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A google researcher was put on leave because he apparently believed his AI project had become sentient. Dr Mike Pound discusses.

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This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: https://bit.ly/nottscomputer.

One of the largest comets known is approaching our planet on the only trip through the inner solar system it will make during our lifetimes.

Five years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a large comet at the farthest distance ever, as it was approaching the sun from way out between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. Now, that giant space snowball is coming in for its closest pass by Earth in just a few weeks.

Comet C/2017 K2 will be at its nearest point to us on its current swing through the inner solar system on July 14. Even at its closest, however, it will still be farther away from us than the average distance between Earth and Mars. This will likely make it difficult to see the comet without at least a small telescope, despite its substantial stature.

If you need the hardware.


A separate study used metasurfaces as a telephone of sorts to help two people text simple messages, all without lifting a finger.

Direct brain-to-brain communication isn’t new. Previous studies using non-invasive setups had participants playing 20 questions with their brain waves. Another study built a BrainNet for three volunteers, allowing them to play a Tetris-like game using brainwaves alone. The conduit for those mindmelds relied on cables and the internet. One new study asked if metasurfaces could do the same.

Led by Dr. Tie Jun Cui at the Institute of Electromagnetic Space, Southeast University in China, the study linked a well-known brainwave signal, P300, to the properties of a metasurface. Their setup, electromagnetic brain-computer-metasurface (EBCM), used brainwaves to control a particular type of metasurface known as an information metasurface, which can code 0s and 1s like an electronic circuit board.