Instead, do the work to present statistical conclusions with uncertainty rather than as dichotomies. Also, remember that most effects can't be zero (at least in social science and public health), and that an "effect" is usually a mean in a population (or something similar such as a regression coefficient)--a fact that seems to be lost from consciousness when researchers slip into binary statements about there being "an effect" or "no effect" as if they are writing about constants of nature. Again, it will be difficult to resolve the many problems with p-values and "statistical significance" without addressing the mistaken goal of certainty which such methods have been used to pursue.

A UK minister has reassured the motor industry that buyers of driverless cars will not have to employ a gentleman with a red flag and top hat as he outlined a UK testbed for autonomous vehicles yesterday. Speaking at the SMTT Connected conference in London, industry secretary Greg Clark outlined a "cluster of excellence" stretching from London to, er, Birmingham into which the government will direct its support in its efforts to establish the UK as a leader in autonomous vehicles. Clark will be giving the area a boost in the coming weeks with announcement of the first tranche of funding from a £100m investment programme for the creation of test facilities for connected and autonomous vehicles. The cluster roughly corresponds to the M40 corridor, and auto history buffs will recognise it as the resting place of British motoring brand names - it's no coincidence that the British Motor Museum is just off the M40. But while the memory of British Leyland et al might be fading from the collective consciousness, Clark banged the drum for the UK's contribution in the autonomous and connected vehicle space.

Security software designed to prevent bank fraud has been fooled by a BBC reporter and his twin. BBC Click reporter Dan Simmons set up an HSBC account and signed up to the bank's voice ID authentication service. HSBC says the system is secure because each person's voice is "unique". But the bank let Dan Simmons' non-identical twin, Joe, access the account via the telephone after he mimicked his brother's voice. HSBC introduced the voice-based security in 2016, saying it measured 100 different characteristics of the human voice to verify a user's identity.

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Our Western diet is famously bad for the circulatory system, but for a long time, people thought the damage stopped there. Then around 10 years ago, Terry Davidson, a behavioral neuroscientist, wondered whether our modern eating habits might also affect our brains. To test it out, he fed lab rats a diet high in saturated fats and sugars. He found that the animals had problems learning various memory tasks for which they'd get rewards. Their difficulties were probably linked to changes in the way blood reaches a portion of the brain called the hippocampus.

Without noticing it, artificial intelligence (AI) already fits in many forms into our daily lives and supports our decision-making. At times, it's discussed a bit like blockchain, which we're being promised will solve things like world hunger and human trafficking. However, artificial intelligence is already prevalent practically everywhere in technology, from cars to Google searches and as this technology is specifically designed for singular tasks, we humans cannot compete with that level of insistent focus. This relates specifically to what is called Artificial Narrow Intelligence or ANI designed to perform one sole task meticulously. The two next levels of AI development, specifically Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) are still out of our reach, for now.

It seems like every other day there is news of some massive security breach resulting in people's login credentials being scattered all over the digital universe usually accompanied by embarrassing mea culpa statements issued by company executives promising they will "try to do better". Is it really that difficult to keep things secure? As it turns out, it's really difficult. We talked before about 9 hot cybersecurity startups looking to provide solutions that range from making sure you have installed the latest security patch to using machine learning to identify virus signatures on the fly. With the coming age of quantum computing, we will need to take things to a whole new level to ensure the security of critical industries like utilities and defense.

Watson, IBM's supercomputer, is most well known for beating two quizmasters on popular quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011. The impressive artificially intelligent software was developed to advance machine learning capabilities, including natural language processing, reasoning and knowledge retrieval. Watson can access information from an endless list of sources, from literature to databases. As AI continues to attract investment and R&D, it will impact our lives in so many ways. It's not surprising, then, that Watson has rather expanded its repertoire since its Jeopardy!

A heavy maintenance superintendent for a surface coal mine in Elgin, Texas, Evans was responsible for figuring out how to patch or replace outdated parts of a field delivery system that ferried coal from the mine to a plant. Each minute of downtime could cost the company as much as $170. Now the third-generation coal miner gets her adrenaline rush sitting indoors on a soft swivel chair, fixing code on a computer screen. The 33-year-old is a data scientist currently doing a paid residency at Galvanize in Austin. "I was an adrenaline junkie," sad Evans of her past career.

Google announced Wednesday it was bringing its digital assistant to Apple iPhones as part of its effort to win the battle with tech rivals on artificial intelligence. At its annual developers conference at an outdoor concert-venue near its main campus in Mountain View, California, Google unveiled its vision for computing centered around artificial intelligence. "We are now witnessing a new shift in computing: the move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said during an opening presentation. "It is forcing us to reimagine our products for a world that allows a more natural, seamless way of interacting with technology." Those interactions, for Google, include using artificial intelligence to let people engage computers conversationally, have software anticipate needs, and let smartphone cameras "recognize" what they see.