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Research: Climate change helped elephants evolve a large brain

Jul29
by on July 29, 2019 at 9:09 am
Posted In: Around the Web, syndication


Elephants have long captivated our attention, partly because of their sheer size and majesty. But we’re also struck by their complex behavior. In some ways, we’re fascinated because this behavior echoes our most humane feelings. For instance, elephants have repeatedly been observed using tools and grieving their dead. Their evolutionary history is interesting, too. It parallels humans’ in many ways. Elephant ancestors originated in Africa, just like ours. Their descendants, among them mammoths, went out of Africa to inhabit other continents. And in the process they evolved the largest brain of any land animal. It weighs around 5kg, while our…

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Scientist have made a contact lens that lets you zoom in by blinking

Jul29
by on July 29, 2019 at 8:12 am
Posted In: Around the Web


Scientists from the University of California, San Diego, have created a new robotic soft contact lens that lets you zoom by blinking twice. The lens can be controlled by your eye movements.  Eye movements like blinking carry change potential to signal. Shengqiang Cai, the lead researcher, told the New Scientist that the eye has an electro-oculographic potential, even if you’re sleeping: Even if your eye cannot see anything, many people can still move their eyeball and generate this electro-oculographic signal.  So, these scientists measured the electrical impulse and found a way to use it to change the focal length of the lens. The study…

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This AI tool is smart enough to spot AI-generated articles and tweets

Jul29
by on July 29, 2019 at 8:00 am
Posted In: Around the Web, artificial intelligence, Insights


Researchers from Harvard University and MIT-IBM Watson Lab have created an AI-powered tool for spotting AI-generated text. Dubbed Giant Language Model Test Room (GLTR), the system aims to detect whether a specific piece of text was generated by a language model algorithm. You can give the tool a spin here. With AI and natural language generation models already employed to produce fake news and spread misinformation, GLTR has the potential to distinguish machine generated text from human-written text to a non-expert reader. According to results shared by the researchers, GLTR improved the human detection-rate of fake text from 54 percent to 72…

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Moonday Mornings: The US is suing a cryptocurrency exchange owner to the tune of $100M

Jul29
by on July 29, 2019 at 7:55 am
Posted In: Around the Web, blockchain, cryptocurrency, Hard Fork


Good morning, and welcome to Moonday Mornings. Let’s take a look at the cryptocurrency and blockchain headlines from over the weekend. 1. The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is going after digital asset traders and has begun sending them letters asking that they report their cryptocurrency holdings and pay their taxes, Coindesk reports. The IRS said the individuals targeted with the letters were identified “through various ongoing IRS compliance efforts.” Hide your Bitcoin people! 2. According to Gulfnews, the US is suing and seeking extradition of the Russian owner of a cryptocurrency exchange for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and…

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Reliance Jio becomes India’s largest mobile carrier with 331 million subscribers

Jul29
by on July 29, 2019 at 6:03 am
Posted In: Around the Web, India


Three years ago in September 2016, Reliance, an Indian conglomerate with a market cap of some $115 billion, launched a new mobile carrier and broadband network in India called Jio. Today, it’s become the largest telco operator in India surpassing old horses like Bharati Airtel and Vodafone-Idea. In its recently released quarterly report, the company said its mobile subscriber base has grown to 331.3 million users across the country. Jio pipped rival Vodafone-Idea whose subscriber base fell to 320 million from 334.1 million this quarter. While Airtel is yet to release its quarterly figures, its subscriber base in May was 320.6…

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