The internet will be divided into two different worlds within the next decade – and China will lead one of them, according to ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  The 63-year-old multi-billionaire says the censorship and control the Chinese government wields over its citizens' online access means it is incompatible with the democratic internet of the west.  This means there will be two distinct versions of the world wide web by 2028, one run by China and the other by the US.

The process is already happening, with the so-called Great Firewall of China blocking Chinese citizens from accessing several of the internet's most popular websites, including Facebook and YouTube.  Instead, Chinese equivalents such as search engine Baidu offer the web services of their banned western equivalents.

Schmidt, who is worth an estimated $14 billion, made the comments while speaking at a private technology conference in San Francisco hosted by Village Global VC on 19 September  He said the internet will likely have two clear and separate voices, rather than mass fragmentation worldwide.

Schmidt said: 'I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America.  If you look at China, and I was just there, the scale of the companies that are being built, the services being built, the wealth that is being created is phenomenal.  Chinese Internet is a greater percentage of the GDP of China, which is a big number, than the same percentage of the US, which is also a big number.'

Schmidt added that he expects to see goods and service grow offered through the web grow exponentially in China.  But Beijing's hardline rule is unlikely to waver, forcing it to lead its own version of the internet to maintain its tough stance on censorship.

Schmidt said: 'I think you're going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China.  There's a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.'

The former Google executive, who worked at the company for 17 years from 2001 to 2017, regularly comments on the future of technology and his predictions for how it will shape the world.

Schmidt revealed in January that he is 'very concerned' with Russia and China's lead in the race on artificial intelligence.  He flagged the risk of their commercial and military aspirations, saying their lead in artificial intelligence could eventually help them to conquer the world.

he told an audience at BBC's Tomorrow's World Live at London's Science Museum: 'I'm very concerned about this.  I think that both the Russian and the Chinese leaders have recognised the value of this, not just for their commercial aspirations, but also their military aspirations.  It is very, very important that the incredible engines that exist in Europe, and Britain, wherever, United States etc, get more funding for basic research, ethics and so forth.'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Four years ago a viral campaign wooed the world with a promise of fighting climate change and jump-starting the economy by replacing tarmac on the world’s roads with solar panels. The bold idea has undergone some road testing since then.  The first results from preliminary studies have recently come out, and they are a bit underwhelming.

A solar panel lying under a road is at a number of disadvantages.  As it is not at the optimum tilt angle, it’s going to produce less power and it is going to be more prone to shading, which is a problem as shade over just 5% of the surface of a panel can reduce power generation by 50%.

The panels are also likely to be covered by dirt and dust, and would need far thicker glass than conventional panels to withstand the weight of traffic, which will further limit the light they absorb.

Unable to benefit from air circulation, it is inevitable these panels will heat up more than a rooftop solar panel too.  For every 1°C over optimum temperature, you lose 0.5% of energy efficiency.

As a result a significant drop in performance for a solar road, compared to rooftop solar panels, has to be expected.  The question is by how much and what is the economic cost?

The road test results are in

One of the first solar roads to be installed is in Tourouvre-au-Perche, France.  This has a maximum power output of 420 kWs, covers 2,800 m² and costs €5m to install.  This implies a cost of €11,905 per installed kW.

While the road is supposed to generate 800 kilowatt hours per day (kWh/day), some recently released data indicates a yield closer to 409 kWh/day, or 150,000 kWh/yr.  For an idea of how much this is, the average UK home uses around 10 kWh/day.

The road’s capacity factor – which measures the efficiency of the technology by dividing its average power output by its potential maximum power output – is just 4%.

In contrast, the Cestas solar plant near Bordeaux, which features rows of solar panels carefully angled towards the sun, has a maximum power output of 300,000 kWs and a capacity factor of 14%.  And at a cost of €360m, or €1,200 per installed kW, one-tenth the cost of our solar roadway, it generates three times more power.

In America, a company called Solar Roadways has developed a smart highway with solar panels, including sensors and LED lights to display traffic warnings about any upcoming hazards, such as a deer.  It also has heating pads to melt snow in winter.

Several of their SR3 panels have been installed in a small section of pavement in Sandypoint, Idaho.  This is 13.9 m² in area, with an installed capacity of 1.529 KWs.  The installation cost is given as $48,734 which implies a cost per installed kW of €27,500, more than 20 times higher than the Cestas powerplant.

Solar Roadway’s own estimates are that the LED lights would consume 106 MWh per lane mile, with the panels generating 415 MWh – so more than 25% of the useful power is consumed by the LEDs.  This would reduce performance even further.

The heating plates are also quoted as drawing 2.28 MW per lane mile.  So running them for just six days would cancel out any net gain from the solar panels.

And this is before we look at the actual data from the Sandypoint installation, which generated 52.397 kWhs in 6 months, or 104.8 kWhs over a year.  From this we can estimate a capacity factor of just 0.782%, which is 20 times less efficient than the Cestas power plant.

That said, it should be pointed out that this panel is in a town square.  If there is one thing we can conclude, it’s that a section of pavement surrounded by buildings in a snowy northern town is not the best place to locate a solar installation.  However, perhaps there’s a bigger point – solar roads on city streets are just not a great idea.

Running out of road

Roads don’t actually represent as large an area as we assume.  The UK department of transport gives a breakdown of the length of the UK’s different road types.

Assuming we can clad these in solar panels, four lanes of every motorway, two lanes on the A & B roads and half a lane for C & U roads (a lot are single track roads and just won’t be suitable) we come up with a surface area of 2 billion m².  It sounds like a lot, until you realise that buildings in the UK’s urban areas occupy an area of 17.6 billion m².

So just covering a fraction of the UK’s rooftops with solar panels would immediately yield more power than putting them on roads.  That is quite apart from the benefits that a more elevated position would yield for greater power generation.

All of this suggests that only a small fraction of the road network would actually be suitable.  And, given the relatively small size of the road network, solar roads could only ever become a niche source of power and never the shortcut to our future energy supply

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How we perceive the world around us may be heavily influenced by age.  Researchers suspect faces in particular may be subject to subconscious biases, with the brain relying on both neural processes and social factors to recognize others.

Using the 1915 optical illusion ‘My Wife and My Mother-In-Law,’ a new study has illustrated how age can dictate what we see in ambiguous figures.  While younger viewers tend to see a woman in her mid-20s, older observers were more likely to see a woman in her 60s or older.

The researchers explain in the new study, published to the journal Scientific Reports: ‘Although face recognition is governed by low-level neural detection mechanisms, it is also affected by seemingly incidental high-level social processes.  A good example is the effect of social in- and out-groups.  A social in-group is a collection of people with whom a person identifies as a member whereas an out-group is outside one’s identity.’

To find out how these social factors, such as own-age in-groups, affect perception of faces, researchers used the online crowdsourcing platform Mechanical Turk to sample 666 participants over the age of 18.  Participants were each shown a brief glimpse of the optical illusion – a bistable image that from some angles appears to show a young woman with her face turned away, and from others shows the profile of an older woman wearing a headscarf.

The image was only displayed for 500 ms, and participants were subsequently asked a number of questions to verify that they got a good enough look.  Once they passed these tests, they were asked to estimate the age of the woman in the image.  While there may be default biases in how the optical illusion itself is typically perceived, with the majority of viewers reporting a younger woman, the researchers found the observer’s age may contribute too.

The results showed that the viewers often saw a woman that essentially mirrored their own age; according to the researchers, ‘younger and older participants estimated the age of the image as younger and older, respectively.’

These findings suggest social groups do affect face processing, even if we don’t realize it, according to the researchers.

The researchers explain: ‘The effect of the observer’s age on the estimated age of the woman is consistent with an own-age social group bias.  Within the respective age-groups, participants have a bias towards processing faces of a similar age.’

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

If a man offers to help a woman with her heavy suitcase or to parallel park her car, what should she make of the offer?  Is it an innocuous act of courtesy?  Or is it a sexist insult to her strength and competence?  Social psychologists who describe this behaviour as 'benevolent sexism' firmly favour the latter view.

But researchers have also revealed a paradox: Women prefer men who behave in ways that could be described as benevolently sexist over those who don't.

How could this be?  Some say that women simply fail to see the ways benevolent sexism undermines them because they're misled by the flattering tone of this brand of kindness.

Psychologists have even suggested that benevolent sexism is more harmful than overtly hostile sexism because it is insidious, acting like 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.'

As social psychologists, we had reservations about these conclusions. Aren't women sophisticated enough to be able to tell when a man is being patronising?  Surprisingly no previous research had tested whether women do, in fact, fail to recognise that benevolent sexism can be patronising and undermining.

And given our backgrounds in evolutionary theory, we also wondered if these behaviours were nonetheless attractive because they signalled a potential mate's willingness to invest resources in a woman and her offspring.  So we conducted a series of studies to further explore women's attraction to benevolently sexist men.

What does benevolent sexism really signal?

The concept of benevolent sexism was first developed in 1996.  The idea's creators argued that sexism is not always openly hostile.   To them, attitudes like 'women should be cherished and protected by men' or behaviours like opening car doors for women cast them as less competent and always in need of help.  In this way, they argued, benevolent sexism subtly undermines gender equality.  Since then, social psychologists have been busy documenting the pernicious effects that benevolent sexism has on women.

According to studies, women who acquiesce to this behaviour tend to become increasingly dependent on men for help.  They're more willing to allow men to tell them what they can and can't do, are more ambivalent about thinking for themselves, are less ambitious and don't perform as well at work and on cognitive tests.

Given these documented downsides, why are women still attracted to this behaviour?  The answer could lie in what evolutionary biologists call 'parental investment theory.'

Whereas men can successfully reproduce by providing a few sex cells, a woman's reproductive success must be tied to her ability to complete months of gestation and lactation.

During much of human history, a woman's ability to choose a mate who was able and willing to assist in this process – by providing food or protection from aggressors – would have increased her reproductive success.  Evolution, therefore, shaped female psychology to attend to – and prefer – mates whose characteristics and behaviours reveal the willingness to invest.   A prospective mate's muscular physique certainly indicates that he possesses this ability.   But opening a car door or offering his coat are signs that he may have the desired disposition.

Women weigh in

In our recently published research, we asked over 700 women, ages ranging from 18 to 73, in five experiments, to read profiles of men who either expressed attitudes or engaged in behaviors that could be described as benevolently sexist, like giving a coat or offering to help with carrying heavy boxes.  We then had the participants rate the man's attractiveness, willingness to protect, provide and commit, and their likelihood of being patronising.

Our findings confirmed that women do perceive benevolently sexist men to be more patronising and more likely to undermine their partners.  But we also found that the women in our studies perceived these men as more attractive, despite the potential pitfalls.

So what made them more attractive to our participants?  In their responses, the women in our study rated them as more likely to protect, provide and commit.

We then wondered whether these findings could only really be applied to women who are simply OK with old-fashioned gender roles.

To exclude this possibility, we studied participants' degree of feminism with a widely used survey that measures feminist attitudes.   We had them indicate their level of agreement with statements such as 'a woman should not let bearing and rearing children stand in the way of a career if she wants it.'

We found that strong feminists rated men as more patronising and undermining than traditional women did.   But like the other women, they still found these men more attractive; the drawbacks were outweighed by the men's willingness to invest.

It seems that even staunch feminists may prefer a chivalrous mate who picks up the check on a first date or walks closer to the curb on a sidewalk.

In this time of fraught gender relations, our findings may provide reassurance for women who are confused about how to feel towards a man who acts chivalrous, and well-meaning men who wonder whether they should change their behaviour towards women.

But several interesting questions remain.  Does benevolent sexism always undermine women?  It might depend on context.

A male being overly helpful to a female co-worker in a patronising way might hurt her ability to project professional competence.   On the other hand, it's tough to see the harm in helping a woman move heavy furniture in the home.

Understanding these nuances may allow us to reduce the negative effects of benevolent sexism without requiring women to reject the actual good things that can arise from this behaviour.

Pelin Gül is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Iowa State University and Tom Kupfer is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

The original article was published in The Conversation. 

  Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Spiders have taken over the Greek town of Aitoliko with a hellish 1,000 foot web along its shoreline.  The web has snared trees, plants and rocks thanks to the unusually large number of Tetragnatha spiders contributing to the organic structure.

Warm weather and a large number of mosquitos are thought to be to blame for the booming population of the arachnids, which have swarmed the island to mate.  Although the phenomenon is highly unusual, experts say it is nothing to be worried since the spiders will soon perish and the web will vanish naturally.  The 1,000 foot area of greenery has been overrun by the sprawling web as spiders build a temporary home in order to mate.

Maria Chatzaki, professor of molecular biology and genetics at Democritus University of Thrace in Greece said a combination of factors resulted in the perfect conditions for spiders to flourish.

'High temperatures, sufficient humidity and food created the ideal conditions for the species to reproduce in large numbers.  It's as if the spiders are taking advantage of these conditions and are having a kind of a party.  They mate, they reproduce and provide a whole new generation.  These spiders are not dangerous for humans and will not cause any damage to the area's flora.  The spiders will have their party and will soon die,' Professor Chatzaki told Newsit.gr.

Residents of the besieged town reveal that in the days leading up to the completion of the spider web the region has seen swarms of mosquitos hit the town.  It is speculated that this provided a bountiful food source for the spiders as they worked on their masterpiece.

Tetragnatha is a genus of spiders that contains many thousands of species colloquially known as 'stretch spiders' because of their long and elongated bodies.  These spiders are common across the world and often build their webs near bodies of water.

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Coach potatoes have an excuse for their laziness thanks to a new scientific study which has found that human beings are hardwired to avoid wasting energy.  Evolution favoured sluggish behaviour because this may have given our ancient ancestors an advantage when it came to survival, experts say.  Wasting energy unnecessarily could have left them vulnerable to predators, whereas conserving energy would have afforded them a boost when it came to searching for food, hunting their prey, and fighting off rivals.

Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Vancouver, Canada, say society encourages people to be more physically active.  Yet the latest figures reveal they are actually becoming less active, in what researchers have termed the 'exercise paradox'.

For their latest study, UBC recruited young adults, placed them in front of a computer screen and gave them control of an on-screen avatar.  Researchers then flashed small images one at a time that depicted either physical activity or physical inactivity.

Subjects were tasked with moving the on-screen avatar as quickly as possible toward the pictures of physical activity – and away from pictures of physical inactivity and then vice versa.  Meanwhile, electrodes recorded what was happening in their brains.

Participants were generally faster at moving towards the active pictures and away from lazy pictures, but brain-activity readouts called electroencephalograms (EEGs) revealed the latter required their brains to work much harder.  This suggests our brains are hardwired to be attracted toward the lazy activity.

Study leader Matthieu Boisgontier said: 'Conserving energy has been essential for humans' survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators.  The failure of public policies to counteract the pandemic of physical inactivity may be due to brain processes that have been developed and reinforced across evolution.  We knew from previous studies that people are faster at avoiding sedentary behaviours and moving toward active behaviours.  The exciting novelty of our study is that it shows this faster avoidance of physical inactivity comes at a cost and that is an increased involvement of brain resources.  These results suggest that our brain is innately attracted to sedentary behaviours.'

The research will now look at whether people's brains can be re-trained.  Mr Boisgontier added: 'Anything that happens automatically is difficult to inhibit, even if you want to, because you don't know that it is happening.  But knowing that it is happening is an important first step.'

The findings are published in the science journal Neuropsychologia.

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The Amazon floods five times more frequently than it did a century ago, new research has cautioned.  Scientists believe the world's largest river now bursts its banks every four years because of the strong warming in the Atlantic Ocean and cooling of the Pacific.  This in turn drastically impacts weather patterns and rainfall in the Amazon.

Their findings show that in the first part of the 20th century, severe floods with water levels exceeding 95 feet (29 metres) occurred just every 20 years.

Water levels have been recorded each day in Port of Manaus, Brazil, since the beginning of the last century.  Drawing on the 113 years of water level records, researchers found extreme floods and droughts have become more frequent over the last two to three decades.

Study lead author, Dr Jonathan Barichivich, from Universidad Austral de Chile and former Research Fellow from the University of Leeds, said: 'Increases of severe droughts in the Amazon have received a lot of attention by researchers.  However, what really stands out from this long-term river record is the increase in the frequency and severity of the floods.  With a few minor exceptions, there have been extreme floods in the Amazon basin every year from 2009 to 2015.'

According to the study, increased flooding is linked to a strengthening of the Walker circulation.  This is an ocean-powered system of air circulation caused by differences in temperature and pressure over tropical oceans.  The circulation is caused by differences in heat distribution between the ocean and land.

Co-author Professor Manuel Gloor, from the School of Geography at Leeds, said: 'This dramatic increase in floods is caused by changes in the surrounding seas, particularly the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and how they interact.  Due to a strong warming of the Atlantic Ocean and cooling of the Pacific over the same period, we see changes in the so-called Walker circulation, which affects Amazon precipitation.  The effect is more or less the opposite of what happens during an El Niño event.  Instead of causing drought, it results in more convection and heavy rainfall in the central and northern parts of the Amazon basin.'

The ultimate underlying cause for the warming of the Atlantic is not entirely clear.  However, in addition to natural variability, global warming is at least partially responsible but in an unexpected and indirect way, according to the study.

As a result of greenhouse warming, wind belts in mid to high latitudes in the Southern hemisphere have shifted further south.  This has opened a window for transport of warm Indian Ocean waters around the tip of Africa, via the Agulhas current, towards the tropical Atlantic.

The changes to the Amazon Basin's water cycle have had severe consequences for people and livelihoods in Brazil, Peru, and other Amazonian nations.

Co-author Dr Jochen Schöngart from the National Institute for Amazon Research in Manaus, has experienced Amazon River floods first-hand.  He explained that these extreme flooding events last for many weeks and have disastrous consequences.  Flooding can contaminate water supply and spread disease, as well as destroy homes and livelihoods.  Economic activities in the floodplains such as agriculture a cattle ranching are strongly affected.

The research indicates that these floods are not over yet.  The year 2017, which was not included in the study, again saw water levels rise to over 95 feet.

As the tropical Atlantic is expected to continue warming faster than the tropical Pacific over the next few decades, scientists expect more of these high water levels.

The findings of this study could help predict the probability of flooding extremes in the Amazon in advance and help mitigate the impacts for urban and rural Amazonian populations.

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Elton John was wrong — sorry is not the hardest word after all, as scientists have found that human beings are genetically hardwired to forgive other people.

Research has found people are reluctant to believe others are inherently bad, even when they have behaved immorally.

When someone who has behaved badly then does something nice, people will be inclined to forgive any previous misgivings.  This inbuilt forgiveness evolved because dismissing someone entirely based on one bad deed could cut cause someone to miss out on a slew of benefits from any given social connection, scientists explained.  The research was conducted by Yale University, the University of Oxford and University College London.

The study found that it is human nature to see the best in someone – and we are predisposed to believe a person who behaves morally is a truly good person.

Across a series of experiments, more than 1,500 participants observed the choices of two strangers who faced a moral dilemma – whether to inflict painful electric shocks on another in exchange for money.  While the 'good' stranger in the study mostly refused to administer shocks for money, the 'bad' stranger maximised their profits despite the painful consequences.

Assistant professor Molly Crockett, at Yale University said: 'The brain forms social impressions in a way that can enable forgiveness.  Because people sometimes behave badly by accident, we need to be able to update bad impressions that turn out to be mistaken.  Otherwise, we might end relationships prematurely and miss out on the many benefits of social connection.'

As well as people being likely to create a positive impression from the get-go, they also found that humans are predisposed to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Researchers found forgiveness is crucial in developing and maintaining important social relationships.  This allows people to redeem themselves in the eyes of their peers, should their first impression be one of questionable character.  Participants in the study were asked to form an opinion on people based on this decision and judge their morality.  They rapidly formed stable, positive impressions of the good stranger and were highly confident of their impressions.

However, the subjects were far less confident the bad stranger was truly bad and could change their minds quickly.  For instance, when the bad stranger occasionally made a generous choice, subjects' impressions immediately improved – until they witnessed the stranger's next transgression.  This pattern of updating impressions may provide some insight into why people sometimes hold on to bad relationships.

Assistant Professor Crockett said: 'We think our findings reveal a basic predisposition towards giving others, even strangers, the benefit of the doubt.  The human mind is built for maintaining social relationships, even when partners sometimes behave badly.'

The research also may eventually help shed light on psychiatric disorders involving social difficulties, such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

Lead author and doctoral student Jenifer Siegel at Oxford University said: 'The ability to accurately form impressions of others' character is crucial for the development and maintenance of healthy relationships.  We have developed new tools for measuring impression formation, which could help improve our understanding of relational dysfunction.'

The findings have been published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

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We may like to believe that what makes us who we are is unique.  However, new research suggests that we all fall into four distinct clusters of personality types.  Experts questioned 1.5 million people around the world and uncovered that respondents were either average, reserved, self-centred or role models.

The latest findings challenge existing ideas in psychology, according to the research team behind the study.  The findings could potentially be of interest to managers looking to hire new staff and mental health care providers.  Experts from Northwestern University sifted through data from more than 1.5 million questionnaire respondents to make the finding.

The four personality clusters are scored according to varying proportions of the 'Big Five' personality traits.  These characterise people by their openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

Co-author William Revelle, professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, who specialises in personality measurement, theory and research said: 'People have tried to classify personality types since Hippocrates' time, but previous scientific literature has found that to be nonsense.  Now, these data show there are higher densities of certain personality types.'

Initially, however, Professor Revelle was sceptical of the study's premise.  The concept of personality types remains controversial in psychology, with hard scientific proof difficult to find.  Previous attempts based on small research groups created results that often were unable to be replicated in larger studies.

Study lead Luís Amaral, professor of chemical and biological Engineering said: 'Personality types only existed in self-help literature and did not have a place in scientific journals.  Now, we think this will change because of this study.'

The new research combined an alternative computational approach with data from four questionnaires with more than 1.5 million respondents from around the world.  The questionnaires, developed by the research community over the decades, have between 44 and 300 questions.  People voluntarily take the online quizzes attracted by the opportunity to receive feedback about their own personality.

Examples of the types of questions used to determine personality type have not been provided by the researchers.  This data is now being made available to other researchers for independent analysis.

Professor Amaral said: 'The thing that is really, really cool is that a study with a dataset this large would not have been possible before the web.  Previously, maybe researchers would recruit undergrads on campus, and maybe get a few hundred people.  Now, we have all these online resources available, and now data is being shared.'

The group's first attempt to sort the data used traditional clustering algorithms, but that yielded inaccurate results, Amaral said.

Revelle said: 'At first, they came to me with 16 personality types, and there's enough literature that I'm aware of that says that's ridiculous.  I believed there were no types at all.'  He challenged Professors Amaral and Gerlach to refine their data.

'Machine learning and data science are promising but can be seen as a little bit of a religion.  You still need to test your results.  We developed a new method to guide people to solve the clustering problem to test the findings,' Professor Amaral said.

Their algorithm first searched for many clusters using traditional clustering methods, but then winnowed them down by imposing additional constraints. This procedure revealed the four groups they reported.

The data came back, and they kept coming up with the same four clusters of higher density and at higher densities than you'd expect by chance, and you can show by replication that this is statistically unlikely.  I like data, and I believe these results.  The methodology is the main part of the paper's contribution to science.'

To be sure the new clusters of types are accurate, the researchers used a notoriously self-centered group – teenage boys – to validate their information.

Amaral said: 'We know teen boys behave in self-centered ways.  If the data are correct and sifted for demographics, they would turn out to be the biggest cluster of people.'

Indeed, young males are overrepresented in the Self-Centered group, while females over 15 years old are vastly underrepresented.

Along with serving as a tool that can help mental health service providers assess for personality types with extreme traits, Professor Amaral said the study's results could be helpful for hiring managers looking to insure a potential candidate is a good fit or for people who are dating and looking for an appropriate partner.

And it is good news for parents of teenagers everywhere.  As people mature, their personality types often shift.  For instance, older people tend to be less neurotic yet more conscientious and agreeable than those under 20 years old.

'When we look at large groups of people, it's clear there are trends, that some people may be changing some of these characteristics over time.  This could be a subject of future research,' Professor Amaral said.

The latest research is sure to draw some comparisons with the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) — a popular self-reported questionnaire that attempts to highlight the differences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.  Based on the answers to the questions, people are identified as having one of 16 personality types.  The goal of the MBTI is to allow people to explore and understand their own likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, possible career preferences, and compatibility with other people.  Crucially, no one personality type is 'best' or 'better' than any other one.  The questionnaire is not designed to look for dysfunction or abnormality.  Instead, its goal is simply to help you learn more about your own personality.

The full findings were published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

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Global warming could spell the end of racial differences because climate change will trigger massive migrations, a prominent scientist has claimed.

In just 125 years, there may be far fewer people with really dark skin or pale skin tones, according to Scott Solomon a biologist at Rice University in Houston.  More and more people will have olive and brown-coloured complexions, according to Dr Solomon who wrote an in-depth feature for MACH.  As people become more physically similar to one another, racism is increasingly likely to become a thing of the past, he claims.

According to the 2017 International Migration Report by the UN, there are now 258 million people living in a country other than the one they were born in.  This is an increase of 49 per cent since 2000.

By 2050, 143 million 'climate migrants' will face an 'existential threat' and be displaced, the World Bank said in a report published earlier this year.  That includes 86 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 40 million in South Asia and 17 million in Latin America.

'These migrations will erode the geographic barriers that once separated human populations', said Dr Solomon.

The wave of refugees fleeing crop failures, droughts and rising sea levels is set to further grow drastically over the next three decades.

'One consequence of large-scale migrations is what biologists call gene flow, a type of evolution caused by the blending of genes between populations,' said Dr Solomon.

Over thousands of years, our ancestors developed different skin colours that generally resembled the intensity of sun in different regions.  However, due to sunscreen and other vitamins, natural selection is less important in dictating the colour of people's skin.

Dr Solomon, who is author of 'Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution' said: 'Because skin colour is controlled by many genes, parents whose skin colour differs tend to have children with intermediate skin tones.  And so in five to 10 generations (125 to 250 years), we may see fewer people with dark skin or pale skin and more with a brown or olive complexion.  Having both dark skin and light eyes may become more common.'

In the US for example, the number of multiracial births has already risen from one per cent in 1970 to ten per cent in 2013.  This is expected to increase in the future, with multiracial populations projected to grow by 174 per cent over the next 40 years.

'As people around the world become more physically similar to one another, it's possible that racism might slowly fade,' he said.

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