Researchers from Estonia and Italy developed an innovative method by combining neural networks and statistics. Using this newly developed method, they refined the "Out of Africa" scenario. The researchers claimed that the African dynamics around the time of the Out of Africa expansion are more complex than previously thought. Archaeologists and geneticists agree that all modern humans originated somewhere in Africa around 300 thousand years ago. The population movement that colonized the rest of the globe occurred approximately 60-70 thousand years ago.

Two of the opening keynotes at the Artificial Intelligence Conference, hosted by O'Reilly Media, highlighted the corporate efforts by a couple of well-established technology companies to use artificial intelligence for social good. The SAS Institute's Mary Beth Ainsworth talked about how the analytics company is partnering with a nonprofit organization to study cheetah populations in southwest Africa by using computer vision. And Microsoft Corp.'s Jennifer Marsman talked about the company's efforts to use machine learning, the internet of things and new networking ideas to reduce world hunger. They are part of a growing collection of tech companies investing in projects that use artificial intelligence for social good. The list includes IBM and its IBM Watson AI XPrize, as well as Amazon and its "artificial intelligence for good manager."

Sunday night's season 1 finale of Westworld was the perfect finish to a near-perfect season of television. While many fan theories came true tonight, there were some big twists that not everyone saw coming. Better still, the finale leaves plenty of loose ends flapping in the breeze, leaving the door wide open for a second season. Perhaps the biggest twist of the night was Dr. Ford's role in...well, everything. It turns out it wasn't Arnold's voice in the hosts' heads, nor was it Arnold manipulating the hosts to awaken and rebel.