Memorable racing titles are built on four pillars: a satisfying sense of speed; graphics that

Analysts are almost universally optimistic about Amazon.com Inc., one of the biggest winners this earnings season. But further

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2023--

It’s well known that all humans alive today can be traced back to a common ancestor but a study may have found where that ancestor originates. Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute mapped the entirety of genetic relationships among humans to create the largest human family tree ever. By combining modern and ancient human genomes data from eight different databases, the researchers were able to create a massive family tree. This allowed them to see how a person’s genetic sequence relates to another using the points of the genome. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Essentially, we are reconstructing the genomes of our ancestors and using them to form a vast network of relationships,” Lead author Dr Anthony Wilder Wohns said. “We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived.” Where they lived? Sudan, Africa. Dr Wohns told Reuters, "The very earliest ancestors we identify trace back in time to a geographic location that is in modern Sudan. “These ancestors lived up to and over 1 million years ago—which is much older than current estimates for the age of Homo sapiens—250,000 to 300,000 years ago. So bits of our genome have been inherited from individuals who we wouldn’t recognize as modern humans," Dr Wohns said. Researchers used 3,609 individual genome sequences from 215 populations and samples that ranged from 1,000s to over 100,000 years. By using a new method to compile the data, algorithms were able to predict where common ancestors were in evolutionary trees to explain some patterns of genetic variation. The results were a network of almost 27 million ancestors. “The power of our approach is that it makes very few assumptions about the underlying data and can also include both modern and ancient DNA samples,” Dr Wohns says. Not only does the data help us understand human geology better but the new method could help in other research, like medicine. “The underlying method could have widespread applications in medical research, for instance identifying genetic predictors of disease risk," Dr Wohns added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Bruce Straley has put the stunt scenes side by side on Twitter.

We use letters every day of our lives, but apparently, there's one lowercase letter that we do not recognise. Psychologists at Johns Hopkins University have discovered that most people aren't aware that there are two types of the lowercase letter g. One of them is the open tail 'g' which most of us would have written out by hand with its image comparable to "a loop with a fishhook hanging from it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Then, there is the loop tail 'g' which appears in print form e.g. books and newspapers as well as in Serif fonts such as Times New Roman and Calibri - we've all seen this type of letter millions of times, but it seems remembering it is an entirely different challenge altogether. There were 38 volunteers in the study published by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance and they were asked to list letters that they thought had two variations in print. In the first experiment, "most participants failed to recall the existence of looptail g" while only two people could write looptail g accurately. "They don't entirely know what this letter looks like, even though they can read it," co-author Gali Ellenblum said. Next participants were asked to look for examples of the looptail g in the text and were asked to reproduce this letter style after this and in the end, only one person could do this while half the group wrote an open tail g. Finally, those taking part in the study were asked to identify the letter g in a multiple-choice test with four options of the letter where seven out of 25 managed to do this correctly. So how can we know a letter but not recognised it? It could be to do with the fact we are not taught to write this kind of 'g," according to Michael McCloskey, senior author of the paper. "What we think may be happening here is that we learn the shapes of most letters in part because we have to write them in school. 'Looptail g' is something we're never taught to write, so we may not learn its shape as well," he said. "More generally, our findings raise questions about the conditions under which massive exposure does, and does not, yield detailed, accurate, accessible knowledge." In a play-along video on John Hopkin's YouTube channel, four different g's labelled from one to four appear on the screen where it asked viewers to guess which is the correct looptail 'g'. (*Spoiler ahead*) The correct answer is number 3. Meanwhile, this study has also led research to question the impact that writing less and using more devices has on our reading abilities. "What about children who are just learning to read? Do they have a little bit more trouble with this form of g because they haven't been forced to pay attention to it and write it?" McCloskey said. "That's something we don't really know. Our findings give us an intriguing way of looking at questions about the importance of writing for reading..." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Fly.io, a tech startup whose public cloud infrastructure enables developers to deploy applications, has raised $70 million in

A nostalgic clip of a TV from the year 2000 has made waves across social media, with many people stunned to learn it cost $5,000 (£4,000) at the time. The footage posted online shows guests arriving at a friend's New Year's house party, where they were told there was a "surprise" for them. "I think you guys are going to be amazed," he said as they gasped in awe of the TV. The clip has since garnered almost 5 million views and thousands more re-shares and comments. "I can't imagine how hard it was to get that down the basement stairs without dropping it," one person said. "People don't remember how freaking heavy TVs were back in the day." Another commented: "Aww! It really puts it into perspective though how drastically and quickly technology has changed & improved though. That was really not all that long ago, all things considered." Meanwhile, a third suggested: "Just hold on to it for a few more years and sell it as a rare item for a million bucks." Fast forward to 2023, and one viral TikTok left people feeling incredibly nostalgic over contents in a handbag from 2009. Influencer @sophdoeslife found one of her old bags that she was planning to give to charity, but instead, found some throwback items still intact. The classic British teenager staples including a phone sock, braided headbands, and a Claire's Accessories eyeshadow palette. There's even a McDonald's straw with 2009 branding, and a label from a pack of Primark earrings - back when they branded as Opia. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

AMEA Power, a Dubai-based renewable-energy company, plans to build a green hydrogen facility in the Kenyan port of

President Joe Biden is addressing concerns about artificial intelligence as the administration attempts to guide the development of the rapidly evolving technology. The White House said on Monday (30 October) that a sweeping executive order will address concerns about safety and security, privacy, equity and civil rights, the rights of consumers, patients, and students, and supporting workers. The order will also hand a list of tasks to federal agencies to oversee the development of the technology. ‘We have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself’ “We can’t move at a normal government pace,” White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients quoted Mr Biden as telling his staff, according to the AP. “We have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself.” Mr Biden believes that the US government was late to the game to take into account the risks of social media, leading to the related mental health issues now seen among US youth. While AI may help drastically develop cancer research, foresee the impacts of the climate crisis, and improve the economy and public services, it may also spread fake images, audio and videos, with possibly widespread political consequences. Other harmful effects include the worsening of racial and social inequality and the possibility that it can be used to commit crimes, such as fraud. The president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, Alexandra Reeve Givens, told the AP that the Biden administration is using the tools at their disposal to issue “guidance and standards to shape private sector behaviour and leading by example in the federal government’s own use of AI”. Mr Biden’s executive order comes after technology companies have already made voluntary commitments, and the aim is that congressional legislation and international action will follow. The White House got commitments earlier this year from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI to put in place safety standards when building new AI tools and models. Monday’s executive order employs the Defense Production Act to require AI developers to share safety test results and other data with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is also set to establish standards governing the development and use of AI. Similarly, the Department of Commerce will publish guidance outlining the labelling and watermarking of content created using AI. An administration official told the press on Sunday that the order is intended to be implemented within between 90 days and a year. Safety and security issues have the tightest deadlines. Mr Biden met with staff last Thursday for a half-hour meeting that grew into an hour and 10 minutes to put the finishing touches on the order. Biden ‘impressed and alarmed’ by AI The president was engaged in meetings about the technology in the months that preceded Monday’s order signing, meeting twice with the Science Advisory Council to discuss AI and bringing up the technology during two cabinet meetings. At several gatherings, Mr Biden also pushed tech industry leaders and advocates regarding what the technology is capable of. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Bruce Reed told the AP that Mr Biden “was as impressed and alarmed as anyone”. “He saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog,” he added. “He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.” The AI-created images and audio prompted Mr Biden to push for the labelling of AI-created content. He was also concerned about older people getting a phone call from an AI tool using a fake voice sounding like a family member or other loved one for the purpose of committing a scam. Meetings on AI often went long, with the president once telling advocates: “This is important. Take as long as you need.” Mr Biden also spoke to scientists about the possible positive impacts of the technology, such as explaining the beginning of the universe, and the modelling of extreme weather events such as floods, where old data has become inaccurate because of the changes caused by the climate crisis. ‘When the hell did I say that?’ On Monday at the White House, Mr Biden addressed the concerns about “deepfakes” during a speech in connection with the signing of the order. “With AI, fraudsters can take a three-second recording of your voice, I have watched one of me on a couple of occasions. I said, ‘When the hell did I say that?’” Mr Biden said to laughter from the audience. Mr Reed added that he watched Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One with Mr Biden one weekend at Camp David. At the beginning of the film, the antagonist, an AI called “the Entity”, sinks a submarine, killing its crew. “If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” Mr Reed told the news agency. The White House has faced pressure from a number of allied groups to address possible harmful effects of AI. The director of the racial justice programme at The American Civil Liberties Union, ReNika Moore, told the AP that the union met with the administration to make sure “we’re holding the tech industry and tech billionaires accountable” so that the new tools will “work for all of us and not just a few”. Ex-Biden official Suresh Venkatasubramanian told the news agency that law enforcement’s use of AI, such as at border checkpoints, is one of the top challenges. “These are all places where we know that the use of automation is very problematic, with facial recognition, drone technology,” the computer scientist said. Read More Biden reacts to watching deepfakes of himself: ‘When the hell did I say that?’ Rishi Sunak to hold live chat with Elon Musk during AI summit Liz Truss ‘deeply disturbed’ by Sunak’s invitation to China to attend AI summit Extinction risk from AI on same scale as nuclear war, Sunak warns Revealed: Government using AI to decide on benefits and driving licences Brexit means UK can be global leader on AI, says Facebook co-founder

This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 5, 2023--