A computer program could hold the key to predicting when the next tremors will occur in an earthquake zone. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory developed an algorithm that demonstrated a high level of accuracy in determining the failure times of quakes simulated in a lab. Here's how the experiment worked. The team analyzed data from a laboratory fault system that contains fault gouge, the ground-up material created by the stone blocks sliding past one another. When a frictional failure occurred in the lab quake, the shearing block moves or displaces, while the gouge material simultaneously dilates and strengthens based on measurably increasing shear stress and friction.

Forty years ago this coming Tuesday, a car-sized piece of equipment launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Thirty five years later, it became the first and only man-made object to enter interstellar space. Along the way, the Voyager probes (there were two) made headlines for flybys of Jupiter, Saturn and Titan. Fran Bagenal was a student when the Voyager probes launched, and wrote her doctoral thesis on data the probes collected around Jupiter. The professor of astrophysical and planetary science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and former chair of NASA's Outer Planet Assessment Group, has also worked on the Galileo, Deep Space 1, New Horizons and Juno missions. Nautilus caught up with Bagenal to discuss the legacy of Voyager and the future of manned and unmanned exploration of space.

Girls who have seen the first season of Hyperlinked, an original series on Google's YouTube Red, are 11% more likely to be interested in computer science careers than viewers who have not watched the show, according to a new study. SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is calling on Hollywood to give equal screen time to women and minorities after a new study the Internet giant funded found that most computer scientists on television shows and in the movies are played by white men. It does not inspire underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science, says Daraiha Greene, Google CS in Media program manager, multicultural strategy. "We are not trying to erase that image, but we want to diversify and show other people in these roles as well," Greene said. More than three-quarters of characters engaged with computer science are men and more than two-thirds are white while 17.2% are Asian and 15.5% are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, according to the study from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Artificial intelligence isn't just good for customer service chatbots and personal assistants on your mobile, advances in the field are also helping to revolutionise scientific research. Scientists from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have shown that a form of AI known as neural networks can accurately analyse complex distortions in spacetime a whopping ten million times faster than traditional methods. "Analyses that typically take weeks to months to complete, that require the input of experts and that are computationally demanding, can be done by neural nets within a fraction of a second, in a fully automated way and, in principle, on a cell phone's computer chip," said postdoctoral fellow Laurence Perreault Levasseur, a co-author of a study published in Nature. KIPAC scientists have for the first time used artificial neural networks to analyze complex distortions in spacetime, called gravitational lenses, demonstrating that the method is 10 million times faster than traditional analyses. The team at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, a joint institute of SLAC and Stanford, used the neural networks to look at images of strong gravitational lensing, where a picture of a far-flung galaxy is multiplied and distorted by the gravity of a massive object that's closer to us, such as a galaxy cluster.

The US Open pits 256 players against one another, competing for more than $50 million in prize money in this year's Grand Slam event. A quarter-million points will be scored during the two-week tournament in Queens, in New York City, and at any given time, 17 matches can be in progress. To make sense of all that, and serve up better, quicker digital access, the U.S. Tennis Association is using a special weapon: IBM Watson. The artificial intelligence system will help the USTA sort through thousands of highlights each day, selecting the best ones using its own scoring system. Fans not in front of a TV will then be able to see those highlights almost instantly.

Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have for the first time shown that neural networks – a form of artificial intelligence – can accurately analyze the complex distortions in spacetime known as gravitational lenses 10 million times faster than traditional methods. "Analyses that typically take weeks to months to complete, that require the input of experts and that are computationally demanding, can be done by neural nets within a fraction of a second, in a fully automated way and, in principle, on a cell phone's computer chip," said postdoctoral fellow Laurence Perreault Levasseur, a co-author of a study published today in Nature. KIPAC scientists have for the first time used artificial neural networks to analyze complex distortions in spacetime, called gravitational lenses, demonstrating that the method is 10 million times faster than traditional analyses. The team at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of SLAC and Stanford, used neural networks to analyze images of strong gravitational lensing, where the image of a faraway galaxy is multiplied and distorted into rings and arcs by the gravity of a massive object, such as a galaxy cluster, that's closer to us. The distortions provide important clues about how mass is distributed in space and how that distribution changes over time – properties linked to invisible dark matter that makes up 85 percent of all matter in the universe and to dark energy that's accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Richard Anderson, the tall, handsome actor best known for costarring simultaneously in the popular 1970s television shows "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," has died at age 91. Anderson died of natural causes on Thursday, family spokesman Jonathan Taylor said. "The Six Million Dollar Man" brought a new wave of supernatural heroes to television. Based on the novel "Cyborg" by Martin Caidin, it starred Lee Majors as U.S. astronaut Steve Austin, who is severely injured in a crash. The government saves his life by rebuilding his body with atomic-powered artificial limbs and other parts, giving him superhuman strength, speed and other powers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that whoever reaches a breakthrough in developing artificial intelligence will come to dominate the world. Putin, speaking Friday at a meeting with students, said the development of AI raises'colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now.' He warned that'the one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world.' Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, attends a meeting with students in Yaroslavl, Russia, Friday, Sept. 1, 2017. Putin, speaking Friday at a meeting with students, said the development of AI raises'colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now' 'Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,' Putin said during the discussion, according to RT.

Robots have written phoney reviews on Yelp that are so convincing they're almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Scientists created this articulate artificial intelligence system to show how damaging neural networks can be if they are not monitored properly. If an angry customer or competitor wanted to spam a page with negative reviews it seems one day they could pay a machine to churn fabricated complaints out for them. Researchers believe this type of AI has the ability to dramatically disrupt certain industries. In order to test how convincing robot reviews were, researchers from the University of Chicago got 40 volunteers to see if they could tell the difference between real and fake reviews for 40 restaurants.

"Contagious yawning, in which yawning is triggered involuntarily when we observe another person yawn, is a common form of echophenomena -- the automatic imitation of another's words (echolalia) or actions (echopraxia)," the study said. Telling the participants to stifle their yawns only increased their urge to yawn, the researchers found. As the researchers used TMS, it was also possible to increase the "excitability" in the motor cortex and thus even increase people's tendency to contagious yawns. When the researchers applied electrical currents to the motor cortex in their experiments, the urge to yawn among the participants increased.