Governor Ron DeSantis announced this week that registration for the Florida Python Challenge has opened.

A Melbourne company has come up with an innovative idea to solve Australia's housing crisis by constructing entire homes through 3D printing.

Fortex Technical Director Jake Hartman said the process is like a 3D desktop printer but on a much larger scale and can construct a home in a more efficient time period.

"We are able to produce concrete onsite, pump it onsite and deliver the wall system to a house onsite," he said.

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It is a concrete-based printer but can use locally based resources to build the homes.

CEO David Lederer said the system is best suited to a flat surface to build on but can construct up to 12-metre homes.

"It is a modular-based system from small homes to 12 metres wide and three storeys and 50 metres deep before you have to move the printer, so basically infinite in-depth," Lederer said.

Hartman added it gives more "design freedom" to architects due to the ease of building different shaped homes like curved walls.

"The design freedom it will give architects and designers will bring about a whole new way and lifestyle as a result of the different shapes and forms we will be able to see in residential construction," Hartman said.

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Fortex spruiked they could build a 210 square metre single-storey home in just 40 hours with two days of setting up the printer prior to construction.

"That compared to a conventional building eight to 12 weeks for the wall system, that is excluding the delays that all builders are having in terms of supply, now it could blow out to 14 weeks for the wall system," Lederer said.

The company said the technology would not put tradies out of business as workers are still required to operate the printing system.

It comes as the construction industry is under extensive pressure due to material and worker shortages and high demand after COVID-19 lockdowns shut down the sector.

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Russian state television has showed video of two US military veterans who went missing last week while fighting in Ukraine, confirming that the men were taken captive and raising fears about their fate.

Alex Drueke and Andy Huynh, both from Alabama, were believed to be the first Americans captured by Russian forces since the war began on February 24.

Drueke, speaking into the camera from what appeared to be an office, sent a message to his mother, concluding with a quick wink.

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“Mum, I just want to let you know that I’m alive and I hope to be back home as soon as I can be. So, love Diesel for me. Love you.”

Diesel is his dog, a mastiff.

His aunt, Dianna Shaw, said the video included both a key word and a gesture that Drueke and his mother had set up during one of his two tours in Iraq so she would know that it was indeed him and that he was OK.

Drueke, who served in the US Army, and Huynh, who served in the US Marines, went missing after their group came under heavy fire in the northeastern Kharkiv region on June 9.

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Citing Drueke, the RT television report said the Americans became separated from the others and once it was safe they set off through the woods, ending up in a village where they were approached by a Russian patrol and surrendered.

RT, which broadcasts in English, said they were being held by Russian-backed separatist forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Three other foreigners fighting for Ukraine, two Britons and a Moroccan man, were sentenced to death by a court run by separatists in Donetsk, which is in the Donbas.

The US has insisted that anyone captured should be considered a prisoner of war and protected by guarantees of humane treatment and fair trials. But the Russian military has said it considers foreigners fighting with Ukraine to be mercenaries and claims they are not protected as combatants under the Geneva Conventions.

A reporter for the Russian state television network VGTRK recorded short clips of the two men speaking Russian and saying, “I am against war.”

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There has been no official confirmation from the US or Russian government that the Americans were being held.

The State Department said earlier this week that it was looking into reports that Russian or Russian-backed forces had captured two American citizens.

It also reiterated its warning that Americans should not be going to Ukraine to fight, a message repeated Friday by President Joe Biden.

Asked about the missing Americans before the Russian videos appeared, Biden said he had been briefed on the situation but provided no further details.

“I don’t know where they are and I want to be clear: Americans should not be going to Ukraine,” Biden said. “I’ll say it again, Americans should not be going to Ukraine.”

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A discarded thermal blanket has been found on Mars by the NASA Perseverance Rover.

The rover's Twitter account posted a photo of the human-made rubbish trapped between rocks on the planet.

"My team has spotted something unexpected: It's a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021," the tweet said.

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"That shiny bit of foil is part of a thermal blanket – a material used to control temperatures.

"It's a surprise finding this here: My descent stage crashed about two kilometres away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?"

The rover was wrapped in thermal blankets prior to its departure to Mars to control the machine's temperatures.

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Scientists believe the thermal blanket was discarded on the planet during the rover's descent but are now trying to work out whether it landed there or was blown there by wind.

The Perseverance Rover landed on Mars in February 2021 and is collecting data about the planet.

Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, stood to become the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the US, beginning in the 1970s.

The car-size, plutonium-powered rover was aiming for NASA's smallest and trickiest target yet: a five-by-four-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and fields of rock.

Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened three billion to four billion years ago, when water still flowed on the planet.

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New research has shown long COVID-19 is causing brain fog and memory loss in patients for more than a year.

The study found about 20 per cent of those suffering from long COVID-19 can experience brain impairment for at least 12 months without improvement.

Long COVID-19 is categorised as people suffering from symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, and shortness of breath a month after contracting the virus.

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Professor Bruce Brew from Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital said researchers have analysed 128 patients over 12 months and found the impacts of long COVID-19 on the brain don't go away after a year.

"We're hopeful it will take another year or less to see some improvement in their condition but we just don't know," he said.

"The study has also identified a marker of cognitive impairment – a nerve toxin in a particular pathway in the brain, which opens up the possibility of repurposing existing drugs to modulate this toxin, which could potentially give us a treatment."

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Brew added those suffering from long COVID-19 didn't necessarily become really sick with the virus when they had it.

"There's a common misconception that if you're not severely ill with COVID then you won't experience brain fog, but in our study nine out of ten of those suffering long COVID were not hospitalised," he said.

Professor Steven Faux helps run the long COVID clinic at St Vincent's Hospital and said he is seeing eight to 10 new patients a week with the disease, primarily young people.

"What we're finding is it's actually affecting younger people, and they're finding it really difficult to be able to continue working," he said.

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Researchers added long COVID-19 has debilitating effects on sufferers and the symptoms have been likened to a traumatic brain injury.

"The impact of long COVID on some is significant. I had one patient, a businessman who had to sell his business because he could no longer focus on contracts and negotiations during meetings," Brew said.

"We're seeing people with slow thought processes and confusion which is very similar to a Traumatic Brain Injury," Faux added.

A clinic at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney treats patients with long COVID-19.

The research will be heard at the National Brain Injury Conference.