Human

Inside the gut of a caterpillar lives a worm, and inside the worm lurks a bioluminescent bacterium named Photorhabdus asymbiotica, which makes the caterpillar glow in the dark. But this nesting-doll-like setup has another, more harmful effect: the bacteria secrete a deadly molecular syringe, 100 nanometers long, that latches onto the insect’s cells. Once attached to a cell, the syringe pushes a molecular spear through the cell’s membrane that releases a toxic payload. As its insect host dies and decomposes, the bacteria…

Lawsuits won’t stop change from coming, so it’s better to learn everything we can about new technologyGoogle Bard, the ubiquitous search engine’s answer to Microsoft’s breakout Bing Chat, was recently asked what it thinks generative AI is good at. Its verbatim answer, “tasks that require creativity,” isn’t particularly music to the ears of artists and others in the entertainment industry.  Bard specifically self-identified its top skill sets to be “creating art and music, writing stories and poetry, designing products…

Anna-Elisabeth Baumann (left) and Elizabeth Goldman with Nao and Cozmo. Credit: Anna-Elisabeth Baumann Who do children prefer to learn from? Previous research has shown that even infants can identify the best informant. But would preschoolers prefer learning from a competent robot over an incompetent human? According to a new paper…

UConn professor of anthropology Christian Tryon poses for a photo in his lab in Beach Hall on March 17, 2023. Credit: Sydney Herdle/UConn Photo In their recent publication in the Journal of Human Evolution, UConn Department of Anthropology Professor Christian Tryon and Shara Bailey, Director of the Center for the Study of Human Origins at New York University, detail new findings about 40,000-year-old teeth unearthed in the…

We don't always think about it, but sound can be as important to identifying a brand as any graphical logo. Netflix's 'ta-dum' instantly brings the streaming service's logo to mind. Apple's startup chime feels like a warm greeting from your computer. Now, Wikipedia has an iconic audio mark of its own: a fluttering of book pages, keyboard clicks and synthesize tones it calls "The Sound of All Human Knowledge." In true Wikipedia fashion, the four second audio clip was sourced from the community. The Wikimedia Foundation…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Through coercion and deception, more than 20 million people around the world are forced into labor that generates more than $150 billion in annual profits, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). At an extreme, modern slavery and human trafficking involve exploitation that a person cannot…

Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink has approached one of the biggest US neurosurgery centers as a potential clinical trials partner as it prepares to test its devices on humans once regulators allow for it, according to six people familiar with the matter. Neuralink has been developing brain implants since 2016 it hopes will eventually be a cure for intractable conditions such as paralysis and blindness. It suffered a blow in early 2022, when the US Food and Drug Administration rejected its application to…

Despite approval setbacks, Elon Musk continues to charge forward on his grand plans for human brain implants. Neuralink, the billionaire’s biotech venture, has asked one of the largest and best regarded U.S. neurosurgery centers to be a partner in potential, future clinical trials involving people, according to a Monday report from Reuters. The company is in discussions with Phoenix, Arizona-based Barrow Neurological Institute, per Reuters, as attributed to six unnamed sources.Neuralink has been claiming human trials are…

Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink has approached one of the biggest US neurosurgery centers as a potential clinical trials partner as it prepares to test its devices on humans once regulators allow for it, according to six people familiar with the matter.Neuralink has been developing brain implants since 2016 it hopes will eventually be a cure for intractable conditions such as paralysis and blindness.It suffered a blow in early 2022, when the US Food and Drug Administration rejected its application to progress…

Humans might be the only species to sniffle and giggle through a romantic comedy, but there's good reason to think many other animals also have some capacity to share emotions with their kindred.A new study led by researchers from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal has provided evidence of the chemical mechanisms behind the spreading of fear among zebrafish, hinting that human empathy could have originated in our aquatic ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago.Seeing other members of a social group react…