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Fossils of a gigantic dinosaur are emerging from the Earth in Argentina after 98 million years – and the animal may be the largest that scientists have ever found

NASA's launch of the Mars Science Laboratory -- hampered by technical difficulties and cost overruns -- has been delayed until the fall of 2011, NASA officials said at a news conference Thursday in Washington.

NASA officials Sunday waved off the first opportunity for space shuttle Endeavour to return to Earth, citing poor weather conditions.

From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe.

Scientists have switched off several on-board instruments to halt rising temperatures inside India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft.

Scientists are combining artificial intelligence and advanced computer technology with biological know how to identify insects with supernatural speed. This opens up new possibilities for describing unknown species and for tracking the life of insects across space and time.

Computer-based artificial intelligence can function more like human intelligence when programmed to use a much faster technique for learning new objects, say two neuroscientists who designed such a model that was designed to mirror human visual learning.

An international team of researchers, including Professor Roberto Morandotti of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), just introduced a new photonic processor that could revolutionize artificial intelligence, as reported by the prestigious journal Nature.

We are fascinated by machines that can control cars, compose symphonies, or defeat people at chess, Go, or Jeopardy! While more progress is being made all the time in Artificial Intelligence (AI), some scientists and philosophers warn of the dangers of an uncontrollable superintelligent AI. Using theoretical calculations, an international team of researchers shows that […]

Like a longtime couple who can predict each other's every move, a new robot has learned to predict its partner robot's future actions and goals based on just a few initial video frames. The study is part of a broader effort to endow robots with the ability to understand and anticipate the goals of other […]

A Swinburne-led team has demonstrated the world's fastest and most powerful optical neuromorphic processor for artificial intelligence. The neuromorphic processor operates faster than 10 trillion operations per second and is capable of processing ultra-large scale data.

Researchers found that so-called photonic processors, with which data is processed by means of light, can process information very much more rapidly and in parallel than electronic chips.

Drones, robots and autonomous systems can transform the natural world in and around cities for people and wildlife.

Researchers have proposed a new principle by which active matter systems can spontaneously order, without need for higher level instructions or even programmed interaction among the agents. And they have demonstrated this principle in a variety of systems, including groups of periodically shape-changing robots called 'smarticles.'

A new device developed by engineers can recognize hand gestures based on electrical signals detected in the forearm. The system, which couples wearable biosensors with artificial intelligence (AI), could one day be used to control prosthetics or to interact with almost any type of electronic device.

A model based solely on the past 40 years of weather events uses 7,000 times less computer power than today's weather forecasting tools. An A.I.-powered model could someday provide more accurate forecasts for rain, snow and other weather events.

New research offers clues to what goes on inside the minds of machines as they learn to see. Instead of attempting to account for a neural network's decision-making on a post hoc basis, their method shows how the network learns along the way, by revealing how much the network calls to mind different concepts to […]

Neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the 'multiple demand network,' which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.

Scientists often look to nature for cues when designing robots - some robots mimic human hands while others simulate the actions of octopus arms or inchworms. Now, researchers have designed a new soft robotic gripper that draws inspiration from an unusual source: pole beans.

Researchers are embracing chaos and nonlinear physics to create insectlike gaits for tiny robots -- complete with a locomotion controller to provide a brain-machine interface. Biology and physics are permeated by universal phenomena fundamentally grounded in nonlinear physics, and it inspired the researchers' work. The group now describes using a system of three nonlinear differential […]

A research team has developed a new range of strain sensors that are 10 times more sensitive when measuring minute movements. These sensors are ultra-thin, battery-free and can transmit data wirelessly, making them attractive for a wide range of applications.

Combining neuroscience and robotic research has gained impressive results in the rehabilitation of paraplegic patients. A research team was able to show that exoskeleton training not only helped patients to walk, but also stimulated their healing process. With these findings in mind, a professor wants to take the fusion of robotics and neuroscience to the […]

New research has shown robots can encourage humans to take greater risks in a simulated gambling scenario than they would if there was nothing to influence their behaviors. Increasing our understanding of whether robots can affect risk-taking could have clear ethical, practical and policy implications, which this study set out to explore.

The automation of scientific discoveries is here to stay. Among others, a machine-human cooperation found a hitherto unknown general model explaining the relation between the area and age of an island and the number of species it hosts.

A new technology, called Artificial Chemist 2.0, allows users to go from requesting a custom quantum dot to completing the relevant R&D and beginning manufacturing in less than an hour. The tech is completely autonomous, and uses artificial intelligence and automated robotic systems to perform multi-step chemical synthesis and analysis.

Function optimization involves finding the input that results in the optimal value from an objective function. Optimization algorithms navigate the search space of input variables in order to locate the optima, and both the shape of the objective function and behavior of the algorithm in the search space are opaque on real-world problems. As such, […]

Gradient descent is an optimization algorithm that follows the negative gradient of an objective function in order to locate the minimum of the function. A limitation of gradient descent is that a single step size (learning rate) is used for all input variables. Extensions to gradient descent like AdaGrad and RMSProp update the algorithm to […]

Optimization is a field of mathematics concerned with finding a good or best solution among many candidates. It is an important foundational topic required in machine learning as most machine learning algorithms are fit on historical data using an optimization algorithm. Additionally, broader problems, such as model selection and hyperparameter tuning, can also be framed […]

How to Optimize a Function with One Variable? Univariate function optimization involves finding the input to a function that results in the optimal output from an objective function. This is a common procedure in machine learning when fitting a model with one parameter or tuning a model that has a single hyperparameter. An efficient algorithm […]

Applied machine learning is typically focused on finding a single model that performs well or best on a given dataset. Effective use of the model will require appropriate preparation of the input data and hyperparameter tuning of the model. Collectively, the linear sequence of steps required to prepare the data, tune the model, and transform […]

Semi-supervised learning refers to algorithms that attempt to make use of both labeled and unlabeled training data. Semi-supervised learning algorithms are unlike supervised learning algorithms that are only able to learn from labeled training data. A popular approach to semi-supervised learning is to create a graph that connects examples in the training dataset and propagates […]

Multinomial logistic regression is an extension of logistic regression that adds native support for multi-class classification problems. Logistic regression, by default, is limited to two-class classification problems. Some extensions like one-vs-rest can allow logistic regression to be used for multi-class classification problems, although they require that the classification problem first be transformed into multiple binary […]

Semi-supervised learning refers to algorithms that attempt to make use of both labeled and unlabeled training data. Semi-supervised learning algorithms are unlike supervised learning algorithms that are only able to learn from labeled training data. A popular approach to semi-supervised learning is to create a graph that connects examples in the training dataset and propagate […]

Gradient boosting is an ensemble of decision trees algorithms. It may be one of the most popular techniques for structured (tabular) classification and regression predictive modeling problems given that it performs so well across a wide range of datasets in practice. A major problem of gradient boosting is that it is slow to train the […]

Typically, a simpler and better-performing machine learning model can be developed by removing input features (columns) from the training dataset. This is called feature selection and there are many different types of algorithms that can be used. It is possible to frame the problem of feature selection as an optimization problem. In the case that […]

By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor  Mary Barra, Chairman and CEO of General Motors outlined GM’s move into all-electric vehicles including autonomous self-driving cars, in a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronic Show held virtually this week.   While global market penetration of all-electric vehicles stands at about three percent today, “We believe that is […]

By AI Trends Staff   The Best AI Papers of 2020 were called out by a writer at GitHub, who posts a video explanation link to each one, a link to a more in-depth article and some code.  “In the field of AI, many important aspects were highlighted this year, like the ethical aspects and important biases,” […]

By AI Trends Staff  The role of the Chief Data Scientist is needed to help the Chief Technology Officer bridge to business managers who are defining how AI is to deliver on the company’s business strategy.   The required amount of guidance and monitoring of data scientists is not likely to happen from the CTO’s office, […]

By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor    The most popular articles, blog posts, and downloaded publications of 2020 published on the Amazon Science website can serve as an update on AI work at Amazon.  The most popular article of 2020 was an account of advances in text-to-speech technologies. Amazon’s Alexa voice service has been on the market for […]

By Lance Eliot, the AI Trends Insider    AI is starting to apologize.    That’s the latest trend for AI that directly interacts with people. The notion seems to be that if the AI has to deliver unfavorable news or appears to have made a potential mistake, it ought to be civil about the matter and emit an […]

By John P, Desmond, AI Trends Editor   Experts offering IT acquisition advice to the incoming Biden administration suggest building on the Trump Administration’s AI and tech policies when they make sense, while forging a path to a new set of priorities. They also foresee a drift toward acquiring more IT services and throttling back in-house application […]

By AI Trends Staff   [Ed. Note: We have heard from a range of AI practitioners for their predictions on AI Trends in 2021. Here are predictions from a selection of those writing.]     From Orr Danon, CEO of Hailo:   With growing demand and wider adoption due to affordability and accessibility, 2021 will bring broader deployment of AI at […]

By AI Trends Staff   LinkedIn’s just-issued third annual Emerging Jobs Report looking back at 2020 ranked the top-growing job as “AI specialist,” with 74% growth. This job calls for skills in machine learning and deep learning, and knowledge of TensorFlow, Python, and natural language processing technology.   The AI specialist job pays an average of $136,000/year; […]

By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor   At its virtual AI Summit held in December, IBM announced updates across the Watson family of products in areas of language, explainability and workplace automation. These included an effort to commercialize AI FactSheets developed by IBM Research, which were first proposed in a paper published in 2018.   The FactSheets will answer questions ranging from system operation […]

By Lance Eliot, the AI Trends Insider   For those of you that are sports historians, you might recall these famous remarks by the legendary baseball player turned manager Frank Robinson: “Close doesn’t count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”  There’s another place that closeness counts, namely when two cars encounter a […]

Officials from NASA and NOAA say the warming of both the planet’s air and water are driving weather disasters.

Researchers are finally getting good data on how severely SARS-CoV-2 affects children and how they transmit it. What does it mean for reopening classrooms?

Computational biologists used an algorithm meant to model human language to instead predict how viruses could evolve to evade the immune system.

Meet Bluebot, a friendly swimming robot with big camera eyes. Put a few in a tank together and they’ll collaborate to complete surprisingly complex tasks.

Millions of follow-up doses have been languishing in freezers, causing a massive logjam—and not everyone likes the ideas for a fix.

Scientists find an average of 40 microplastic particles per cubic meter of the northern water. The likely source? The synthetic clothing in our washing machines.

Six nerdy roommates used public health data to create an online Covid-risk points system for every activity—and protect their pandemic pod.

A lot of thermal energy is trapped in the ocean. An ex-NASA researcher has figured out how it might generate unlimited clean power for aquatic robots.

Whether you are ejecting from a fighter jet or psyching yourself up for a meeting, plan for the worst—over and over and over again. And don't forget to breathe.

Inside cells, droplets called condensates merge, divide, and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.

Most claims of running on “clean” electricity come with caveats, and many technologies required for round-the-clock renewable energy aren’t quite ready yet.

A small group of king penguins have appeared on Martillo Island in Argentina. How they got there, and whether they will stay, is unknown.

The airplane in the movie is stripped down and doesn't have all of its brakes installed, making the calculations even more fun.

Catch up on the most important updates from this week.

The discovery of more contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the US sparks a push for a long-overdue national genomic surveillance network.

A new model estimates that by 2100, cities across the world could warm as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius. It’s a deadly consequence of the heat-island effect.

Academics often research minority communities in the hope of helping them. But too much time under the microscope can cause its own harms.

Kick over this robot and it’ll quickly right itself—not because someone told it how, but because it taught itself to overcome the embarrassment.

Researchers slap a living antenna on a drone to give the machine an insanely keen sense of smell. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the “Smellicopter.”

Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the history of our galaxy.

Sure, the metaphor is imperfect. But as the encyclopedia enters its 20th year, it's worth reflecting on the "rules of the game"—and how they might change.

It has a lot to do with unity—and a little something to do with earworms.

MMORPGs and even social media can trace their roots to games that used simple text commands to construct vivid, fantastical worlds.

The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have some great games coming this year—assuming schedules hold. Here's a quick rundown of some great ones.

The creatures made famous by Game of Thrones went extinct some 13,000 years ago. Now geneticists know a little more about where they come from.

During a bleary fall and winter, the open world of Skyrim gave me the motivation and joy I couldn't find in the real world.

The Disney-owned company just announced a new Star Wars title coming from Ubisoft and an Indiana Jones game from Bethesda. And that's just the beginning.

The island quest-style game is perfect for this "casual gaming" moment.

A pixelated political drama has played out in the sandbox game since May—drawing millions of viewers in the process.

Stories of people clawing their way back from despair, bonding together, and having fun in the process are exactly what we all need right now.

As an elegant exploration of psychology and grief, it has the promise of Undertale—and it might have slipped under your radar.

William Gibson was wrong about the wetware implants (not that he wanted to make predictions), but you’re still rooting for his dark, techno-druggy future anyway.

The actions of rioters showed a need to hold on to a vision of the country that’s at odds with reality.

We have a glut of streaming options. But if recent events show us anything, it’s that live TV news is far from obsolete.

The first season of the Star Wars series was good. But in the second, the visuals and writing make the jump to lightspeed.

Founder Ken Williams opens up about his new book, video game design in the late 80s—and his regrets about selling the company.

Wednesday’s riot in Washington was the result of conspiracy theories, anti-government sentiment, and online extremism—and it could start a movement.

DC rioters used DLive to stream from the Capitol to thousands of people on Wednesday—and to get donations from them too.

From Marvel hopefuls to mind-bending dramas, here are all the series you'll need to keep an eye on this year.

From Dune to Black Widow, a ton of films got delayed due to Covid-19. Here are the ones WIRED is hoping to see, whether at home or (finally) in a theater.

Researchers simplify the MINFLUX microscope and have succeeded in differentiating molecules that are extremely close together and tracking their dynamics.

Scientists develop approach that enables immune system to tolerate allergens.

Researchers create a highly sensitive biohybrid olfactory sensor.

Scientists synthetized a new material based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) for supercapacitors, energy storage devices. The rGO modification method with the use of organic molecules, derivatives of hypervalent iodine, allowed obtaining a material that stores 1.7 times more electrical energy.

Scientists show that using a layer of graphene just one atom thick improves the catalytic activity of nickel or copper when generating hydrogen gas, which may lead to cheaper fuel for zero-emission automobiles.

Researchers report a new class of red-emitting biodegradable upconversion nanocrystals.

Scientists have developed a groundbreaking method to map the interaction between atomically thin layers of a material.

Physicists have discovered how to locally add electrical charge to an atomically thin graphene device by layering flakes of another thin material on top of it.

Researchers have achieved a scientific control that is a first of its kind. They demonstrated a novel approach that allows real-time control of the interactions between microwave photons and magnons, potentially leading to advances in electronic devices and quantum signal processing.

Chemotherapy with only one injection, repeated phototherapy, and no side effects. Development of a cancer-targeted single component supramolecular peptide phototherapeutic agent.

Study demonstrates the efficacy and therapeutic potential of select ionizable lipid nanoparticles for delivering mRNA to treat genetic diseases before birth.

Scientists have turned their attention to Joule heating of the material, a byproduct of plastic recycling processes. A strong jolt of energy flashes it into graphene.

The compound that makes chili peppers spicy also boosts perovskite solar cell performance.

Why do metal oxide surfaces behave differently? Scientists found a new research method to answer important questions.

Study could lead to simple, high-resolution bioimaging in real time by overcoming a fundamental property of light.

Scientists have demonstrated an optical sensor design which utilizes nano-scale trenches to passively concentrate and trap trace analytes in a solution, leading to the capability of detecting picogram level biomolecules such as glucose and amino acids. The devices also achieved effective trapping of nanoparticles.

Physicists have discovered a unifying framework in the dipolar patterns of two-dimensional ferroelectrics, a finding which could help advance the development of high-density information coding systems in computers and other electronics.

A supercrystal made of nanoparticles.

Scientists are using artificial intelligence to decode X-ray images faster, which could aid innovations in medicine, materials and energy.

Study shows improvements to chemical sensing chip that aims to quickly and accurately identify drugs and other trace chemicals.

Plus: Zuckerberg’s community manifesto, how to hold platforms accountable, and an accidental admission in Congress.

A Harvard medical student submitted auto-generated comments to Medicaid; volunteers couldn’t distinguish them from those penned by humans.

The model had shown promise in Flint before officials rebelled. Now Toledo is using it, while incorporating more public input.

Residents and city officials traumatized by last week’s unrest fear a repeat for Biden’s inauguration.

Apple, Google, and Amazon booted the site from their own platforms. But who moderates the moderators?

The Alphabet Workers Union isn’t seeking better pay and benefits. It wants to influence the company’s policies on social and other issues.

But it’s still using intonation and behavior to assist with hiring decisions.

The FTC applies a novel remedy, going a step further than simply deleting the source photos.

In the end, what took down @realDonaldTrump was not what he tweeted, but how it was interpreted.

Plus: Dorsey in the Trump administration's early days, how to define privacy, and chaos in the Capitol.

A bill would require firms to disclose when they use software to assess candidates, and vendors would have to ensure that their tech doesn’t discriminate.

By freezing the president’s accounts, social media platforms finally drew a line. It only took a violent insurrection in the Capitol to get them there.

Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Obama, says good ideas come from everywhere—but Trump has dissuaded tech workers from coming to the US.

This month’s focus is on Zhang Zhan, who had been posting reports from Wuhan since early February. She was arrested in May.

About 200 million women in the country are illiterate. But voice memo and image-sharing apps make it easier to connect, communicate, and run businesses.

After a year of protests against racial inequality and industry vows to do better, Black founders are still getting left out of Silicon Valley’s financial engine.

Phone calls. Web searches. Location tracks. Smart speaker requests. They’ve become crucial tools for law enforcement, while users often are unaware.

The pandemic and the election forced social media platforms to police false information like never before—but we have no clue if that solved anything.

The hottest app of early 2010 faded quickly when it was flooded with unwanted nudity. Smarter content moderation is helping to revive it.

Total traffic deaths fell during pandemic lockdowns. But fatalities per mile traveled rose, due to faster driving, fewer cops, and more drug use.

After the 2012 mass shooting, many asked: If this doesn’t lead to change, can we ever expect change? We should be asking the same of the insurrection.

An economist looks at public safety during the Covid lockdowns and also at the time of Spanish Flu.

The insurrection at the Capitol was planned on social media—and more plans are still being made in broad daylight across the internet.

Tech creators and journalists ignore the insights and experiences of Black women—and fail to see the harm of their "innovations."

The consequences of industrial livestock farming are severe. It's time for investors and policymakers to put resources toward the alternatives.

The security state that failed to keep DC safe doesn't need invasive technology to meet this moment—it needs more civilian oversight.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have spent years fomenting and enabling yesterday’s violence at the Capitol. Policymakers need to do something about it.

Pundits and platforms have spent years mislabeling and underestimating threats to democracy. It led to the mob.

I'm only 30, and already feeling like I owe it to society to keep up.

Immunization against Covid-19 is not going perfectly, but at least it's going. Let's give credit where it's due.

Changes proposed by the Wikimedia Foundation to diversify its community of editors raise existential questions for the online encyclopedia.

The situation has made clear that the field needs to change. Here’s where to start, according to a current and a former Googler.

Michael Almereyda’s future-minded Shakespeare adaptation (with a WIRED cameo) is 20 years old. Now it feels like an eerie premonition.

The social media giant would have you believe that Apple’s privacy update will hurt the little guys. But Facebook’s motives aren’t so altruistic.

Prioritize people who are immunocompromised for early vaccination.

Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's mRNA platforms are amazing—but they could easily have been overtaken by more conventional rivals.

If our government wants to implement a tech-forward agenda, it needs someone who looks at broken infrastructure with a debugger’s eye.

So why do policymakers keep using it?

In lots of video games, sex toys are repurposed for violence. What's the deal?

To evaluate whether cybersecurity tactics are working, you need to first establish what the SolarWinds hack really was.