Dozens of children who developed sleep disorder after getting vaccine could get compensation after high court rulingDozens of British children who developed narcolepsy as a result of a swine flu vaccine could be compensated after the high court rejected a government appeal to withhold payments.Six million people in Britain, and more across Europe, were given the Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic, but the jab was withdrawn after doctors noticed a sharp rise in narcolepsy among those who received it.
We tend to think of parasites as harmful, itchy, nasty, creepy crawlies. But these strange, beautiful creatures have many uses – and they need our helpUntil very recently, the skies of North America played host to one of the largest birds on earth: the Californian condor (Gymnogyps californianus). Weighing in at 12 kg with a wingspan of three metres, these remarkable birds were almost lost to us until efforts were made in 1987 to round up the last remaining 27 individuals of the species for captive breeding efforts at San Diego Zoo.However, these birds were not alone. Nestled amongst their feathers was another species on the brink of extinction: the Californian condor louse (Colpocephalum californici). Regrettably, within weeks of entering San Diego Zoo for conservation efforts, a species went extinct. When an animal is taken into captivity to prevent its extinction zookeepers are quick to treat each individual with anti-parasitic drugs. The condor louse became a victim of this all too common practice. Continue reading...
Tunnel, at the the Museum of London Docklands, showcases the archaeological treasures unearthed during the digging of the Crossrail projectFrom reindeer bones gnawed by wolves at Old Oak Common 68,000 years ago to victims of the Black Death, a vulgar Victorian chamber pot and 13,000 Crosse & Blackwell marmalade and pickle jars – the longest slice of the capital’s history ever excavated lies exposed in a new exhibition at the Museum of London.The Crossrail tunnel, which will hold the 73-mile new Elizabeth line that is due to open in 2018, is the largest engineering project in Europe and it has given archaeologists a unique slit trench across the capital’s history. The oldest objects shaped by a Londoner are flakes chipped from a flint axe 8,000 years ago, found in north Woolwich. Continue reading...
My father, John Beetlestone, who has died aged 84, was an extraordinary man who founded a museum and had three careers.Born within the sound of Bow bells in London, John was the only child of Albert Beetlestone, a clerk for British Rail, and his wife, Ivy (nee Spencer). The family was driven out of London by doodlebugs during the second world war and he was brought up in Norwich, attending Thetford grammar school. Continue reading...
by Presented by Daniel Glaser and Produced by Max San on (#2BYWY)
Responding to some of our listener’s emails, Dr Daniel Glaser explores the role of photographs for recall, and the vividness of musical memorySubscribe & Review on iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn this mini podcast, Observer Magazine columnist and neuroscientist Dr Daniel Glaser answers listener’s emails in response to our A Neuroscientist Explains podcast on memory storage. Continue reading...
Scientists were amazed to find remains of 300,000-year-old sediment slip while conducting 3D mapping of deep sea floorEvidence of a massive undersea landslide that took place more than 300,000 years ago has been discovered off the Great Barrier Reef.
He declared that women’s brains were “analogous to those of animalsâ€, but conducted scholarly personal correspondence with women, new book revealsCharles Darwin may have held less hostile views about women than previously thought, according to a new book out this month. Drawing on letters between the father of evolutionary science and the women he knew, the book reveals close ties between the scientist, his family and leading feminist figures in the 19th century, including medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and social reformer Josephine Butler.Darwin and Women by Samantha Evans, published by Cambridge University Press, is the latest book to come out of the Darwin Correspondence Project, which was started at the university in 1974 and is due to finish in 2022, when letters between the pioneering naturalist and his circle will be made available online for free. Continue reading...
Welcome to the Cretaceous Romanian island of Hațeg, once populated by lifeforms stranger than anything imagined by Lovecraft or GeigerWhat makes ancient, extinct animals so compelling is that they are often beyond anything we can imagine. Many of them have no comparison among the lifeforms surviving on earth today. They reached unsurpassed sizes, or were chimeric half-and-halfs. Others had alien skeletons with bodily projections and elongations that stretch credulity. There are few creatures that embody the strangeness of the extinct quite like azhdarchids.Pronounced az-dar-kid, these giant reptiles were named after the azhdar of Iranian mythology: huge lizards with wings that populated Persian epics. Real life azhdarchids were actually pterosaurs, the group of flying reptiles most commonly recognised in the form of the head-crested Pteranodon; much beloved of scientifically dubious film and television. Continue reading...
From the Georgian medic who shocked his patients to scientists, artists and inventors, the Wellcome’s exhibition explores our relationship with electricityThere must have been gasps of astonishment – and possibly of well-justified terror – in Georgian Lancashire when John Fell sent a charge through his frame of mahogany, glass, black silk and tin foil, and the word “electricity†lit up in letters of fire.“This Experiment, when performed in the dark, which it always should be, presents a pleasing spectacle,†he wrote. Continue reading...
A new technique involving coloured lights may, sadly, not be the breakthrough sufferers of the condition are looking forThe UK’s estimated 6 million tinnitus sufferers are often left to flounder when their GPs fail to offer the help they want. So a report this week that coloured lights, that “distract†people’s brains, may help alleviate the condition will be music to their ears. Unfortunately, close reading reveals that the research, at the University of Leicester, is yet to achieve a breakthrough.This is Tinnitus Awareness Week, and the British Tinnitus Association is working hard to raise its profile. It has released new guidance for GPs and launched an online platform, Take on Tinnitus, for people who are newly diagnosed. But how much hope is there? Continue reading...
The diversity of Nasa’s workforce in 1940s Virginia is uncovered in a new book by Margot Lee Shetterly. She recalls how a visit to her home town led to a revelation“Mrs Land worked as a computer out at Langley,†my father said, taking a right turn out of the parking lot of the First Baptist church in Hampton, Virginia. My husband and I visited my parents just after Christmas in 2010, enjoying a few days away from our full-time life and work in Mexico.They squired us around town in their 20-year-old green minivan, my father driving, my mother in the front passenger seat, Aran and I buckled in behind like siblings. My father, gregarious as always, offered a stream of commentary that shifted fluidly from updates on the friends and neighbours we’d bumped into around town to the weather forecast to elaborate discourses on the physics underlying his latest research as a 66-year-old doctoral student at Hampton University. Continue reading...
Deep in the brain, your amygdala generates a knee-jerk response to political enemies and other threats. But experiments show the divide can be bridgedI was walking back to my room on the ninth floor of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur last October, and I happened to meet the guy in the room next door, standing in the hall, searching for his key card. We said hi. Clearly we had English in common as a first language (he was American, I’m Canadian).“It looks like Trump is finally going down,†I said. The election was on everybody’s mind, and Trump’s ratings were sinking that week. The fellow looked at me in a friendly way and said, “Yeah, but he’s still got a chance. There’s still hope.†Continue reading...
Some argue that, far from motivating pro-social behaviours, empathy can push us towards inaction at best and racism and violence at worstWhy do we flinch when we see someone hit their thumb with a hammer? Our intuitive tendency to feel what we imagine another person is feeling is called ‘emotional empathy’. Empathy is, among other things, believed to improve our personal relationships, motivate charitable giving and encourage pro-social behaviours. The general consensus is that empathy is crucial to being a good person.But empathy is not without its discontents. In his latest book, Against Empathy , Paul Bloom argues that empathy is actually a very poor moral guide. He compiles evidence from a range of sources to show that empathy can be innumerate, biased, parochial and inconsistent and can push us towards inaction at best and racism and violence at worst. Continue reading...
In the era of satellites and Google Maps there are still areas that remain a mysteryOn a quiet summer evening, the Aurora, a 60ft cutter-rigged sloop, approaches the craggy shore of eastern Greenland, along what is known as the Forbidden Coast. Its captain, Sigurdur Jonsson, a sturdy man in his 50s, stands carefully watching his charts. The waters he is entering have been described in navigation books as among “the most difficult in Greenland; the mountains rise almost vertically from the sea to form a narrow bulwark, with rifts through which active glaciers discharge quantities of ice, while numerous off-lying islets and rocks make navigation hazardousâ€. The sloop is single-masted, painted a cheery, cherry red. Icebergs float in ominous silence.Where Jonsson, who goes by Captain Siggi, sails, he is one of few to have ever gone. Because the splintered fjords create thousands of miles of uninhabited coastline, there has been little effort to map this region. “It’s practically uncharted,†he says. “You are almost in the same position as you were 1,000 years ago.†Continue reading...
Scientists looking at galaxy 1.8bn light years away discover cosmic event taking more than a decade, when most stars would succumb in a yearScientists have detected a black hole spending more than a decade devouring a star — something that usually only takes a year.The event happened in a small galaxy 1.8bn light years from Earth. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#2BR8C)
Designed to be a reversible and less invasive form of vasectomy, Vasalgel has been found to work reliably in primatesA male contraceptive gel has been found to work reliably in a trial in primates, bringing the prospect of an alternative form of birth control for humans closer.The product, called Vasalgel, is designed to be a reversible and less invasive form of vasectomy and in the latest study was 100% effective at preventing conception. A blob of the gel is injected into the sperm-carrying tube, known as the vas deferens, and acts as a long-lasting barrier. Continue reading...
Scientists may now know what the common ancestor of slugs, snails and squid looked like, based on Calvapilosa kroegeri, a 480m-year-old fossilLumpy, hairy and with a nail-like horny patch – it sounds like a hobbit’s toe. In fact, it’s a portrait of what researchers say the common ancestor of slugs, snails and squid might have looked like.The surmise is based on the discovery of the fossilised remains of a mollusc, thought to have lived about 480 million years ago, which has short spines all over its body and fingernail-like shell over its head which housed a radula – a tongue-like structure found only in molluscs – with more than 125 rows of teeth. Continue reading...
Advances in epigenetics mean incredibly detailed profiles of criminal suspects might soon be reality. Is the legal system ready to use this information?Picture the scene. A detective is addressing her team:
Alan Finkel warns that forcing EPA data to undergo political review before publication will ‘cause long-term harm’Australia’s chief scientist has slammed Donald Trump’s attempt to censor environmental data, saying the US president’s behaviour was comparable to the manipulation of science by the Soviet Union.Speaking at a scientific roundtable in Canberra on Monday, Alan Finkel warned science was “literally under attack†in the United States and urged his colleagues to keep giving “frank and fearless†advice despite the political opposition. Continue reading...
From the fabled northern lights to the meteor shower that inspired one of John Denver’s most famous songs, stunning celestial wonders can be seen beyond the UK’s street lightsWe forget how beautiful the night sky can be. Across too much of the country, it is outshone by street lights, traffic, homes and offices. Escape the light pollution, however, and you will see things to make you ooh and ahh – or simply stand quietly transfixed. Here are five striking sights to look out for next time you escape into the darkness. Just remember: wrap up warm if it is winter and douse yourself in mosquito repellent if it is not. Continue reading...
Mission to clear up Earth’s orbit ends after device created with a fishing net company fails to deployAn experimental Japanese mission to clear space junk from the Earth’s orbit has ended in failure, officials said on Monday, in an embarrassment for Tokyo.
This revolutionary work written by Henry James’s less famous brother brought a democratising impulse to the realm of religious beliefThe United States is a society, first described in Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary words in 1776, that constantly rewrites its narrative – in law, philosophy, economics and belief, as well as through poetry, drama and fiction. In moments of change, its finest writers have often found new forms of expression and ideas that both illuminate the American story and help to redefine it.William James, brother of the more famous Henry, was a classic American intellectual, a brilliant New Englander and renowned pragmatist – a celebrity in his time who coined the phrase “stream of consciousnessâ€. He responded to the cultural and social ferment of the late 19th century with the Gifford lectures, given in Edinburgh during 1900-02. When he turned these talks into a book, James, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Principles of Psychology, placed himself at the crossroads of psychology and religion to articulate an approach to religious experience that would help liberate the American mind at the beginning of the 20th century from its puritan restrictions by advancing a pluralistic view of belief inspired by American traditions of tolerance. Like his brother, he was obsessed by the problem of expressing individual consciousness through language; this is just one of the principal themes of The Varieties of Religious Experience. Continue reading...
By understanding how ripples form in sand, geologists can gain a valuable insight into past conditions – both on Earth and on MarsRipples in the sand are a beauty to behold. Sometimes their sinuous curves can be spied beneath a tinkling stream, and other times you feel them under your feet as the currents in the sea create ridges and hollows in the sand.But what controls the size and shape of a ripple? Is it the size of the grains, the depth of the water, or perhaps the strength of the flow? For geologists the question matters because they use fossilised ripples to try to better understand past environments or interpret conditions on other planets. Continue reading...
‘Planck’s constant is a tiny number. It is even smaller than 1. Wow!’By the end of the 19th century, many physicists believed there really wasn’t any more to learn about the workings of nature and the properties of matter and radiation. On balance, it might have been easier for everyone if things had stayed that way. Then we could just study Newton and Maxwell and all go home, too. Here’s a picture of an apple landing on Newton’s head.Things changed in 1900 when Max Planck proposed that the energy of electromagnetic radiation was proportional to its frequency. This is known as Planck’s constant which is a tiny number. Even smaller than one. This led Planck to conclude that the radiation had to be lumpy. Continue reading...
After 53 years, many discoveries and starring roles in movies, funds for the Puerto Rico observatory are under threatIt has helped guard our planet from the threat of wayward asteroids, studied some of the most remote bodies in the cosmos and been used to make countless invaluable astronomical discoveries. For good measure, the Arecibo radio telescope, one of the world’s largest observatories, provided the setting for the spectacular dispatch of evil agent Alec Trevelyan (played by Sean Bean) at the hands of James Bond (then played by Piers Brosnan) in the film GoldenEye.But now the great radio telescope is facing closure. Despite being one of the most powerful instruments of its kind in the world, the Arecibo, which is based in Puerto Rico but funded by US science agencies, is facing the axe, a victim of federal budget cuts. Continue reading...
It may not be a tropical paradise, but the UK is home to plenty of weird and wonderful creatures all the same. Here are five of the strangestThe beasts of Britain do not have much going for them. For starters, there aren’t many of them, a historic legacy of the Ice Age and Britain’s island status, which prevented many plants, insects and mammals from colonising when the ice retreated. Britain exists at a northerly latitude, so its species cannot luxuriate in a tropical paradise with millions of colourful, noisy brethren. And, these days, they must share their island with more than 60 million humans.But, being busy, myopic creatures, we easily overlook the weird and wonderful wildlife that is tucked away on – and just off – our shores. Here are five wild surprises. Continue reading...
Are you always turning the camera lens towards yourself? Answer our questions to see what it meansHow often do you take selfies, and what does this say about your self-confidence?Choose from the following: Never – maybe once a year; Rarely – maybe one or two a month; Often – at least once a week. Continue reading...
Trump tweets and software problems heighten concerns over advanced jetBritain is being forced to pour millions of pounds of new funds into the troubled F-35 stealth fighter programme being developed in America and considered a vital part of the UK’s future defences.The F-35, being built by the US in partnership with countries including the UK, is the costliest weapon ever developed by the Pentagon. It is scheduled to go into service in the UK in 2018 and into full production in 2019, and is intended to be a cornerstone of UK defences for decades to come, flying off two new aircraft carriers. Continue reading...
Astronauts throw an American football on the International Space Station on Saturday to mark the upcoming Super Bowl LI on Sunday. Footage shows an astronaut throwing ‘the longest Hail Mary pass ever’, as they claim the ball travels 564,664 yards
After years of bit parts, low pay and a breakthrough role in Empire, Taraji P Henson is taking the lead as a Nasa scientistSome of the impact of Hidden Figures, a movie in which Taraji P Henson stars as Katherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician and one of the few African American women at Nasa during the early part of the space programme, comes from the assumption of progress. The film opens in the 1950s, with Johnson being harassed by a white cop when her car breaks down on the way to work, and closes with footage of President Obama giving the now 98-year-old the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The implication is clear: just look how far we’ve come.Today, Henson is in a New York hotel room, shimmering with exhaustion and the thrill, after years of playing second and third fiddle in movies, of assuming a starring role. If you know her, it’s probably from Empire, the hit TV show in which she plays Cookie Lyon, a fiercely ambitious hip-hop impresario and a woman who, Henson says with some understatement, “if you say something wrong to, is going to come back and have her rebuttalâ€. If you don’t know her, you may still recognise Henson’s face from years of spadework on shows such as CSI, Boston Legal and ER. In 2009, she won an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Queenie in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, a movie for which she was paid a fraction of the salary of her more famous co-stars, and for years that is how it went: small parts, bad pay – at least relative to the Hollywood average – and the scramble for too few roles in which an African American woman might be cast. Meanwhile, Henson learned to bite her tongue and pick her battles. “What am I going to do?†she says. “Am I going to complain, or am I going to do something about it?†Continue reading...
Unlicensed medicines used in obesity or erection remedies could lower blood pressure or raise chances of heart attackMany herbal supplements, including for obesity and erectile dysfunction, contain hidden unlicensed pharmaceutical ingredients that could endanger people’s health, experts have warned.The research team, from Queen’s University Belfast, Kingston University in London and the life sciences testing company LGC, concluded that not only do such supplements often make unverified claims as to their benefits but some have illegal ingredients which could pose a threat – potentially causing low blood pressure or an increased risk of heart attacks. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#2BBFT)
Technique aims to help smokers ‘unlearn’ associations that drive addiction by exposing them to triggers, such as footage of people smokingIt sounds like torment for the smoker attempting to quit: handling packets of cigarettes and watching footage of people smoking, without being allowed to light up.However, scientists believe that lengthy exposure to environmental triggers for cravings could be precisely what smokers need to help them quit. The technique, known as extinction therapy, targets the harmful Pavlovian associations that drive addiction with the aim of rapidly “unlearning†them. Continue reading...
It looks like a hell-beast from the depth of Lovecraft’s imagination, but this creature with its huge mouth and no anus this could be our earliest known ancestor. Thought to have lived 540 million years ago, the discovery of Saccorhytus coronarious fossils sheds light on the early stages of evolution. And if you need more nighttime fear-fuel, how about contemplating what makes a frog’s tongue a near inescapable trap. Apparently frog saliva has special properties: it switches between being thin and watery as the whip-like tongue hits its target, to thick and sticky as the insect is reeled in. Yum. But if understanding frog tongues doesn’t seem like a big deal, here’s something that definitely is. A groundbreaking “brain reading†system has allowed patients with completely locked-in syndrome to communicate for the first time in years. Patients paralysed by ALS were able to answer “yes†or “no†– and told doctors they are happy with life. Far out, right? And speaking of which, have you seen these amazing pics of Saturn’s rings? The new images from Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft are the most detailed ever taken and raise the possibility that the rings could contain millions of “moonletsâ€. And if that doesn’t blow your mind, there’s news about our home galaxy too. It is known that the Milky Way is being pulled through space, but cosmologists suspected it was being pushed as well. New research points to a cosmic dead zone that might be providing that push. Continue reading...
Zakynthos has some fascinating wildlife, but the Greek island’s biggest stars, its loggerhead turtles, are dying out – partly because of their popularity“See turtles or your money back,†says the sign on the beach. A smiling local hands out fliers and shakes the hands of passersby; occasionally they stop and a few Euros change hands. Looking across the bay, there are five or six more operations that either rent out small boats with 20hp outboard motors to “visit Marathonisi - Turtle Island†or will book you aboard a glass bottom boat to: “see Caretta carettaâ€. Saying “no†is quite difficult as the hard sell tactics kick in.This is Laganas, the main tourist town in the Ionian island of Zakynthos. As the name suggests, Laganas was once a lagoon, and thirty years ago supported one of the largest flamingo colonies in Europe. Now it’s a depressing strip of poor quality apartments and tourist clutter; all moped rental places, tacky bars and run down clubs. The decline of the Greek economy lends a sense of desperation and the turtles are one of the few things the town still has going for it. Continue reading...
New research provides evidence for the idea that sleep restores cellular homeostasis in the brain and helps us to forget irrelevant informationWe spend one third of our lives sleeping, but we still do not know exactly why we sleep. Recent research shows that that the brain does its housekeeping while we sleep, and clears away its waste. According to another hypothesis, sleep plays the vital role of restoring the right balance of brain synapses to enhance learning, and two studies published in today’s issue of Science now provide the most direct evidence yet for this idea.We do know that sleep is important for consolidating newly formed memories. During waking hours, we learn all kinds of new information, both consciously and unconsciously. To store it, the brain modifies large numbers of synaptic connections, making some of them stronger and larger, and it’s now thought that as we sleep other synapses are weakened or destroyed, so that the important new information is stored for later use, while irrelevant material, which could interfere with learning, is not. Continue reading...
The fashion world has bought into the idea that wearing La La Land yellow and head-to-toe colour will act as an antidote to these dark days. Now here comes the science part …So-called dopamine dressing is everywhere this season. Based on the idea that wearing overtly fun clothes can help lift your mood in depressing times, it begs the question: can wearing “happy clothes†really make us more happy?The fashion industry is certainly trying to convince us that it can be done. The catwalks have been a Skittles packet of brights – from Fanta orange at Armani and scarlet at Maison Margiela to Beauty and the Beast yellow and candyfloss pink at Giambattista Valli. Accidentism is in full flow; eyeshadows are fizzy tangerines and lemons; and hair’s gone blorange. Grazia magazine is encouraging us to test the power of positive thinking in Bella Freud Good Times tops. And elsewhere it’s all about head-to-toe green and rainbow bags in the shape of elephants. Continue reading...
Anti-inflammatory drugs are not much more effective than placebo and patients taking them 2.5 times more likely to suffer from stomach problemsWidely used anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen have little more benefit than a placebo when it comes to treating back pain, a comprehensive review has found.Researchers analysed 35 peer-reviewed trials on the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] such as ibuprofen for back pain, reviewing data from 6,065 patients. Continue reading...
Governments are investing millions in quantum in the hope it might help save lives. But will this gamble on subatomic particles pay off?Governments around the world are taking a leap into the future by investing heavily in quantum technology research. The UK alone has pledged £270m over five years, with the more cautious Australian government promising a AU$25m (£15m) investment over the same period, and the Canadians putting in $50m (£31m).So just what are they investing in, and why? While the end product may be some way off, quantum technologies promise to deliver multibillion-pound industries across multiple sectors in return for that investment. Continue reading...
Climate science denier and veteran lobbyist Fred Palmer is proud of getting Australia to adopt the sector’s arguments on climate and povertyIf you’re a lobbyist or an industry advocate, then you know you’re winning when you hear your own talking points coming back at you through the mouths of ministers.Better still, if it’s the Australian prime minister. Continue reading...
Citizen scientists are being sought for a project which will see tens of thousands of teabags buried in wetlands to monitor carbon sequestrationAustralian scientists have launched a project to bury tens of thousands of teabags in wetlands around the world. They are hoping others will sacrifice a few cups of tea and join in to discover how efficient different wetlands are at capturing and storing carbon dioxide.Lipton green tea and red tea “rooibos†varieties will be used in the project, which already involves more than 500 scientists in every continent except Antarctica. Continue reading...
An 18th-century automaton admired by US writer to be star attraction at London museum’s Robots exhibitionA robotic swan that entranced Mark Twain and generations of other viewers will be a star attraction at the Science Museum’s Robots exhibition when it opens next week.The banal truth behind the piece – the nuts and bolts, levers and cogwheels that for almost 250 years have powered a lifesize silver swan to play music and catch a golden fish out of a crystal stream – has been laid bare in a workroom at the west London museum. Continue reading...
Fortitude Series 2 opened with a sinister and spectacular ‘blood aurora’. So what is it, and why has it long been considered a bad omen?The red glow in the sky grew and lengthened, the lower edge twisting into a bright band against the darkness. Slowly the colours rippled and broke and reappeared elsewhere. Pillars of red streaked down from above like blood dripping from the heavens. The aurora borealis had made an appearance in rare and spectacular form: the blood aurora.So opened series two of Fortitude last week, a popular TV series set in a fictional town in Arctic Norway. But a red aurora is a real and spectacular scientific phenomenon, and one steeped in mythology.
In the late 1960s the scientist behind the world’s most successful antiviral vaccines took on his employer and the US government in a fight for custody of the cells that he called his ‘children’On 9 October 1964, a baby girl was born at Philadelphia general hospital. She arrived early, when her mother was about 32 weeks pregnant. The baby weighed 3.2lb and was noted to be blue, floppy and not breathing. The only sign of life was her slow heartbeat. Nonetheless, she clung on, and her 17-year-old mother named her.One month later, the baby was still in the hospital, and a doctor listening with a stethoscope heard a harsh heart murmur. A chest X-ray showed that she had a massively enlarged heart because a hole in the organ was preventing it from pumping blood efficiently. It also emerged that the baby had cataracts blinding both eyes. Later, other signs indicated that she was profoundly deaf. Continue reading...
With a new set of principles for artificial intelligence, tech pioneers seem to be developing a conscience. Good – but the discussion must include more voicesToday in Washington DC, leading US and UK scientists are meeting to share dispatches from the frontiers of machine learning – an area of research that is creating new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI). Their meeting follows the publication of a set of principles for beneficial AI that emerged from a conference earlier this year at a place with an important history.In February 1975, 140 people – mostly scientists, with a few assorted lawyers, journalists and others – gathered at a conference centre on the California coast. A magazine article from the time by Michael Rogers, one of the few journalists allowed in, reported that most of the four days’ discussion was about the scientific possibilities of genetic modification. Two years earlier, scientists had begun using recombinant DNA to genetically modify viruses. The Promethean nature of this new tool prompted scientists to impose a moratorium on such experiments until they had worked out the risks. By the time of the Asilomar conference, the pent-up excitement was ready to burst. It was only towards the end of the conference when a lawyer stood up to raise the possibility of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that the scientists focussed on the task at hand – creating a set of principles to govern their experiments. Continue reading...