When a lie detector fooled itself, sent Europeans back to drawing board on what AI to use at border points

When a lie detector fooled itself, sent Europeans back to drawing board on what AI to use at border points

In 2019, guards on the borders of Greece, Hungary and Latvia began testing an artificial-intelligence-powered lie detector. The system, called iBorderCtrl, analysed facial movements to attempt to spot signs a person was lying to a border agent. The trial was propelled by nearly $5 million in European Union research funding...

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Undone deal: Day Spurs thought they’d signed French linkman Manu Petit, only to pay for him taxi to Arsenal

Undone deal: Day Spurs thought they’d signed French linkman Manu Petit, only to pay for him taxi to Arsenal

How’s your luck? Tottenham believed they were about to pull off the signing of Emmanuel Petit in 1997, but Arsenal had other plans. This was a period of great success for the Gunners – Dennis Bergkamp and David Platt were added to the squad that summer, while Arsene Wenger was...

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Covid brain fog: Now medics grapple with cause of impaired attention, memory fuzziness, speed of data processing

Covid brain fog: Now medics grapple with cause of impaired attention, memory fuzziness, speed of data processing

Allison Guy was having a great start to 2021. Her health was the best it had ever been. She loved her job and the people she worked with as a communications manager for a conservation non-profit. Allison could get up early in the mornings to work on creative projects. Things...

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Theatre of Dreams: Man United squads of recent seasons would be European champions if titles were won on excuses

Theatre of Dreams: Man United squads of recent seasons would be European champions if titles were won on excuses

Manchester United have made it very easy to be pessimistic about anything emerging from Old Trafford. Almost a decade of mis-management has made it the instinct of anyone with even a casual relationship with reality to be sceptical about the Red Devils’ prospects, despite the dawn of the latest of...

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Report: Man’s testosterone level is directly related to whether his dad was present during teenage years

Report: Man’s testosterone level is directly related to whether his dad was present during teenage years

Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Their strategy is simple: inseminate as many females as possible and hope for the best. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks are usually tended by both mother and father. Wolf packs see alpha males and females...

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Supreme Court clips US environmental agency’s authority to curb greenhouse emissions

Supreme Court clips US environmental agency’s authority to curb greenhouse emissions

The US Supreme Court has limited the regulatory tools that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can use to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, dealing a massive blow to US President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. Academics and environmentalists lamented the loss of authority, as well as the precedent it could set for the...

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Congo buries remains of independence hero Patrice Lumumba 62 years after assassination

Congo buries remains of independence hero Patrice Lumumba 62 years after assassination

The remains of Congolese independence hero and first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba were laid to rest in Kinshasa on Thursday, the country’s Independence Day, 62 years after his assassination by Belgian-backed rebels. The ceremony was made possible after a gold-capped tooth, all that remained of the body, was returned to...

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China abandons non-interference policy, now wants to ‘silence the guns in Horn of Africa’  

China abandons non-interference policy, now wants to ‘silence the guns in Horn of Africa’  

China is offering to help “silence the guns in the Horn of Africa,” an ambitious undertaking given the multiple conflicts in the region, and an indication that Beijing may be moving away from its traditional “non-interference” stance towards more active diplomatic engagement. China’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa,...

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Scientists develop Artificial Intelligence that can predict a crime a week before it happens

Scientists develop Artificial Intelligence that can predict a crime a week before it happens

An artificial intelligence can now predict the location and predict rate of crime across a city a week in advance with up to 90 per cent accuracy. Similar systems have been shown to perpetuate racist bias in policing, and the same could be true in this case, but the researchers...

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New Mozilla study says TikTok is supercharging young voter apathy as Kenya heads to August 9 polls

New Mozilla study says TikTok is supercharging young voter apathy as Kenya heads to August 9 polls

Last year, Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the country’s elections management body, set a target to register six million new voters for this August’s upcoming general election. With 2019 census data indicating that nearly five million young Kenyans had reached voting age since the 2017 elections, that goal...

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