Stretching is deemed as absolutely necessary by many scientists and fitness experts, making people more flexible and less prone to injury during exercise. However, these alleged benefits are seemingly baseless, as research shows stretching has very little benefit (if any at all) to both athletes and regular people. In fact, people have been observed to perform significantly worse after stretching; it’s speculated that this is because stretching can damage the muscle and reduce its length before exercising. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here