Monthly Archives: July 2017

A Living Hard Drive: This GIF Was Stored in the DNA of Bacteria – Singularity Hub

Posted: July 17, 2017 at 3:45 am

DNA is a hugely promising medium for storing data. Consider that a cell nucleus can hold the instructions for an organism as complex as a human. So far efforts to store non-genetic data in DNA have been carried out in test tubes, but now scientists have encoded a GIF into the genome of living bacteria.

The scientists from Harvard University used the CRISPR genome-editing tool to store a picture of a hand and an animation of a running horse adapted from Eadweard Muybridges 1878 photographic study Human and Animal Locomotion in the genome of E. coli bacteria.

More importantly, they were able to retrieve the image of the hand perfectly and the GIF with 90 percent accuracy by sequencing the bacterial genomes. Their results were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Efforts to store unconventional data in DNA have been going on for years thanks to DNAs incredible compactness and long shelf life. Properly stored, it can keep data intact for at least 100,000 years. Just a couple of months ago Microsoft said it planned to incorporate a DNA storage system in one of its data centers by the end of the decade.

Typically, though, this has been done by translating the bits that encode books, images or audio recordings into DNA sequences and then synthesizing them artificially. By using CRISPR instead, the Harvard team, led by renowned geneticist George Church, was able to hijack the genomes of E. coli bacteria to store the information.

The CRISPR system is actually a natural defense mechanism that bacteria use to develop immunity to invading viruses by recording snippets of the attackers DNA in the bacterias genome. These snippets are then used to guide the enzyme Cas9 to find and destroy invasive DNA next time the virus attacks.

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been re-purposed by scientists to edit genomes by re-engineering it so it chops DNA sequences at a specific location. This then allows them to remove existing genes or add new ones.

In this new study, though, the researchers instead re-purposed the lesser-known Cas1 and Cas2 proteins responsible for inserting viral DNA into the bacterias genome. We found that if we made the sequences we supplied look like what the system usually grabs from viruses, it would take what we give, Seth Shipman, a neuroscience researcher at Harvard and study co-author, told The Verge.

Importantly, Cas1 and Cas2 insert new pieces of DNA in the order they arrive, which is what made it possible for the researchers to encode an animation. The data was actually encoded in 600,000 cells to help boost accuracy because the process is not precise, but modern sequencing tools mean its fairly quick to retrieve the data.

The amount of data stored in the cells is considerably less than whats been achieved with the synthesis route. Last year researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington stored 200 megabytes of data in a smear of DNA smaller than a pencil tip.

That means the approach is unlikely to supplant synthesized DNA for the kind of long-term data storage that has piqued the interest of IT firms. But the ability to record data directly into a cells genome does open up a host of new potential applications.

The one the researchers themselves are most interested in is the prospect of turning cells into recording devices that can track changes in both their internal workings and their environment over time. They think this could help us to understand the developmental processes that govern how neurons morph into specialized cells over time or help track which neurons are talking to each other.

Further into the future, it may be possible to effectively create black boxes for cells in the human body, Church told The New York Times. Bacteria could be made to record the activity of cells over time, and when someone gets ill doctors could extract the bacteria and sequence their DNA to play it back.

Its also possible to imagine the approach could be a useful new tool for synthetic biologists who are already using gene circuits to build tiny computers inside cells that can carry out logic functions by providing a form of memory.

Banner Image Credit:Eadweard Muybridge/Wikimedia Commons

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Bob Wolff, Hall of Fame sportscaster of astonishing longevity, dies at 96, – Washington Post

Posted: at 3:45 am

By Bob Levey By Bob Levey July 16 at 7:42 PM

Bob Wolff, a Hall of Fame sportscaster who spent more than 75 years as the voice of professional athletic events and who served as the first TV announcer for the Washington Senators, died July 15 at his home in South Nyack, N.Y. He was 96.

The cause was not yet known, but Mr. Wolff had been recovering from a cold, said his son Rick Wolff.

Guinness World Records certified in 2012 that Mr. Wolff, whose career began on CBS Radio in 1939 and continued through recent years on Cablevisions News 12 Long Island, had the longest known vocation in sports broadcasting.

In his prime, Mr. Wolff called two of the most famous games in American sports history: Don Larsens perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series and the 1958 National Football League championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts, often called the greatest game ever played.

In addition to broadcasting Senators games for 14 years, Mr. Wolff did play-by-play for the Washington Redskins and the University of Maryland, national baseball and football broadcasts for the old Mutual radio network, and even several inaugural parades in Washington. In all, he broadcast eight different sports an impressive range and averaged more than 250 live events each year until he was well into his 80s.

He also wrote three books, appeared as a local radio and TV sportscaster in Washington and New York, and found time to be the announcer for the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at New Yorks Madison Square Garden for more than 30 years.

Mr. Wolff once estimated that he had covered more than 11,000 sporting events and that he had spent more than eight days of his life standing for the playing of the national anthem.

I felt the one thing that gave me longevity was coming up with angles, creative points, story lines, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2005. I approached every sport with the soul of a sportswriter.

He was the only broadcaster to have called the championship games in all four major professional sports: baseball, football, basketball and hockey. He was also one of only two broadcasters, along with Curt Gowdy, to be enshrined in both the national baseball and basketball Halls of Fame.

His preparation and specificity to detail were unparalleled, Curt Smith, the author of Voices of the Game and other books about sportscasters, told The Washington Post in 1995. He speaks in sentences and full paragraphs. His voice is erudite but not unapproachable. He has a sense of humor with the old Senators, he had to and he was always honest.

Mr. Wolffs broadcasting style was unadorned and uninflected, and he often said he belonged to the less-is-more school. Unlike many younger sportscasters, he never developed a signature call or a series of Wolff-isms.

He was known for playing it straight, speaking in a midrange baritone with a prodigious vocabulary at his command.

Great calls used to be based upon the use of words as an art form, but now TV has changed that considerably, he told USA Today in 2011. ...Words carry nuance. I believe a part of my strength is matching the right nuances with the right words and not just using the same ones over and over again.

He also prided himself on meticulous some colleagues said obsessive preparation. For more than 40 years, Mr. Wolffs wife, Jane, would drive him to assignments so he could grab extra time to bone up on his pregame notes.

But when the action and tension grew more intense, so did Mr. Wolffs delivery. In his broadcast of the 1956 World Series for Mutual, he set the scene in the ninth inning as the New York Yankees Larsen faced Dale Mitchell of the Brooklyn Dodgers:

Two strikes and a ball Mitchell waiting, stands deep, feet close together. Larsen is ready, gets the sign. ... Here comes the pitch. Strike three! A no-hitter! A perfect game for Don Larsen! Yogi Berra runs out there. He leaps on Larsen and hes swarmed by his teammates. Listen to this crowd roar!

One of the greatest moments in baseball history became one of Mr. Wolffs signature calls as a broadcaster.

It just burst out of me, he told USA Today. You channel the emotion, excitement and tension.

In Washington, Mr. Wolff was the TV face and voice of the hapless Senators from 1947 to 1960. Only once in those years did the teams record exceed .500, which forced Mr. Wolff to develop a habit of never telling his listeners who was ahead.

Id look for human interest stories all the time to keep people listening to the game, he told the New York Times in 2013. Id just say, Well, folks, its 17-3, and they knew which team was losing.

He was at the microphone for one of the Senators lowest moments the famous 565-foot home run that the Yankees Mickey Mantle hit off hurler Chuck Stobbs in 1953. The home run is believed to be the longest ever hit in a major league baseball game.

When the Senators left Washington after the 1960 season, Mr. Wolff accompanied the team to its new home in Minnesota. After one season as the play-by-play voice of the Twins, he moved to New York, where he broadcast events at Madison Square Garden until he was nearly 80, including play-by-play coverage of the NHLs New York Rangers and, for 27 years, the NBAs New York Knicks.

He also did weekly baseball broadcasts for NBC-TV, teaming with former catcher Joe Garagiola.

With the Senators, Mr. Wolff often had to deliver commercials on live television. Once, he couldnt pry the lid off a can of Prince Albert pipe tobacco, straining and yakking until the lid finally flew open, spilling tobacco everywhere.

Prince Albert abdicated as a sponsor soon after that, Mr. Wolff recalled.

National Bohemian beer required Mr. Wolff to drink its product during breaks between innings.

By the seventh inning, I was kind of weaving my way through the broadcast, he recalled to the New York Daily News in 2003. He eventually prevailed on his bosses to hire a designated drinker.

Robert Alfred Wolff, whose father owned an engineering firm, was born Nov. 29, 1920, in New York City and grew up in the Long Island community of Woodmere. A self-described sports addict from a young age, he captained his high school basketball team and was one of the citys top baseball prospects.

He went to Duke University in Durham, N.C., to play baseball, but during his freshman year he broke his ankle during a baserunning drill.

He was invited to be a guest on a radio station broadcasting Dukes games and soon was serving as a color analyst and as the host of a daytime sports variety show. Although he was eager to return to the playing field, his college coach gave him a bit of advice: If you want to get to the big leagues, I suggest you keep talking.

He graduated in 1942, then served with the Navy in the Pacific during World War II. After his discharge, he resumed his radio career in Durham. In 1946, he got an offer to join WINX-AM in Washington and, a year later, became the first TV announcer for the Senators.

Mr. Wolff, who was about the same age as most of the Senators players, traveled with the team and grew close to the players, often tossing batting practice before games.

He formed the Singing Senators, a group of players who sang barbershop tunes while Mr. Wolff strummed the ukulele.

He crooned Take Me Out to the Ballgame, accompanying himself on the ukulele, when he was inducted into the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.

In 2013, Mr. Wolff donated more than 1,000 hours of tapes to the Library of Congress, including his on-air interviews with such historic sports figures as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson.

In 1945, he married Jane Hoy, a former naval nurse whom he met during the war. Besides his wife, survivors include three children: Rick Wolff of Armonk, N.Y., Robert Wolff of Boston, and Margy Clark of Avon, Conn.; nine grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

During his years in Washington, Mr. Wolff often ventured outside the booth to roam the stands at the old Griffith Stadium, interviewing die-hard Senators fans. Between the games of a doubleheader in 1957, he approached a spectator sitting near the dugout, telling him: Lets play a game. Dont say your name until were finished talking.

They spoke about the game and various players before Mr. Wolff asked the fan about himself.

What sort of work do you do, sir?

I work for the government, the fan responded.

Oh, for the government?

Well, Richard M. Nixon finally said, Im the vice president.

Bob Levey is a retired Washington Post columnist.

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The ‘unicorn’ test was always a stupid way to judge a start-up — it’s even stupider with health tech – CNBC

Posted: at 3:45 am

The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that digital health is over-hyped and under-performing due to the lack of "unicorns," meaning start-ups valued at more than $1 billion.

That argument was summed up last month by a contributor to Forbes, who shared a plethora of reasons that the digital health category had "failed" to build multibillion-dollar businesses.

This whole argument is problematic for two big reasons.

First, it's plain wrong. There are a handful of health-technology unicorns.

In response to the article, health investor Halle Tecco spent an evening compiling a list of unicorns in the space that include Zocdoc, 23andMe, Human Longevity and Collective Health. Just one of these companies, 23andMe, is currently valued at $1.1 billion

The second reason is more nuanced and relates to the obsession with unicorns more generally. Simply put, valuation is not how digital health companies should be judged.

These companies, which sit in at the convergence between tech and health, face different challenges than their counterparts in enterprise and consumer tech. Many of them will face regulatory hurdles, which slows down growth; they're often heavy on services, as changing health behaviors is challenging; and they are typically selling to insurance companies or employers rather than directly to consumers.

To get those lucrative contracts with payers, these companies need evidence to prove that their product or service actually works. A coaching app for people with diabetes might sit in a sexy space and garner a huge valuation -- but if people only use it for a few weeks then drop it forever, the business will fail.

"We need to be looking at validation, rather than valuation," explains Tom Cassels, executive director at The Advisory Board Company, a health research firm based in Washington, D.C.

Cassels assesses digital health start-ups based on the following factors:

Cassels believes companies need to demonstrate that people with costly chronic conditions are actively using it in the long-run -- and that can take a while.

Meanwhile, some of the most valuable digital health start-ups are less than five years old.

"If companies can get to that, it means value is being created and the amount of money that can be saved by their customers is measurable," he said. "If you can get that revenue model right, the start-up is likely to have legs."

Many of the companies that Cassels expects to succeed in digital health are not on Tecco's unicorn list. Conversely, many that are on that list don't meet his criterion, particularly those that cater to the so-called "worried well."

Among his favorite companies are Empiric Health, a start-up spun out of health system giant Intermountain Health geared to evidence-based medicine, and PeraHealth, which sells tools to hospitals to monitor at-risk patients.

"There are only a handful of companies that would pass the validation, not the valuation test," he said.

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Bill Maher Says His Use of N-Word on Live TV ‘Not Racist Mistake’ – Newsweek

Posted: at 3:43 am

Comedian Bill Maher was quick to apologize in June after he faced widespread criticism for using the N word in an interview with Senator Ben Sasse on his HBO talk show.In a statement, Maher said the word was offensive, and I regret saying it and am very sorry.

In the June 3 episode of Real Time that led to calls for Maher to be fired, Republican Senator Ben Sassecommented that hed be welcome in Nebraska as we'd love to have you work in the fields with us.

Work in the fields? Maher replied. Senator, Im a house nigger. After some audience members groaned, Maher clarified: Its a joke.

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Despite apologizing, in aNew York Times Table for Three interview with Annie Liebowitz and Phillip Galanes published weeksafter the controversy, Maher took issue with the furor. I think most people understood that it was a comedians mistake, not a racist mistake, Maher said, when asked by Galanes if he was scared of losing his job.

The conversation then moved on to Ice Cubes June 9 appearance on Mahers Real Time, where the rapper confronted the comedian over his use of the N-word.

On the show, Ice Cube said that Mahers use of the word was part of him often crossingthe line on issues of race and comedy."I think we need to get to the root of the psyche, Ice Cube said. It's a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they're a little too familiar. Or, guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend or two that made them Kool-Aid every now and then, and then they think they can cross the line. And they cant." He was evidently referring to Maher's past troubled relationships with black women.

Read more:People are calling for Bill Maher to be fired after he used the N-word on live TV

Over lunch with Annie Liebowitz and Phillip Galanes,Maher claimedthe rapper had tried to get him to admit things that arent true.

I've never made black jokes. Ive made jokes about racists. But my fan base knows that, so it never went anywhere.

Listen, I hope we had a teachable moment about race: trying to make something good from something bad. But maybe also about how to handle something like this: apologize sincerely if youre wrong and I was and own it, Maher said.

The controversy over Mahers use of the N-word didn't stop himrecently being nominated for his 40th Emmy award.It was not the first time Maher has been criticized for jokes and comments touching on race and religion.His ABC show Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher wascanceled in 2002 after he suggested that the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards. Critics say he has a history of making Islamophobic comments.

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Editorial: A century after Espionage Act, censorship temptation remains – STLtoday.com

Posted: at 3:43 am

A century ago last month, America came close to formally empowering government censorship of the modern news media. That might seem like ancient history, but the censorship monster rises anew whenever a president finds himself under intense scrutiny and seeks to stifle coverage he doesnt like.

Donald Trump is waging a particularly angry campaign to harness press freedoms, including implied advocacy of violence against the fake news media, threats to yank reporters credentials and increasing bans on live TV coverage of White House press briefings.

The 1917 Espionage Act was an effort by Congress, supported by President Woodrow Wilson, to block any accidental or deliberate revelation of national security secrets as the United States fought the First World War. The original version explicitly outlined executive powers to censor newspapers prior to publication. Luckily, more reasonable minds prevailed and press censorship provision was withdrawn before the bill passed.

Even so, Wilson insisted, Authority to exercise censorship over the press is absolutely necessary to the public safety. This newspaper had solidly backed Wilson on other national issues, but our editorials then match our position today: The president was as wrong as he could be.

The Supreme Court has consistently viewed prior restraint of the press as unconstitutional, a position most notably affirmed when President Richard Nixons administration sought to prevent The New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, citing the 1917 Espionage Act.

The concern in 1917 was that reporters covering the war might come across secret information about troop movements, intelligence and strategies that could make it into print. Those were all valid concerns.

But several months into World War I, this newspaper noted, there had not been a single case of secret information being divulged, either accidentally or deliberately. Reporters and editors were capable of performing their jobs and being patriots at the same time, a June 1917 Post-Dispatch editorial said. Autocracies thrive when the press is muzzled, it added.

These issues have arisen anew in recent years as government leakers like Edward Snowden and Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning stole top secret electronic files and dumped them on reporters. News organizations awkwardly had to self-censor, deciding which items were too sensitive for publication.

Trump seems less concerned about publication of classified information than about being embarrassed by reports of his own actions and words. Prior restraint is banned because such extraordinary powers cannot be entrusted to presidents under news media scrutiny.

The public might not always like what the news media reports, but the freedoms we enjoy in this country would be a shell of what they are today if the original Espionage Act, as embraced by Wilson, had become law.

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Goodbye, Joe Scarborough. Hello, Kid Rock. – Hot Air

Posted: at 3:42 am

When Michigan native Mitt Romney (also the owner of a Ken doll bouffant) was the candidate, Republicans didnt stand a chance. His home state remained the cornerstone of the Democrats vaunted blue wall that gave them a lock on the electoral college. Before Trump, no Republican presidential candidate had won the state in nearly 30 years. Romney lost it by nine points to Barack Obama.

Kid Rock supported both Romney and Trump and identifies himself with the more libertarian wing of the party. But being from Detroit and having a long-term business relationship with Chevrolet, one would probably be safe to assume that his libertarianism probably extends to free speech and skepticism of foreign military misadventures rather than to the free trade absolutism and open borders of think-tank libertarians. In other words, the common sense American libertarianism that says, you mind your business and Ill mind mine.

When they read the lyrics to some of Kid Rocks early songs the pearl-clutchers will bemoan the lost virtue of the Republican Party (Oh, the language!), but voters just want someone who represents their interests and gets the job done. Less talk, more action. The return of rough around the edges citizen-politicians may offend the delicate sensibilities of our ruling class, but its what Americas Founders wanted and what the times demand.

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Why do human beings speak so many languages? – CT Post

Posted: at 3:41 am

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Michael Gavin, Colorado State University

(THE CONVERSATION) The thatched roof held back the suns rays, but it could not keep the tropical heat at bay. As everyone at the research workshop headed outside for a break, small groups splintered off to gather in the shade of coconut trees and enjoy a breeze. I wandered from group to group, joining in the discussions. Each time, I noticed that the language of the conversation would change from an indigenous language to something they knew I could understand, Bislama or English. I was amazed by the ease with which the meetings participants switched between languages, but I was even more astonished by the number of different indigenous languages.

Thirty people had gathered for the workshop on this island in the South Pacific, and all except for me came from the island, called Makelua, in the nation of Vanuatu. They lived in 16 different communities and spoke 16 distinct languages.

In many cases, you could stand at the edge of one village and see the outskirts of the next community. Yet the residents of each village spoke completely different languages. According to recent work by my colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, this island, just 100 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, is home to speakers of perhaps 40 different indigenous languages. Why so many?

We could ask this same question of the entire globe. People dont speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over 7,000 distinct languages.

And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, far more languages are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatus 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.

Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.

Most people can easily brainstorm possible answers to these intriguing questions. They hypothesize that language diversity must be about history, cultural differences, mountains or oceans dividing populations, or old squabbles writ large we hated them, so we dont talk to them.

The questions also seem like they should be fundamental to many academic disciplines linguistics, anthropology, human geography. But, starting in 2010, when our diverse team of researchers from six different disciplines and eight different countries began to review what was known, we were shocked that only a dozen previous studies had been done, including one we ourselves completed on language diversity in the Pacific.

These prior efforts all examined the degree to which different environmental, social and geographic variables correlated with the number of languages found in a given location. The results varied a lot from one study to another, and no clear patterns emerged. The studies also ran up against many methodological challenges, the biggest of which centered on the old statistical adage correlation does not equal causation.

We wanted to know the exact steps that led to so many languages forming in certain places and so few in others. But previous work provided few robust theories on the specific processes involved, and the methods used did not get us any closer to understanding the causes of language diversity patterns.

For example, previous studies pointed out that at lower latitudes languages are often spoken across smaller areas than at higher latitudes. You can fit more languages into a given area the closer you get to the equator. But this result does not tell us much about the processes that create language diversity. Just because a group of people crosses an imaginary latitudinal line on the map doesnt mean theyll automatically divide into two different populations speaking two different languages. Latitude might be correlated with language diversity, but it certainly did not create it.

A better way to identify the causes of particular patterns is to simulate the processes we think might be creating them. The closer the models products are to the reality we know exists, the greater the chances are that we understand the actual processes at work.

Two members of our group, ecologists Thiago Rangel and Robert Colwell, had developed this simulation modeling technique for their studies of species diversity patterns. But no one had ever used this approach to study the diversity of human populations.

We decided to explore its potential by first building a simple model to test the degree to which a few basic processes might explain language diversity patterns in just one part of the globe, the continent of Australia.

Our colleague Claire Bowern, a linguist at Yale University, created a map that shows the diversity of aboriginal languages a total of 406 found in Australia prior to contact with Europeans. There were far more languages in the north and along the coasts, with relatively few in the desert interior. We wanted to see how closely a model, based on a simple set of processes, could match this geographic pattern of language diversity.

Our simulation model made only three basic assumptions. First, populations will move to fill available spaces where no one else lives.

Second, rainfall will limit the number of people that can live in a place; Our model assumed that people would live in higher densities in areas where it rained more. Annual precipitation varies widely in Australia, from over three meters in the northeastern rainforests to one-tenth of a meter in the Outback.

Third, we assumed that human populations have a maximum size. Ideal group size is a trade-off between benefits of a larger group (wider selection of potential mates) and costs (keeping track of unrelated individuals). In our model, when a population grew larger than a maximum threshold set randomly based on a global distribution of hunter-gatherer population sizes it divided into two populations, each speaking a distinct language.

We used this model to simulate language diversity maps for Australia. In each iteration, an initial population sprung up randomly somewhere on the map and began to grow and spread in a random direction. An underlying rainfall map determined the population density, and when the population size hit the predetermined maximum, the group divided. In this way, the simulated human populations grew and divided as they spread to fill up the entire Australian continent.

Our simple model didnt include any impact from contact among groups, changes in subsistence strategies, the effects of the borrowing of cultural ideas or components of language from nearby groups, or many other potential processes. So, we expected it would fail miserably.

Incredibly, the model produced 407 languages, just one off from the actual number.

The simulated language maps also show more languages in the north and along the coasts, and less in the dry regions of central Australia, mirroring the geographic patterns in observed language diversity.

And so for the continent of Australia it appears that a small number of factors limitations rainfall places on population density and limits on group size might explain both the number of languages and much of the variation in how many languages are spoken in different locations.

But we suspect that the patterns of language diversity in other places may be shaped by different factors and processes. In other locations, such as Vanuatu, rainfall levels do not vary as widely as in Australia, and population densities may be shaped by other environmental conditions.

In other instances, contact among human groups probably reshaped the landscape of language diversity. For example, the spread of agricultural groups speaking Indo-European or Bantu languages may have changed the structure of populations and the languages spoken across huge areas of Europe and Africa, respectively.

Undoubtedly, a wide variety of social and environmental factors and processes have contributed to the patterns in language diversity we see across the globe. In some places topography, climate or the density of key natural resources may be more critical; in others the history of warfare, political organization or the subsistence strategies of different groups may play a bigger role in shaping group boundaries and language diversity patterns. What we have established for now is a template for a method that can be used to uncover the different processes at work in each location.

Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434.

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Elon Musk doesn’t think we’re prepared to face humanity’s biggest threat: Artificial intelligence – Washington Post

Posted: at 3:41 am

The subjugation of humanity by a race of super-smart, artificially intelligent beings is something that has been theorized by everyone from generations of moviemakers to New Zealands fourth-most-popular folk-parodyduo.

But the latestprophet of our cyber-fueled downfall must realize why people would be inclined to take his warnings with a grain of silicon. He is, after all, the same guy whos asking us to turn over control of our cars and our lives to a bunch of algorithms.

Elon Musk, who hopes that one day everyone will ride in a self-driving, electric-powered Tesla, told a group of governors Saturday that they needed to get on the ball and start regulating artificial intelligence, which he called a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.

No pressure.When pressed for better guidance, Musk said the government must get a better understanding of the latest achievements in artificial intelligence before its too late.

Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid, as they should be, Musk said. AI is a fundamental risk to the future of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were harmful to a set of individuals in society, but they were not harmful to individuals as a whole.

And then Musk outlined the ways AI could bring down our civilization, which may sound vaguely familiar.

He believes AI could start a war by doing fake news and spoofing email accounts and fake press releases, and just by manipulating information. Or, indeed as some companies already claim they can do by getting people to say anything that the machine wants.

Musk said hes usually against proactive regulation, which can impede innovation. But hes making an exception in the case of an AI-fueled Armageddon.

By the time we are reactive in regulation, its too late, he said, confessing that this is really like the scariest problem to me.

Hes been warning people about the problem for years, and hes even come up with a solution: Join forces with the computers.

He announced earlier this year that hes leading a company called Neuralink, which would devise ways to connect the human brain to computers, CNN reported.

In the decades to come, an Internet-connected brain plug-in would allow people to communicate without opening their mouthsand learn something as fast as it takes to download a book.

Other prominent figures in the world of science and technology have also warned against the dangers of artificial intelligence, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and theoretical physicistStephen Hawking. But Musk concedes that people have been hesitant to accept their viewpoint.

I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see like robots going down the streets killing people, they dont know how to react because it seems so ethereal, he said. I think we should be really concerned about AI.

Still, even to the biggest skeptic, one sentence offered some food for thought: I have exposure to the very most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned about it.

Maybe Musk knows something the rest of us dont? He is, after all, a multibillionaire, capable of using obscene sums of money todevelop AI. Maybe in some Musk-funded lab, or on some secret SpaceX satellite, theres already a powerful AI on the verge of getting out.

Maybe its already loose.

Better safe than sorry:

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Elon Musk doesn't think we're prepared to face humanity's biggest threat: Artificial intelligence - Washington Post

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Volkswagen’s EV Will Sell for $7-8K Cheaper Than the Tesla Model 3 – Futurism

Posted: at 3:40 am

In Brief Volkswagen announced that the I.D. Concept, the company's electric concept car designed to compete with the Tesla Model 3, will sell for $7,000 to $8,000 less. The low price is part of VW's drive to compete with Tesla in the EV market.

Volkswagen chief strategist Thomas Sedran announced at the Automobil Forum that the I.D. Concept will sell for $7,000 to $8,000 less than Teslas model. Aside from competitive pricing, the I.D. Concept wasdesigned to compete with the Tesla Model 3across the board.The price cutting strategy is one of the companys more traditional competitive moves in a battle that has, at times, strayed into the unorthodox.According to Electrek, last year before unveiling the concept, VW misrepresented the Model s NEDC-rated range in a presentation designed to favorably compare the VW concept electric vehicle (EV).

At this point, it appears that the all-electric hatchback from VW will be available to compete with the Model 3 in the U.S., but not for more than a year after the Model 3 hits the market. Meanwhile, the concept vehicle which is about the size of the VW Golf will be part of the companys more focused EV efforts in the EU and China. Its crossover model made its debut in Shanghai in April.

While Tesla may see the VW model as a potential competitor, its marketing strategies are more centered on converting drivers of gas-powered cars to EVs. However, if VW follows through with its plan to offer 30 all-electric or hybrid models by 2025, it seems likely that it will remain acompetitor for Tesla and everyone else.

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Volkswagen's EV Will Sell for $7-8K Cheaper Than the Tesla Model 3 - Futurism

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Former NASA Climate Chief Warns That Earth Could Become … – Futurism

Posted: at 3:40 am

In Brief Former NASA climate chief James Hansen believes climate change's most dangerous effect will be a continuous rise in sea levels and not necessarily the increase in temperatures. Because so many people live in coastal cities, the mass migrations inland that will follow this rise could leave the world in ungovernable chaos. Water World

Simply fixatingon the potential negative effects of climate change instead of focusing on efforts to combat itwill not help our planet. However, climate change predictions are the reason these efforts matter, and they provide valuable insights as to how we should take action.

According to former NASA climate research headJames Hansen, the effect of climate change we should be most focused on isnt the warming of the atmosphere. Its the rising sea levels.

Hansen told New York Magthat he doesnt think the atmosphere will actually warm as much as some have predicted by the end of the century, but he does think that sea levels will rise significantly due to melting polar caps. I dont think were going to get four or five degrees [Celsius] this century, because we get a cooling effect from the melting ice. But the biggest effect will be that melting ice, he asserted. In my opinion thats the big thing sea-level rise.

In a paper published last year, Hansen warned that continuous reliance on fossil fuels could increase sea levels by several meters in just a period of 50 to 150 years. That seems like a long time, but Hansens predictions are significantly greater than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes projected range of sea level rise of 30 centimeters (~1 foot) to just under a meter (3.2 feet).

Coastlines are home to more than half the worlds large cities, so a significant portion of the population will be affected by these rising sea levels. The economic implications of that, and the migrations and the social effects of migrations the planet could become practically ungovernable, it seems to me, said Hansen.

Of course, the rising temperatures themselves will impact the population, too. While they wont really be an issue in the U.S., Hansen believes they could be a major problem for countries in the subtropics. If the prediction of a four to five degrees Celsius (7.2 to nine degrees Fahrenheit) increase does come true, it would make these places practically uninhabitable and potentially grind their economies to a halt.

Its already becoming uncomfortable in the summers, in the subtropics. You cant work outdoors, and agriculture, more than half of the jobs are outdoors, he explained.

Hansen asserts that a carbon tax could help stabilize the economy as the world transitions away from fossil fuels, but the important thing is that this transition happens. Without serious efforts on every level, from the individual to the institutional, we stand no chance of preventing climate change from wreaking havoc on our planet.

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