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Categories: Offbeat: Computers and Math, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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A research team used 125 physical markers to understand the detailed mechanics of 44 different human facial motions. The aim was to better understand how to convey emotions with artificial faces. Beyond helping with the design of robots and androids, this research can also benefit computer graphics, facial recognition, and medical diagnoses.

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Mosasaurs, those large marine reptiles from the long-gone Cretaceous world, were quite picky in their choice of diet. Researchers came to this conclusion after studying the wear marks on mosasaur teeth.

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A new analysis of lice genetic diversity suggests that lice came to the Americas twice -- once during the first wave of human migration across the Bering Strait, and again during European colonization.

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Researchers have developed a virtual reality application where a range of 3D modelling tools can be opened and controlled using just the movement of a user's hand.

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Over 100 letters sent to French sailors by their fianc es, wives, parents and siblings -- but never delivered -- have been opened and studied for the first time since they were written in 1757-8.

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Scientists believe they may have discovered a way to rework the hardware of AI. By mimicking the synapses of the human brain.

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Researchers have used fossil evidence to engineer a soft robotic replica of pleurocystitids, a marine organism that existed nearly 450 million years ago and is believed to be one of the first echinoderms capable of movement using a muscular stem.

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The hunter-gatherers who settled on the banks of the Haine, a river in southern Belgium, 31,000 years ago were already using spearthrowers to hunt their game. The material found at the archaeological site of Maisières-Canal permits establishing the use of this hunting technique 10,000 years earlier than the oldest currently known preserved spearthrowers. This discovery is prompting archaeologists to reconsider the age of this important technological innovation.

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With the AI summit well underway, researchers are keen to raise the very real problem associated with the technology -- teaching it how to forget.

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The chance discovery of a note written in a 15th century Hebrew prayer book fills an important gap in the historical Italian earthquake record, offering a brief glimpse of a previously unknown earthquake affecting the Marche region in the central Apennines.  

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Carnivorous dinosaurs might have evolved to take advantage of giant carcasses, according to a new study.

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A new study that combines genetic and molecular techniques helps solve the riddle of sea star (commonly called starfish) body plans, and how sea stars start life with bilateral body symmetry -- just like humans -- but grow up to be adults with fivefold 'pentaradial' symmetry.

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Researchers combined physics and machine learning to develop a new 3D-printing technique that can quickly create complex physical patterns -- including replicating a segment of a Pollock painting -- by leveraging the same natural fluid instability that Pollock used in his work.

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New study finds some of the oldest animals in the world living in a place you wouldn't expect: fishes in the Arizona desert.

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Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, large, carnivorous aquatic lizards that lived during the late Cretaceous. With 'transitional' traits that place it between two well-known mosasaurs, the new species is named after a sea serpent in Norse mythology, Jormungandr, and the small North Dakota city Walhalla near to where the fossil was found.

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A new study analyzing declassified Cold War satellite imagery reveals 396 previously undocumented Roman forts and reports that these forts were constructed from east to west, spanning from what is now western Syria to northwestern Iraq. The analysis refutes Father Antoine Poidebard's claim that the forts were located along a north-south axis.

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Researchers have developed a souped-up telepresence robot that responds automatically and in real-time to a remote user's movements and gestures made in virtual reality.

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Smart, stretchable and highly sensitive, a new soft sensor opens the door to a wide range of applications in robotics and prosthetics. When applied to the surface of a prosthetic arm or a robotic limb, the sensor skin provides touch sensitivity and dexterity, enabling tasks that can be difficult for machines such as picking up a piece of soft fruit. The sensor is also soft to the touch, like human skin, which helps make human interactions safer and more lifelike. 

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A new study provides evidence that pigeons tackle some problems just as artificial intelligence would -- allowing them to solve difficult tasks that would vex humans.

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Recently discovered microfossils date back half a billion years. Resembling modern-day algae, they provide insight into early life in our oceans.