By Adam Reyer, Project Director for Global Fishing Watch
Hundreds of millions of people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods, and almost 3 billion rely on it as a protein source. But countless threats — overfishing, destructive fishing practices, bycatch, dishonest catch reporting, habitat destruction — threaten our oceans and the people who depend on them. It’s an economic problem, too: illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a universal problem that accounts ...read more
The Brains vs Artificial Intelligence competition at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. (Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)
Roughly a year ago, to the day, Google researchers announced their artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, had mastered the ancient game of Go. At the time, Discover wrote that there was still one game that gave computers fits: poker.
Not anymore.
Late Monday night, a computer program designed by two Carnegie Mellon University researchers beat four of the world’s top no-li ...read more
In the long view, modern history is the story of increasing rights of control over your body – for instance, in matters of reproduction, sex, where you live and whom you marry. Medical experimentation is supposed to be following the same historical trend – increasing rights of autonomy for those whose bodies are used for research.
Indeed, the Nuremberg Code, the founding document of modern medical research ethics developed after the Second World War in response to Nazi medical exper ...read more
Maybe you’re feeling like the animal you most identified with in previous years (panda bear in snow, puggle, Betty White) just isn’t adequate for 2017. If that’s the case, here are three creatures that would like to apply for the job. Only one is venomous.
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An adorbs hermit crab with candy-cane stripes
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Are you one of those people who wishes Christmas could be year round? Cute but a homebody? Friendly with creatures that others con ...read more
A slice of the 195-million-year-old fossilized rib of Lufengosaurus reveals vascular canals, many of which contain hematite, probably derived from the dinosaur’s blood when it was alive. Credit: Robert Reisz.
We know the chances of finding dinosaur DNA are virtually nil. Despite recent advances, the oldest genetic material of any animal that researchers have successfully extracted and sequenced is about 700,000 years old (Note: still impressive. Most impressive). DNA degrades and gets con ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
