One Per Cent: What chatbots talk about when humans aren't around. Melissae Fellet, reporter Computers can converse well enough to fool people into falling in love with an imagined human.
But in listening to the random conversation of one chatbot talking to itself, a robot-on-robot love connection seems rather unlikely. Igor Labutov, Jason Yosinski and Hod Lipson at the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University connected a chatbot called Cleverbot to itself - just for an "afternoon hack", Yosinki says. Cleverbot is a web server that has been running since 1997. A human enters text and the bot searches its memory of over 20 million past conversations for the most appropriate response. In the video, two Cleverbots exchange text and a program converts the text to audible speech.
During their conversation, the two bots quickly discover that the other is a robot, although one declares itself a unicorn. The group is thinking about releasing an extended conversation or planning a public debate between many different chatbots. Stone Age toe could redraw human family tree - life - 10 August 2011. By Colin Barras ON THE western fringes of Siberia, the Stone Age Denisova cave has surrendered precious treasure: a toe bone that could shed light on early humans’ promiscuous relations with their hominin cousins.
New Scientist has learned that the bone is now in the care of Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who revealed the first genetic evidence of interbreeding between ancient humans and other hominins (New Scientist, 30 July, p 34). There are tantalising hints that the find strengthens the case for a third major group of hominins circulating in Eurasia at the same time as early humans and the Neanderthals. It might possibly even prove all three groups were interbreeding (see diagram). The Denisova cave had already yielded a fossil tooth and finger bone, in 2000 and 2008. It is a very exciting discovery, says Isabelle De Groote at London’s Natural History Museum. Foamy wakes cool the world, ships don't - environment - 20 August 2011.
Heal Thyself. Read more: "Heal thyself: The power of mind over matter" In a study of 50 people with advanced lung cancer, those judged by their doctors to have high "spiritual faith" responded better to chemotherapy and survived longer.
Over 40 per cent were still alive after three years, compared with less than 10 per cent of those judged to have little faith (In Vivo, vol 22, p 577). Are your hackles rising? Of all the research into the healing potential of thoughts and beliefs, studies into the effects of religion are the most controversial. There are thousands of studies purporting to show a link between some aspect of religion - such as attending church or praying - and better health. Critics of these studies, such as Richard Sloan of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, point out that many of them don't adequately tease out other factors.
Even if the link between religion and better health is genuine, there is no need to invoke divine intervention to explain it. More from the web.