It was previously thought that children younger than 7 couldn't find efficient solutions to complex problems, but new research suggests that much earlier, children can happen upon known sorting algorithms used by computer scientists Complex problem-solving may arise earlier in a child's development than previously thought Children as young as 4 years old are capable of finding efficient solutions to complex problems, such as independently inventing sorting algorithms developed by computer scientists. The scientists behind the finding say these skills emerge far earlier than previously thought, and should force a rethink of developmental psychology. Take control of your brain's master switch to optimise how you think Experiments carried out by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and widely popularised in the 1960s asked children to physically sort a collection of sticks into length order, a task Piaget called seriation. His tests revealed until around age 7, children applied no structured strategies; they approached the problem in messy ways through trial and error. But new research by Huiwen Alex Yang and his colleagues at University of California, Berkeley, shows a minority of even 4-year-old children can develop algorithmic solutions to the same task, and by 5 years old more than a quarter are capable of the same thing.

Germany's Munich airport has reopened after several drone sightings forced it to close and cancel more than a dozen flights on Thursday night. At least 17 flights were grounded in Munich, affecting nearly 3,000 passengers, while the airport said it diverted a further 15 flights to nearby cities. On Friday, a spokesperson for German flag carrier Lufthansa said flight operations have since resumed according to schedule. There was no immediate confirmation of where the drones had come from. Several airports across Europe have closed down in recent weeks because of unidentified drones.

We advocate for a new statistical principle that combines the most desirable aspects of both parameter inference and density estimation. This leads us to the predictively oriented (PrO) posterior, which expresses uncertainty as a consequence of predictive ability. Doing so leads to inferences which predictively dominate both classical and generalised Bayes posterior predictive distributions: up to logarithmic factors, PrO posteriors converge to the predictively optimal model average at rate $n^{-1/2}$. Whereas classical and generalised Bayes posteriors only achieve this rate if the model can recover the data-generating process, PrO posteriors adapt to the level of model misspecification. This means that they concentrate around the true model at rate $n^{1/2}$ in the same way as Bayes and Gibbs posteriors if the model can recover the data-generating distribution, but do \textit{not} concentrate in the presence of non-trivial forms of model misspecification. Instead, they stabilise towards a predictively optimal posterior whose degree of irreducible uncertainty admits an interpretation as the degree of model misspecification -- a sharp contrast to how Bayesian uncertainty and its existing extensions behave. Lastly, we show that PrO posteriors can be sampled from by evolving particles based on mean field Langevin dynamics, and verify the practical significance of our theoretical developments on a number of numerical examples.

Should we worry AI will create deadly bioweapons? Artificial intelligence promises to transform biology, allowing us to design better drugs, vaccines and even synthetic organisms for, say, eating waste plastic. But some fear it could also be used for darker purposes, to create bioweapons that wouldn't be detected by conventional methods until it was too late. So, how worried should we be? "AI advances are fuelling breakthroughs in biology and medicine," says Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft. "With new power comes responsibility for vigilance." His team has published a study looking at whether AI could design proteins that do the same thing as proteins that are known to be dangerous, but are different enough that they wouldn't be recognised as dangerous.

Captain of tanker linked to Russian'shadow fleet' charged in France The captain of an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia's shadow fleet of vessels used to evade sanctions has been charged by French authorities. The Chinese national was handed one count of refusing to follow instructions from the French navy and told to attend a court hearing in the northern coastal city of Brest next February. The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week. The tanker was earlier boarded by French soldiers because it was on a list of vessels subject to EU sanctions for carrying Russian oil exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin called France's actions piracy.

Scientists have a lot of questions about our planet's most important carbon sink--and a new project could help answer them. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 16: Eric Schmidt, former chairman and CEO at GOOGLE visits Fox Business Network Studios on April 16, 2019 in New York City. A foundation created by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, will fund a project to send drone boats out into the rough ocean around Antarctica to collect data that could help solve a crucial climate puzzle. The project is part of a suite of funding announced today from Schmidt Sciences, which Schmidt and his wife Wendy created to focus on projects tackling research into the global carbon cycle. It will spend $45 million over the next five years to fund these projects, which includes the Antarctic research.

Fans have reacted angrily after Microsoft announced price increases to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system - available to PC and Xbox players - would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month. Reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service's cancellation page had crashed due to demand. BBC Newsbeat has asked Microsoft if the outage was linked to a surge in visits. In a blog post detailing the changes to Game Pass, Microsoft said it would offer three tiers - Essential (£10 per month), Premium (£14.99) and Ultimate (£22.99).

Musk becomes world's first half-trillionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk has become the first person ever to achieve a net worth of more than $500bn (£370.9bn), The tech magnate's net worth briefly reached $500.1bn on Wednesday afternoon New York time, before dipping slightly to just over $499bn later in the day, the Forbes billionaires index reported. Alongside Tesla, valuations of his other ventures, including the artificial intelligence start-up xAI and rocket company SpaceX, have also reportedly climbed in recent months. According to Forbes' billionaires index, Oracle founder Larry Ellison is the world's second richest person, with a fortune of about $350.7bn. Mr Ellison briefly overtook Musk last month after shares in Oracle soared by more than 40%, boosted by the firm's surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence (AI) deals.

French troops board oil tanker linked to Russian'shadow fleet' French soldiers have boarded an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia's shadow fleet, used to evade sanctions imposed because of the war in Ukraine. The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week. It has been anchored off western France for a few days. French President Emmanuel Macron said at an EU leaders' summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday that the crew had committed serious offences, but did not elaborate. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had no knowledge of the vessel.

Pope Leo XIV has hit out at those who minimise the increasingly evident impact of rising temperatures in his first major statement on climate change. Reiterating the words of his predecessor Pope Francis, the new pontiff lambasted critics who ridicule those who speak of global warming. The Pope's remarks, at a speech in Castel Gondolfo near Rome, will be seen as an implied criticism of US President Donald Trump, who last month called climate change a con. Pope Leo also called for greater action from citizens the world over on climate change, saying there was no room for indifference or resignation. The Pope was speaking at a conference to mark 10 years since the publication of Laudato Si'.