Little Fake News Detectors; StemExpress Blinks; Rise of the Auroch; 2-State Liquid; Perching a Plane; Sick Sensors; and Deciding Robots' Legal Future

Society

If state lawmakers have their way, California schoolchildren may be taught how to spot ‘fake news’ washingtonpost

California Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D) introduced a bill Wednesday that would require the state to establish curriculum standards and frameworks to teach “civic online reasoning” to middle- and high-schoolers. The intention is to help give youngsters “the ability to judge the credibility and quality of information found on Internet Web sites, including social media,” the bill states.

Abortion

StemExpress, former Planned Parenthood partner, drops lawsuit against pro-life journalists washingtontimes

StemExpress, which was referred by Congress for criminal investigation last week, dropped its lawsuit against David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress centerformedicalprogress.org on Tuesday, one day before an appellate hearing was set to take place on a motion to strike the complaint.

Creatures

Nazi super-cows could be brought back by scientists after going extinct in 17th century independent.co.uk

The auroch roamed the grassy plains of Europe for 250,000 years until it died out in Poland in 1627, and Adolf Hitler's followers tried to breed a similar beast as part of their Aryan mythology.

Research

Scientist Discovered That Liquid Water Might Actually be in Two Distinctly Different States trendintech

Discoveries published in the Journal of Nanotechnology indicate that water has a number of significant physical properties that exist between 50 and 60 degrees Celsius. If these properties correspond to a distinct state, this will cause a range of implications from the field of biology to nanotechnology.

UAV performs first ever perched landing using machine learning algorithms bristol.ac.uk v

MT, a subsidiary of BMT Group Ltd, and the University of Bristol bristol.ac.uk have demonstrated how the combination of a morphing wing UAV and machine learning can be used to generate a trajectory to perform a perched landing on the ground. The UAV has been tested at altitude to validate the approach and the team are working towards a system that can perform a repeatable ground landing.

Stanford study shows wearable sensors can tell when you’re getting sick scopeblog.stanford.edu

Anyone who goes to the doctor, gets their blood pressure and temperature recorded. But unless you have hypertension or a fever, nobody pays much attention to the results. Snyder’s work looks at what happens when we take a closer look and monitor ourselves continuously. What does the data looks like? What are the challenges of trying to understand it? What kinds of new ideas may emerge?

Robots

[European] MEPs vote on robots' legal status - and if a kill switch is required bbc

[Their report] turns to science fiction, drawing on rules dreamed up by writer Isaac Asimov, for how robots should act if and when they become self-aware. The laws will be directed at the designers, producers and operators of robots as they cannot be converted into machine code.

Here's the report (if you dare to go down the rabbit hole): MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION pdf. The first WHEREAS sets the tone:

whereas from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's Monster to the classical myth of Pygmalion, through the story of Prague's Golem to the robot of Karel Čapek, who coined the word, people have fantasised about the possibility of building intelligent machines, more often than not androids with human features;

Others...

Maine college to unveil rare photo of Lincoln's inauguration timesunion p

Hoard of gold 'treasure' found hidden inside old piano in Shropshire shropshirestar