With the Russo-Ukrainian War in its fourth year, both sides are dealing with critical troop shortages, but Ukrainian officials think they have found a solution. The country has started using remotely controlled robots in combat to account for these shortages and reduce casualties. But some experts are downplaying the impact these robots could have on the war effort.

‘Outnumbered army can stay in the fight’
The robots are a key part of Ukraine’s fight because of their offensive capabilities. One video during combat, filmed last summer, showed several Ukrainian robots that “each carried 66 pounds of explosives,” said The New York Times. One of these robots drove into a Russian stronghold and “blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position.” Several Russian soldiers surrendered.

Of course, human soldiers remain the key demographic on the battlefield, but Ukraine is “eager to highlight its advances to show Western partners that its outnumbered army can stay in the fight,” while also promoting the country’s “homegrown defense industry,” said the Times. During the first three months of 2026, Ukraine’s ground robots “carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front lines,” said Business Insider, citing data from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

‘Support troops, not replace them’
The narrative has largely been that Ukrainian robots will eventually supersede most of the country’s soldiers, but the “reality is more nuanced and far less futuristic,” said the Kyiv Post. The expansion of these battlefield robots is mostly part of an effort to “support troops, not replace them.” And even though the stories of these robots dominate the headlines, much of the “work performed by these robots remains logistical.”

But even nonoffensive missions using robots “can save lives, as they replace tasks that would otherwise require soldiers to move on foot under fire,” said a senior operator of ground robotic systems from Ukraine’s 13th Brigade to the Kyiv Post. It remains “far better to send a robot on a mission. If it’s destroyed, you lose equipment. But if you send two or three soldiers and they are killed, it’s a much greater loss, both emotionally and for the unit’s combat capability.”

Rotavirus, a potentially deadly gastrointestinal pathogen, is being transmitted at an alarming rate across the country, and young children are the most at risk of severe infection. Experts believe that reduced vaccination rates are behind the trend.

How bad is rotavirus?
Every year, the virus is “responsible for 20 to 60 deaths in the U.S., more than 200,000 emergency room visits and between 55,000 and 70,000 hospitalizations among children under 5,” said Newsweek. And infection rates are higher now than they were at the same time last year, according to CDC data. The percentage of positive rotavirus tests across the country has been steadily increasing since January. 

Rotavirus can cause gastroenteritis with “fever above 101 degrees Fahrenheit and vomiting for one to two days, followed by frequent diarrhea,” said Discover Magazine. The pathogen “spreads particularly quickly among babies and young children via the fecal-oral route through contaminated hands and surfaces.” It can lead to severe dehydration, which may require hospitalization. And in the worst cases, it’s deadly, especially among younger children.

There’s no specific treatment once someone develops gastroenteritis from rotavirus. Doctors “only provide supportive therapy,” including “hydration” in the case of dehydration and “small and frequent feeding, as well as fever control with medications like Tylenol,” said Forbes. Usually, the symptoms resolve themselves in about a week.

Why is it spreading?
Rotavirus is seasonal and “follows a fairly regular annual pattern, much like influenza,” said Ben Lopman, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University, to Newsweek. It tends to peak in late winter and early spring and decline in the summer. 

While there’s no treatment for rotavirus, the disease can be prevented. There are two different oral vaccinations available. Given during infancy, “7 out of 10 children who get the vaccine will be protected from getting infected, and 9 out of 10 will be protected against severe disease,” said Forbes. 

Doctors have “fresh concerns that declining vaccinations could lead to more severe illness and a higher surge in the coming years,” said NBC News. Most of those infected and hospitalized are “either too young to get the vaccine, haven’t received all the doses yet or are unvaccinated.” 

Two great egret chicks perch in a nest at a bird rookery in St Augustine, Florida, on Earth Day today. They were hunted almost to extinction in the 1800s but are now a common sight across the state thanks to conservation efforts. 
Ronen Tivony / NurPhoto / Getty Images

It sometimes feels impossible to predict the shape of a single day, let alone that of years from now. But some movies, either deliberately or inadvertently, offer glimpses into the future through visions of technological advances or predicted social and political trends.

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
Director Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic remains open to many different interpretations and may seem ponderous to modern audiences. Nonetheless, it’s widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. The way the movie prefigured the rise of AI is particularly impressive given that there “wasn’t yet a clear notion that computation could be something meaningful in its own right, independent of the particulars of its hardware implementation,” said Stephen Wolfram at Wired. (HBO Max)

‘Minority Report’ (2002)
Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise at the height of his stardom) is the head of Precrime in Washington, D.C., circa 2054, in director Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster (pictured above). The most far-thinking plot point that came true might be the rise of “predictive policing” to “identify individuals who are purportedly more likely to commit or be a victim of a crime,” said The Brennan Center. (Paramount+)

‘Children of Men’ (2006)
Widely considered one of the best science-fiction films of the 21st century, Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men” depicts the aftermath of a global fertility crisis. Many of the movie’s developments “feel uncomfortably familiar and have clear contemporary allegories,” particularly the way that people “must continue to plow through the activities of mundane life while society continues to crumble” around them, said Ana Carpenter at Paste Magazine. (Prime Video)