Prominent tech executives have pledged $1bn (£659m) for OpenAI, a non-profit venture that aims to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to benefit humanity.
The venture's backers include Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, Indian tech giant Infosys and Amazon Web Services.
Open AI says it expects its research - free from financial obligations - to focus on a "positive human impact".
Scientists have warned that advances in AI could ultimately threaten humanity.
Mr Musk recently told students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that AI was humanity's "biggest existential threat".
Last year, British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking told the BBC AI could potentially "re-design itself at an ever increasing rate", superseding humans by outpacing biological evolution.
However, other experts have argued that the risk of AI posing any threat to humans remains remote.
'Extension of human wills'
A statement on OpenAI's website said the venture aims "to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return".
"It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly."
The statement said AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as is possible safely".
It said only a tiny fraction of the $1bn pledged would be spent in the next few years.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Half of all Amazon trees "face extinction"
Half of Amazon trees 'face extinction'
Last updated Nov 20, 2015, 3:22 PM PST
BBC News
Forest canopy in Mato Grosso, Brazil
More than half of all tree species in the Amazon face extinction, warn international scientists.
According to new data, up to 57% of all Amazonian trees may already fit the criteria of being globally threatened.
If confirmed, the estimates would raise the number of threatened plant species on Earth by almost a quarter.
Forest cover in the Amazon has been shrinking for decades, but little is known about the impact on individual plant species.
The trees at risk include iconic species like the Brazil nut tree, food crops such as cacao, the source of chocolate, as well as rare trees that are almost unknown to science.
The research, published in the journal, Science Advances, compared data from almost 1,500 forest plots with maps of current and predicted forest loss to estimate how many tree species have been lost and how many are likely to disappear by the middle of the century.
It found that the Amazon - the world's most diverse forest - could be home to more than 15,000 tree species.
Of these, between 36% and 57% are likely to qualify as being globally threatened under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species criteria.
Prof Carlos Peres from the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences in Norwich is one of 158 researchers from 21 countries who worked on the study.
He said there was a big gap in knowledge about all the plants and animals in the Amazon, from trees and ferns to bats and birds.
"Our research estimates that more than half of all species may face extinction," he said.
"Fortunately protected areas and indigenous territories now cover over half of the Amazon basin, and likely contain sizeable populations of most threatened species. "
The petals of Gustavia hexapetala in Suriname
A forest survey in Brazil
He said parks and reserves - which face "a barrage of threats - from dam construction and mining to wildfires and droughts" - will prevent extinction of threatened species only if they are properly managed.
"In a sense this is a call for more effort into the 'last chance saloon' to discover this diversity before it goes inevitably extinct," said Prof Peres.
William Laurance from James Cook University in Australia, who also contributed to the study, added: "Either we stand up and protect these critical parks and indigenous reserves, or deforestation will erode them until we see large-scale extinctions."
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is regarded as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species.
Follow Helen on Twitter
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Second biggest diamond "found in Botswana"
Second-biggest diamond 'found in Botswana'
Last updated 3 hours ago
The stone measures 65mm x 56mm x 40mm in size
The world's second-largest gem quality diamond has been discovered in Botswana, the Lucara Diamond firm says.
The 1,111-carat stone was recovered from its Karowe mine, about 500km (300 miles) north of the capital, Gaborone.
It is the biggest diamond to be discovered in Botswana and the largest find in more than a century.
The 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond was found in South Africa in 1905 and cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels.
• Africa Live: BBC news updates
"The significance of the recovery of a gem quality stone larger than 1,000 carats, the largest for more than a century... cannot be overstated," William Lamb, the CEO of Lucara Diamond, a Canadian diamond producer, said in a statement.
Lucara says two other "exceptional" white diamonds - an 813-carat stone and a 374-carat stone - were also found at the Karowe mine.
"I am truly at a loss for words. This has been an amazing week for Lucara with the recovery of the second largest and also the sixth largest gem quality diamonds ever mined," Mr Lamb said.
Botswana is the world's largest producer of diamonds and the trade has transformed it into a middle-income nation.
• Botswana: From sleepy backwater to global diamond hub
What objects have you touched today?
Can you remember everything you've touched today? Argentine-born designer, Paula Zuccotti, asked 62 people to make a note of all the objects they handled in a 24-hour period, then gather them together for a snapshot of their lives.
"Many of the things we know about past civilisations are from insights gathered through their objects," says Paula Zuccotti.
"Tools, utensils, clothes, manuscripts and art have taught us about the type of work they did, what they hunted, grew and ate, and how they expressed themselves."
So with that in mind, she decided to make a photographic "time capsule" of 2015 and build up portraits of people through their possessions.
Anna Haneda, age two, and her mostly pink world - many of the objects she touched were grabbed at random, as is common with toddlers
"I was looking for lifestyles that intrigued me, some of which are disappearing. I went to Arizona looking for a cowboy and to Tokyo because I wanted to document the life of a geisha," says Zuccotti.
Twenty-three-year-old David, an American cowboy, and Eitaro, a 32-year-old Japanese man who learnt to perform the role of a geisha from his mother fitted the bill.
A day in the life of David True, a third-generation cowboy working at a ranch in Tucson, Arizona. "Right now we have 160 horses to groom and saddle," he said.
The wig is one of Eitaro's most treasured objects because it belonged to his mother
While she was working on the project, Everything We Touch, Zuccotti found that, on average, people handled 140 objects per day - excluding structural fittings such as taps, handles and light switches.
She laid out items chronologically for each photo, and in many cases the objects give away a significant amount of information about the person who touched them - these three pictures represent the lives of a cook, a baby and a butcher.
Gemma is a cook in Marrakesh and also the mother of a little boy - which explains the scooter
The world of Arlo Butler, one month old - his mother Tess recorded everything he touched while at home in London, including her bra during a breastfeeding session
Isaias Rimer is a butcher in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a country with one of the highest rates of red meat consumption in the world
Some people weren't able to collect everything they touched though - Piedad is a cloistered nun in Madrid who only provided Zuccotti with her coif, black veil, holy habit, scapular, Bible and rosary.
The nun, originally from Ecuador, hasn't left the convent for more than 28 years.
"So I visited her," says Zuccotti. "As we conversed through bars, the bag of belongings Piedad wanted me to have appeared through a window. When I enquired where the other objects that she would have touched were, such as her toothbrush, mug and comb, she looked at me and said 'I can't.'"
Piedad's day is divided into hourly slots of private and communal praying, singing and training
The possessions of 72-year-old Liu, a shadow puppet maker in Shanghai, who created all his figurines and instruments by hand. "I want the world to understand China better and traditional folk art is rooted in who we are," he said.
ChaCha Yehaiyahan is a young musician from Ghizhou, China who composes, DJs and sings and likes to "travel light"
"I think this project does not have an ending," says Zuccotti, who would now like to photograph "new places, new topics, specific people" including the worlds of the rich and famous and those who live in the public eye.
She can't help wondering, if she were to re-run the project in 10 years what new objects would appear and what would be extinct.
Zuccotti during a shoot, arranging the objects that belonged to Kitty, a tattoo artist from Melbourne, over the white canvas that she used for all photos.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Will Big Data lead to Big Brother?
Many countries are in the throes of a debate about the amount of surveillance a government should be allowed to carry out on its own people. But in other countries, where there are few, if any, checks on the state's powers, a potential dictatorship of data is already on the horizon.
The grey, drab former headquarters of the Stasi - East Germany's Security Service - is famous for its miles of paper files. Those files recorded the detailed information kept on the citizens of the former Communist state, drawn from a wealth of human informers and bugging devices.
Parts of the former office complex are now a museum open to the public, but in one corridor normally closed to the public there is a jumble of dated-looking equipment - a primitive computer looking more like a spin-dryer for clothes and old magnetic discs the size of a football, which held a fraction of what you can now fit on a USB stick.
This is all that remains of the Stasi's dreams of what computers could do for them. "I think they realised early on that without using technology their ambition of total surveillance could not be achieved, despite all the people they employed," says Stephane Konopatzky - a former dissident, who now tries to untangle these wires of the Stasi's past.
Gordon Corera with a computer used by the Stasi
The Stasi dreamed of computers combining and cross-referencing all the data they had collected to tease out new information they would otherwise have missed. Computers were faster than humans, more precise "and the mass of data you could deal with was larger", Konopatzky says. In the 1970s and 80s, however, the technology was just not there, and with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the Stasi was no more.
But as we enter a world in which we all produce so much more data and in which computers are able to do more with it - often described as the world of "big data" - what might the Stasis of today or tomorrow be able to do with technology?
Find out more
Listen to Gordon Corera's report The Dictatorship of Data on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 17 November at 20:00 GMT. Catch up via the iPlayer after broadcast.
A failed coup in the Soviet Union in August 1991 marked the final collapse of communism in Russia. That same month something equally momentous happened - although few understood its significance at the time - the World Wide Web was launched. The web seemed to herald a new era in which the free flow of information would sweep away totalitarianism. But in some places the dreams of the Stasi lived on.
"We asked people inside the KGB about technical co-operation between the Stasi and the KGB. All of them told me they were inspired by the Stasi," says Andrei Soldatov, co-author of The Red Web, a book that examines the history of Russia's efforts to control the internet.
In 1991, the Russian state was only able to wiretap 300 phone lines simultaneously in Moscow, which was nothing compared with what the Stasi had been able to do. But after initially feeling overwhelmed in the digital world, the Russian authorities have increasingly looked for ways of using technology to their advantage.
This has included pioneering techniques in voice sampling and recognition, in which Russia is a world leader, as well as biometric and photographic databases.
"I was told many times by officers in the security services that the idea to collect all fingerprints, iris scans and voice recognition from all Russian citizens is very popular within the security service," says Irina Borogan, Soldatov's co-author. One initiative described by the authors involves cameras placed at the exit of Moscow metro stations taking close-up photographs of everyone passing through.
Will the movements of all Russian citizens be recorded?
These days people are also voluntarily posting huge amounts of data about themselves on the internet.
"Social media provides a very easy way to monitor these societies," says Taha Yasseri, an Iranian computer scientist at the Oxford Internet Institute. "The transparency and easy use of social media has made it a very good tool for social activists. But this makes it a very good opportunity for authoritarian states to monitor, and eventually even to predict behaviour."
Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong last year were using social media and messaging platforms to organise. But when some received a message telling them to download a new app to help them, it is believed they actually downloaded a piece of spyware which was able to send the content of their messages and even their physical location back to whoever was behind the app in mainland China.
A pro-democracy supporter takes a photo during the 2014 Hong Kong demonstration
In the past, a state would need to develop its own technology to carry out surveillance. But now much more of the technology has been commercialised.
Companies look for vulnerabilities in computer systems and sell them to states to exploit. Additionally, some companies sell the ability to carry out remote surveillance. The Hacking Team might sound like a group of rogue teenagers but in fact it is a company based in Italy that sells its services to law enforcement and governments around the world.
Eric Rabe, its chief marketing officer says the company supplies its products to about 50 countries. Typically a piece of software will be surreptitiously placed on one of their target's computers or phones, either by getting hold of the device or remotely, so they can be monitored.
"We're providing tools for law enforcement to use in the pursuit of keeping all of us safe," is his answer to accusations levelled against the company.
Hacking Team's spyware enables a target's computer or phone to be monitored
But what is it like being on the receiving end of surveillance technology provided by Western companies? To find out, I visit Tadesse Kersmo, a member of a movement campaigning to remove the Ethiopian government. Kersmo, who was given asylum in the UK after being imprisoned in Ethiopia, says his computer was bugged by FinFisher - software developed by a British-German company similar to that supplied by Hacking Team.
"It was a shock," he tells me. It was "as if there was CCTV in my home. You can imagine what my wife felt. People become traumatised, afraid to communicate."
We tried to contact Gamma Group - which developed the FinFisher spying software - but there was no response. The Ethiopian Embassy in London said it categorically denied any government involvement in surveillance against opposition politicians based inside or outside Ethiopia, suggesting it had no time for what it called such "futile pursuits".
Eric Rabe says Hacking Team once provided services to the Ethiopian government but later suspended its co-operation. He says that because there was no international regulation, the company has had to make its own decisions about who to sell to, and add clauses restricting certain uses.
Moves are now afoot to place the trade in surveillance technology on a similar footing to the trade in weapons. But on the assumption that export controls will never entirely stop it, some people are focusing on ways of training people to protect themselves.
Online behaviour can have a predictable and repetitive pattern
"We see people making simple mistakes," explains Stephanie Hankey, co-founder of a Berlin-based group called Tactical Tech, which trains activists, journalists and civil society campaigners to become more security aware.
"In Syria in the early days of the conflict, people would be pulled in, open their Facebook account and expose everyone they were talking to."
She also advises people to be aware that even if the content of their conversations may be encrypted, the metadata about the conversation can reveal much about connections and patterns of activity, especially when different elements of the digital trail we leave behind are cross-referenced and cross-mapped - how we move around a city, pay taxes, cross borders and use our credit cards, as well how we communicate.
"If we piece all these things together, this tells everybody about my behaviour," says Hankey. "If you have aggregate information about everybody, you can see who's different. This enables you to see something abnormal, an outlier."
The trend in computing is to use this data to find patterns which are in turn predictive.
"Even though we think we are very creative in our behaviour, the data suggests that our behaviour has a very predictable and repetitive pattern," argues Taha Yasseri. "Combining the data we produce with sophisticated mathematical models and computer algorithms - all these three could eventually make governments and companies and any kind of organisation able to predict our behaviour."
Others in this field are hopeful that new technology - particularly encryption and anonymising tools - will ultimately protect activists and liberty more than it will undermine it.
Surveillance software can record audio from a phone's microphone
But at London's IP Expo 2015, where all the talk is about the huge and mostly beneficial power of Big Data, veteran cyber security expert Mikko Hypponen, believes we are at the beginning of an enormous social change that carries with it real danger.
"We are the first generation that can be tracked from birth to our deathbeds, where we are, what we do, who we communicate with, what are our interests. It's easily trackable and saveable for decades. It feels like we're in a massive experiment done on mankind. Only much later will we realise what it means when all of our thoughts and movements not only can be tracked but are being tracked."
So will Big Data lead to Big Brother? Not necessarily - and in some countries we may have the chance to decide. But there are parts of the world where a dictatorship of data - of the type the Stasi could only dream of - may be taking shape.
Listen to Gordon Corera's report The Dictatorship of Data on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 17 November at 20:00 GMT. Catch up via the iPlayer after broadcast.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
IS "planning deadly cyber attacks"
Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence says RAF Tornados attacked a group of more than 30 IS fighters in Iraq on Monday.
And on Sunday, an RAF Reaper drone provided surveillance for a French air strike on an IS target in Syria.
MPs rejected possible air strikes in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad's government in 2013, but in a later vote approved military action against IS in Iraq.
Downing Street has confirmed that Prime Minister David Cameron will attend a football match between England and France at Wembley Stadium later, where armed police are being deployed.
He is giving a statement in the Commons at 12:30 GMT.
Mr Osborne's speech came after IS said it was behind Friday's attacks in which 129 people were killed in bars, restaurants, a concert hall and at a stadium in Paris. The victims included Briton Nick Alexander from Essex.
Among the latest developments:
• The RAF has attacked a series of IS targets in recent days, beginning on Friday, when Tornados carried out bombing raids in support of Iraqi ground forces.
• On Sunday, an RAF drone destroyed a vehicle in northern Iraq and then crossed into Syrian airspace for a reconnaissance mission.
• And on Monday, Tornados destroyed targets in Iraq including mortar positions, heavy machine guns, and the group of fighters.
• Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe says he has increased the number of armed response vehicles in London by a third, and a "full team" will be ready to respond 24 hours a day.
• But the Police Federation of England and Wales says planned cuts to budgets will leave forces "unable to continue to offer the necessary protection to the public".
• France has mobilised 115,000 security personnel, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said.
• Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he is "not happy" with UK police operating a "shoot-to-kill" policy.
• Tennis player Andy Murray says he is focused on Great Britain's Davis Cup final and does not want to "live in fear" while on court.
Could Paris attacks happen in the UK?
Will England fans sing La Marseillaise?
David Cameron signed a book of condolence at London's French Embassy on Tuesday
Armed police officers will patrol Wembley Stadium, the Met has said
Mr Osborne - who visited the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham - said IS has already proved its ability to exploit the internet "for hideous propaganda purposes", including for radicalisation and operational planning.
But the chancellor warned that IS was also seeking to hack key UK infrastructure in a bid to kill people.
Mr Osborne also said GCHQ is monitoring threats to 450 companies in areas such as defence, energy and water supply.
"From our banks to our cars, our military to our schools, whatever is online is also a target," Mr Osborne said.
"The stakes could hardly be higher. If our electricity supply, or our air traffic control, or our hospitals were successfully attacked online, the impact could be measured not just in terms of economic damage but of lives lost."
He added: "They do not yet have that capability. But we know they want it, and are doing their best to build it."
Top priority
Mr Osborne said the public needed to follow "basic rules of keeping themselves safe" online.
This could be achieved, he added, by installing security software, downloading software updates and using strong passwords.
"The starting point must be that every British company is a target, that every British network will be attacked, and that cyber crime is not something that happens to other people."
Mr Osborne also announced the creation of a new National Cyber Centre to bring together the country's leading experts.
Other planks of the UK's strategy will include an Institute For Coding, increased investment in the National Cyber Crime Unit, and apprenticeships for cyber-security specialists.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said much of what the chancellor planned to announce was not new, but it was clear that the government wanted the public to know it had decided to make cyber security a top priority.
Digital warfare
• In the last five years, oil firm Saudi Aramco, South Korean bank NongHyup and Iranian nuclear plant Natanz have all been subject to international cyber attacks.
• In 2010, Stuxnet - a malicious computer program - was introduced into Natanz and physically destroyed 1,000 machines used to produce nuclear materials.
How can cyber-weapons be so destructive?
Speaking at the Lord Mayor of London's Banquet on Monday night, Mr Cameron said the UK must now show the same resolve it displayed against Adolf Hitler during the Blitz in order to defeat the threat of terrorism.
The prime minister said rising defence budgets - guaranteed by the government's commitment to spend 2% of GDP on the military - would mean "more money" for priorities such as unmanned drones, fighter aircraft and cyber-defences, he added.
"You do not protect people by sitting around and wishing for another world. You have to act in this one. And that means being prepared to use military force where necessary," Mr Cameron said.
Meanwhile, the Met said supporters would see an enhanced police presence at Tuesday's football match between England and France at Wembley Stadium.
England coach Roy Hodgson said the game would not be a "normal friendly" as a result of the attacks in Paris.
The Duke of Cambridge and London Mayor Boris Johnson are expected to be among the crowd.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Climate risk "threatens markets"
Climate risk 'threatens markets'
Last updated 10 hours ago
Environment reporter, BBC News
Half of the potential losses they identified were "unhedgeable" for individual investors, the report suggested
A report has warned that investors could be hit hard amid changes in short-term market swings, triggered by climate impact concerns.
University of Cambridge experts said global investment portfolios could see losses of up to 45%.
No investor was "immune from the risks posed by climate change", they added.
In a recent speech to the City, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said climate change would "threaten financial resilience".
The report, Unhedgeable Risk: How Climate Change Sentiment Impacts Investment, was commissioned by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership (CISL) and the Investment Leaders Group.
It focused on the short-term risks associated with how investors reacted to climate-related information, such as policy decisions to market confidence and extreme weather events.
No immunity
The authors said the report's findings added to previous studies that had analysed the direct, physical effects of climate change on long-term economic performance.
"This new research suggests that no investor is immune from the risks posed by climate change, even in the short run," explained CISL Sustainable Economy director Dr Jake Reynolds.
"It is surprisingly difficult to distinguish between risks that can be addressed by an individual investor through smart hedging strategies and ones that are systematic and require much deeper transformations in the economy to deal with," he added.
"That's what this report attempts to do."
The study focused on potential short-term impacts on investor sentiment/confidence that could emerge at any time, such as an extreme weather event or the outcome of the UN climate talks in Paris.
The authors modelled the impacts using three scenarios:
• Two degrees: limiting average global temperature rise to 2C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels, a strategy favoured by climate experts
• Baseline: where past trends continue (business-as-usual) and there is "no significant change in the willingness of government to step up actions on climate change"
• No mitigation: no "special consideration of environmental challenges, rather the hope of pursuing self-interest will allow adaptive responses to any climate change impacts as they arise"
These scenarios were applied to four "typical investment portfolios" in order to understand the resilience or vulnerability of investments to climate-related shifts in market confidence.
"One of the key findings (from the modelling) is that it reveals the potential for very significant, short-term financial impacts for investors whereas previously, I think, a lot of the analysis had pointed to the longer term, multi-decadal impacts," explained CISL Finance Sector director Andrew Voysey.
"This is particularly timely because Mark Carey at the Bank of England has recently warned about the potentially huge losses to markets in the short term as a result of climate change.
"He indentified this issue and the Bank of England then went on to note the merit in "stress testing", which is the technical name of the technique that we have deployed here."
The modelling showed that shifts in climate change sentiments among investors could cause global economic growth to slow over five to 10 years.
But, the authors noted: "The study found that economic growth picks up most quickly along a Two Degree (low carbon) pathway, with annual growth rates of 3.5%; not only exceeding the Baseline scenario (2.9%) but significantly exceeding the No Mitigation scenario (2.0%)."
The science behind people's hallucinations
The science behind hallucinations
Last updated Oct 12, 2015, 11:59 AM PST
Scientists at Cardiff University believe they can help explain why some people are prone to hallucinations.
Researchers worked with colleagues at the University of Cambridge to study the predictive nature of the brain.
They looked at the idea that hallucinations happen due to the brain's tendency to interpret the world using prior knowledge and predictions.
The study examined whether the brain creating this image of the world contributes to people's psychosis.
Research published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences studied 18 people who suffered from very early signs of psychosis who had been referred to a mental health service run by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.
'Broken' brain
They compared them to 16 healthy volunteers and asked them if they could make sense of vague black and white images.
All of them were then shown the full colour original picture to improve the brain's ability to understand the ambiguous image.
There was a larger performance improvement in people with early signs of psychosis compared to the healthy control group.
The University of Cambridge's Naresh Subramaniam said: "These findings are important because, not only do they tell us that the emergence of key symptoms of mental illness can be understood in terms of an altered balance in normal brain functions.
"Importantly, they also suggest that these symptoms and experiences do not reflect a 'broken' brain but rather one that is striving - in a very natural way - to make sense of incoming data that are ambiguous."
Picture perfect?
Look at the picture above, can you see anything?
Now look at the photograph below before taking another look. Scientists say it is likely that you can now make sense of it.
It is the brain's ability to fill in the blanks that could help explain why some people suffer from hallucinations.
One of the study's authors, Dr Christoph Teufel, from Cardiff University, said: "Vision is a constructive process - in other words, our brain makes up the world that we 'see'.
"It fills in the blanks, ignoring the things that don't quite fit, and presents to us an image of the world that has been edited and made to fit with what we expect."
An example of this would be a person walking into their living room and identifying a fast-moving black shape as their cat, despite the fact the visual information was no more than a blur.
The sensory input was minimal and prior knowledge did the creative work.
Prof Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge said: "Having a predictive brain is very useful - it makes us efficient and adept at creating a coherent picture of an ambiguous and complex world.
"But it also means that we are not very far away from perceiving things that aren't actually there, which is the definition of a hallucination."
He added that "altered perceptual experiences" are not limited to people with mental illnesses, but have been seen in a milder form across the whole population.
"Venus twin" excites astronomers
Astronomers hunting distant worlds say they have made one of their most significant discoveries to date - a kind of hot twin to our Venus.
The rocky planet, known as GJ 1132b, is not dissimilar in size and orbits a star some 39 light-years from us.
This makes it close enough for any atmosphere to be examined in detail by the next generation of telescopes now in development.
To date, only very big worlds have been amenable to this kind of study.
Scientists are keen to do the same with more diminutive targets because it may be their best bet of establishing whether or not life exists beyond our Solar System.
Hot testbed
At a separation of 39 light-years (370 trillion km), we are unlikely ever to visit GJ 1132b with a spacecraft.
But if we can identify the molecules that make up its air, this could reveal a lot about what is happening down on the surface.
In truth, GJ 1132b is very low on the habitability index.
It circles so near to its star (a "year" lasts just 1.6 Earth days) that it is being "oven roasted", as one scientist on the discovery team put it.
This means any water will have boiled away, but it could still retain a substantial atmosphere. This makes GJ 1132b more like a Venus than an Earth - although Venus receives a 15th of the heat at GJ 1132b. Venus is certainly hot, just not quite that hot.
Nonetheless, even with poor life prospects, astronomers believe GJ 1132b would still prove a useful testbed for future observations of planets that enjoy more benign circumstances.
The MEarth-South facility is dedicated to the hunt for rocky worlds orbiting red dwarf stars
Studying the atmospheres of distant worlds is no easy task.
It is done by probing the light from a star as the planet passes in front - as viewed from Earth.
Molecules in the air will imprint their chemical signatures on this light.
Unfortunately, most of the planets we know are so distant that the details are beyond being resolved by current telescopes.
And it is often the case anyway that the parent star is so big and bright that its glare simply swamps the delicate signatures being sought.
As a consequence, only large planets - equivalent in size to our Neptune, or bigger - have betrayed information about their atmospheres.
However, these are not so interesting as small rocky planets, which are far more likely to have a broader range of gases relevant to life.
Numbers game
Observing GJ 1132b is made easier because its host star is what is termed a red dwarf.
Such stars are smaller and cooler than our own Sun. They are also considerably dimmer, as a result, and this would compensate for some of the glare problem.
It is also the case that red dwarfs are 10 times more common in the galaxy than Sun-like stars.
So, just in numerical terms, this makes their planets pressing candidates for further study.
"The exciting thing is that, yes, it is probably true that the closest potentially habitable planets are going to be orbiting red dwarf stars," said Zachory Berta-Thompson, whose team found GJ 1132b.
"And if we want to study the atmosphere of such a planet, it's going to be a lot easier to do that if the planet is orbiting a small, cool star, like the red dwarf hosting GJ 1132b," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronomer told BBC News.
Science machine
The telescopes needed to do the job are not far from entering service.
Super-observatories on Earth that have mirrors up to 40m across will come online in the next decade.
But even before then, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope should be in operation.
Known as the James Webb Space Telescope, this facility will launch in 2018.
Its detectors will be tuned to probe targets just like GJ 1132b.
"The JWST will be a planet-characterising machine," commented Drake Deming from the University of Maryland, who is eager to study the atmospheres of smaller planets.
"It will have access to longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble, and it's in the infrared spectral region that we will get the most information," he told the BBC's Science In Action programme.
Details of the discovery are reported in the journal Nature.
Artist's impression: Because GJ 1132b passes in front of its star, as viewed from Earth, its atmosphere can be studied
• GJ 1132b orbits a star only 1/5 the size of our Sun
• This red dwarf is half as hot and much fainter
• It emits just 1/200th as much light as the Sun
• GJ 1132b orbits only 2.3 million km from the star
• It takes a mere 1.6 days to complete one revolution
• GJ 1132b has a diameter of about 14,800km
• Earth and Venus are 12,700km and 12,100km wide
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
Action needed "to protect UK coasts"
Action needed 'to protect UK coast'
Last updated 10 hours ago
Science reporter, BBC News
The National Trust bought a stretch of Dunwich Heath on the Suffolk coast and plans to restore heathland habitat
As parts of the UK face the first of the wet winter weather, the National Trust wants action to manage threats to our storm-battered coastline.
In a new report, the Trust says the UK is "ignoring known risks of flood and erosion at the coast".
In England, just one in three coastal local authorities has long-term, informed plans in place, it claims.
The Trust cites examples of adaptive "soft engineering" and innovation, such as creating flood banks and reed beds.
It even encourages the design and use of moveable buildings close to particularly vulnerable, quickly-eroding areas of the coast.
The main thrust of its report is a call to adapt to the diverse challenges at different coastal locations.
Approaches like this should happen instead of continuing a tradition of building sea defences, which have perpetuated "a cycle of construct, fail and reconstruct", the Shifting Shores report says.
The National Trust is responsible for 700 miles of British coast and said: "As a nation we can no longer rely solely on building our way out of trouble."
Exposed to the sea
Formby is predicted to lose at least 400m of beach to the sea in the next century
The Environment Agency has previously estimated that 700 properties in England alone could be lost to coastal erosion by around 2030.
But building in at-risk areas has continued. In England in 2005 the number of buildings at medium to high risk from coastal change was 117,000 - by 2014 this had grown to 129,000.
Phil Dyke, coastal marine adviser at the National Trust, told BBC News that a lack of funding for local authorities had contributed to a situation whereby "there is no clear mechanism to help people whose properties are at risk".
"We should be thinking about adaptive responses," Mr Dyke told BBC News.
Reconstructing the coast
• In Pembrokeshire, the National Trust is gradually restoring and extending reed beds, fen meadows and dune grasslands to protect the coastline
• The Environment Agency built 7km of floodbank near Selsey, West Sussex, and then breached the shingle beach - creating 183 hectares of saltmarsh and mudflat habitat and replacing those being lost elsewhere through coastal squeeze
• On a much smaller scale, innovative chalet buildings, developed by Bourne Leisure at Corton in Suffolk, are moveable and can be placed out of harm's way as the sea encroaches
Andy Smith, chairman of the Local Government Association's coastal special interest group, said he welcomed the report, but he added that it was important "to look at the wider picture".
"Defence of the coast and adaptation to coastal change are equal partners and have to be looked at in every place subject to the place in question," he told BBC News.
Both the departments for environment and for local government have agreed spending cuts, but the National Trust urged the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to put funding in place.
A Defra spokesman said that over the next six years the government planned to invest £1bn "to manage coastal flooding and erosion, so we can better protect 15,000 homes".
But the LGA's Mr Smith pointed out that funding from government was "very focused on protecting property and building defences".
He said that to move "away from having a coast defence perspective", local authorities needed a wider remit to apply to this central fund for their long-term plans.
"We welcome a greater focus on this issue," he told BBC News.
"But local authorities are very strapped for cash and we need the resources to do this topic justice."
Mr Dyke added: "Action is now needed by all coastal stakeholders to manage the threats to our beautiful and diverse coast to prevent us drifting into a future where our coast is a rim of concrete."
Sunday, October 11, 2015
The art of getting lost
Technology means maps and directions are constantly at hand, and getting lost is more unlikely than ever before. While for many this is a thing of joy, Stephen Smith asks if we may be missing out.
When was the last time you were well and truly lost? Chances are it's been a while.
Extraordinary gadgets like smartphones and satnavs let us pinpoint our location unerringly. Like the people in Downton Abbey, we all know our place.
However, the technology which delivers the world into the palms of our hands may be ushering in a kind of social immobility undreamt of even by Julian Fellowes's hidebound little Englanders.
Discovery used to mean going out and coming across stuff - now it seems to mean turning inwards and gazing at screens. We've become reliant on machines to help us get around, so much so that it's changing the way we behave, particularly among younger people who have no experience of a time before GPS.
We're raising an entire generation of men who will never know what it is to refuse to ask for directions.
This saves a lot of confusion, of course. If we totted up how much of our lives we used to spend getting lost before the internet, it would be almost as long as it takes to sit through a Netflix series.
And the politicians who value productivity as a key economic indicator must be delighted. After all, there's not much point trying to create a Northern Powerhouse, to pick a current policy at random, if nobody can find it.
But still and all, can we stop for a moment to work out where we are, if only for old times' sake? I have misgivings about what we forfeit by never being lost.
When I think of my happiest adventures in foreign parts, they've often been after wandering off the beaten track, like the time I stumbled on the rudimentary boxing gym in the stews of old Havana where the Cubans produce Olympic champions.
Rebecca Solnit, author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost, says the answer to our distracted, information-saturated times is to get away from it all.
"Go some place you've never been before," she says. "I just came back from the Alaskan Arctic, deep in the authentic wild, with bears, moose and elk. We were more than a hundred miles from the nearest road or settlement."
Or phone signal. Closer to home, technology blinds us to our surroundings in ways we don't even notice, says the writer Will Self.
"GPS tells you exactly where you are but it doesn't orient you at all. We come out of a Tube station or get off a bus or we're in an unfamiliar town, we pull out our phones and we get lost at that point."
It can be hard to get away from it all
For Self, there's a cornucopia of clues all around us to help us find our way, if we would only glance up from our flickering tablets and do some of the work for ourselves.
Experts believe that making maps in our heads, by working out routes and remembering them, is a vital cognitive function for developing minds.
But making discoveries by getting lost isn't only a matter of drifting through the streets as the fancy takes us. It's hard to believe it now, in the age of downloading, but there was a time when record stores and music shops were where the kids went to get their kicks, with their adorable stovepipe hats and cheeks streaked with smuts.
Those long-ago retailers were a nursery for songwriters like Graham Gouldman of 10CC, the man responsible for hits like I'm Not in Love and I'm Mandy, Fly Me.
Graham Gouldman, right with Stephen Smith, loves getting lost
"Saturday afternoon was the time to go into town," he says. "And at that time - the early 60s - there must have been eight or nine great record stores in Manchester.
"I don't know how long we spent in there but it was hours and hours, listening to records and trying out guitars."
Gouldman had three number ones and five top 10 albums with 10CC. What if he hadn't wasted all those teenage weekends in music shops? Could he have gone on to be another Louis Walsh?
We'll never know - but I do know that he's been inspired to write a brand new song for the BBC in praise of getting lost:
Thus inspired to get well and truly lost, I immersed myself in the maze at Hampton Court Palace, which has been making heads spin since 1690. My companion was Terry Gough, head gardener at the palace.
As we groped through the labyrinthine thicket, paying out a ball of twine as we went, Terry explained that the maze was originally part of a larger area called "the wilderness", modelled on French "bosquets" or groves, which were essentially a series of outdoor rooms.
The machinations of Henry VIII, the war-gaming of William III against Louis XIV - such urgent topics could be discussed in the palace grounds, away from prying ears. Affairs of the heart, and lesser organs, were also prosecuted there.
But, Terry added, the maze and its leafy purlieus were also vital as an escape from the overwhelming busy-ness of court life. Kings and courtesans fled the info-babble of their own day to this soothing oasis of flower power, centuries before the hippies were even thought of.
Down the arches of the years, Henry VIII could look the beatniks in the eye and endorse their (almost) mantra - turn on, tune in, get lost.
The Loss of Lostness, presented by Stephen Smith, is broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 10 October at 10:30 BST, or listen on iPlayer.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Whose fault is driverless car crash?
Volvo says it will accept full liability for accidents involving its driverless cars, making it "one of the first" car companies to do so.
It joins Mercedes and also tech firm Google, who have made similar claims.
Volvo says it is trying to expedite regulation in the US, where "a patchwork" of rules is holding back the industry.
Uncertainty over liability for a driverless car crash is seen as one of the biggest barriers to adoption.
Why is Volvo doing this?
In a speech in Washington DC on Thursday, the president of Volvo Cars, Hakan Samuelsson, said that the US is currently "the most progressive country in the world in autonomous driving".
However, he believes it "risks losing its leading position" because of the lack of Federal guidelines for the "testing and certification" of autonomous vehicles.
Instead, car makers face inconsistent rules from state to state, which makes it harder to roll out their technology.
For instance, only a handful of US states such as California and Nevada allow the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads - and even then rules around certification vary.
Regulation is also slowed by unanswered ethical and legal concerns, particularly when it comes to liability for driverless car accidents.
And the situation is "even worse" in Europe, according to Volvo's chief technical officer, Erik Coelingh.
Google's self-driving cars have been involved in several accidents in California
Why is the issue of liability so important?
As with any new form of technology, it is important to get the regulation governing its implementation right.
Mr Coelingh told the BBC: "Everybody is aware of the fact that driverless technology will never be perfect - one day there will be an accident.
"So the question becomes who is responsible and we think it's unrealistic to put that responsibility on our customers."
But Ben Gardener, a solicitor at Pinsent Masons, believes Volvo's guarantee is aimed at reducing uncertainty in the minds of governments and regulators.
"Volvo wants to remove the uncertainty of who would be responsible in the event of a crash. At the moment it could be the manufacturer of the technology, the driver, a maker of a component in a car."
Volvo also told the BBC it would only accept liability for an accident if it was the result of a flaw in the car's design.
"If the customer used the technology in an inappropriate way then the user is still liable," said Mr Coelingh.
"Likewise if a third party vehicle causes the crash, then it would be liable."
Like Volvo, Audi has also complained about inconsistent regulations governing driveless cars
Will this actually make a difference?
Maybe.
Prof Sandor Veres, director of autonomous systems at Sheffield University, told the BBC: "This bold move by Volvo can pave the way for global legislation, as if other manufacturers take similar undertakings then legislation can be made simple."
But Mr Gardener said the move would not get around underlying safety concerns about driverless cars.
While manufacturers claim autonomous vehicles could eventually improve road safety, a number have been involved in accidents involving such cars during tests.
"There's not much value in a manufacturer saying we'll be responsible for thousands of accidents but then there being thousands of accidents each year," said Mr Gardener.
He said it was also unclear whether automatically holding manufacturers liable would stand up in court - at least in the UK.
"In this country, the party causing an accident is responsible once all of the circumstances of the particular case have been examined," he said.
"But moving to a strict manufacturer liability approach would remove the need to consider who is responsible for the collision. This is something not currently recognised in the UK approach to liability."
A driverless Mercedes-Benz on display at Consumer Electronics Show, Shanghai, in May
When will we see driverless cars on our roads?
In truth, we are only likely to see widespread use of driverless technology when such grey areas are resolved.
But according to some, that could be sooner than previously expected.
At the Frankfurt Auto show last month, US secretary of transportation Anthony Foxx said he expects driverless cars to be in use all over the world in 10 years.
Tesla founder Elon Musk has predicted his firm will have approval for its automated vehicles as early as 2019.
And many other manufacturers plan to launch driverless cars in the near future, including Toyota which on Wednesday said it expected to be selling such vehicles by 2020.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Toyota tests driverless car
Toyota tests driverless car
Last updated 8 hours ago
Toyota tested its self-driving Highway Teammate car on a public road
Toyota has become the latest car manufacturer to test a driverless vehicle on a public road.
The car, a modified Lexus GS, was tested on Tokyo's Shuto Expressway, where it carried out a range of automated manoeuvres.
These included merging into highways, changing lanes and keeping inter-vehicular distance.
Toyota said it aimed to launch related products "by around 2020", when Tokyo is due to host the Olympic Games.
Straightforward conditions
According to Toyota, the car "uses multiple external sensors to recognise nearby vehicles and hazards, and selects appropriate routes and lanes depending on the destination".
Based on these data inputs, it "automatically operates the steering wheel, accelerator and brakes" to drive in much the same way as a person would, said the firm.
In its current iteration, however, the car can only be operated in the more straightforward driving conditions of a main road.
The company said it expected to bring such a car to market by 2020, but has not said whether it will offer vehicles suitable for city streets.
Fresh competition
Toyota is the latest car company to push forward with plans for an autonomous vehicle, offering fresh competition to Silicon Valley companies such as Google, Cruise and Tesla.
Last week, General Motors said it was offering driverless rides to workers at its research and development facility in Warren, Michigan.
Nissan has promised to put an automated car on Japan's roads as early as 2016.
However, Google is already testing its self-driving cars on US city streets. And Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said in July his company was "almost ready" to make its cars go driverless on main roads and parallel-park themselves.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)