Virtual reality may soon find uses outside of entertainment.  According to new research, the technology could help people learn to be more empathetic towards others, providing a way to immerse them in unfamiliar experiences that they may not otherwise relate to.

In the study, people who were exposed to situations such as the loss of a job or homelessness in the virtual reality setting ultimately developed longer-lasting compassion towards the issues in real life.

Co-author Jeremy Bailenson, a professor of communication at Stanford University, said: ‘Experiences are what define us as humans, so it’s not surprising that an intense experience in VR is more impactful than imagining something.’

Researchers conducted two studies, each over the course of two months, with more than 560 participants between the ages of 15 and 88.  The studies were designed to assess how VR affects people’s attitudes compared to other types of media.

Lead author Fernanda Herrera, a graduate student in the Department of Communication, said: ‘About 10 million headsets have been sold in the US over the past two years.  So, many people now have access to VR experiences.  But we still don’t know much about how VR affects people.  This research is an important step in figuring out how much of an effect this technology can have on people’s level of empathy in the long term.’

In the study, some participants were shown a seven-minute VR experience called ‘Being Homeless,’ which was developed by Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab.  Others were given reading tasks or an interactive scenario on the computer.

According to the researchers, the participants who experienced the VR scenario were more likely to maintain positive attitudes toward the homeless and even sign a petition in support of affordable housing.

Herrera said: ‘Taking the perspective of others in VR produces more empathy and pro-social behaviors in people immediately after going through the experience and over time in comparison to just imagining what it would be like to be in someone else’s shoes.  And that is an exciting finding.’

The researchers say VR could help to facilitate more meaningful social interactions, and improve people’s understanding and compassion to others in situations that may not be like their own.

Stanford psychology scholar Jamil Zaki said: ‘We tend to think of empathy as something you either have or don’t have.  But lots of studies have demonstrated that empathy isn’t just a trait.  It’s something you can work on and turn up or down in different situations.’

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

It's the cardinal rule of dating: do not hook up with your ex after a break-up under any circumstance.  But a new study published in a medical journal has found that 'ex-sex' may actually be a good way to help you move on from the relationship.  Researchers say those who slept with an ex were less likely to report feeling depressed and say they experienced more positive feelings on a day-to-day basis.

The team, from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, says the findings show that sleeping with a former partner can actually lessen psychological distress caused by a break-up as well as provide people with the physical closure they need to move on.

For the report, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, the team conducted two studies.

In the first study, the researchers recruited 113 participants who had recently experienced a break-up.  Two months later, the adults filled out a survey, which asked questions such as had they attempted to have any physical contact with their exes, how emotionally attached they still were, and how they felt at the end of every day.

In the second study, 372 participants were asked to report the number of times they had attempted to have sex with their former partner - both successfully and unsuccessfully - and if they still felt emotionally attached.

The team said that they found that trying to hook up with an ex did not affect people's ability to recover from a break-up.  While the majority of participants who attempted to have sex with their ex ended up doing so, they did not report emotional attachment two months later.

Lead author Dr Stephanie Spielmann, a professor of psychology at Wayne State, said that those who were having more difficulty moving on were the ones who sought out sex the most with their former partner.  However, she said that when they did have a sexual encounter, it did not leave them distressed.  In fact, the participants reported more positive feelings on day-to-day basis.

Dr Spielmann said: 'This research suggests that societal hand-wringing regarding trying to have sex with an ex may not be warranted.  The fact that sex with an ex is found to be most eagerly pursued by those having difficulty moving on, suggests that we should perhaps instead more critically evaluate people's motivations behind pursuing sex with an ex.'

For further research, Dr Spielmann says she wants to analyze people's feelings regarding break-ups over a longer period of time.

This is not the first time that research has suggested 'ex-sex' may not be as emotionally detrimental as once believed.  A 2012 study from the University of Arizona that looked at 137 recently divorced adults found whether or not breakup-sex helped a partner get over the end of their marriage depended on how 'over' it they already were.  Those who had not accepted the break-up said it lessened the pain of divorce while those who had accepted it said the encounter made no difference at all.

British sex and relationship expert Tracey Cox told the Daily Mail in 2013 that many women, in particular, benefit from sex with an ex because it gives them 'closure'.  'Sometimes we need to go back to move forward, and revisiting the sexual side of the relationship can sometimes make us see very clearly that we've idealized the relationship or feel much less pain than we thought,' she said. 'So there's a sense of closure that can be helpful.'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A city in China is planning to launch an ‘artificial moon’ that will light up the skies as far as 50 miles around.  The so-called illumination satellite set to deploy over the southwestern city of Chengdu in 2020 is touted to be eight times as bright as the real moon, to cast a ‘dusk-like glow’ over the region, according to the People’s Daily.  Officials have released few details on the project, but say the idea pulls inspiration from a French artist who envisioned a necklace of mirrors hanging over Earth.

Wu Chunfend, chairman of Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Co., Ltd, revealed the plan at an event in the city on 10 October, People’s Daily reports.  It will complement the moon to make Chengdu’s night skies brighter when it launches in 2020, potentially serving as a replacement to conventional streetlights.

The artificial moon can be controlled to light up an area between 10 and 80 kilometers wide.  While it might sound implausible, Wu says the technology has been in the works for years and has now ‘matured’ toward readiness.  Whether the plan will ultimately come to fruition, however, remains to be seen.

Chengdu’s artificial moon has already been met with criticism from skeptics and concerned citizens who argue that the light will have adverse effects on animals and astronomical observation, People’s Daily points out.  But according to Kang Weimin, director of the Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace, Harbin Institute of Technology, the light will amount only to a ‘dusk-like glow.’

It’s not the first time humans have attempted to launch a light-reflecting object into the sky – but in the past, such plans have largely ended in failure.

Last year, for example, a Russian team attempted to deploy what was touted to become ‘the brightest object in the night sky, after the moon.’  The Mayak satellite launched from Baikonur spaceport on 14 July, 2017 aboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket despite backlash, particularly from astronomers who noted the importance of keeping the night skies dark.  In the weeks after launch, amateur astronomers and scientists tracking its journey spotted what they believed to be the spacecraft.  But in August of that year, the team behind the project revealed the solar reflector failed to unfurl in orbit.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

AI systems rely on artificial neural networks (ANNs), which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn.

ANNs can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images - and are the basis for a large number of the developments in AI over recent years.

Conventional AI uses input to 'teach' an algorithm about a particular subject by feeding it massive amounts of information.

Practical applications include Google's language translation services, Facebook's facial recognition software and Snapchat's image altering live filters.

The process of inputting this data can be extremely time consuming, and is limited to one type of knowledge.

A new breed of ANNs called Adversarial Neural Networks pits the wits of two AI bots against each other, which allows them to learn from each other.

This approach is designed to speed up the process of learning, as well as refining the output created by AI systems.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced plans to create a new college for the development of artificial intelligence, with an initial $1 billion commitment for the program focusing on 'responsible and ethical' uses of the emerging technology.

The university said it would add 50 new faculty members and create an interdisciplinary hub for work in computer science, AI, data science, and related fields.

A large part of the new funds will come from a gift from Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and co-founder of financial giant Blackstone, after whom the new college will be named.

'As computing reshapes our world, MIT intends to help make sure it does so for the good of all,' said MIT President Rafael Reif.

An MIT statement said the initiative represents the single largest investment in computing and AI by an American academic institution.  The initiative comes amid growing concerns about the impacts of artificial intelligence on global institutions, and fears that China is overtaking the United States in this field.

Schwarzman said: 'There is no more important opportunity or challenge facing our nation than to responsibly harness the power of artificial intelligence so that we remain competitive globally and achieve breakthroughs that will improve our entire society.  We face fundamental questions about how to ensure that technological advancements benefit all -- especially those most vulnerable to the radical changes AI will inevitably bring to the nature of the workforce.'

The new college is slated to open in September 2019, with a new building scheduled to be completed in 2022.

The news comes after it was announced that working alongside robots will be part of a new university course aimed at students entering careers as carers, therapists and social workers.

The university programme is designed to help people get comfortable working with 'social robots' that will be their colleagues in the future, researchers say.

A recent survey found that almost 40 per cent of people are afraid that robots will steal their jobs.

Scientists from Sligo Institute of Technology in Ireland are testing a 'Paro' robot seal that reacts to petting and conversation.

'There is growing evidence that the emotional intelligence possessed by social robots in the future will enable them to make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable people in society', said Dr John Pender from Sligo Institute of Technology.

Scientists say the technology to make 'social robots' has been around for decades.  However, lots of people are uncomfortable about the idea of working with them

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

The world's fastest camera has been unveiled by scientists and it is so quick it can film the movement of light in slow motion.

Dubbed T-Cup, the device captures images at 10 trillion frames a second - streaks ahead of the average smartphone camera, which manages around 30 per second.  It could power a new generation of microscopes for medical research or hospital blood tests.  The camera makes it possible to analyse interactions between light and matter at an unparalleled level.

Built by experts at Quebec University and the California Institute of Technology, it is based on a technique called femto-photography.  A femtosecond is one millionth of a nanosecond or 10 to the minus 15 of a second - a scale used in laser technology.

The first time the camera was used it broke new ground by capturing the temporal focusing of a single femtosecond laser pulse in real time.  This process was recorded in 25 frames taken at an interval of 400 femtoseconds.  It detailed the light pulse's shape, intensity, and angle of inclination.

Lead author Professor Jinyang Liang said a laser's ultra-short pulse is usually far too short to visualise.  He said: 'This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena - and even light - in extremely slow motion.  Although some measurements are possible, nothing beats a clear image.'

It could have huge implications for medical and scientific research.

Professor Liang, of the National Institute of Scientific Research, Quebec, said: 'It's an achievement in itself.  But we already see possibilities for increasing the speed to up to one quadrillion (10 to the 15) frames per second.  Speeds like that are sure to offer insight into as-yet undetectable secrets of the interactions between light and matter.'

The camera is based on a method called compressed ultrafast photography (CUP).  But this works at only 100 billion frames per second.  So they added what is called a femtosecond streak camera used in scanners.  Particles of light are converted into electrons as they pass through a narrow slit.

Professor Lihong Wang, of the California Institute of Technology, said: 'We knew by using only a femtosecond streak camera, the image quality would be limited.  So to improve this, we added another camera that acquires a static image.  Combined with the image acquired by the femtosecond streak camera, we can use what is called a Radon transformation to obtain high-quality images while recording ten trillion frames per second.'

Extracted from: wwww.dailymail.co.uk

Liars are harder to spot than you might think, research suggests.  People who fib know to suppress the 'tell-tale signs', such as avoiding eye contact and fidgeting, a study by Edinburgh University found.

Lead author Dr Martin Corley said: 'The findings suggest that we have strong preconceptions about the behaviour associated with lying, which we act on almost instinctively when listening to others.  However, we don't necessarily produce these cues when we're lying, perhaps because we try to suppress them.'

The researchers used an interactive game to assess the types of speech and gestures people make when lying.  They also analysed how a listener interprets whether a statement is false.  The computerised two-player game involved 24 pairs who were competitively hunting for treasure.  Players had the choice of either being honest about where the treasure was hidden or lying.  From their response, the other player in their pair interpreted whether they were telling the truth.   If the first player managed to fool the other, they got to keep the treasure.  However, if the second player found the treasure, they got to keep it.

At the start of the experiment, the researchers noted 19 signs of lying, such as pauses in speech and eyebrow movements.  These signs were used to guess out whether one of the participants could tell the other was lying.

Results suggest listeners make judgments on whether someone is telling the truth within a few hundred milliseconds of encountering a sign.  People believe someone is lying if they say 'um' or 'uh', repeat words like 'the' unnecessarily or correct themselves midway through a sentence.

Other tell-tale signs may include:

• Filling silences
• Restarting conversations
• Prolonging sentences
• Head, hand or shoulder movements
• Smiling or laughing

However, the researchers believe liars may make a conscious effort to avoid these, such as by attempting to look straight faced or being rigid in their body language.  As a result, many of the players in the study were fooled into thinking their opponent was telling the truth.  The scientists believe this could drive further research into how people become deceived.

The study was published in the Journal Of Cognition.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Falling rocks can explode with such violent force that the blasts are only topped by nuclear bombs.  The power produced by large falling rocks creates shockwaves that can snap tress hundreds of feet away, according to a new study.  These 'extreme' rockfalls are caused when a mass of rock four times the size of an Olympic swimming pool falls hundreds of feet.

Scientists warned that the deadly events, which have in the past levelled hundreds of trees with a single explosion, are more common than first thought.

Researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy investigated reports of 'extremely energetic' rockfalls spanning more than two decades.  They attempted to characterise the falls - which have rarely been witnessed by humans - for the first time.

Sudy lead author Dr Fabio De Blasio told New Scientist: They're extremely weird phenomena, which have been somehow overlooked.  Typically they will develop in areas where erosion has been quite fast.'

Most of the 22 falls confirmed by the team occurred in European Alps and the Dolomites in Italy.  The first known example took place in Yosemite National Park, California, in July 1996, when two huge masses of rock fell 665 metres from Glacier Point.  The impact levelled 1,000 trees - some more than half a mile away - and produced a heavy cloud of abrasive sand.

Researchers said extreme rockfalls are characterised by large clouds of dust produced by the obliterated stone.  This requires a rock with a volume of at least 10,000 cubic metres picking up speed by falling several hundred feet, they found.  Based on their calculations, the researchers showed these extreme rockfalls can release more than 80 billion joules of energy: more than any non-nuclear bomb.

This includes the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) - the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed - which released 47 billion joules of energy when it was dropped by US forces on Afghanistan in April 2017.

Almost a fifth of the energy released by an extreme rockfall shreds the rock to dust, while the rest powers the shockwaves and dust cloud, calculations showed.

Based on their research, scientists said the explosive events are more common around the world than first thought.  They present a danger to anyone unlucky enough to be stood near to the 100-meter-per-second blast, which would hit with the force of a pyroclastic flow from a volcano.  The dust clouds produced by the falls can spread for a mile and last for days, potentially obscuring nearby roads.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A chemical found in everyday plastic items could led to a sixfold increase in the risk of a premature baby.

Scientists said bisphenol A – used in containers, some water bottles (though not in single-use water bottles made with flexible plastic packaging), food cans and till receipts – can affect women who come into contact with it before they even conceive.  The substance has already been linked to premature birth in mothers-to-be who are exposed to it.

Researchers led by the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, US, analysed the urine of 364 women at a fertility clinic before they became pregnant, of whom 32 gave birth to premature babies.

Phthalates, another chemical found in food packaging, doubled the risk of an early birth in women who had high levels before conceiving, they added.

Jennifer Yland, who led the study, said: 'Exposure to these chemicals is widespread as they are found in food packaging, consumer products, medical devices, plastic bottles and receipts.'

It is thought the two substances can cause chemical changes as women's eggs develop that can lead to premature birth.  They have also been linked to asthma and infertility, the meeting in Denver was told.

Bisphenol A, used since the 1960s, mimics the female hormone oestrogen and has been linked to breast and prostate cancer.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) may have used their mysterious giant stone heads to mark sources of fresh water.  Researchers have long been baffled by the giant statues across the island.  However, now they believe they could be simply marking water sources needed by the lost civilization to survive.

A new study found the lost civilization may have maintained a society of thousands by utilizing coastal groundwater discharge as their main source of 'freshwater'.

A team of archaeologists including faculty at Binghamton University and State University at New York measured the salinity of coastal water around the island of Rapa Nui.  They found areas close to the shores had a salt concentration low enough for humans to safely drink.  The island's famous statues have a high concentration near the coasts.

'Now that we know more about the location of freshwater, however, the location of these monuments and other features makes tremendous sense: they are positioned where freshwater is immediately available,' Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo said.

Lipo said the group's next project is to try to understand how closely the availability of freshwater in certain locations is linked to the methods and means of building the large statues on the island.

European accounts of first encounters with the island in the 18th century include passages where the natives appear to simply drink seawater.  Since the human body cannot process the high salt concentration of seawater, this supports the team's groundwater discharge theory.

Lipo said: 'This information ultimately sheds light on the conditions that drove and enabled these communities to work together to achieve their feats of engineering.  By gaining knowledge about community scale behavior, we can gain insights into the general conditions necessary for group-level cooperation - whether in the past or in contemporary society.'

The process of coastal groundwater discharge makes it possible for humans to collect drinkable freshwater directly where it emerges at the coast of the island.

By measuring the percentage of salt in the coastal waters, and finding it safe for human consumption, and by eliminating other options as primary sources of drinking water, the researchers concluded that groundwater discharge was a critical factor in the sustenance of the large population the island is thought to have harbored.

Lipo further said 'The porous volcanic soils quickly absorb rain, resulting in a lack of streams and rivers.  Fortunately, water beneath the ground flows downhill and ultimately exits the ground directly at the point at which the porous subterranean rock meets the ocean.  When tides are low, this results in the flow of freshwater directly into the sea.  Humans can thus take advantage of these sources of freshwater by capturing the water at these points.'

The freshwater mixes with the saltwater slightly, creating what's called brackish water, but is not enough for the water to contain harmful levels of salt to human consumers.  It does, however, mean that the islanders rarely used salt on their foods, because the water they drank contributed so drastically to their daily salt intake.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk