Every year, the prizes recognize the weirdest research that often raises some very serious scientific questions. Achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think. That's the motto of the Ig Nobel Prizes, an annual competition that--parodying the Nobel Prizes--recognizes some of the world's most unusual scientific studies. The organization Improbable Research has been hosting the event since 1991 with the aim of showing that science also has a humorous side in its quest to meaningfully answer questions about the world. This year the ceremony was held in Zurich, Switzerland, and recognized 10 research projects ranging from an attempt to scientifically define what a kiss is to an experiment that used buried underwear to assess soil health.

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Bones collected from three caves in Spain reveal how cannibalism came back over thousands of years. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. An adult Neolithic skull from Majolicas cave shows cut marks from butchering. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

Bioinspired designs could be sturdy astronaut allies. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Egg-shaped arrays filled with water are very effective at dampening projectile impacts. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

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Taken from high resolution satellite imagery. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your current area of research? I use computational tools to study animal behaviour. After my PhD, I joined the U.S. Army Research Office, where I used satellite imagery to follow animals across whole landscapes, which is a powerful technique for seeing broad patterns, but far too coarse to capture what individuals are actually doing. That gap is what drives my current work at Princeton: I combine drone video with AI methods to resolve movement at much finer scales, as I have done in studies of Olive Baboons and lions.

Danijar Hafner has a startup in stealth and a long track record of teaching AI agents about our world. Danijar Hafner's office in San Francisco's SoMa district sits mostly empty. His brand-new startup is still in stealth mode and doesn't even have its name on the door. On the day I visit, there's only one other person there, and little in the way of furniture. But what it lacks in decor, it makes up for in robots. Humanoids of various shapes and sizes hang like marionettes from racks that run down the center of the wide-open space.

An experimental lung disease drug developed using artificial intelligence showed promise in reversing biological signs of aging, pointing to broader potential use of the treatment, according to its developer. In a midstage study, Insilico Medicine's drug rentosertib helped reduce biological age as measured by six different aging clocks examining chemical changes in the body, according to an analysis published in Nature Biotechnology on Monday. Those who were given a placebo saw little change in their biological age on those same clocks, the Hong Kong-listed company said. "If your biological age is lower, you are likely to die later," the AI drug discovery startup's CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov, said in an interview. He cautioned that the results are still early and the long-term health effects of the drug on larger groups of people are unknown.

UK pupils have performed well again in international science, reading and maths tests sat every three years by hundreds of thousands of teenagers around the world. The UK's performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) remained steady, ranking below the highest-performing countries like Singapore, Estonia and parts of China, but ahead of the US, Australia and other major European nations. But the Pisa report also warned of a worldwide decline in teenagers' reading skills. England's schools minister, Georgia Gould, said the government wanted to build on the positive results and go further so all young people leave school with strong literacy and numeracy. The Pisa tests, run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), assess teenagers on their ability to solve problems, think critically and communicate, before asking them a wider range of questions about their education in a questionnaire.

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