who originated the concept for Deep VR, was delighted: According to Harris and his Dutch co-creator Niki Smit, I'd officially stayed in the experience longer than any other viewer who'd demoed it. "We want to help teach people these breathing techniques so that they can then manage these conditions outside of the game," says Harris of Deep VR's intended stress- and anxiety-reducing goal.

Not sure what to get for Mother's Day? Columnist Jennifer Jolly shows off great tech gifts for Mom. Amazon's Echo smart home hub has become a sleeper hit for the company. Mother's Day is coming up fast and that special gift that makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Well it isn't just going to make, or buy, itself. Here are 10 of this year's most-wanted mom gadgets sure to show her how much you appreciate her, all year long.

LIKE many constructions, it started small. But now thousands of children with autism are making friends and learning social skills by playing a version of online building game Minecraft. Stuart Duncan got the idea through a popular blog he ran about his own experiences with autism as well as bringing up a son with autism. Other parents with autistic children started telling him that their kids were crazy about a game that let them explore a randomly generated wilderness. However, despite loving the game, many of the children were being bullied by other players.

How can we help millions of chronically ill patients lead healthier lives with fewer hospitalizations? Parsing through individual patient remote monitoring data doesn't seem like a scalable solution. But what if artificial intelligence could rapidly analyze this information and predict an individual's health problem, such as worsening heart failure, in time for caregivers to intervene and prevent an emergency department visit or hospital admission? That may sound like a pipe dream, yet the technology to make it happen already exists. This new "prescription" for chronically ill patients would be an algorithm -- a personalized disease model unique to each patient, based on streams of data collected from biosensors worn by patients.