Russia has warned the United States against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East. Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a U.S. intervention against the Syrian army "will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole." She says regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be "quickly filled" by "terrorists of all stripes." U.S.-Russian tensions over Syria have escalated since the breakdown of a cease-fire last month, with each side blaming the other for its failure. Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have launched a major onslaught on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo.

Swiss researchers have completed a study documenting how alcoholic beverages function as a "social lubricant." Was formal research really needed to establish that alcohol "facilitates sexual disinhibition" leading to hook-ups? As if we baby boomers hadn't already made that connection decades ago. Perhaps the researchers weren't familiar with the wisdom (and wit) of mid-20th century poet Ogden Nash, who famously observed, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." To the editor: How can I get on the research gravy train as illustrated by this study whose "researchers concluded that alcohol's role as a social lubricant can be traced to its ability to facilitate'sexual disinhibition?' " Revelation!

With Congress opening the way for Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia, victims' families are focusing on an unproven theory that a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles and a Saudi intelligence operative in San Diego directly assisted two of the 19 hijackers. The alleged Southern California connection is the key to showing that Saudi Arabia financed Muslim extremists who played a direct role in supporting some of the hijackers, according to lawyers for the families of those killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. The families contend that lower-level Saudi operatives in Southern California helped find housing for the two hijackers, both Saudi citizens, months before they muscled their way into the cockpit of an American Airlines passenger jet that smashed into the north side of the Pentagon. If a pending lawsuit is allowed to proceed, the families hope to find the evidence in thousands of classified FBI, CIA and Treasury Department documents that could be made public as part of discovery in federal court. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any direct or indirect support for Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the attacks, or any foreknowledge or involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

California regulators have changed course and opened a pathway for the public to get self-driving cars of the future that lack a steering wheel or pedals. It's not going to happen soon, because automakers and some tech companies are still testing prototypes. But, in a shift, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles said in a revision of draft regulations released late Friday that the most advanced self-driving cars would no longer be required to have a licensed driver if federal officials deem them safe enough. Authorities on Friday released cellphone and surveillance video showing the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, hoping to quell growing questions about the incident that has led to violent protests. The video provides more context about the moments before the fatal encounter on Tuesday,... Authorities on Friday released cellphone and surveillance video showing the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, hoping to quell growing questions about the incident that has led to violent protests.

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn's distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities.

At Experian DataLabs in San Diego, a team of scientists is thwarting bad guys with math. A top-five U.S. credit card issuer recently dumped about 6 billion transaction records on Experian DataLabs to see if its machine-learning mathematical formulas could do a better job of rooting out credit card fraud than the bank's existing system. Experian scientists used neuro-embedding/natural language processing techniques to understand the "syntax" of the credit card data, computer scientist Honghao Shan said. "We thought we had figured it out and went back to them," said Eric Haller, head of Experian DataLabs. "They said, 'How did you do that?' … It turns out we reduced their false positives by half."

You should be, says neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris -- and not just in some abstract theoretical way. We're going to build superhuman machines, says Harris, and our collective emotional and analytic response to the dangers is not where it should be. TED has finally released the long awaited talk by neuroscientist and author Sam Harris. In his presentation, Harris emphatically urges the audience to consider just how important the development of artificial intelligence is, and how our emotional response so far is "not appropriate tot he dangers that lie ahead." Even Harris admits,"I am unable to marshal this response, and I'm giving this talk."

Nate Parker has broken his silence over a 2001 sexual-assault trial, saying he does not feel remorse about the events in question. "I don't feel guilty," the filmmaker and star of "The Birth of a Nation" told Anderson Cooper in a "60 Minutes" interview scheduled to air Sunday. Parker was accused and acquitted of sexually assaulting a woman in 1999 while he was a student at Penn State University. Parker said it was consensual sex. "Birth" co-writer Jean Celestin was convicted; the ruling was overturned on appeal.

An unnamed regionally-managed health care provider partnered with ThingWorx's machine learning platform to detect patterns in data that would lead to better patient care and reduce costly readmissions for patients with ischemic heart disease, according to a case study provided by Thingworx. The solution predicts high-risk patients and provides caregivers insight into why flagged patients should receive extra care across their network using health care IoT. The unspecified health care network includes two major hospitals and a network of outpatient and preventative care providers. It has more than 1,000 patient beds, a home health care service, preventive medicine, rehabilitation services, a network of primary care physicians and a range of outpatient services. According to Thingworx, its client is one of the largest health providers in the country.

It's unavoidable: the Internet of Things will kill many jobs. Self-driving cars alone could put millions out of work. And the manufacturing sector, already reeling from decades of job losses, could see millions of more jobs replaced by machines. The convergence of IoT and cognitive computing could also threaten many prestigious jobs as computers learn to perform thinking tasks rather than solely mechanical ones. "We will soon be looking at hordes of citizens of zero economic value," write venture investor William H. Davidow and technology writer Michael S. Malone in Harvard Business Review. "Figuring out how to deal with the impacts of this development will be the greatest challenge facing free market economies in this century."