This week’s roundup of top data news highlights from January 31, 2026, to February 6, 2026, includes new AI tools that detect student math anxiety in real time and home-security cameras connected through Ring’s network to help people track down lost dogs.
1. Detecting Math Anxiety in Real-Time
Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia have created an AI‑driven classroom tool that detects math anxiety by analyzing students’ real‑time inputs and behavioral cues, such as how long they take to answer, how often they repeat mistakes, and when their interaction patterns drop off. The tool identifies frustration and avoidance patterns, then adapts its feedback by easing prompts, offering targeted hints, and adjusting task difficulty to build students’ confidence and reduce negative reactions
2. Detecting Radioactive Waste from the Sky
Researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics have built an AI‑guided drone that flies over radioactive‑waste sites, such as decommissioned nuclear power plants, and autonomously surveys them using gamma‑ray detectors, LiDAR, and high‑resolution cameras. The drone creates 3D contamination maps that inspectors and cleanup teams can use to plan decontamination efforts, eliminating the need for humans to enter hazardous zones.
Engineers at Duke University have built AI‑programmable mechanical blocks that let robots adjust their stiffness and movement by turning internal cells solid or liquid on command. Each block contains sensors, motors, and microcontrollers that can be reconfigured like LEGO pieces, while an AI model learns how the assembled structure should move, balance, or interact with objects. A robot can rearrange its blocks to become taller for reaching tasks or more stable for carrying loads.
4. Finding Lost Dogs with Ring Cameras
Home‑security company Ring has launched a feature that helps people find lost dogs, even if they don’t own Ring devices. When a pet-owner submits a missing dog alert with photos and identifying details, Ring’s system uses AI and computer vision to analyze footage from nearby Ring cameras. The pet owner does not see any video; instead, the system scans footage for visual patterns like matching size, shape, coloring, and movement patterns, and only notifies a camera owner if it detects a likely match. That camera owner can then choose whether to share relevant clips, providing faster and more targeted leads during a search.
5. Predicting Extreme Weather Events
The European Centre for Medium‑Range Weather Forecasts has launched the third phase of its project to build a highly detailed digital model of the planet by 2030. This phase adds more computing power, new data sources, and higher‑resolution simulations, allowing the system to better capture extreme weather, sea‑level rise, and long‑term environmental change. Researchers and policymakers can use the model to test what‑if scenarios, such as heat waves or flooding.
6. Detecting Breast Cancer with AI
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have tested an AI system that can help doctors spot early signs of breast cancer often missed during routine screenings. The tool reviews mammogram images alongside radiologists’ assessments and highlights subtle patterns linked to fast‑growing interval cancers. In the trial, the system detected more hard‑to‑see cases than traditional screening alone, indicating it could help doctors identify aggressive tumors sooner.
7. Detecting Weeds on Farms Faster
Seattle-based agriculture robotics company Carbon Robotics has built an AI vision model called the Large Plant Model (LPM) that identifies different plants. Trained on more than 150 million photos from over 100 farms in 15 countries, the model replaces the manual process researchers have used to label new weeds and add them to the AI system’s database, which previously took an entire day. The LPM instantly recognizes new weeds without additional programming, enabling faster automated removal.
8. Delivering Drugs Inside the Brain
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and University College London have created a soft, brain implant that delivers medication directly to targeted areas by releasing small, pre‑loaded therapeutic doses once injected and activated by a doctor. The device uses tiny LEDs and a flexible structure that moves with brain tissue, reducing irritation and long‑term damage. By combining precise drug delivery with real‑time optical monitoring, the system could support more targeted treatment for neurological conditions such as epilepsy.
9. Mapping the Sun’s Magnetic Field
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology have created a 3D computer model that generates detailed 3D maps of the Sun’s internal magnetic fields using nearly three decades of satellite observations. Running on a high-performance computing systems, the model uses daily magnetic‑field maps from 1996 to 2025 to show how hidden magnetic layers evolve and reconstruct the structures and flows that drive solar storms and space weather.
10. Building Europe’s AI Factories
German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, construction firm Polarise, and NVIDIA have built a large AI data center in Germany that gives companies and public institutions access to far more computing power than they could normally afford. Running nearly 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, the facility supports advanced AI training and deployment at scale, helping hospitals, universities, and startups accelerate AI‑based work.
