Santa Maria Novella, the world’s oldest pharmacy, has many odd concoctions from centuries past. This Florentine chapel houses the Seven Thieves’ Vinegar, a supposedly magical perfume that protects the wearer from the Black Death, the deadliest European plague outbreak. It gets its name from its origin story. There was once a group of seven thieves that escaped the plague despite stealing from the dead and dying. When they were caught, the judge spared their lives in exchange for the recipe, as each thief knew only one ingredient of this powerful brew.
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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
