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Computer Science

Can you tell which is the face of someone who is sick? Take a good look. Images of 16 individuals (eight women) photographed twice were averaged, during experimentally induced (a) acute sickness and (b) placebo.

The Next Pandemic

Could AI One Day Detect the Flu…Before You Even Feel Sick?

New research into the subtle facial signs of illness could one day help train artificial intelligence systems to scan for infections

New Research

This Is the Largest Known Prime Number Yet

The newly discovered prime is 23 million digits long

Drummers in Benin

New Research

Big Data Traces the World’s Most Distinctive Musical Traditions

An analysis of 8,200 recordings from 137 nations shows nations in sub-Saharan Africa have the most unique rhythms and melodies

Trending Today

Belgium Ends Telegram Service After 171 Years

The end of Belgian telegrams isn’t the end of the service across the world, but it’s getting close

Travelers walk in the departure hall of Hong Kong International Airport.

The Rise of Indoor Navigation

You may never get lost in a mall again with these new technologies, designed to help you navigate inside places traditional GPS-based mapping apps can’t

Turing standing next to the Mark I

Cool Finds

Listen to Alan Turing’s First Computer-Generated Christmas Carols

In 1951, the BBC played two carols from Turing’s computer, which have now been recreated by New Zealand researchers

Janelle Shane's neural network needs a lot of first lines before it can teach itself to write good ones.

This Neural Network Can (Maybe) Start a Novel Better Than You

As the end of NaNoWriMo draws near, take a look at one researcher’s effort to help find that perfect first line

Stanford radiologist Matthew Lungren, left, meets with graduate students Jeremy Irvin and Pranav Rajpurkar to discuss the results of detections made by the algorithm.

Can an Algorithm Diagnose Pneumonia?

Stanford researchers claim they can detect the lung infection more accurately than an experienced radiologist. Some radiologists aren’t so sure.

The way a fruit fly fires neurons could inform machine learning.

How Fruit Fly Brains Could Improve Our Search Engines

Fruit flies have a unique way of matching data, which could teach scientists to create better, faster search algorithms

The herbarium of Washington, D.C.'s Natural History Museum teems with pressed specimens of thousands of distinct plants.

How Artificial Intelligence Could Revolutionize Archival Museum Research

A new study shows off a computer program’s specimen-sorting prowess

This paper log for Interface Message Processor shows the very first online communication.

These Two Small Letters Heralded the Beginning of Online Communication

Their message is far more profound in retrospect than it was at the time

The molds responsible for aflatoxins grow on a number of staple crops, including corn, peanuts, millet, wheat, cottonseed and tree nuts.

Could Video Gamers Make Our Food Supply Safer?

An effort to combat poisonous molds that contaminate crops is looking to tap the puzzle-solving skills of amateur gamers

New Research

Latest AI Teaches Itself to Play Go With No Human Help

DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero taught itself how to play Go, becoming the greatest player in history in just 40 days

How Artificial Intelligence Is Improving Magic Tricks

Computer scientists have designed a trick that uses an algorithm to search the internet for the words most associated with images

Researcher Christopher Clarke controls a TV with his coffee cup.

Use Your Hand (or Your Coffee Cup, or Your Cat) as a Remote Control

A new gesture recognition technology could allow users to turn almost any item into a remote for controlling televisions, tablets and more

New Research

In a First, Archival-Quality Performances Are Preserved in DNA

Songs by Miles Davis and Deep Purple at the Montreux Jazz Festival will live on in the ultra-compact, long-lasting format

A record-breaking gathering of Waldo (known across the pond as 'Wally') impersonators in Dublin, Ireland, in 2011.

The Science Behind Our Search for Waldo

‘Where’s Waldo’ was first published on this day in 1987

The smart bin prototype

The Innovative Spirit fy17

A Smart Recycling Bin Could Sort Your Waste for You

It’s sometimes difficult to know where to put different types of plastic, but computer vision could remove any confusion

Unlike Samuel Morse's one-key telegraph, Baudot's used five keys.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Roots of Computer Code Lie in Telegraph Code

Émile Baudot, born a year after the first long-distance telegraph message was sent, helped advance the technology

SoftBank's humanoid robot "Pepper" can lead funerals.

Nine Tasks Robots Can Do That May Surprise You

Machines can cook your dinner, fill your prescriptions, make your shoes and much, much more

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