ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 661
October 18, 2015
System that replaces human intuition with algorithms outperforms human teams
By MIT
Big-data analysis consists of searching for buried patterns that have some kind of predictive power. But choosing which “features” of the data to analyze usually requires some human intuition. In a database containing, say, the beginning and end dates of various sales promotions and weekly profits, the crucial data may not be the dates themselves but the spans between them, or not the total profits but the averages across those spans.
MIT researchers aim to take the human element out of big-data analysis, with a new system that not only searches for patterns but designs the feature set, too. To test the first prototype of their system, they enrolled it in three data science competitions, in which it competed against human teams to find predictive patterns in unfamiliar data sets. Of the 906 teams participating in the three competitions, the researchers’ “Data Science Machine” finished ahead of 615.
In two of the three competitions, the predictions made by the Data Science Machine were 94 percent and 96 percent as accurate as the winning submissions. In the third, the figure was a more modest 87 percent. But where the teams of humans typically labored over their prediction algorithms for months, the Data Science Machine took somewhere between two and 12 hours to produce each of its entries.
“We view the Data Science Machine as a natural complement to human intelligence,” says Max Kanter, whose MIT master’s thesis in computer science is the basis of the Data Science Machine. “There’s so much data out there to be analyzed. And right now it’s just sitting there not doing anything. So maybe we can come up with a solution that will at least get us started on it, at least get us moving.”
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Rise and fall of agrarian states influenced by climate volatility
Gina Buckley-Yost/Penn State
By Penn State
Climate variability is one of the major forces in the rise and fall of agrarian states in Mexico and Peru, according to a team of researchers looking at both climate and archaeological records.
“We are arguing that the climate information in both areas is good enough to establish that climate is playing some role in the rise and fall of these city states,” said Douglas Kennett, professor of environmental archaeology. “Now we need to further refine the archaeological data.”
Kennett, working with Norbert Marwan, climatologist and statistician, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, looked at climate records for central Mexico gleaned from a stalagmite collected from Juxtlahuaca Cave in the state of Guerrero. They also looked at the climate record preserved in the Quelccaya ice cape in the Cordillera Vilcanota portion of the Peruvian Andes.
In both cases the climate records are based on oxygen isotope measurements on datable layers of ice or stalagmite cave deposition. These records show annual changes in rainfall and temperature for 2,000 years in Mexico and 1,800 years in Peru.
“There is a long tradition of archaeology in both central Mexico and the Peruvian highlands,” said Kennett. “There are also new high resolution climate records available that have not yet been capitalized on by archaeologists.”
The researchers note that some refinement in archaeological dating in some areas is still needed, but that the rise and fall of major polities is reasonably well known.
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Animal Parenting: Mothers That Play Favorites, Why Whales Have Menopause, And Adults Who Have Sex With Infants
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Two adult Nazca boobies, a species with some dark habits. Keith Levit/123rf.com
This is the conclusion of a three-part guest series by Dr Carin Bondar, author of The Nature of Sex, which is available now in the UK, Australia and
Why Antioxidants Might Actually Make Your Cancer Worse
Photo credit:
Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock
Antioxidants have made a fortune for the dietary supplement industry, but how many people really know what they are and why they’re supposedly good for you? One common claim is that the these molecules can protect you from cancer. This is supposedly because they can counteract other molecules known as “reactive oxygen species” or “free radicals” that can be created in our cells and then damage DNA, potentially leading to cancer.
Four Things You Should Be Doing To Protect Yourself From Cyberattack
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There are a few things you can do to keep yourself safe online. Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock
It is easy to get lost in a sea of information when looking at cybersecurity issues. And hearing about hacks and cyberattacks as they happen is a surefire way to feel helpless and totally disempowered.
Whatever The Strangest Star In The Galaxy Is, It’s Sure To Be Amazing
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Is this what we’re seeing around KIC 8462852 - a colossal megastructure built by alien intelligence? Probably not. The reality might be even more interesting. Kevin Gill/Flickr, CC BY-SA
For the past few days, the media has been abuzz with one of the most peculiar astronomical observations for many years. As described in a recent paper on the arXiv preprint service, a faint star in the northern constellation Cygnus has been seen acting incredibly strangely.
Brains Work Via Their Genes Just As Much As Their Neurons
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Don’t forget the genes! Brain image via www.shutterstock.com.
It’s not headline news that our brains are the seat of our thoughts and feelings. The brain is a body’s decision-maker, the pilot of its actions and the engineer that keeps all systems going. The brain suits the body’s actions to its surroundings, taking in sensory details and sending out appropriate and timely responses. We’ve long attributed the marvelous workings of the brain to the intricate structures formed by its highly specialized cells, neurons. These structures constitute the hardware of the brain.
Crowdfunded ‘Laser Razor’ Begs The Question Of What The Technology Can And Can’t Do
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Looks like a razor, cuts like a laser? Skarp Technologies
Since their first use in the 1960s, there has been a tremendous expansion of laser technology into an impressively wide range of uses, from fundamental science, healthcare and security to entertainment. Since Theodore Maiman’s first working laser at the Hughes Research Laboratory in 1960 more than 55,000 patents on laser technology have been filed in the US alone.
The Future Of Scientific Publishing: Let’s Make Sure It’s Fair As Well As Transparent
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A light at the end of the tunnel for academic publishing? Protasov AN/Shutterstock
Scientific publishing has undergone a revolution in recent years – largely due to the internet. And it shows no sign of letting up as a growing number of countries attempt to ensure that research papers are made freely available. Publishers are struggling to adapt their business models to the new challenges. But it is not just the publishers who struggle.
Unheeded Cybersecurity Threat Leaves Nuclear Power Stations Open To Attack
Photo credit:
Steag/VGB Power Tech GmbH, CC BY-SA
There has been a rising number of security breaches at nuclear power plants over the past few years, according to a new Chatham House report which highlights how important systems at plants were not properly secured or isolated from the internet.
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