The nose is one of humanity's most distinctive facial features, but exactly how we came to inherit such diverse shapes and sizes has remained a mystery. But new research which examined differences across populations around the world may have the answer. And it seems that the local climate may have helped to shape variations in the evolution of the nose. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University used 3D imaging to examine the nasal characteristics of 140 people. Dr Mark Shriver and his colleague Arslan Zaidi looked at the width of the nostrils, distance between nostrils, height of the nose, nose ridge length, nose protrusion, external area of the nose and the area of the nostrils. They examined the distribution of these traits across distinct global populations and compared them with temperatures and humidity in each area.

Canada is bringing in strict measures and fines for recreational users of drones. Transport Minister Marc Garneau on Thursday announced restrictions to curb the number of incidents in which recreational drones have come too close to planes, which has more than tripled since 2014. Recreational drone operators must now mark their drone with their contact information and are forbidden to fly them at night or in cloudy conditions. Drones will no longer be allowed to fly higher than 90 meters (295 feet), within 75 meters (245 feet) of any buildings, vehicles or people, or within 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) of airports. Violators are subject to a fine of up to $3,000 Canadian (US$2,251), and up to $15,000 Canadian (US$11,256) for corporations.

Who would you get to observe differences in how men, women and children interact? Experiments using a robotic head, called Furhat, aimed to uncover inequalities in people's participation when working on a shared activity, and see if a robot could help redress the balance. They revealed that when a woman is paired in conversation with another woman, she speaks more than if paired with a man. And two men paired together speak less than two women. But this only holds for adults.

Three months ago, Zoubin Ghahramani was a machine learning researcher at an under-the-radar startup. On Tuesday, Uber appointed him as its new chief scientist overseeing its Uber A.I. Labs, its new research arm dedicated to A.I. and machine learning. Here's what happened in the interim: In December 2016, Uber continued its aggressive push into artificial intelligence by acquiring A.I. startup Geometric Intelligence for an undisclosed amount. Ghahramani, a renowned machine learning researcher, was part of the 15-person Geometric Intelligence team absorbed in the acquisition. As part of the deal, Geometric CEO and founder Gary Marcus, a neural science professor at New York University and leading figure in A.I., became director of the A.I. Labs team at Uber based in San Francisco.

The UK government statistics for 2016 reported that 65% of large firms detected a breach in the previous year, a quarter of which occurred at least once a month. More worryingly, a report by Gartner shows that 80% of all security incidents go undetected by the breached organisations, so the rates of cyber attack are higher than we realise. The costs of cyber attack can be crippling, as highlighted by the media in their coverage of the various incidences that have rocked the IT security world in the past few months. Seemingly robust and industry-leading organisations such as Yahoo have suffered large-scale hacks, while attacks on financial institutions provide very real examples of what customers and businesses stand to lose by being the victim of a cyber attack. When Tesco Bank was hacked in 2016, £2.5 million was stolen from customer accounts, and the recent Lloyds Bank attack saw 20 million customer accounts compromised.

Armando Gonzalez has got a problem. The CEO of Ravenpack, a company which uses artificial intelligence to turn news and social media into usable indicators for financial services firms, is struggling to hire one particular species of coder: Lisp (formerly known as LISP) specialists. There just aren't enough of them to go around. "We're very actively hiring in data science," says Gonzalez. "Our team is going to grow by 20% to 30% this year and we're looking for data science specialists and developers who work across everything from Python to Lisp, but Lisp professionals are very hard to find."

Here, in reality, we live in a period of unprecedented introspection with regard to robots and automation. Hastening developments in the fields of artificial intelligence and cybernetics are converging on the creation of machines that are independent from human oversight. A recent commission from the European Parliament demanded a set of regulations be drawn up to govern the creation, use, and even rights of robots. Luminaries such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have warned that AI presents the greatest existential threat to mankind. You play as YoRHa No. 2 Model B (hereafter 2B for brevity and sanity's sake), a combat droid deployed by the human survivors who live on a spaceship circumnavigating Earth.

With growing criticism over misinformation in search results, Google is taking a harder look at potentially "upsetting" or "offensive" content. SAN FRANCISCO -- With growing criticism over misinformation in search results, Google is taking a harder look at potentially "upsetting" or "offensive" content, tapping humans to aid its computer algorithms to deliver more factually accurate and less inflammatory results. The humans are Google's 10,000 independent contractors who work as what Google calls quality raters. They are given searches based on real queries to score the results, and they operate based on guidelines provided by Google. On Tuesday they were handed a new one: to hunt for "Upsetting-Offensive" content such as hate or violence against a group of people, racial slurs or offensive terminology, graphic violence including animal cruelty or child abuse or explicit information about harmful activities such as human trafficking, according to guidelines posted by Google. The goal: to steer people with queries such as "did the Holocaust happen" to trustworthy websites and not to websites that engage in falsehoods or hate speech.

Machine learning, task automation and robotics are already widely used in business. These and other AI technologies are about to multiply, and we look at how organizations can best take advantage of them. Businesses are scrambling to use artificial intelligence and trying to work out how best to put digital assistants to work. Consumers are wondering what impact these new technologies will have on their everyday lives. From business to leisure, we interact with AI when we use an app to turn on a light bulb, talk to Google Home or Amazon Alexa, or write better emails.

Google will start shipping development kits for its Project Soli wireless gesture recognition technology later this year. Project Soli involves a millimeter-wave radar chip that can detect "very fine" gestures with fingers and hands. It can then be used for playing games using hand gestures on mobile devices, computers, and electronics. The technology has the potential to get rid of controllers and input devices. Its biggest impact could be in virtual and augmented reality.