As people make efforts to stay apart from each other physically, video games are filling the socializing gap. As people make efforts to stay apart from each other physically, video games are filling the socializing gap. Some people look at the weeks ahead and wonder how they will keep themselves from going stir crazy. Across the U.S., new restrictions have limited in-person gatherings in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus infection, as concern grows from watching its effects on the hard-hit populations of China and Italy, where thousands have died. But other Americans already have a plan to help combat social isolation: video games.

The following article is part of a series on Argonne National Laboratory's efforts to use the predictive power of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning, to advance discoveries in a broad range of scientific disciplines. High-energy physics and cosmology seem worlds apart in terms of sheer scale, but the invisible components that comprise the field of one inform the composition and dynamics of the other -- collapsing stars, star-birthing nebulae and, perhaps, dark matter. For decades, the techniques by which researchers in both fields studied their domains seemed almost incompatible, as well. High-energy physics relied on accelerators and detectors to glean some insight from the energetic interactions of particles, while cosmologists gazed through all manner of telescopes to unveil the secrets of the universe. " … it would be interesting to know if image classification techniques from machine learning that have been used successfully by Google and Facebook can simplify or shorten the development of algorithms that identify particle signatures in our 3D detectors."

Almost exactly a year ago, in April 2010, professional motocross rider Randy Childers sustained serious injuries after a crash in the last race of the day at Cowboy Badlands in West Beaumont, Texas. He suffered broken ribs and a fractured wrist, but most seriously a crushed vertebra in his neck (C3) that required him to be airlifted to Houston, where surgeons inserted an artificial vertebra and fused two others together (C4 and C5) during a marathon operation that lasted 12 hours. Today, the 24-year-old is the star in a single-patient trial of Rice University's RiceWrist robot, a wearable exoskeleton that mimics the joints from his shoulder to his hand. After months of traditional physical therapy, Childers had recovered enough by October to walk (albeit slowly) into the basement lab at Rice and begin to use the RiceWrist, which is built to reconnect motor pathways in the brain through repetitive movement. After just two weeks, Rice Professor Marcia O'Malley says, Childers was doing most of the work himself.