This parasitic plant turns off its hosts’ genes to hide its theft. Photo Credit: Stefan.lefnaer/Wikimedia Commons
Organisms’ immune systems are constantly trying to detect and boot freeloaders. No living thing is particularly willing to give up its hard earned resources to just any moocher that comes along, so all parasites must find a way past their hosts’ defenses and survive incessant attacks. Some constantly disguise themselves to move about undetected, ...read more
A wide area around the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest is now in severe drought — and the three-month outlook is grim
When it comes to snow cover, a comparison of satellite images shows just how much a difference a year can make. (Images: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman)
While downtown Boston streets were flooding and then freezing as a result of the powerful bomb cyclone that pummeled the U.S. East Cost, folks in the U.S. Southwest were no doubt wond ...read more
(Credit: Viktorus/Shutterstock)
Siri and Alexa are good, but no one would mistake them for a human being. Google’s newest project, however, could change that.
Called Tacotron 2, the latest attempt to make computers talk like people builds on two of the company’s most recent text-to-speech projects, the original Tacotron and WaveNet.
Repeat After Me
Tacotron 2 pairs the text-mapping abilities of its predecessor with the speaking prowess of WaveNet for an end result that is, fra ...read more
A woman enjoys a stress-reducing whiff of worn shirt. (Credit: Shutterstock)
The human sense of smell is perhaps our most underrated ability.
The power of scent may not get the credit it deserves because we experience it differently than our other senses. Rather than proceeding directly to the thalamus—the seat of consciousness—like other sensory signals, scent information travels to parts of the brain associated with emotions and memory. Therefore, much of the information we recei ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
