The Washington Post reports that Chinese tech giant Huawei has developed face-scanning technology that identifies Uighur Muslims and alerts police. Reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, the technology has been in use since 2018. The artificial intelligence surveillance system can scan a crowd and determine age, sex, and ethnicity. Uighurs live in northwest China and have been detained in […]
Google’s DeepMind has solved protein folding, a problem that has vexed scientists since 1972. Proteins are made up of long strings of amino acids that fold into unique shapes. These shapes determine how a protein functions. By knowing the shape of particular proteins, scientists can figure out how a molecule will bind to it, leading to disease […]
The Church of the Nutrition–referencing Christ's nurturing–was a pilgrimage site during the Byzantine period. This church earned its name because it was said to be built atop Christ's childhood home. Research published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly, published in 2013, presents evidence that this church lies beneath the Sisters of Nazareth convent in Nazareth, Israel. And beneath […]
A team of scientists from Japan and Germany succeeded in making a bigger neocortex in a marmoset fetus by tweaking a single gene. The neocortex is the part of the brain involved in spatial reasoning and language. Let the comparisons to replicating human evolution begin! First, the ethical consideration: the pregnancy was terminated after 100 days. The difference between […]
The Popa Langur has been confirmed as a new species by a joint effort of scientists from three organizations. The hunt began when bones in a 100-year-old natural history collection were reexamined using modern technology, suggesting the species was separate from other monkeys in Myanmar. They are named after Myanmar’s Mount Popa, an extinct volcano where the […]
Twelve people in Denmark have been infected by a coronavirus variant from a new animal carrier: minks. It’s a different type than the one responsible for the pandemic. Officials aren’t taking any chances with a spreading outbreak and plan to cull the entire mink population. There’s a potential silver lining from this newly discovered transmission vessel. […]
Scientists have filmed a ram's horn squid in its natural habitat using a remote-controlled camera. The squid is tiny, just 7cm long. Ram's horn shells are commonly found on beaches throughout the world. The squid uses the internal shell to maintain buoyancy; the cuttlefish is the only other animal with the shell inside their bodies. The only […]
Construction workers in Shanghai moved a building in a way never seen before: they walked it down the block. (Watch the video. It’s incredible.) The building, a primary school built in 1935, was in the way of the development of a commercial center. Traditional methods of moving a building wouldn’t work because of the school’s […]
Edge Innovations has designed an animatronic dolphin that can pass for the real thing. The U.S. engineering company used its experience creating life-like animals for movies to help relieve the reliance on captive animals to entertain crowds. If you want one, prepare to spend $3-5 million. Dolphins are common in theme parks throughout the world. A life-like […]
A study published in the Journal of Anatomy has discovered a statistically significant increase in a forearm artery’s adult occurrence since the late 1800s. The artery supplies blood to the hand in early fetus development. It is replaced by two arteries later in the womb. The findings suggest this artery will become commonplace as soon as 80 years […]
