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Researchers Uncover “Genetic Goldmine” Underlying Plant Resilience in Extreme Desert Environment
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Researchers Uncover “Genetic Goldmine” Underlying Plant Resilience in Extreme Desert Environment

An international team of researchers has identified genes associated with plant survival in one of the harshest environments on Earth: the Atacama Desert in Chile. Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may help scientists breed resilient crops that can thrive in increasingly drier climates. “In an era of accelerated climate change, it...

Living Descendant of Sitting Bull Confirmed by Analysis of DNA from the Legendary Leader’s Hair
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Living Descendant of Sitting Bull Confirmed by Analysis of DNA from the Legendary Leader’s Hair

A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock. This is the first time ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals. The confirmation was made possible using a new method to...

Why Improvisation Is the Future in an AI-Dominated World
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Why Improvisation Is the Future in an AI-Dominated World

In his autobiography, Miles Davis complained that classical musicians were like robots. He spoke from experience – he’d studied classical music at Juilliard and recorded with classical musicians even after becoming a world-renowned jazz artist. As a music professor at the University of Florida, which is transforming itself into an “AI university,” I often think...

Using Data Science to Combat Poverty
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Using Data Science to Combat Poverty

India is one of the world’s largest food producers. However, insufficient refrigeration possibilities and other bottlenecks in the supply chain result in a waste of up to a third of the food produced – an estimated billion-dollar loss. Only 6% of the food moves through the cold chain, compared to about 60% in developed countries....

Meat-Heavy Diets Restricted Hunter-Gatherer Population Sizes
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Meat-Heavy Diets Restricted Hunter-Gatherer Population Sizes

Hunter-gatherer populations with a strong seasonal dependence on meat in their diets had fewer people per square kilometer than those that had abundant plant foods throughout the year. This new result is clear from a study carried out by researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB),...

How ‘Sissy Men’ Became the Latest Front in China’s Campaign Against Big Tech
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How ‘Sissy Men’ Became the Latest Front in China’s Campaign Against Big Tech

The Chinese government has recently taken action against what it calls “sissy men” – males, often celebrities, deemed too effeminate. On Sept. 2,2021, government regulators banned their appearance on both television and video streaming sites. Using the Chinese derogatory slur “niang pao” – literally, “girlie guns” – Chinese cultural authorities explained that they were rolling...

SpaceX Inspiration4 Mission Will Send 4 People with Minimal Training into Orbit – and Bring Space Tourism Closer to Reality
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SpaceX Inspiration4 Mission Will Send 4 People with Minimal Training into Orbit – and Bring Space Tourism Closer to Reality

On Sept. 15, 2021, the next batch of space tourists are set to lift off aboard a SpaceX rocket. Organized and funded by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the Inspiration4 mission touts itself as “the first all-civilian mission to orbit” and represents a new type of space tourism. The four crew members will not be the first...

Researchers Develop Real-Time Lyric Generation Technology to Inspire Song Writing
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Researchers Develop Real-Time Lyric Generation Technology to Inspire Song Writing

  Music artists can find inspiration and new creative directions for their song writing with technology developed by Waterloo researchers. LyricJam, a real-time system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate lyric lines for live instrumental music, was created by members of the University’s Natural Language Processing Lab. The lab, led by Olga Vechtomova, a Waterloo Engineering...

‘Digging’ into Early Medieval Europe with Big Data
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‘Digging’ into Early Medieval Europe with Big Data

During the middle of the sixth century CE a dramatic transformation began in how the people of western Europe buried their dead. The transition from ‘furnished’ inhumation (those with grave goods to include jewellery, dress accessories, tools and personal items etc) to ‘unfurnished’ (those without grave goods) was widespread and by the early eighth century...