Equations show that jumping at 60 degrees relative to the horizontal helps insects avoid hitting obstacles – a finding that might help in the design of space exploration rovers

You may lose weight on either a low-fat or low-carb diet, but following a low-fat diet seems to encourage people to consume fewer calories on average

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.

Researchers have developed an automated way to design customized hardware that speeds up a robot's operation. The system, called robomorphic computing, accounts for the robot's physical layout in suggesting an optimized hardware architecture.

Patients with motor dysfunctions are on the rise across Japan as its population continues to age. A researcher has developed a new method of rehabilitation using virtual reality to increase the sense of agency over our body and aid motor skills.

Computer scientists developed a deep learning method to create realistic objects for virtual environments that can be used to train robots. The researchers used TACC's Maverick2 supercomputer to train the generative adversarial network. The network is the first that can produce colored point clouds with fine details at multiple resolutions.

Researchers present an optical flow-based learning process that allows robots to estimate distances through the visual appearance (shape, color, texture) of the objects in view. This artificial intelligence (AI)-based learning strategy increases the navigation skills of small flying drones and entails a new hypothesis on insect intelligence.

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.

Recommender systems may be the most common type of predictive model that the average person may encounter. They provide the basis for recommendations on services such as Amazon, Spotify, and Youtube. Recommender systems are a huge daunting topic if you’re just getting started. There is a myriad of data preparation techniques, algorithms, and model evaluation […]

Regression refers to predictive modeling problems that involve predicting a numeric value. It is different from classification that involves predicting a class label. Unlike classification, you cannot use classification accuracy to evaluate the predictions made by a regression model. Instead, you must use error metrics specifically designed for evaluating predictions made on regression problems. In […]

Activation functions are a critical part of the design of a neural network. The choice of activation function in the hidden layer will control how well the network model learns the training dataset. The choice of activation function in the output layer will define the type of predictions the model can make. As such, a […]

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 […]

By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor   The AI Infrastructure Alliance is taking shape, adding more partners who sign up to the effort to define a “canonical stack for AI and Machine Learning Operations (MLOps).” In programming, “canonical means according to the rules,” from a definition in webopedia.    The mission of the organization also includes, according to its […]

By AI Trends Staff   On the verge of a new era of healthcare in which AI can combine with data sharing to deliver many new services, healthcare organizations need to earn the trust of patients that their data will be used properly.  That was a message delivered by speakers on healthcare and AI topics at […]

By AI Trends Staff   With remote learning happening for students of all ages during the pandemic area, new technologies incorporating AI—including voice, augmented reality and virtual reality—are being used more widely to enable teaching.    “Some 1.2 billion children have been out of school during the pandemic year, and that has led to technology driving change […]

By Lance Eliot, The AI Trends Insider We all seem to know what a red stop button or kill switch does. Whenever you believe that a contraption is going haywire, you merely reach for the red stop button or kill switch and shut the erratic gadgetry down. This urgent knockout can be implemented via a […]

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 […]

Scientists say they've got 20-million-year-old evidence of giant worms that hunted in pretty much the most nightmarish way possible.

Using voice-activation tech and nature-inspired soundscapes, these space are designed to give medical workers some respite from the Covid-19 front lines.

Biden’s first-day actions signal that he’s serious about global warming. But he’s got to make up for four years of lost time.

It won't prevent teens from later becoming smokers. But some health experts say that focusing on the risk of addicting new smokers cuts off a chance to help adults quit.

It’s not just about the pandemic. How the new administration handles Covid-19 will be a test of every one of its policies—and its values.

When humans over-exploit underground water supplies, the ground collapses like a huge empty water bottle. It's called subsidence, and it could affect 1.6 billion people by 2040.

An algorithm discovered dozens of Martian craters. It’s a promising remote method for exploring our solar system and understanding planetary history.

If you’re thinking, “Oh, I just need to suck it up,” stop. What you’re feeling is real. Here’s how to cope.

The robo-vessel will map the ocean floor, and its solar-powered sensors will sample fish DNA and collect climate data.

Reopening in the fall was a massive gamble. At one high-poverty elementary school, navigating the risks paid off.

Launching rockets from planes is a decades-old concept that never really took off. Billionaire Richard Branson thinks its time has come.

Imagine if we lived on a cube-shaped Earth. How would you find the shortest path around the world?

In botanic gardens around the world, the reproductive future of the famously smelly plant is threatened. A new collaborative program wants to save it.

If the dots on the loading screen were planets, is their motion realistic? And can we actually model it?

Catch up on the most important updates from this week.

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.

Nick Sawhney's “Bernie Sits" puts Sanders anywhere on Google Street View.

Spirituality is only one tool in this community leader's toolkit for bringing people closer together. Character sheets are another.

Few people could witness Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get sworn in in person. Instead, we watched (and tried to make sense of it all) online.

It’s cold and you’re probably still quarantined. Time to get reading. Start with these tales of reimagined histories and cloned partners.

This winter, I’m lighting a new fire in old Hyrule with my five-year-old.

Social media gave the Real Dr. 6ix a stage on which to show off liposuctions and breast lifts. But when cosmetic surgery becomes entertainment, who owns the story?

In Pixar’s new film, Soul, the protagonist wakes up in the body of a cat. It’s a common enough trope—but it gets messier the more you think about it.

Elemental reactions, like shooting a dynamite-filled barrel or using an ice spell to cross a stream, are an important way for designers to bring worlds to life.

Everyone in the game may be hot, but some of the characterizations we see aren't as subversive as you might think.

Nintendo is releasing a new version of the game in April. But nothing can replace the magic of the rental store's printed-out pocket monsters.

The show's third season jumps forward 1,000 years into the future. It helped the show not stay mired in old ideas.

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.

Researchers develop nanostructures capable of polarized optical encryption.

Tiny channels between graphene sheets can be aligned in a way that makes them ideal for water filtration.

Two novel techniques, atomic-resolution real-time video and conical carbon nanotube confinement, allow researchers to view never-before-seen details about crystal formation.

Researchers develop novel sensor for the improved detection of influenza A viruses, with high reproducibility.

Researchers discuss the top-down and bottom-up strategies for the synthesis of graphene quantum dots. The respective advantages and disadvantages of these methods are summarized.

Scientists combine scanning tunneling microscopy with ultrafast spectroscopy to image the motion of electrons with unprecedented resolution, which may lead to advances in semiconductors and optoelectronics.

Researchers have found a way to grow a single crystalline layer of alpha-aluminum gallium oxide that has the widest energy bandgap to date - a discovery that clears the way for new semiconductors that will handle higher voltages, higher power densities and higher frequencies than previously seen.

Researchers have developed an electrochromic hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks film with long cycle life, facile modification, easy recycling and regeneration prepared via electrophoretic deposition rapidly and facile.

A new X-ray laser oscillator generates types of pulses that were never before possible. The pulses are stable, intense, and of ultrashort duration and have a well-defined wavelength. This ability opens new possibilities in experiments and research.

Scientists have developed a metamaterial whose mechanical properties can be reprogrammed on demand and whose internal structure can be modified by applying a magnetic field.

Researchers report a prototype of an anode-free, zinc-based battery that uses low-cost, naturally abundant materials.

Researchers have used lasers to create miniature robots from bubbles that lift, drop and manipulate small pieces into interconnected structures.

Using DNA as a scaffold, engineers create a synthetic nanomaterial that could pave the way for rapid and more accurate diagnostic testing from a single molecule.

Transport processes are ubiquitous in nature but still raise many questions. Scientists have now developed a new method that allows them to observe a single charged particle on its path through a dense cloud of ultracold atoms.

New photo-ferroelectric materials allow to store information in a non-volatile way using light stimulus. The idea is to create energy efficient memory devices with high performance and versatility to face the challenges of the current society.

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking validation protocol for simulations of the atomic structure of the interface between a solid (a metal oxide) and liquid water.

Scientists have found a way to prevent gold nanoparticles from clumping, which could help towards their use as an anti-cancer therapy.

Scientists have discovered a new light-induced switch that twists the crystal lattice of the material, switching on a giant electron current that appears to be nearly dissipationless. The discovery was made in a category of topological materials that holds great promise for spintronics, topological effect transistors, and quantum computing.

A pulsed-laser repetition rate of 57.8 GHz was achieved by inserting a resonator containing graphene. The limitations of the manufacturing process were overcome by directly synthesizing graphene onto standard copper wires.

A new type of ultra-efficient, nano-thin material could advance self-powered electronics, wearable technologies and even deliver pacemakers powered by heart beats.

Plus: The moonshot’s launch, health care for the maskless, and a new era’s inaugural meme.

Facebook has to decide whether to give the ex-president his bullhorn back. It won’t make that call itself.

China produces as many artificial intelligence researchers as the US, but it lags in key fields like machine learning. The government hopes to make up ground.

The company’s software can sift through enormous amounts of data, and those metrics can be used to make life-or-death decisions.

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?

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

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

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.

Booting Trump didn’t set a precedent. From Yelp to Uber to Airbnb, platforms regularly ban users and content, but too often behind the scenes.

The two major investigations into the origins of the pandemic are compromised by potential conflicts of interest. Those problems need to be fixed—fast.

Our nation’s failure to invest in information technology has severely limited our Covid response. A federal chief experience officer could change that.

If the Covid vaccine push has proved anything, it’s that big government works.

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.