A team including CNRS astrophysicists have calculated the size and surface properties of the planet dubbed Proxima b, and concluded it may be an'ocean planet' similar to Earth. Scientists announced Proxima b's discovery in August, and said it may be the first exoplanet--planet outside our Solar System--to one day be visited by robots from Earth. A team including CNRS astrophysicists have calculated the size and surface properties of the planet dubbed Proxima b, and concluded it may be an'ocean planet' similar to Earth. It is estimated to have a mass about 1.3 times that of Earth, and orbits about 7.5 million kilometres (4.6 million miles) from its star--about a tenth the distance of innermost planet Mercury from the Sun. 'Contrary to what one might expect, such proximity does not necessarily mean that Proxima b's surface is too hot' for water to exist in liquid form, said a CNRS statement.

The flotation pod is smaller than I'd expected. It's white and round like an egg and, at first glance, seems like it couldn't be any longer than I am tall. Sitting in a tiled treatment room at a day spa in Carroll Gardens, the pod looks incongruous, like someone left an oversize computer mouse in a bathroom. I'm here, at a place called Lift Floats, to try sensory-deprivation flotation -- a Sixties throwback technology, invented by the neuroscientist John C. Lilly (best remembered today as the guy who came up with oddball experiments to study human-dolphin communication), that has lately regained popularity, particularly among athletes and Silicon Valley types. After being shown to the room, I shower, enter the pod naked, and close the lid. I lie back as the pod starts to play gentle music and the faint LED lights bathe the water in colors.

Have you ever been in a situation where knowing another language would have come in handy? I remember standing on the platform at Tokyo Station watching my train to Nagano -- the last train of the day -- pulling away without me on it. What ensued was a frustrating hour of gestures, confused smiles, and head-shaking as I wandered the station looking for someone who spoke English (my Japanese is unfortunately nonexistent). It would have been really helpful to have a bilingual pal along with me to translate. Bilingual pals can be hard to find, but Google's new translation software may be an equally useful alternative.

The technology industry is plagued with buzzword bingo in support of the fashion driven nature of the technology beast. Often confusing and occasionally downright ridiculous, we're never going to prevent smart ass marketers, ably supported by their anal-yst surrogates from making stuff up. The least some of us can do is make clear what is under discussion without mindlessly parroting what others say or conflating one concept with another. The latest in this stream of marketing laden garbage is AI or Artificial Intelligence, smeared with ML or Machine Learning and DL or Deep Learning. Add a soupçon of'robotics' just to amp the volume to something people can'get' and you have the potential for an exotic mix that both captivates the sentient mind but can also plant fear.

Artificial intelligence has captured the rhythm of science fiction. For example, the script of a new science fiction short is the creation of a bot. Although the software provides the order of the word choices, the source material is human. It works by algorithm and it derives its poetic power from the words of human feeling. The results are surprisingly good and even funny, in spite of its mechanized origins.

A truck struck the center divider of the 101 Freeway in Hollywood early Monday morning, sending debris into lanes and briefly causing a full freeway closure. The crash was reported at about 3:08 a.m. on the northbound freeway, south of Cahuenga Boulevard, said California Highway Patrol Officer Elizabeth Kravig. There were no reported injuries, she said. Northbound and southbound lanes were closed, but the southbound lanes, shut down by debris on the roadway, reopened around 4:26 a.m. Northbound lanes remained closed as of 5:45 a.m. as a tow truck tried to upright the truck, which is possibly a taco truck, Kravig said.

Indian and Pakistani troops fired at each other in disputed Kashmir on Monday, as Indian troops searched an army camp elsewhere in the region where suspected militants killed an Indian paramilitary soldier. Indian army Lt. Col. Manish Mehta said Pakistani troops fired without provocation using small arms and mortar shells in the Poonch sector of the Line of Control separating the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Pakistan's army said in a statement that its troops were responding to unprovoked firing by Indian soldiers. Both sides said the exchange of fire was continuing. In Islamabad, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with the leaders of all Pakistani political parties to discuss the ongoing clashes.

Soon scientists and the public will have the chance to easily test hypotheses about America's ecological challenges with the help of an ensemble of technologies, including artificial intelligence. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology will link their technology for systems thinking with IBM Watson and the Encyclopedia of Life at the Smithsonian. Scientists will then be able to use the information to create their own models about the environment and efficiently test them. The project is one of 10 "Big Data Spokes" announced by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF's 10 million initiative was created to improve the ability to solve the nation's most pressing challenges with the use of big data.

Video captured a crowd attacking a California Highway Patrol vehicle in Fresno with an officer inside last week. The incident took place last weekend, and three men have since been arrested in connection with the case. The video shows the assailants punching, kicking and throwing objects at the CHP SUV before the officer is about to drive away. One suspect "admitted to kicking the CHP vehicle and said he did so because he was upset with the CHP because a CHP officer recently towed his vehicle," Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer told ABC30. "There were several other people that were kicking the sides of the CHP vehicle. People there were other people that were chanting, yelling, 'F the police, we run the streets.'"

The gig: Kirstin Harper-Smith, 32, is senior project manager at Boston-based Suffolk Construction, where she is supervising the building of a 525-unit apartment tower on Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles. The 888 Grand Hope Lofts project by L.A. developer CIM Group will eventually rise 34 stories, consuming 27,000 cubic yards of concrete and 3,500 tons of rebar along the way. As head of the 10-person office side of the project, she oversees the budget, ensures safety requirements are met and directs who should do what jobs when -- all while trying to keep the project on schedule to wrap in about two years. She anticipates 10-hour days until then. An early start: Harper-Smith caught the engineering bug while growing up in San Diego.