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If we are to one day communicate naturally with robots, they will need to master not only speech, but also the subtle yet essential rules of non-verbal communication such as posture and eye movement. A team of researchers is using machine-learning techniques...
Video
10.01.2018
The results from a major campaign of lidar mapping in Guatemala caused a sensation early this year, revealing the remains of 60,000 Maya ruins, most of them totally unknown and buried beneath the dense tropical forest. Seven international teams used this...
Article
09.27.2018
The 2018 CNRS Gold Medal, France's highest scientific prize, is awarded to the philosopher and Hellenist Barbara Cassin for her work on the world’s languages, the challenges of translation, and the power of words. We republish her 2017 profile.
Article
09.27.2018
In northern Jordan, a Roman-era painted tomb has been unearthed by the Department of Antiquities. An extraordinary document of religious, political, and social history that three historians and epigraphists have had an opportunity to examine, and are striving...
Article
09.21.2018
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Article
09.19.2018
Can social phenomena be described by mathematical laws? In his recent book, the physicist Pablo Jensen warns against the temptation of modeling everything, which—following our increasing reliance on...
Article
09.12.2018
Nine crisscrossed lines on a 73,000-year-old South African rock fragment have emerged as the world’s earliest-known drawing following a scientific study into how they were originally traced.
09.10.2018
Is science doing enough to help protect the environment? Following a detailed analysis of 13,000 publications on the subject, the answer is yes. A retort to those who believe that conservation...
09.06.2018
One day, our superhuman bodies, augmented with memory implants and infrared eyesight, will stop ageing. And we will never die, our conscience uploaded to heavenly clouds of bits and bytes, floating...
09.03.2018
Machines will one day be able to carry out all tasks currently performed by humans. We asked the economist Gilles Saint-Paul to describe six possible futures for the 22nd century.
Article
08.28.2018
Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, the pioneering science-fiction novel that went on to become a universal myth, is the subject of a romantic period-drama that hit movie theaters this Summer. Did...
03.28.2018
As decision support systems come into ever-wider use, are we in danger of losing a bit of our humanity by relying on machines? Moreover, even software programs based on “cold” logic are not devoid of...
03.26.2018
Severely damaged by fire during the Second World War, the Chartres manuscripts, one of Europe's most important medieval collections, are now undergoing a vast restoration and digitization...
03.17.2018
Discovered in Pakistan in 1985, the Mehrgarh wheel amulet, 6000 years old, has long remained an enigma. Using new analytical techniques, a team of researchers has managed to unravel the secrets of...