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An abrupt and widespread climate shift in the Sahara 5,000 years ago The Sahara Desert’s shift from lush grasslands to barren sands happened quickly and simultaneously across the entire region. Scientists say the brief African Humid Period began and ended suddenly, about 5,000 years ago. MIT news D. McGee, P.B. deMenocal, G. Winckler, J.-B. Stuut […]

In 1907, Daniel, a miner working in Mauer, near Heidelberg (Germany), found a jaw of unequivocally human origin. The bone was a complete jaw but lacked the characteristic prominent chin of our species, Homo sapiens. The fossil was identified as the first of a new species, Homo heidelbergensis , a 600,000 year-old ancestor. The oldest […]

For several decades now, physicists, mathematicians, neurobiologists and other specialists have been joining efforts to build realistic mathematical models of neurons. A typical model consists on one or several differential equations that are able to predict the evolution of the membrane potential of a neuron for a given input. When introduced in a computer, these […]

Strange as it may sound to many people, the fact is that some of the most interesting work on epistemology that is being currently done in Spain is carried out at the headquarters of the Spanish gendarmerie (the well known force called Guardia Civil), in particular, at the Area of Statistics within the corps’ Service […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most actives fields of computer science. The idea of a computer learning, in an autonomous way, complicate tasks is exciting from both the fundamental and applied points of view. One very recent and interesting approach to this problem is Deep Learning . This technology is becoming popular very […]

How can we begin to ‘think’ the twentieth century? How do we start to make sense of the masses of figures, events and ideas that gave shape to it? How can we reconcile its horrors and its achievements in our mind within a graspable synthesis? How can we understand the world of Verdun and Hiroshima […]

Scientists use 3D printer to create networks of artificial cells Researchers have developed networks of water droplets that can act like biological tissue cells. The researchers created the networks using a three-dimensional printer. The networks can support up to 35,000 droplets and have the potential to be a scaffold for growing synthetic tissues or a […]

Poles are truly interesting places for planetary scientists. On Earth, the southern pole and its low surface temperatures sustain a polar vortex, most famous for the related hole in the ozone layer. On Saturn, for example, both poles have astonishing structures, including a hexagonal wave in the northern hemisphere. Not surprisingly, Venus also has something […]

The term reinforcement learning is well known among researchers in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It refers to a type of algorithms which are designed to solve a task by maximizing some kind of reward. In a simplified way, we could say that a typical reinforcement learning algorithm works as follows: our […]

If you have ever faced that thankless task of cleaning fish, for sure you will have realized, at least envisaged, the complex architecture of the fish’s natural armour. Fish scales play the role of a skeleton which provides both protection and flexibility at the same time. It goes without saying that this fact has not […]