When we speak of robots, we tend to discuss mechanical taskmasters sent to the bottom of the ocean to fix broken pipes or a machine sent to diffuse a bomb. To date, robots have been used to tackle jobs deemed too dangerous or impractical for humans. But, The New York Times has been exploring a new breed of robots designed to execute emotional functions by providing companionship and even conversation.

A St. Louis veterans hospital may have infected thousands of its patients with HIV and hepatitis. The Department of Veterans Affairs mailed letters out to 1,812 veterans, warning them they may potentially be infected, because dental equipment "may not have been cleaned correctly" at the clinic at the John Cochran hospital.

After the earthquake, injured Haitians flooded the hospital. Now, some of them are cured, but like the 700,000 other homeless Haitians, they have nowhere to go. So they turn to their doctors for help, adding to the overstretched workload of the medical staff.

An update from Carol Fipp, an aid worker with The Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot, Haiti. Fipp wrote to us on Sunday, frustrated with how slowly their waiting hospital was receiving patients from Port-au-Prince.

We received five helicopter deliveries of 12 patients today. We had four U.S. Coast Guard airlifts and one Navy airlift. It's definitely an increase from yesterday, but we can still handle many more. It is an improvement, but the current effort is still inadequate; many more people are stranded in Port-Au-Prince, in dire need of care, and the clock is ticking. Our biggest obstacle is the lack of helicopters. Our surgical teams did 16 procedures today, operating until 11:30 PM tonight, and we have six surgeries scheduled for tomorrow morning. We expect the airlifts to increase, and expect possibly two bus loads of injured from Port-au-Prince — a 75 mile ride, which takes six-eight hours over rough roads.

We got this email on Sunday from Carol Fipp, an aid worker with The Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot, Haiti. She is trying to coordinate an airlift of injured quake victims from Port-au-Prince to their full-service hospital in Milot, which is 75 miles north of Port-au-Prince. So far, the hospital has only airlifted four patients. The New York Times reports a similar story from the medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières.

This week, a presidential panel warned that the H1N1 virus could kill up to 90,000 Americans and send 200,000 to the hospital. Joining us to discuss these alarming figures (which he says he now wishes they hadn't included in the report) is Dr. Harold Varmus. He co-authored the report and is co-chair for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. And for a look at how hospitals can ready themselves for such a stress on their resources is Dr. Jeff Kalina, an associate director of Emergency Medicine with the Methodist Hospital in Houston.