In sci-fi films such as'Frankenstein' and'Re-Animator', human bodies are brought back to life, existing in a freakish condition between life and death. While this sounds like the stuff of fantasy, a new study says a'third state' of existence really does exist in modern biology. According to the researchers, the third state is where the cells of a dead organism continue to function after the organism's death. Amazingly, after the organism's demise, its cells are gaining new capabilities that they did not possess in life, the biologists say. If more experiments with the cells from dead animals – including humans – show they can enter the third state, they could'redefine legal death'.

Should we be concerned about our voice being sourced for AI audiobooks? Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson delves into the new technology. Do you love reading yet struggle to find the time for it? Don't worry, you can still enjoy a good book without having to sit down and read. Audiobooks are a convenient way to experience a good story while you're doing other things.

A week is a long time in politics--particularly when considering whether it's okay to grant robots the right to kill humans on the streets of San Francisco. In late November, the city's board of supervisors gave local police the right to kill a criminal suspect using a tele-operated robot, should they believe that not acting would endanger members of the public or the police. The justification used for the so-called "killer robots plan" is that it would prevent atrocities like the 2017 Mandalay Bay shooting in Las Vegas, which killed 60 victims and injured more than 860 more, from happening in San Francisco. Yet little more than a week on, those same legislators have rolled back their decision, sending back the plans to a committee for further review. The reversal is in part thanks to the huge public outcry and lobbying that resulted from the initial approval.

Military drones are now everywhere. Of course, the capabilities of these machines are not the same, and the top-range models greatly outperform their lower-tier rivals. Simple remotely-operated robots and unmanned aerial vehicles are controlled by a human operator. Human decides what this military machine must do, even when conducting a simple reconnaissance operation, or dropping grenades through an open hatch on a tank's turret. But today we already have combat drones that can operate entirely on their own. This means they can recognize and engage their targets autonomously.

The other side of running technology at scale is dependability and reliability. For large hospitals, scale is a matter of life and death. If people don't have a good experience, they won't come back to the stadium. Figuratively speaking, scale is a matter of life and death for any business. The challenge of an infinite enterprise is having more technology for IT to manage and secure, while staying in compliance with regulations.

Some of the newest video games in development aren't really games at all, but experiences that seek to build empathy for others. Among the five such projects getting funding grants and support from 3D software engine maker Unity is "Our America," in which the player takes the role of a Black man who is driving with his son when their car is pulled over by a police officer. The father worries about getting his car registration from the glove compartment because the officer "might think it's a gun or something," the character says in the trailer. On the project's website, the developers describe "Our America" as "an autobiographical VR Experience" in which "the audience must make quick decisions, answer questions – but any wrong move is the difference between life and death." Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 6 is here:Wild animals, Lara Croft, Neymar Jr. and everything coming "Our America" and four other projects will evenly split $125,000 from Unity, the company announced Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference, which runs online through Friday.

Death is an inevitable part of life. Grief itself can be horrible. It is the natural way of processing death. Losing a loved one prematurely is one of the most horrific experiences in life. Given a choice, would you bring a loved one back using A.I?

Before he died, eccentric philosopher Jeremy Bentham asked that his body be stuffed and wheeled out at parties to help his friends with their grief. But the social reformer didn't stop there, bequeathing 26 memorial rings to those he knew and admired, featuring his bust in silhouette and strands of his hair. Now scientists are on the hunt for Bentham's rings, of which just six have been found since his death in 1832. The philosopher commissioned the rings a decade before he passed, leaving them in his will and testament to a list that included famous politicians, journalists, fellow philosophers and several of his servants. Researchers say the missing artefacts could be spread across the globe, after one was found in a jewellery shop in New Orleans.

Our definition of death is changing. Until the concept of brain death was realised in the 20th century, death was primarily presumed upon the absence of a pulse and breathing. Prior methods for detecting the presence of a heartbeat were not well founded and not always effective. This led to some rather strange additional criterion. In the 18th century for example, a variety of odd methods were engaged to hopefully determine if someone was dead.

In the forward to Microsoft's recent book, The Future Computed, executives Brad Smith and Harry Shum proposed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) practitioners highlight their ethical commitments by taking an oath analogous to the Hippocratic Oath sworn by doctors for generations. In the past, much power and responsibility over life and death was concentrated in the hands of doctors. Now, this ethical burden is increasingly shared by the builders of AI software. Of course, AI is not the first technology to confer great responsibility on its designers, not by a long shot. Cloud computing, smartphones, social media platforms, and Internet of Things devices have already transformed how we communicate, work, shop, and socialize.