The waggle dance that honeybees perform is an astonishing way of communicating the location of food source. After over 60 years of its discovery, researchers still use manual labeling by watching hours of dance videos to detect different transitions between dance components thus extracting information regarding the distance and direction to the food source. We propose an automated process to monitor and segment different components of honeybee waggle dance. The process is highly accurate, runs in real-time, and can use shared information between multiple dances.

Artificial intelligence doesn't have to be super-sophisticated to make a difference in people's lives, according to a new Yale University study. Even "dumb AI" can help human groups. In a series of experiments using teams of human players and robotic AI players, the inclusion of "bots" boosted the performance of human groups and the individual players, researchers found. The study appears in the May 18 edition of the journal Nature. "Much of the current conversation about artificial intelligence has to do with whether AI is a substitute for human beings. We believe the conversation should be about AI as a complement to human beings," said Nicholas Christakis, co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS) and senior author of the study.

Uber employee Anthony Levandowski is at the center of the ride-sharing service's current legal battle with competitor Waymo. But now, Levandowski has another potential adversary against him: his own company. Uber said in a letter to Levandowski that if he did not follow the court's orders, the company could take action that could include firing him, the New York Times reports. Via TechCrunch, the letter, which was sent May 15, requested that Levandowski either confirm he never took documents from Waymo or that he hand over any documents within his possession. Levandowski, who is not directly being sued, has so far claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during the case. See A. Levandowski Employment Agreement, Aug. 17, 2016 ¶ 5(a) ("August 17, 2016 Employment Agreement").

Blood is one of the most vital components of the human body, but we can't create an artificial version, which means we must rely on donations for transfusions and operations. However, two recent studies suggest we're closer than ever to making a limitless, articifial supply of blood. In one new study, researchers created a mix of different types of blood stem cells that produced different kinds of human blood cells when transfused into mice, The Independent reported. This is an important step toward making artificial human blood, as doctors believe that figuring out a way to turn stem cells into blood artificially will eventually lead to this breakthrough. "This work is the culmination of over 20 years of striving," explained study researcher George Daley, The Independent reported.

Computer scientists at the University of Alberta are gearing up to watch a modern-age version of David versus Goliath, where man will battle machine in complex strategy board game, Go. "You could study Go for a lifetime," said professor Martin Mueller, who is travelling to China on Saturday to watch a three-game match between professional Go player Ke Jie and the computer program AlphaGo. Developed at Google DeepMind by a team of scientists -- including U of A alumni David Silver and Aja Huang -- AlphaGo was the first artificial intelligence to defeat professional Go players. In March 2016, the program beat one of the world's best players, Lee Sedol, in Seoul, South Korea, in a historic series that saw AlphaGo win four out of five games. Go is an ancient Chinese game that involves placing pieces, named stones, on an empty board to form territories and surround the other player. The tournament at the upcoming Future of Go Summit, from May 23 to 27, has the makings of an epic contest.

This article was written by Jim Frost from Minitab. He came to Minitab with a background in a wide variety of academic research. His role was the "data/stat guy" on research projects that ranged from osteoporosis prevention to quantitative studies of online user behavior. Essentially, his job was to design the appropriate research conditions, accurately generate a vast sea of measurements, and then pull out patterns and meanings from it. After you have fit a linear model using regression analysis, ANOVA, or design of experiments (DOE), you need to determine how well the model fits the data. To help you out, Minitab statistical software presents a variety of goodness-of-fit statistics.

This year's PyData London conference was held in Bloomberg's offices on the 6th and 7th of May, with Tutorial Day on May 5th. As was the case with PyData Amsterdam 2017, I made the time to watch all of the talks from the conference, and write a blog post about the ones I found the most interesting. As I'm a huge fan of Random Forests, and consider them to pretty much be Data Science 101, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk given by Nathan Epstein from conference host Bloomberg. He gave a very good intuitive introduction to how the algorithm works, and also spoke about its advantages over Neural Networks - something very useful in a time when everyone is really gung-ho over Deep Learning and "AI". Ian Ozsvald, author of the great "High-Performance Python", together with Guzstav Belteki and Giles Weaver, presented a piece of research they did for the NHS, using data collected from ventilators used in neonatal wards.

While leading the data science team at DataRPM, we have had the opportunity to interact with major players in the world for Discrete and Process Manufacturing. What we have found is that most companies (at-least those that matter) are moving towards an era of being resource consciousness since the cost of resources are going up. Companies in the past could focus on increasing top-line growth and comfortably lead the market. That is no longer true. Every CEO today has to worry about every line under the costs header and keep it under control.

Forty-five years have passed since humans last set foot on an extraterrestrial body. Now, the moon is back at the center of efforts not only to explore space, but to create a permanent, independent space-faring society. Planning expeditions to Earth's nearest celestial neighbor is no longer just a NASA effort, though the U.S. space agency has plans for a moon-orbiting space station that would serve as a staging ground for Mars missions in the early 2030s. The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is planning a lunar fueling station for spacecraft, capable of supporting 1,000 people living in space within 30 years. Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Robert Bigelow all have companies aiming to deliver people or goods to the moon.

Beyond membership in the Pantheon of Famous Brits, Winston Churchill and George Orwell would seem to have little in the way of common ground. Orwell was a journalist and novelist. Churchill had money and pedigree; the young Orwell lived on the street and raised his own vegetables during World War II. Churchill's political leanings were conservative; Orwell flirted with communism until he witnessed the betrayal of his Republican comrades by Soviet agents in the Spanish Civil War. In "Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom," Thomas E. Ricks gets beyond these differences and finds the iron core of both men.