Not all Muslims speak Arabic." For example, Ismail said, the world's largest Muslim nation is Indonesia, which is not anywhere near the Middle East. "People just don't realize that." It's not just the portrayal of Muslims that is problematic. In several video games, images of the Arab and Muslim world are often inaccurate.

The Twitter profile for Tay.ai, Microsoft's short-lived chatbot. The Twitter profile for Tay.ai, Microsoft's short-lived chatbot. Editor's Note: This post contains language that some readers might find offensive. Her emoji usage is on point. She says "bae," "chill" and "perf."

We are on the brink of a major disruption, which we think might be bigger than the industrial revolution. At BootstrapLabs we are focusing heavily on a major shift that is impacting almost every sector: Artificial Intelligence – AI. AI has reached an inflection point, where it can now be applied to quickly drive efficient returns, and in our book, is ripe for building startups that will disrupt major markets and their incumbents. During the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine enabled a major technological shift as a large amount of manual labor was now able to be automated. Yet, few know that the first version of the steam engine was actually built the 1st century CE and was called Aeolipile.

Microsoft has been forced to dunk Tay, its millennial-mimicking chatbot, into a vat of molten steel. The company has terminated her after the bot started tweeting abuse at people and went full neo-Nazi, declaring that "Hitler was right I hate the jews." Some of this appears to be "innocent" insofar as Tay is not generating these responses. Rather, if you tell her "repeat after me" she will parrot back whatever you say, allowing you to put words into her mouth. However, some of the responses were organic.

It was a key moment that allowed our species to spread around the world from humble beginnings in Africa. But the migration of our ancestors from the African continent around 50,000 years ago was not helped by the evolution of our noses. In fact, our protruding noses formed as a result of other changes in our face and did not help us adapt to new climates as was previously thought, new research suggests. The researchers used a computer model to simulate the flow of air through human noses, pictured, compared to chimpanzees and macaques. We are flat-faced hominins with external noses that protrude from our faces.

Superbugs capable of everything from curing diseases to mopping up pollution have come a step closer after scientists created an artificial lifeform in a lab. The new bacterial cell, nicknamed Synthia 3.0, has fewer genes than any other bacterium, making it the most basic form of life on Earth. Its creation paves the way for microbes that can be customised with genes so they churn out clean biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or pump out vaccines in industrial quantities. Researchers have designed and synthesized a minimal bacterial genome, containing only the 473 genes necessary for life. Dr Craig Venter who led the research team, said: 'I think it's the start of a new era.'

Geri Richmond and Hashemite University molecular biologist Rana Dajani spoke after Richmond's AAAS presidential address to open the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting. Some of the most intriguing news at the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting focused on the tiny: a miniscule cosmic ripple born 1.5 billion years ago, and a millimeters-long mosquito responsible for an emerging health crisis. But the science behind these discoveries is huge in scope and in importance, reflecting the ongoing achievement of international research teams addressing complex challenges in science and society. Efforts to track the spread of Zika virus in the Americas, and the landmark discovery of gravitational waves, both demonstrate the power and potential--and the need--for global collaborations between scientists, speakers emphasized at the 11 to 15 February event, held in Washington, DC. In particular, scientists in developing countries must work as equal partners with their counterparts in developed countries to solve border-crossing challenges like climate change and virus outbreaks, said outgoing AAAS President Geri Richmond in her address at the start of the meeting.

Why did our ancestors develop a prominent protruding nose when most primates have flat nasal openings? A new study suggests that our unusual nose may have gained its shape simply as a by-product of other, more important changes in the structure of our face – although other researchers insist that some human noses have been directly shaped by natural selection. One of the many functions of the nose and nasal cavity is to act as an "air conditioner". Together, they make sure that the air an animal breathes in is made warm and humid enough to avoid damaging the delicate lining of the lungs. But Takeshi Nishimura at Kyoto University, Japan, and his colleagues argue that the human nose performs this job poorly.

"The day a computer wrote a novel. The computer, placing priority on the pursuit of its own joy, stopped working for humans." A pretty profound line--considering this sentence is part of a book that was actually co-authored by an artificial intelligence (AI). While it may not have won the top prize, this short-form novel, which was a collaboration between humans and an AI program, managed to make it through the first round of screening for a national literary prize in Japan called the Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award. Titled'The Day A Computer Writes A Novel,' the short story was a team effort between human authors, led by Hitoshi Matsubara from the Future University Hakodate, and, well, a computer. Matsubara, who selected words and sentences for the book, set the parameters for the AI to construct the novel before letting the program take over and essentially "write" the novel by itself.

Yesterday, Microsoft launched its latest artificial intelligence (AI) bot named Tay. It is aimed at 18 to-24-year-olds and is designed to improve the firm's understanding of conversational language among young people online. But within hours of it going live, Twitter users took advantage of flaws in Tay's algorithm that meant the AI chatbot responded to certain questions with racist answers. These included the bot using racial slurs, defending white supremacist propaganda, and supporting genocide. Yesterday, Microsoft launched its latest artificial intelligence (AI) bot aimed at 18 to 24-year-olds to improve their understanding of conversational language among young people online.