Bipedalism — walking on two legs rather than four — may have led humans towards getting bigger brains, but not in the way most people would think. As researchers discover that bipedalism was common in our early ape ancestors, they’re speculating that bipedalism was not the sole reason for bigger hominid brains. Instead, it’s hypothesized that bipedalism allowed us to expand our home range (and therefore, our foraging grounds), which in turn allows us source more energy that could be used to sustain larger brains. 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
