Mar 04 This jawbone may change everything we know about early human history By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Human evolution had a nice clear line from Lucy 3.2 million years ago to Homo habilis to Homo erectus and finally Homo sapiens -- us. Or so it seemed. A new jawbone shows that humans evolved earlier than we thought,… Continue reading
Mar 04 Short circuit halts NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover for days By Joshua Barajas NASA’s Curiosity rover will take a break from gathering samples of the dusty Martian landscape, while engineers determine whether a short circuit damaged the robot’s arm, the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Tuesday. Continue reading
Feb 27 That dress isn’t blue or gold because color doesn’t exist By Jenny Marder Color scientists already have a word for it: Dressgate. No surprise to those of us whose minds were collectively blown by the dress that’s blue and black to some, and white and gold to others (though frankly kind of ugly… Continue reading
Feb 25 Watch 7:03 Silicon Valley lawsuit shines light on struggles for women in tech By PBS News Hour A discrimination lawsuit in California involving a former employee at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm signals another instance of that industry being critiqued for its treatment of women. Jeffrey Brown talks to Nicole Sanchez of Vaya Consulting and Nellie… Continue watching
Feb 25 Watch 3:08 Teaching computers how to play Atari better than humans By PBS News Hour Tom Clarke of Independent Television News reports on how an artificial intelligence business owned by Google has created software that can teaching itself to play classic Atari games better than a human. Continue watching
Feb 25 Photo essay: How to swim safely with sharks By Ariel Min Ocean Ramsey wants you to know that sharks are vastly misunderstood. They’re scavengers, and rarely confrontational, said the biologist and scuba instructor, who has studied the animals for 15 years and leads cageless shark diving expeditions off the coast of… Continue reading
Feb 25 Artificial intelligence program teaches itself to play Atari games — and it can beat your high score By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy A new artificial intelligence program from Google DeepMind has taught itself how to play classic Atari 2600 games. And it can probably beat your high score. Continue reading
Feb 24 Watch a stunning blue sunset — on Mars By Justin Scuiletti Are you a fan of watching sunsets? Well, NASA has an out-of-this-world one to show you. Continue reading
Feb 23 Watch 4:12 How raising tigers as farm animals drives illegal poaching in the wild By PBS News Hour In “Blood of the Tiger,” author J.A. Mills examines the multi-billion dollar market for tigers -- a worldwide problem but most prominent in China. Jeffrey Brown interviews the author about how tiger farms drive mass demand for products made from… Continue watching
Feb 19 A detailed new map of our genome in action By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Your genome contains thousands of genes, possible instructions that build your cells. So how do cells know which genes to use? A set of markers called the epigenome tells them which genes to turn on and off. But if they… Continue reading