Morocco: ancient fossils shed light on a key period in human evolution

Could a Moroccan cave hold a crucial piece of the puzzle of human origins? Hominin fossils dating back 773,000 years discovered in the country are bringing new evidence to the debate about the last common ancestor of present-day humans (Homo sapiens), Neanderthals and Denisovans. The discovery points to a long evolutionary history in north Africa, […]

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What makes a city beautiful? Here’s what ratings of thousands of urban landscapes reveal

Some buildings leave such an impression when you visit them that they can be forever summoned to the mind’s eye. For us, these include the soaring dome of St Paul’s cathedral in London, the Georgian grandeur of Royal Crescent in Bath, and the ascending towers and pinnacles of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. As psychologists […]

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From fragmented to connected: a shared hub for Europe’s AI

Across Europe, researchers are using AI to tackle everything from underwater noise pollution to media fact-checking and smarter farming. Until recently, there was no widely used common gateway where they could easily share tools, data and computing power, but that is all changing. Europe’s AI research and innovation is now being brought together on a […]

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How the AI boom was enabled by a 1970s economic revolution

Advertising in New York for Maven AGI, an artificial intelligence company providing customer support services. rblfmr/Shutterstock Artificial intelligence is accelerating a global economic revolution that began back in the 1970s. Researching the impacts of AI on different sectors of society highlights an important parallel moment in history: the creation of the “service economy” in the […]

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How to Pick Your Password Manager

Phishing and data breaches are a constant on the internet. The single best defense against both is to use a password manager to generate and automatically fill a unique password for every site. While 1Password has recently raised their prices, and researchers have recently published potential flaws in some implementations, using a password manager is […]

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Elite gymnasts are no longer retiring after pregnancy – sport science needs to catch up

When Olympian Alice Kinsella talks about returning to elite competition after giving birth, she isn’t simply planning a comeback; she’s pushing into territory that gymnastics has rarely explored. Increasingly, athletes are returning to training and competition after childbirth, often sooner, stronger and with greater public visibility. This challenges the long-held expectation that women must retire […]

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Tech Companies Shouldn’t Be Bullied Into Doing Surveillance

The Secretary of Defense has given an ultimatum to the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in an attempt to bully them into making their technology available to the U.S. military without any restrictions for their use. Anthropic should stick by their principles and refuse to allow their technology to be used in the two ways they […]

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Animals’ perception of time is linked to the pace of their life – new study

STILLFX/Shutterstock As you read this, the screen is probably flashing over 240 times per second, yet, as a human, you won’t notice this flickering light. However, to a fruit fly hovering above your head, the screen would represent a strobe light fit for an Ibiza rave. This is because the way different species sample time, […]

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Molecules found in Martian rock hint at ancient life – new study

A new study of carbon-based molecules in a Martian rock offers new hints about the possibility that the red planet once hosted life. The researchers considered a range of possible processes that could have produced the molecules they found. They argue that high concentrations of large organic (carbon-based) compounds found in the rock cannot be […]

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