Sunday, 12 February 2017
EU Parliament Committee Votes To Give Robots Rights (And A Kill Switch)
Foreseeing a rapidly approaching age of autonomous artificial intelligence, a European Parliament committee has voted to legally bestow electronic personhood to robots. The status includes a detailed list of rights, responsibilities, regulations, and a “kill switch.”The committee voted by 17 votes to two, with two abstentions, to approve a draft report written by Luxembourg MEP Mady Delvaux, who believes “robots, bots, androids and other manifestations of artificial intelligence” will spawn a new industrial revolution. She wants to establish a European Agency to develop rules for how to govern AI behavior. Specifically, Delvaux writes about how increased levels of autonomy in robot entities will make usual manufacturing liability laws insufficient. It will become necessary, the report states, to be able to hold robots and their manufacturers legally responsible for their acts.
Sounding at times like a governmental whisper of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the report states, “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
The rules will also affect AI developers, who, according to the report, will have to engineer robots in such a way that they can be controlled. This includes a “kill switch,” a mechanism by which rogue robots can be terminated or shut down -read more
Stump of tree that Braveheart William Wallace was tied to found at Lidl branch
A tree that Scotland’s Braveheart freedom fighter William Wallace is said to have been chained to by English soldiers has been found behind a Lidl store.
For nearly a year, experts have been examining two chunks of oak in order to find out if they really came from the same tree named in a local legend.
The chunks were found at the site of the former Gourock Ropeworks, Inverclyde, and from a tree thought to have stood in the grounds of the Holy Family Church.
According to local legend, Wallace was chained to the tree in 1305 after his capture by the English before being transferred to London, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered.
The segments of tree were examined by tree specialist Dr Coralie Mills - one of just three -read more
Man trip over 36 ft erect phallus in Dorset.
Aman managed whilst walking to trip over a 36 ft erect phallus of Cerne Abbas Giant 180 ft chalk carving and tumbled down the steep slope at night.The man was rescued by local fire and rescue and taken to ambulance to get first aid.-http://www.druidry.org/library/library/cerne-abbas-giant-dorset-england
House of Commons debates seagull menace
Have you ever been accosted by a seagull while eating a snack at the seaside?
Foreign accent syndrome
Foreign accent syndrome is a rare medical condition in which patients develop speech patterns that are perceived as a foreign accent[1] that is different from their native accent, without having acquired it in the perceived accent's place of origin.
Foreign accent syndrome usually results from a stroke,[1] but can also develop from head trauma,[1] migraines[2] or developmental problems.[3] The condition was first reported in 1907,[4] and between 1941 and 2009 there were sixty-two recorded cases.[3]
Its symptoms result from distorted articulatory planning and coordination processes and although popular news articles commonly attempt to identify the closest regional accent, speakers suffering from foreign accent syndrome acquire neither a specific foreign accent nor any additional fluency in a foreign language. Despite an unconfirmed news report in 2010 that a Croatian speaker had gained the ability to speak fluent German after emergence from a coma,[5] there has been no verified case where a patient's foreign language skills have improved after a brain injury. There have been a few reported cases of children and siblings picking up the new accent from someone with foreign accent -wiki link
Giant dog manages to get trapped after roof jump and has to be coaxed down in an unusual way
An adventurous dog took his walkies to a new height by jumping onto his roof.
Pyrenean mountain dog Ollie was stranded on the 30ft high rooftop while his owners out on a shopping trip.
A shocked neighbour spotted the giant fluffy white dog tottering around on the slate roof instead of his mountain breeding.-read more
Say yes to wheelchair.
From April 6th 2017 any taxi who refuses a wheelchair user will face a 1,000 pounds fine and hit with penalties if charge more.The covers wheelchair accessible taxis and private hire taxis .
alicesbearshop
Alice's Bear Shop is a Teddy Bear and Doll Hospital, situated in Lyme Regis, a beautiful, Dorset, seaside town.
We are proud to offer you our beautiful collection of Heirloom, jointed Teddy Bear and Calico Rag Doll making Kits and Patterns. Created using the very best partners we can find and offering you a product that is as green as we can make it while still being affordable.
We are also very pleased to offer you our gorgeous, organic and wonderfully ethical clothing range, EarthPositive®. You can choose from a large selection of colours and sizes.
Ethically created with People, Play and the Planet in mind. read more
Deadman's Island: Six things you wanted to know
The remains of dozens of people who were buried more than 200 years ago are being slowly exposed on an island in Kent.
Horror stories have been handed down the generations about the mysterious site, known as Deadman's Island, so the BBC's Inside Out South East programme took a boat across to investigate whether any of the rumours were true.
Lots of people have since been talking about it on social media sites.
Here are the answers to six things you wanted to know.
1. Where is Deadman's Island and who owns it?
It lies at the mouth of The Swale, opposite the town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, off the north Kent coast.
The uninhabited mudbank is owned by Natural England, who lease it to two people.-read more and see video
Sunday, 5 February 2017
Deep Thought' - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy dream computer - to be realised by British scientists
British scientists have taken the first steps towards building a real-life version of Deep Thought, the supercomputer programmed to solve the "ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
The team has come up with the first practical blueprint for constructing a giant quantum computer, a thinking device capable of rapidly providing answers to problems that would take an ordinary computer billions of years to solve.
A proof-of-concept early prototype is planned within two years at the University of Sussex.
But the ground-breaking modular design could theoretically pave the way to a machine as large as a football field with undreamed of levels of computing power.
While Deep Thought's solution to the meaning of life was "42", the Sussex scientists hope their creation will prove a lot more useful than the supercomputer in Douglas Adams's comic space opera.-read more
Scientists find a gene that makes some people taller
The first gene linked to tallness, one of the most heritable of traits, has been discovered by scientists, a finding that is expected to shed light on human development and further understanding of cancer. An international team including researchers at Oxford and Exeter analysed DNA from 35,000 people and found that a single letter in the human genetic code was responsible for making some people taller than others.
The scientists zeroed in on a gene called HMGA2, of which we inherit two copies, one from each parent. Inheriting a form of the gene that has a C written into the genetic code instead of a T adds about half a centimetre to a person's height, the scientists found, while inheriting two copies adds nearly a full centimetre.
The discovery is the first to identify a single gene that directly influences natural variation of height. Around a quarter of white Europeans will carry two versions of the "tall" version of the gene, with another quarter carrying two "short" versions.
Scientists at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston joined British researchers at Oxford University and the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter to scour the genomes of 5,000 white European patients who had volunteered DNA samples and details of their height and weight for medical studies into diabetes -read more
Children with no shoes on 'do better in classroom', major study finds
Children who learn with no shoes on are more likely to behave better and obtain good grades than peers with footwear, a decade-long study has revealed.
Researchers at the University of Bournemouth found that pupils who leave their shoes outside the classroom are more likely to arrive to school earlier, leave later and read more widely – ultimately resulting in better academic achievement over-read more
Sleep and me.
Its odd that yor hearing is the last sense to go before you drift into sleep this may be due to our hunter gathers days but i may be wrong.I never know when i have gone asleep but somehow my brian wkes me up to do bodyly functions or lets worries or stress of day come forward so i have a restless night and i get the inbeween sleeep time -half asleep and part awake and world seems less real.Irelax by puting on radio and keeping warm or col to aid sleep.
The Road to Wigan Pier
The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by the British writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half is a long essay on his middle-class upbringing, and the development of his political conscience, questioning British attitudes towards socialism. Orwell states plainly that he himself is in favour of socialism, but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.
According to Orwell biographer Bernard Crick, publisher Victor Gollancz first tried to persuade Orwell's agent to allow the Left Book Club edition to consist solely of the descriptive first half of the book. When this was refused Gollancz wrote an introduction to the book. "Victor could not bear to reject it, even though his suggestion that the 'repugnant' second half should be omitted from the Club edition was turned down. On this occasion Victor, albeit nervously, did overrule Communist Party objections in favour of his publishing instinct. His compromise was to publish the book with [an introduction] full of good criticism, unfair criticism, and half-truths."[2]
The book grapples, "with the social and historical reality of Depression suffering in the north of England, – Orwell does not wish merely to enumerate evils and injustices, but to break through what he regards as middle-class oblivion, – Orwell's corrective to such falsity comes first by immersion of his own body – a supreme measure of truth for Orwell – directly into the experience of misery."[3]wiki link
The Black Female Mathematicians Who Sent Astronauts to Space
On November 24, 2015, President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 17 men and women. Among them was 97-year-old retired African-American NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, selected for her contributions to the space program, starting with the Mercury missions in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, through the Apollo moon missions in the late ’60s and early ‘70s, and ending with the space shuttle missions in the mid '80s. Among other things, she calculated the trajectories of America's first manned mission into orbit and the first Moon landing.
Awarding Johnson this well-deserved honor doesn't just shine a spotlight on a single black female STEM pioneer. It also illuminates an obscure but important piece of history. Johnson was just one of dozens of mathematically talented black women recruited to work as “human computers” at the Langley Memorial Research Laboratory in the ‘40s and ‘50s. (Many of whom, including Johnson, are the subject of Theodore Melfi's Oscar-nominated film, Hidden Figures.)
They were so named because before machines came along, they crunched the numbers necessary for figuring out everything from wind tunnel resistance to rocket trajectories to safe reentry angles.
In fact, all of Langley’s hundreds of “human computers,” whether black or white, were women. It was an era when, as Johnson put it, “the computer wore a skirt.”-read more
Rare' freshwater fish filmed in Lake District
The UK's "rarest freshwater fish" which dates back to the ice age has been caught on camera in the Lake District.
A vendace was filmed by a remote-controlled yellow submarine which was measuring sediment 20m (66ft) deep on the bottom of Derwentwater.
Dr Andy Gowans, from the Environment Agency (EA), said it was "a unique moment".
"Seeing the vendace is a good indication of the lake's health," he added.The vendace's only UK habitat is in Derwentwater and is an "international conservation priority", the EA added.
Dr Ian Winfield, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: "This was an amazing moment for a scientist, I was not expecting to see one, never mind film one."
The agency said the vendace - or Coregonus albula - is the UK's rarest freshwater fish.
It was thought to be locally extinct for 12 years until it was re-discovered in 2013.
Job swap wasps.
Wasps will switch to rival nest if their boss works them too hard.Helper wasps work in groups for breeder wasps ,doing chores like raising offspring ,but will move if they get a better deal elsewhere .
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