Yuval Noah Harari might be Silicon Valley's favorite historian. His last book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which detailed the entirety of human history and how Homo Sapiens came to dominate the Earth, was blurbed by President Barack Obama and Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg recommended it for his book club. And more than 100,000 students have taken Harari's online course. In his new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Harari looks forward and hazards a few guesses on what comes next for humanity. These next chapters in our history range from the utopian to the horrific, he says.

How humanity will meet its end is a an endless source of fascination in science fiction. But scientists claim many of the scenarios depicted in films - such as an asteroid strike and killer robots - may not be as far fetched as you might think. Now researchers at Cambridge University's Study of Existential Risk (CESR) have come up with a list of 10 threats that may some day trigger an apocalypse. Humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment. Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold and it could one day spell the end for mankind if allowed to develop without strict controls.

Russia released drone footage Monday showing new destruction in Syria's historic town of Palmyra, which was recently recaptured by the Islamic State group, and warned that the militants could be planning the further demolition of antiquities. The Russian Defense Ministry says Syrian government forces are advancing toward the town as another battle for the ancient site looms. The video showed that the militants have badly damaged the facade of the Roman-era amphitheater and the Tetrapylon -- a set of four monuments with four columns each at the center of the colonnaded road leading to the theater. The video appears to show that only two of the 16 columns remain standing. IS militants have destroyed ancient sites across their self-styled Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq, perceiving them as monuments to idolatry.

If it wasn't already clear that AI-powered voice assistants are ready for the workplace, it is now. IBM is not only launching Watson for Cybersecurity, a cognitive computing service that parses legions of security reports to extract relevant info, but is unveiling an experimental voice helper to go along with it. Havyn lets digital defense experts ask for threat updates and recommended solutions when it would otherwise be too time-consuming. If security analysts are already hip-deep in work, they don't have to sidetrack themselves with a new research path when Havyn can produce a useful answer in seconds. The combo could be particularly helpful given Watson's depth.

Security analysts at IBM X-Force Command Centers are now using Watson. IBM keeps doubling down on Watson, the company's heavily-marketed cognitive software that has won Jeopardy! Watson for Cyber Security, announced by IBM on Monday, takes the same core capabilities of Watson--the ability to read millions of documents and terabytes of information to derive insights a human might not spot--and puts them into a security operations center. With security officers at large corporations sometimes scanning several hundreds of thousands of events happening over their networks each day, IBM says it can add another line of defense by proactively helping to spot breaches and hacking attempts that might slip through unnoticed, then making suggestions on the best response. "This is breaking new ground," says Mark van Zadelhoff, general manager of IBM Security.

Nasa has narrowed down its quest to find alien life on the red planet by pin-pointing three potential target sites for its Mars 2020 mission. The US space agency will send its Mars 2020 rover to one of three drilling sites - each selected for their potential to host extraterrestrial life. The automated robot rover will scan the surface of the chosen landing site before taking detailed pictures and collecting rocky samples to bring back to Earth. The American space agency picked the three potential drilling sites during a workshop with planetary scientists in California on February 10. The site with the most votes - the Jezero crater - was once home to an ancient Martian lake.

Up, up and away: Dubai hopes to have a passenger-carrying drone regularly buzzing through the skyline of this futuristic city-state in July. The arrival of the Chinese-made EHang 184 -- which already has had its flying debut over Dubai's iconic, sail-shaped Burj al-Arab skyscraper hotel -- comes as the Emirati city also has partnered with other cutting-edge technology companies, including Hyperloop One. The question is whether the egg-shaped, four-legged craft will really take off as a transportation alternative in this car-clogged city already home to the world's longest driverless metro line. Mattar al-Tayer, the head of Dubai's Roads & Transportation Agency, announced plans to have the craft regularly flying at the World Government Summit. Before his remarks on Monday, most treated the four-legged, eight-propeller craft as just another curiosity at an event that views itself as a desert Davos.

Zoltan Istvan didn't have much of a chance at being president, but that didn't stop him from campaigning as the Transhumanist Party's candidate to promote his pro-technology and science positions. Istvan announced this morning that he plans to run for governor of California in 2018 under the Libertarian Party. "We need leadership that is willing to use radical science, technology, and innovation--what California is famous for--to benefit us all," he wrote in a Newsweek article. "We need someone with the nerve to risk the tremendous possibilities to save the environment through bioengineering, to end cancer by seeking a vaccine or a gene-editing solution for it, to embrace startups that will take California from the world's 7th largest economy to maybe even the largest economy--bigger than the rest of America altogether." When we spoke to him in November, Istvan made it clear that he would be looking at the Libertarian Party if he were to run for president again.

On a worldwide basis, companies are pausing efforts or taking a step back from globalization. In Europe, this is most evident in recent months with Brexit in the UK. In the United States, it is most evident in the proposals underway in Congress and the White House for H-1B visa reform, rising trade barriers, and potential changes to the tax that could change the tax implications of offshoring. Although the extent of changes is not currently known, it is reasonable and probable that they will make offshoring more difficult and more expensive (for customers and their service providers) as well as less socially acceptable. Is your organization one of the many that are now seeking alternatives to sending work offshore to achieve cost reduction?

Nasa might soon launch our best ever chance of meeting aliens. The space agency is putting together plans to send a lander to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons and perhaps the most likely place to harbour alien life anywhere near us. But first they will have to work out how they can actually land on a surface about which they know next to nothing. The agency started seriously exploring that possibility by commissioning a report on the value of sending a lander onto the icy surface of the moon. That report has now arrived and Nasa is looking to explore its findings with the scientific community.