A seemingly insignificant event that occurred in an ancient tropical jungle has led to two stunning scientific discoveries. Around 20 to 30 millions years ago, a monkey picked a tick from the back of one of its grooming partners, roughly tossing the insect away. The fossilised remains of this creature struck a tree and became stuck in its sap, which hardened and turned to amber over the ensuing millennia. And this artefact has now provided rare specimens not only of the blood of our primate ancestors, but also the parasites that inhabited it - which still infect humans and other animals today. A unique specimen of fossilised mammal's blood has been found leaking from the preserved remains of an ancient tick (pictured).

Artificially intelligent algorithms can learn to identify amazingly subtle information, enabling them to distinguish between people in photos or to screen medical images as well as a doctor. But in most cases their ability to perform such feats relies on training that involves thousands to trillions of data points. This means artificial intelligence doesn't work all that well in situations where there is very little data, such as drug development. Vijay Pande, professor of chemistry at Stanford University, and his students thought that a fairly new kind of deep learning, called one-shot learning, that requires only a small number of data points might be a solution to that low-data problem. Stanford chemistry Professor Vijay Pande and his students see a future for machine learning in the early stages of drug development.

The House of Lords Liaison Committee has said there should be an ad hoc committee on artificial intelligence, but has rejected an application for an investigation of national identity cards. The committee advises the House of Lords on the resources that are required for select committees' work, as well as reviewing their activity and considering proposals for new committee activities. This includes reviewing peers' proposals for new ad hoc committees, of which there are four per session. The House of Lords yesterday agreed to the committee's latest report, New Investigative Committees in the 2017-18 Session, which sets out the four ad hoc committees for the next parliamentary session, as well as those applications that did not succeed. Speaking in the Lords, senior deputy speaker and Liaison Committee chairman John McFall said that the four ad hoc committees would be on AI; citizenship and civic engagement; political polling and digital media; and on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.

In the next stage of artificial intelligence adoption, banks will use AI to help understand the intentions and emotions of customers and enable better interactions, according to a new survey of over 600 bankers, from Accenture. In turn, the report suggested that in three years artificial intelligence (AI) will be the main way banks interact with their customers. More than three-quarters (78%) of bankers believed that AI will enable simpler user interfaces that will help banks create a more human-like customer experience. In addition, four out of five respondents felt that AI will revolutionise the way banks gather information and interact with customers. See also: Lloyds Bank's £1.75BN bet on the future of banking "Consumers' diverse needs and priorities are forcing financial services firms to redefine how they interact with them to determine the best products and services to meet individuals' needs," said Alan McIntyre, a senior managing director at Accenture and head of the company's Banking practice.

WIRE)--GumGum, an artificial intelligence company with particular expertise in computer vision, today launched The Visionary, an online program made up of original and curated content, a newsletter, awards and more, that focuses on the current trends and future opportunities of artificial intelligence and computer vision. The goal of The Visionary is to provide its readers with easily digestible insights into the fast-changing world of artificial intelligence and computer vision. Prior to The Visionary, there was no centralized, non-technical source on computer vision that sought to bring information on this fascinating field to mass audiences at all knowledge levels. As artificial intelligence remains at the forefront of technology, GumGum recognized the opportunity to make this content relatable and easy to understand. Through original, visual graphics, high-quality curated content and other initiatives, GumGum takes a deep dive into computer vision as the technology further evolves as a leading application of artificial intelligence.

I'm Nathan Benaich -- welcome to issue #18 of my AI newsletter! I will synthesise a narrative that analyses and links important happenings, data, research and startup activity from the AI world. Grab your hot beverage of choice and enjoy the read! If you're looking to invest, research, build, or buy AI-driven companies, do hit reply and drop me a line. In a massive deal this quarter, Intel CEO agreed to purchase Mobileye for $15.3bn. The 18-year old NYSE-listed Israeli company holds a portfolio of camera-based computer vision, sensor fusion, mapping and driving policy products for advanced driver assistance features such as pedestrian, vehicle and sign detection as well as relationships with Tier 1 OEMs. Intel takes the view that "whoever has the best data can develop the best AI". Intel already has a strong position in silicon (in-house Nervana and Movidius), memory and communications.

A weathercat." -- Poncho asked me where I was, so it could tell me the local weather forecast. I could have shared my location using Messenger's built-in location-sharing feature, but that would take me through three in-app menu screens, and wasn't the point of chatbots to chat?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, was declared recipient of the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery's AM Turing award on Tuesday. In an interview with the Guardian, Berners-Lee discussed the "appalling" attitude of Republican politicians seeking to roll back net neutrality protections, how his own legacy intersects with the great Alan Turing's, and the astonishing progress of the web since he launched the very first website on 1 August 1991. Berners-Lee hasn't rested on his laurels since creating the information space in which this article is being read: the 61-year-old information scientist, now at Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spent years fighting to protect an open internet and against privatization of personal data. The 51-year-old prize could scarcely go to a more appropriate recipient. Turing's innovations helped to standardize computing, and Berners-Lee helped to make standardized conversation between computers possible for the layman.

A new book by Lentin Joseph, ROS Robotics Programming, outlines more than 14 robotics projects using ROS that can be engaged with without requiring a lot of hardware. The book starts with an introduction to ROS and its installation procedure. After discussing the basics, you'll be taken through great projects such as building a self-driving car, an autonomous mobile robot, and image recognition using deep learning and ROS. You can find ROS robotic applications for beginner, intermediate, and expert levels inside. This book is unique in that it focuses on ROS via the lens of robotics projects only.

Most fintech companies offer better interfaces for handling money (bank accounts, loans, payments, etc.), but quite a few startups are also offering a solution for a much older need than how to make money. Israel company I Know First, managed by CEO Yaron Golgher, is one of these. The company's main product is an algorithm that provides a forecast for three thousand different investment instruments, including shares, commodities, interest rates, foreign currency, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and global indices. "The algorithm rates all the investment instruments, and singles out investment opportunities in the capital market on a daily basis, according to the pricing anomaly it finds," Golgher says in a "Globes" interview. Golgher: "The algorithm is self-learning. It is based on purely quantitative values, not reading news or any kind of analysis. There is no human factor here. The algorithm uses artificial intelligence, an area in which huge companies like Apple Computers, Google, and Facebook have recently been making massive investments. The algorithm was developed by our development team, headed by cofounder and CTO Dr. Lipa Roitman. Roitman is a scientist from the Weizmann Institute of Science with over 20 years of experience in the specific field of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms. The forecast is given for a period of time. What is interesting is that for every forecast, the algorithm also assigns a probability that the forecast will be fulfilled. Every customer can receive a forecast according to his investment preferences. For example, a person investing in technology shares can receive the best opportunities in this segment, a customer investing in commodities will receive the best opportunities in the commodities market, etc." "We have expanded this year to 12 new countries, including the US and Europe, with an emphasis on Italy and France, and Russia, too. We work with Latin America, especially Brazil. The business model is based on access to the algorithm to a varying extent, according to the customer's size."