Adult Great Capricorn beetles likely experience only one season before withering away to death, but a lucky pair from the Bronze Age have found themselves preserved so well that it looks like they’ve only kicked the bucket yesterday. They died on an oak tree in a bog, which produced an environment conducive to preservation; the tannins of the oak reacted with the acidic bog that helped the beetle’s exoskeleton protect their insides from degradation. 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
