Scientists Revive Organism Found Buried at Bottom of Ocean

A team of researchers in Germany have revived algae cells found buried at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where they’d lain dormant for more than 7,000 years. For millennia, the cells, imprisoned under layers of sediment, were deprived of oxygen or light. But once revived, they showed full functional recovery, the researchers report in… Continue reading Scientists Revive Organism Found Buried at Bottom of Ocean

Google Is Allegedly Paying Top AI Researchers to Just Sit Around and Not Work for the Competition

Google apparently has one weird trick to hoard its talent from poachers: paying them to not work. As Business Insider reports, some United Kingdom-based employees at Google’s DeepMind AI lab are paid to do nothing for six months — or, in fewer cases, up to a year — after they quit their jobs. Known as “garden… Continue reading Google Is Allegedly Paying Top AI Researchers to Just Sit Around and Not Work for the Competition

Google Is Helping Government Build an AI-Powered Border Surveillance System

Remember the guys who found a way to turn your personal information into cold hard cash? It brings us no pleasure to report that they’re now expanding into the border surveillance industry. Google, once a company that simply tracked your every move to serve targeted ads, is now a key player in the US Customs… Continue reading Google Is Helping Government Build an AI-Powered Border Surveillance System

MRI Scans Causing Nasty Material to Form Inside Body, Scientists Find

Image by Getty / Futurism Scientists believe they may have found the reason why some patients get so sick from the contrast dye they’re injected with before magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. As a University of New Mexico (UNM) press release explains, researchers at the institution’s medical school believe they’ve found a link between oxalic… Continue reading MRI Scans Causing Nasty Material to Form Inside Body, Scientists Find

Baby Born to Woman With Transplanted Womb

Image by Womb Transplant UK In Scotland, a woman successfully gave birth to a baby girl after getting a womb transplant from her sister. As the BBC reports, couple Grace and Angus Davidsin welcomed baby Amy after the mother’s sister, for whom she named her new child, donated her womb. Though it wasn’t the first in… Continue reading Baby Born to Woman With Transplanted Womb

Poll Finds Americans Are Largely Disgusted by AI-Generated News

As the United States’ biggest news brands experiment with artificial intelligence in their content, readers remain unimpressed. In a new poll conducted by Poynter and the University of Minnesota, nearly half of the survey’s respondents said they don’t want AI reporting the news to them — and 20 percent say that news publishers shouldn’t be… Continue reading Poll Finds Americans Are Largely Disgusted by AI-Generated News

Judge Goes Ballistic When Man Shows AI-Generated Video in Court

A 74-year-old entrepreneur played an entirely AI-generated video of a male avatar to address the judge during a court appearance on his behalf. And as The Register reports, the judge was extremely unimpressed by the stunt, and proceeded to chew him out. Plaintiff Jerome Dewald appeared before the New York State’s Supreme Court on March… Continue reading Judge Goes Ballistic When Man Shows AI-Generated Video in Court

Trump Official Says It’s Okay to Destroy Endangered Species Because We Can Just Clone Them

A Trump official is coming after the real menace plaguing America: those gosh-darn freeloaders moping around the endangered species list. On Monday, interior secretary Doug Burgum suggested that the list, which is maintained by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and is a cornerstone of the nation’s conservation efforts, needs cleaning out. We should celebrate… Continue reading Trump Official Says It’s Okay to Destroy Endangered Species Because We Can Just Clone Them

Scientists Intrigued by Tree That Harnesses Electricity to Kill Its Enemies

For trees, lightning strikes are the great leveller. Stick your neck out by growing taller than the rest, and you risk getting zapped into oblivion. Hundreds of millions of trees suffer this fate every year. But the opposite appears to be the case for the towering tonka bean tree (Dipteryx oleifera), a native of the… Continue reading Scientists Intrigued by Tree That Harnesses Electricity to Kill Its Enemies

Bottles of “Holy Water” Contaminated With Cholera Send European Tourists to the ICU

Image by Getty / Futurism Researchers are warning that bottles of “holy water” from a well in Ethiopia could be laced with dangerous bacteria that could cause cholera. As detailed in a new report published in the journal Eurosurveillance and spotted by Ars Technica, three German and four British tourists developed a nasty case of cholera,… Continue reading Bottles of “Holy Water” Contaminated With Cholera Send European Tourists to the ICU