List of All Articles with Tag 'and'

It wasn't all that long ago that collaborating with people on documents was a huge

Scientists have revealed they had found a way to combine the technology of brain scans and artificial intelligence to transcribe “the gist” of people’s thoughts. Alex Huth, an assistant professor of neuroscience and computing science at the University of Texas at Austin, and a co-author on the new study published in Nature Neuroscience, said that ‘this is a real leap forward.’ The study was led by Huth and Jerry Tang, a doctoral student in computer science. The main development from this study is that it’s non-invasive. This means that subjects do not require surgical implants. Instead, brain activity is measured using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In the study, individuals listened to hours of podcasts in the scanner. Then, given the participant’s consent to have their thoughts decoded, they listened to a new story and the machine-generated corresponding texts from brain activity. It’s not a word-for-word transcript. For example, when an individual heard the phrase ‘I don’t have my driver’s licence yet’, the model decoded the individual’s thoughts to read as ‘she has not even started to learn to drive yet.’ Even when participants thought up their own stories, the machine was able to decode their thoughts still. Tang acknowledged that the advancements made in the study had the potential for negative aftermath. Tang said, ‘we take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that.’ They ran tests that highlighted that unless the machine had been trained on an individual’s particular brain activity, it could not decode its thoughts. An individual had to allow for the machine to train their brain activity over a long period of time inside a fMRI scanner for it to work. Researchers also found that it was easy to ‘sabotage’ the machine. Three participants were told to tell a different story in their mind, or count by seven, while listening to one of the podcasts. The study highlights even more development with artificial intelligence, after the popularity of OpenAI’s Chat GPT has sparked debate around the potential of AI. 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.

An overview of the media in Myanmar, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

Humans in Europe may have mastered fire long before we previously thought. According to a study published in Scientific Reports, humans made the discovery around 245,000 years ago, up to 50,000 years earlier than scientist thought previously. Researchers studied samples from the Valdocarros II, a huge archaeological site found east of Madrid, Spain. Using chemical analysis, they found certain compounds that show things were burnt by fire in "organised" social events, rather than through accidents or wildfires. "We have found definitive evidence of things being burnt and those remains are organised into a pattern, suggesting it's humans who are making and controlling the fire. Either they were using the fire to cook or to defend themselves. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The spatial patterning in the fire tells us that they were encircling something, like a home or sleeping area, a living room or kitchen, or an enclosure for animals," Dr. Clayton Magill, study author and Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, said in a statement. Dr Magill added that this new work helps to fill in the gaps in our understanding of human-controlled fire and human development. "This is important because our species is defined by our use of fire," Dr Magill explained. "Being able to cook food to feed our big brains is one of the things that made us so successful in an evolutionary sense. Fire also brings protection and fosters communication and family connection. And we now have definitive, incontrovertible evidence that humans were starting and stopping fires in Europe about 50,000 years earlier than we suspected." 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.

Nasa scientists have found a planet they believe is covered by active volcanoes. In a study published in the journal Nature, scientists said they found the planet, which is the size of Earth about 90 light-years from Earth in the Crater constellation. They called it LP 791-18 d and one part is constantly scorched by sunlight, while the other is always in darkness. “The day side would probably be too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface. But the amount of volcanic activity we suspect occurs all over the planet could sustain an atmosphere, which may allow water to condense on the night side,” Björn Benneke, one of the astronomers who studied the planet, told NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The LP 791-18 system contains at least two other planets, called LP 791-18 b and c. The latter is two-and-a-half times larger than Earth and more than seven times its mass. It also affects the orbit of LP 791-18 d, making it travel along an elliptical path around the system’s sun. That path means LP 791-18 d is deformed every time it completes an orbit. “These deformations can create enough internal friction to substantially heat the planet’s interior and produce volcanic activity at its surface,” according to NASA. “A big question in astrobiology, the field that broadly studies the origins of life on Earth and beyond, is if tectonic or volcanic activity is necessary for life,” study co-author Jessie Christiansen said. “In addition to potentially providing an atmosphere, these processes could churn up materials that would otherwise sink down and get trapped in the crust, including those we think are important for life, like carbon.” 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.

An overview of the media in Portugal, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

Some educated guesses about upcoming price changes as ESPN, Disney and Hulu make some big moves.

An overview of the media in Slovenia, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

When most people picture New York City, it’s likely that its many skyscrapers are one of the first things that come to mind, but now, scientists are concerned that the city is sinking under their weight. It comes after the findings of a new study observed subsidence of the footprint after the geology beneath the city was modelled and compared to satellite data. The study was conducted by geologist Tom Parsons from the United States Geological Survey and colleagues from The University of Rhode Island, who found that, under the weight of its multiple skyscrapers, NYC is sinking by one to two millimetres per year. Subsistence can occur due to shifting soft sediments and the sheer weight of the load on the ground pushing it down. The study calculated that there are over 1 million buildings in NYC with a cumulative mass of approximately 764,000,000,000 kilograms. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter While a few millimetres of subsidence per year might sound like nothing, some parts of the city are subsiding faster – with calculations putting a sample site in lower Manhattan at 294 millimetres. To calculate the rates of subsidence, experts compared their modelling with satellite data that measured the land surface height. The scientists warn that thought must be given to low-lying cities such as NYC, which is home to 8 million people, particularly given rising sea levels and increasing flood risks. Parsons explained: “The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk.” 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.

The crash sites of unidentified flying objects (or UFOs) are often mysterious in themselves, but even more so when you reportedly find what is simply described as “tiny spheres” akin to “cosmic sperm” in the area in question. Well, that’s what journalist George Knapp found when he obtained documents – some classified – from the Russian military into UFOs, something the Soviet government at the time had batted aside based on the view it was nothing but “Western propaganda”. Referring to a discovery from biologist Yuri Simakov of small balls discovered from the soil of landing sites, Knapp told the Weaponised podcast: “The impressions they made of the soil were pretty dramatic and it doesn’t look like anything that we fly, and he shared that with us. “He gave us all that information and then he found these little orbs. These tiny little perfect spheres … they were opaque. “They were sort of reddish orangish colour and he called them ‘cosmic sperm’. He thought they were some kind of a biological mechanism – some kind of seeds – and he gave me half of the world’s known supply of cosmic sperm and I brought them back.” We can’t believe we had to write that, and you probably can’t believe you just read that, but here we are. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Though if you’re wondering where the not-safe-for-work (NSFW) spheres are now, it turns out he sent them to Dr Thomas Hartmann at the University of Nevada, who confirmed there was nothing biological about the ‘spheres’. Knapp never got the spheres back though, so they’re likely still over there somewhere, yet to be retrieved. We think that’s probably for the best though, George, if we’re being perfectly honest. 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.

If you weren’t scared of the ocean already, you probably will be after seeing this... A ‘death pool’ has been discovered at the bottom of the Red Sea that instantly kills everything that swims inside it. The pool was found by University of Miami researchers and measures a whopping 107,00 square feet. It’s a long way down, having been discovered 1.1 miles beneath the surface of the inlet of the Indian Ocean found between Africa and Asia. It has been there for an awfully long time, too. The pools are thought to have been formed from pockets of minerals which were deposited up to 23 million years ago. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The reason it’s so deadly? It contains no oxygen. Instead, it’s filled with brine and the salt solution is deadly to most things that enter it. Researcher Sam Purkis told Live Science: “Any animal that strays into the brine is immediately stunned or killed.” He also said that the pool is “among the most extreme environments on Earth.” It’s used by some creatures for food, with Purkis saying that: “Fish, shrimp and eels appear to use the brine to hunt.” Predators position themselves on the peripheries of the pool in order to “feed on the unlucky” creatures that die after swimming into it. While it’s not the first brine-filled pool under the sea discovered by scientists in the Red Sea, it is the closest to land. It can be found just 1.25miles off the coast of Egypt, while the previous closest pool was more than 15 miles away from land.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.

Rumble, a streaming platform created to ‘protect free and open internet’ in response to cancel culture, has grown exponentially in recent months, signing exclusive deals with creators and streamers such as Russell Brand and Andrew Tate. It's most recent deal to be reached is with Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed. The pair signed to Rumble to produce a handful of exclusive livestreams a month. Whilst the pair will still stream on YouTube and Twitch, the signing with Rumble comes after both streamers have faced numerous bans from YouTube and Twitch for content violations. Speed is currently facing a permanent ban on Twitch for ‘spam or deceptive practices’, despite Cenat trying to negotiate with Twitch to unban him. Cenat, who himself has faced bans from both Twitch and YouTube, has threatened to leave Twitch permanently if faced with another ban. The first exclusive live stream show will premiere on May 26, named The Kai ‘n Speed Show. The creators say they’re grateful to have full creative control on this new platform. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Cenat is the fourth most subscribed Twitch streamer, with 5.2 million followers. Speed boasts 16 million subscribers on YouTube. The pair recently collaborated on a song together titled Dogs. The exclusive show follows a string of deals made between Rumble and creators. In September 2022, Rumble announced an exclusive show with Russell Brand after Brand claimed he was being ‘censored’ on YouTube for spreading Covid misinformation. During the announcement, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski told users “Russell is known for his unfiltered opinions, and we are proud to serve as the technology platform where he can grow his audience.” Similarly, in late 2022, Rumble signed a $9 million deal with Andrew Tate after he was banned on both TikTok and YouTube. As a result of this long line of deals with controversial creators, Rumble has subsequently been associated for being a place for outspoken creators to flock to when they get banned from mainstream platforms. 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.