You don’t need a microscope to see the biggest bacteria on Earth. T. magnifica is about 5,000 times as big as other bacteria. It’s like if a person found another human the size of Mt. Everest! The translucent, string-like T. magnifica was a centimetre long; so large that the scientist who discovered it thought that it was a eukaryote (a multicellular organism). So, imagine his surprise when he didn’t find a nucleus or mitochondria, which you’d typically find in a eukaryotic cell. 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
Merv
August 15, 2022
