"It feels like you have a new set of eyes," said Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., who collaborates with Dr. Carlson. "You just can't see in as many dimensions as the model can." Dr. Han first came across machine learning in 2010. Computer scientists had been developing the technique for decades, and were starting to build powerful tools with it. These days, machine learning enables computers to spot fraudulent credit charges and recognize people's faces.

A University of Glasgow study developed machine learning models that could potentially identify animal viruses capable of infecting humans and classify how much of a risk they pose to humans by analyzing the genomes of viruses. The model outperformed models based on phylogenetic relatedness of specific viruses to other viruses known to infect humans according to the study, published in the peer-reviewed PLOS Biology. The model could have predicted SARS-CoV-2 as a high-risk coronavirus strain, said researchers. Analyses of the model show that there could be generalizable features of viral genomes that may make viruses preadapt to infect humans. These features are independent of the virus taxonomic relationships.

Maria Bartiromo investigates the future of the artificial intelligence industry and its impact on business. Artificial intelligence (AI) could be key in helping scientists identify the next animal virus that is capable of infecting humans, according to researchers. In a Tuesday study published in the journal PLoS Biology, the Glasgow-based team said it had devised a genomic model that could "retrospectively or prospectively predict the probability that viruses will be able to infect humans." The group developed machine learning models to single out candidate zoonotic viruses using signatures of host range encoded in viral genomes. With a dataset of 861 viral species with known zoonotic status, the researchers collected a single representative genome sequence from the hundreds of RNA and DNA virus species, spanning 36 viral families.