Archeaology
Expert claims inscriptions from Egyptian exodus proves Hebrew is world’s oldest alphabet jpost
While critics argue that the original alphabet likely derived from a grouping of Afro-Asiatic languages – including Akkadian, Aramaic, Phoenician, Ethiopic and Hebrew – [professor] Petrovich claims that an inscription discovered on an ancient Egyptian stone slab in 2012 proves his case.
Petrovich said he subsequently translated 16 more Hebrew inscriptions from four other ancient slabs discovered in Egypt and Sinai, including one from 1446 BCE, which describes Moses as a figure heralded by the ancient Jews shortly before he led the exodus from Egypt.
Crime
ThyssenKrupp AG, Maker of Israeli Submarines, Suffered ‘Massive’ Cyber Attack jewishpress
According to German business magazine Wirtschafts Woche, Martin Hölz, Chief Information Officer at ThyssenKrupp thyssenkrupp, stated the attack had originated in south-east Asia and resulted in the theft of company secrets.
ThyssenKrupp AG is based in Duisburg and Essen, Germany. The enormous corporation owns 670 companies worldwide. It is one of the world’s largest steel makers, but also provides components and systems for the automotive industry, elevators, escalators, material trading and industrial service.
Abortion
Empowered by Trump, Ohio legislature passes ‘heartbeat’ bill that would ban most abortions washingtonpost
If Gov. John Kasich (R) governor.ohio.gov signs the bill, it would pose a direct challenge to Supreme Court decisions that have found that women have a constitutional right to abortion until the point of viability, which is typically pegged around 24 weeks. Similar bills have been blocked by the courts. Because of this, even many antiabortion advocates have opposed such measures.
Genetics
Scientists back longer experimentation on unborn babies christian.org.uk
At a conference today, senior scientists will argue that the current 14-day limit on embryo experimentation should be doubled.
[Proponent Professor Simon Fishel, head of fertility group Care] went on to say: “It’s not a human embryo we are testing, it’s human embryonic cells.”
Research
UC Berkeley's Salto Is the Most Agile Jumping Robot Ever spectrum.ieee.org v
One of most talented and capable (and cutest) jumping animals is a fluffy little thing called a galago factzoo, or bushbaby. They live in Africa, weigh just a few kilos, and can leap tall (nearly two meter) bushes in a single bound. Part of the secret to this impressive jumping ability, which biologists only figured out a little over a decade ago, is that galagos use the structure of their legs to amplify the power of their muscles and tendons. In a paper just published in the (brand new!) journal Science Robotics, Haldane (along with M. M. Plecnik, J. K. Yim, and R. S. Fearing) demonstrate the jumping capability of a little 100g robot called Salto, which leverages the galago's tricks into what has to be the most agile and impressive legged* jumping skill we've ever seen.
Lightening soldiers' loads by lifting PV cells onto flexible surfaces phys.org
Photovoltaic (PV) cells are the military's choice to power remote bases, but the ones it uses are not only large and inflexible, they aren't very efficient. Last summer, NREL nrel.gov embarked on a $1.5 million, three-year research and development contract with the Office of Naval Research to explore making lightweight solar cells. In this work, the journey has been marked by fundamental science—and creative thinking.
Machine learning enables predictive modeling of 2-D materials phys.org
In a study published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters pubs.acs.org, a team of researchers led by Argonne computational scientist Subramanian Sankaranarayanan described their use of machine learning tools to create the first atomic-level model that accurately predicts the thermal properties of stanene, a two-dimensional (2-D) material made up of a one-atom-thick sheet of tin.
Scientists develop robotic hand for people with quadriplegia phys.org v
The low-cost device was tested in Spain on six people with quadriplegia affecting their ability to grasp or manipulate objects. By wearing a cap that measures electric brain activity and eye movement the users were able to send signals to a tablet computer that controlled the glove-like device attached to their hand.
Environmental
Giraffes facing extinction after devastating decline, experts warn theguardian w!
The authoritative list, compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) iucn.org, has also added more than 700 newly recognised bird species, but 13 of these are already extinct.
Space
Saturn Probe Dives Past Rings for 1st Time space
Cassini zoomed within 57,000 miles (91,000 kilometers) of Saturn's cloud tops on Sunday morning, diving through the planet's ring plane at about the spot where a faint ring generated by the small moons Janus and Epimetheus lies, NASA officials said.
Also see These Are the First Glorious Images From Cassini's Ring-Grazing Orbits gizmodo
Future
Police superbikes: The new breed of driverless vehicles cnn
The design for these futuristic police drones already exists. It's called Interceptor and could soon become a reality.
"Traffic cameras have been around for years. But with the advancement of pilotless technology we now have new solutions to the basic needs in our public works systems, including in the area of public safety," he said.
AI
Artificial Intelligence Is More Artificial Than Intelligent wired
Deepmind deepmind has surpassed the human mind on the Go board. Watson ibm has crushed America’s trivia gods on Jeopardy. But ask DeepMind to play Monopoly or Watson to play Family Feud, and they won’t even know where to start. Because these artificial intelligence engines weren’t specifically designed to play these games and aren’t smart enough to figure them out by themselves, they’ll give nonsensical answers. They’ll struggle greatly, and humans will outperform them—by a lot.
Can AI really run a traditional bank with no staff? This startup thinks so zdnet
It describes its technology as combining the machine-learning capabilities of artificial intelligence with the certainty and transparency of blockchain transactions.
In the past year, the startup reports a 132 percent gain on bitcoin investments. Every asset is analyzed by 30 algorithms, which take into account 256 parameters and learn the best moves by previous experiences.
Do you hear what AI hear? cbc.ca
The scientists used a type of artificial intelligence known as a "Recurrent Neural Network," which is organized into different layers. Each layer created a different part of the song: the bottom layers created the melody; the higher levels created the chords; and the drums filled out the song to make it sound more like an actual piece of pop music. In the end, the AI composed a number of songs, including a Christmas tune.
It's horrible music, even for a computer :D :D
Augmented Reality
I’ve seen the future of augmented reality, and it’s called HoloPortal alphr
Created by DoubleMe doubleme.me in collaboration with Ravensbourne, HoloPortal is – essentially – a room-scale 3D scanner capable of capturing both 3D images and video. While that may not sound all that impressive on paper, HoloPortal is actually capable of creating a live 3D video feed to an augmented-reality headset such as HoloLens.
Peace
Netanyahu accepts Paris invite to meet Abbas, if France drops conference jpost
Israel has made clear that it sees the French-led conference, a follow-up to a meeting of foreign ministers in Paris over the summer, as an effort to impose a settlement on it, and that it will not take part.
Others...
Attacking Pearl Harbor mashable p
(from Japan's perspective at the time)
Watch: Bullet parts vaporizing in super slow-mo oregonlive v
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