NASA has keyed in on a dozen technologies that will help humans on their next mission to the moon in 2024. The payloads which will be sent to the moon aboard one of NASA's landers, will aid the agency in its ambitious Artemis mission. NASA's next lunar landing will not only mark the first attempt to put humans back on the moon since 1972 -- including the first-ever woman -- but will eventually set forth the construction of a lunar base and a satellite called the'lunar gateway.' A new moon rover is among the technologies that are being studied and designed under NASA's direction for application toward its Artemis mission'The selected lunar payloads represent cutting-edge innovations, and will take advantage of early flights through our commercial services project,' said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington in a statement. 'Each demonstrates either a new science instrument or a technological innovation that supports scientific and human exploration objectives, and many have broader applications for Mars and beyond.'

Experts are warning against the creation of hybrid lab animals for fear of causing them undue suffering through potentially unethical research. One such proposed hybrid would be monkeys with partially human-derived brains. These'chimeras' -- so named after the mythical beast made of different animals -- could let us better study diseases like Alzheimer's in a model more like humans. Chimeras have already been created to explore the possibility of creating transplantable human organs in animals to relieve donor organ shortages. And recently Chinese researchers reported creating the first monkeys with human brain genes.

Chinese researchers have found two previously unknown species of parasitic wasps in a swarm hovering 11,000 feet (3,400m) above the sea in Tibet. The two species look very similar to each other because they belonged to the same genus (Microplitis), according to the researchers. Specimens of the wasps were kept in the Institute of Beneficial Insects at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) in China after being collected in 2013. Chinese researchers have found two previously unknown species of parasitic wasps in a swarm hovering 11,000 feet (3,400m) above the sea in Tibet. The newly described wasps have been named Microplitis paizhensis and Microplitis bomiensis, after where they were found in Tibet.

In the last few years, when the cybercrooks have speeded their execution plan on making quick money by ransomware attacks. All enterprises, including banks, government offices, police stations, big and small businesses, have witnessed WannaCry, Petya, NotPetya ransomware attacks. The question for us is what we can do to defend from cyber threats? The cybersecurity industry is pitching heavily to leverage AI to combat cyber threats. Almost every cybersecurity vendor is claiming to have AI in its product.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney were one of the Twentieth Century's most celebrated musical writing partnerships. Exactly what elements each of the pair contributed to their joint-credited hits has been a matter of much debate among fans, however. Now, researchers have used AI to work out which Beatle penned the music for a number of their most disputed songs. Scientists from Harvard and Dalhousie University in Canada trained their software using the Beatles back catalogue to recognise 137 unique musical patterns. These patterns, including notes, chords, and other musical motifs, were applied to eight disputed pieces of music to work out which of the Beatles wrote them.

Amazon has confirmed that its Alexa voice assistant sometimes stores your data indefinitely, even after any corresponding audio clips have been deleted. The admission comes after inquiries from US Senator Chris Coons, who asked the tech firm to explain what happens to voice records and data gathered by Alexa. The senator, a democrat, wrote to Amazon following a CNET investigation in May that revealed that the company retains voice records unless users delete them. The probe had also suggested that, regardless, written transcripts of those voice recordings may also be kept indefinitely. Amazon's device - along with Apple's Siri and, until recently, Google's Assistant - saves every single interaction a person has with the device, with some unintentional snippets also being recorded.

The program aims to develop process technology and hardware platforms based on emerging memory technologies for neuromorphic computing, addressing future applications in mobile devices that need complex machine-learning algorithms. Ultimately, the end-goal of this pan-European collaboration effort is to cram the capabilities of today's cloud-based server racks into neuromorphic chips able to execute the same algorithms within battery-powered mobile devices such as cars and smartphones (at the edge of the internet-of-things). In the coming years, the demand for edge artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms is only set to grow further, running increasingly complex computational algorithms for natural-language processing, face-recognition-based security systems or autonomous vehicles. Today, high-end server parks process the data in the cloud, with the inevitable data latency and energy inefficiencies associated with sending the data, let alone privacy issues. Hence, the ultimate edge artificial intelligence applications will require intelligent energy-efficient local processing.

Online supermarket Ocado has announced plans to open a London tech hub that will create 260 digital jobs as it plans to bolster the talent behind its smart platform. The Ocado smart platform will be sold to companies across the world to help them move online, the company has said. The London office, which will be based in Old Street, becomes the company's sixth development centre, with others in Hatfield, Bulgaria, Spain and two in Poland. "We're excited to be expanding our network of development hubs into London, a city renowned for being at the forefront of tech innovation and home to many talented technologists," said Ocado Technology chief executive James Matthews "As we are growing rapidly, we are always on the lookout for people who share our drive to innovate," Matthews added. "This London hub joins our network of development centres to offer exciting employment opportunities for ambitious, tech-savvy individuals."

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to improve people's lives worldwide and accelerate progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, AI can also bring with it a host of unintended consequences. One of the most pernicious areas could be AI's ability to spread misinformation at a pace and scale not seen before. At the recent AI for Good Global Summit, participants from academia, the United Nations, major media outlets and the private sector gathered to discuss the unintended consequences of AI and AI-powered misinformation. To be sure, AI has provided a wealth of task-facilitating tools for media and the field of journalism, where its impact can be seen in everything from the emergence of voice-recognition transcription tools to automatically generated content.

Apple has once again taken a shot at Google with a giant billboard next to its rival's smart neighbourhood reading'we're in the business of staying out of yours'. The firm placed the advert, which also says'Privacy. It is not the first time the firm has made thinly-veiled dig at its rivals, with a similar billboard appearing at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year. This one read'What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone'. Sidewalk Labs hope to revitalise a run-down stretch of Toronto's waterfront, with self-driving taxis, pavements that automatically melt away snow and traffic lights that track pedestrian movements.