Archaeologists in Turkey are slowly unravelling the secrets of a previously unknown ancient language. And among them are revelations that long-forgotten civilisations used language to promote multiculturalism and political stability. The ancient clay tablets unearthed from archaeologists, in the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire at Hattusa, were recently found to contain the previously unknown language. Researchers had dusted off nearly 30,000 unique tablets at the scene – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – with most written in Hittite, and a few in the brand new language. The ongoing excavations have since revealed that the imperial civil service had whole departments whose job it was to research their subject peoples’ religions. Back in the second millennium BC, Hittite leaders told their officials to record religious ceremonies and other traditions of subject peoples by writing them in their respective local languages. The idea was that the traditions would be preserved and incorporated into the wider empire, in what appears to be a push towards multiculturalism. The fact that multiculturalism was such a prominent part of Bronze Age culture certainly has resonances in the modern day, where debates around immigration and multiculturalism continue to be a hot topic. So far, experts have found at least five subject ethnic groups who have had the treatment, with the latest example unearthed two months ago. It was written in a previously unknown Middle Eastern language that had been lost for up to 3,000 years. The language is being called Kalasmaic, because it would have been spoken by a subject people in an area called Kalasma in the northwest of the empire. And while only five minority languages have so far been found on the Bronze Age tablets, the reality is that there were probably at least 30, archaeologists say. Daniel Schwemer, a Wurzburg University professor who is leading the investigation into the newly discovered texts, said: “Bronze Age Middle Eastern history is only partly understood – and discovering additional clay tablet documents is helping scholars to substantially increase our knowledge.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to 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.

It feels like this year, more than any other, we’re seeing a stream of science stories that continue to blow our minds. Every day is a school day online in 2023, and a host of studies, research papers and headline-making breakthroughs have completely changed our understanding of the world around us at every turn. There have been missions to the moon and findings about our planet which could turn everything we thought we knew on its head – not to mention baffling hearings on UFOs taking place in the US congress. These are the biggest science stories so far this year that have caught our attention in a big way. https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/ocean-beneath-earth-crust-ringwoodite-2665333030 Test Test Scientists discover continent that had been missing for 375 years Geoscientists discovered a continent that had been hiding in plain sight for almost 375 years. Historically, there's been speculation about whether a continent known as Zealandia or Te Riu-a-Māui in the Māori language exists. Read more here. 'Alien corpses' unveiled in Mexico divide conspiracy theorists Christmas has come early for UFO watchers, with the alleged corpses of real-life aliens displayed for the world to see. The startling revelation came during a congress hearing in Mexico City on Tuesday, titled the Public Assembly for the Regulation of Unidentified Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (UAP). During the session, which was streamed online, Mexican ufologist Jaime Maussan presented what he claimed were two perfectly preserved “non-human entities”. Read more here. Buy now , Massive ocean discovered beneath the Earth's crust containing more water than on the surface People are only just realising that there’s a massive ocean hidden under the Earth’s crust. It turns out there’s a huge supply of water 400 miles underground stored in rock known as 'ringwoodite'. Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which isn’t a liquid, solid or a gas, but instead a fourth state. Read more here. Buy now , 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

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Zoom has provoked outrage among its users after a change to its terms of service. This week, the company made a number of changes to its terms of service that related to the way it uses people's data and the content of their calls. They have led to widespread criticism from users, some of whom have quit over what they said was overly expansive permissions. In particular, critics focused on a passage in which users agreed to Zoom's "access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance, and storage" of data "for any purpose". The new terms said that data could be used for a variety of functions, including "machine learning or artificial intelligence" such was training new artificial intelligence models. Many feared that the expansive rules would mean that Zoom could, for instance, use the data of meetings to train generative artificial intelligence systems. A number of companies have faced backlash over fears that they could be gathering user data with a view to training artificial intelligence systems using it, and customers have become increasingly concerned about the potential invasion of privacy and ownership that could present. But now Zoom has said that the terms were misunderstood, and updated them with a new line intended to make clear that chats would not be used to train AI systems. "Zoom will not use audio, video or chat customer content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent," the terms now read. In a blog post addressing the controversy, Zoom said that it had introduced two new generative AI features, aimed at making it easier to summarise meetings and help with chats. At the moment they are offered on a free trial basis and administrators can choose whether they are turned on. "When you choose to enable Zoom IQ Meeting Summary or Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose, you will also be presented with a transparent consent process for training our AI models using your customer content," the company said in its update. "Your content is used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services. And even if you chose to share your data, it will not be used for training of any third-party models." Read More Now even Zoom tells staff: ‘Come back to the office’ OpenAI launches bot that will crawl the internet to educate GPT PayPal launches dollar-backed cryptocurrency

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