Researchers from Penn Medicine are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to better identify the size and shape of children's brain networks, which could improve the understanding of psychiatric disorders. In the team's study, published recently in the journal Neuron, the researchers showed how each child's unique brain network can be used to predict their cognition. This work showed that functional brain anatomy expresses strong variance in children and that it is refined during development stages.

Twenty six hundred years ago, a band of Judahite soldiers kept watch on their kingdom's southern border in the final days before Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar. They left behind numerous inscriptions--and now, a groundbreaking digital analysis has revealed how many writers penned them. The research and innovative technology behind it stand to teach us about the origins of the Bible itself. "It's well understood that the Bible was not composed in real time but was probably written and edited later," Arie Shaus, a mathematician at Tel Aviv University told Gizmodo. "The question is, when exactly?" Shaus is one of several mathematicians and archaeologists trying to broach that question in a radical manner: by using machine learning tools to determine how many people were literate in ancient times.

Eventually, the team devised a handwriting recognition tool that worked beautifully on modern Hebrew, and they decided to put it to the test on ancient inscriptions. All in all, their analysis revealed at least six different authors behind the 16 ostraca. Examining the contents of the text itself, the researchers concluded that these authors spanned the entire military chain of command. "The commander down to the lowest water master could all communicate in writing," Shaus said. "This was an extremely surprising result."

Twenty six hundred years ago, a band of Judahite soldiers kept watch on their kingdom's southern border in the final days before Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar. They left behind numerous inscriptions--and now, a groundbreaking digital analysis has revealed how many writers penned them. The research and innovative technology behind it stand to teach us about the origins of the Bible itself. "It's well understood that the Bible was not composed in real time but was probably written and edited later," Arie Shaus, a mathematician at Tel Aviv University told Gizmodo. "The question is, when exactly?" Shaus is one of several mathematicians and archaeologists trying to broach that question in a radical manner: by using machine learning tools to determine how many people were literate in ancient times.