Paris (AFP) Nov 13, 2023 Images of faces generated by artificial intelligence (AI) can now appear more real than pictures of real people – as long as they are white, a study said on Monday. AI is now so good at depicting white people that the images are “hyper-real”, said the report in the journal Psychological Science. But AI tends to depict people of other … Continue reading AI images of white faces are now ‘hyper-real’: study

Jakarta (AFP) Nov 13, 2023 A critically endangered Sumatran elephant was born in western Indonesia over the weekend, according to officials, giving renewed hope to conservation efforts after several other baby elephant and rhino births in recent months. Weighing about 108 kilograms (238 pounds), the yet-to-be-named male calf was born at the Way Kambas National Park in Lampung province in southern Sumatra, the Ministryhttp://dlvr.it/SysB7B Continue reading Critically endangered Sumatran elephant born in Indonesia

Grindavik, Iceland (AFP) Nov 13, 2023 From Christmas gifts to sheep, residents forced from an Icelandic town damaged by hundreds of earthquakes in recent days were able to briefly return on Monday to retrieve their belongings, authorities said. The southwestern town of Grindavik – home to around 4,000 people – was evacuated in the early hours of Saturday after magma shifting under the Earth’s crust … Continue reading Residents get brief return to volcano-risk Icelandic town

Washington (AFP) Nov 13, 2023 Dominica is set to create the world’s first sperm whale reserve, designating a swath of ocean where large ships and commercial fishing are restricted and visitors can swim alongside the gentle marine giants. The Caribbean nation said it hoped the new protected zone of 300 square miles (nearly 800 square kilometers) off its western coast – roughly the size of … Continue reading Dominica to create world’s first sperm whale reserve

Oxford UK (SPX) Nov 14, 2023 Scientists know very little about conditions in the ocean when life first evolved, but new research published in Nature Geoscience has revealed how geological processes controlled which nutrients were available to fuel their development. All life uses nutrients such as zinc and copper to form proteins. The oldest lifeforms evolved in the Archean Eon, three and a half billion … Continue reading Recreation of ancient seawater reveals which nutrients shaped the evolution of early life

Beijing, China (SPX) Nov 14, 2023 The discovery of several exceptionally preserved reproduction-related dinosaur specimens over the last three decades has improved our knowledge of dinosaur reproductive biology. Nevertheless, due to limited fossil evidence and a lack of quantitative analysis on a broad phylogenetic scale, much about dinosaur reproduction remained unclear, especially pre-Cretaceous evolutionary history. Nowhttp://dlvr.it/Syp6RS Continue reading The first dinosaur egg was leathery

Washington DC (SPX) Nov 14, 2023 In the 1800s, some of the strongest earthquakes in recorded U.S. history struck North America’s continental interior. Almost two centuries later, the central and eastern United States may still be experiencing aftershocks from those events, a new study finds. When an earthquake strikes, smaller quakes known as aftershocks can continue to shake the area for days to years after … Continue reading Some of today’s earthquakes may be aftershocks from quakes in the 1800s

Guapiles, Costa Rica (AFP) Nov 11, 2023 Raised in vertical farms and stuffed with fruit waste, fly larvae have been turned into animal feed, as a new Costa Rican venture in sustainability is demonstrating. The Central American nation, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has put a lot of energy and creativity into the goal of becoming the greenest, most sustainable country in … Continue reading Fly larvae: Costa Rica’s sustainable protein for animal feed

Beijing (AFP) Nov 10, 2023 China on Friday sentenced the former president of one of its biggest state-owned banks to life in prison for bribery, state media reported, as a campaign against corruption sweeps through the country’s financial sector. Sun Deshun, the onetime chief of China Citic Bank, was ruled by a court in eastern Shandong province to have illegally received property valued at 980 … Continue reading Chinese former bank chief given life in prison for bribery

Paris (AFP) Nov 11, 2023 Offering visas to citizens of islands sinking into rising seas caused by climate change could be a way for countries to score diplomatic points, Francois Gemenne, a specialist in environmental geopolitics told AFP. Gemenne, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was speaking after Australia announced it would offer refuge to the 11,000 residents of the Pacific … Continue reading Climate migration new diplomatic ‘bargaining chip’: expert