Briana Brownell

Tech entrepreneur. Data scientist. Lover of art, music, travel, food, wine, and improbable shoes. Narrowly avoided living with a leopard in SoMA. www.leopardless.com

Magazines

Uncanny Learning

Followers

Flips

Canada
Canada lacks laws to tackle life-and-death problems posed by artificial intelligence, experts say
The Globe and Mail - Chris Reynolds
The role of artificial intelligence in Netflix’s movie suggestions and Alexa’s voice commands is commonly understood, but less known is the shadowy role AI now plays in law enforcement, immigration assessment,
News
Scientists start to unravel how the brain forgets
Axios - Alison Snyder
We are desperate to fight forgetting — it scares us, it annoys us, and it can cost us. Yet there are also memories we want to forget. Why it matters: …
Science
Scientists create the loudest possible sound
newatlas.com - David Szondy
A team led by Gabriel Blaj, a staff scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, has generated what may be the …
Michelangelo
Michelangelo’s earliest surviving drawing created when artist was 12 discovered
The Telegraph - By Dalya Alberge
Michelangelo’s earliest surviving drawing has been discovered. Few would guess that the artist who created an image of a seated man was as young as 12 or 13. But then this was the genius whose future would
Technology
How we might protect ourselves from malicious AI
MIT Technology Review - Karen Hao
New research could make deep-learning models much harder to manipulate in harmful ways. We’ve touched previously on the concept of adversarial …
Kids
Esther Wojcicki on Teaching Kids to Be Independent Thinkers
WIRED - Esther Wojcicki
This excerpt is from How to Raise Successful People, a book by Esther Wojcicki, a teacher and the mother of Susan Wojcicki (the CEO of YouTube), …
Language
The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
nautil.us - Posted By Sevindj Nurkiyazova on May 13, 2019
One of my favorite words is lox,” says Gregory Guy, a professor of linguistics at New York University. There is hardly a more quintessential New York …
Planets
The Mystifying Case of the Missing Planets
WIRED - Rebecca Boyle
After the sun formed, the dust and gas left over from its natal cloud slowly swirled into the eight planets we have today. Small, rocky things clung …
Artificial Intelligence
SF Facial Recognition Ban: What Now For AI (Artificial Intelligence)?
Forbes - Tom Taulli
Recently San Francisco passed – in an 8-to-1 vote — a ban on local agencies to use facial recognition technologies. The move is likely not to be a one-off either. Other local governments are exploring
Microsoft
Microsoft aims to train and certify 15,000 workers on AI skills by 2022
TechCrunch - Sarah Perez
Microsoft is investing in certification and training for a range of AI-related skills in partnership with education provider General Assembly, the companies announced this morning. The goal is to train
Long-form Journalism
Facebook’s A.I. Whiz Now Faces the Task of Cleaning It Up. Sometimes That Brings Him to Tears.
The New York Times - By CADE METZ and MIKE ISAAC
MENLO PARK, Calif. — Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, was tearing up. For half an hour, we had been sitting in a conference room at Facebook’s headquarters, surrounded by whiteboards
Earth
Space Engineer: We Could Move Earth’s Orbit to Escape a Dying Sun
futurism.com - Dan Robitzski
In about five billion years, the Sun will begin to die, rapidly expanding and incinerating the Earth in its death throes. That’s not for a while, but …
Artificial Intelligence
Why is AI reporting so bad?
ZDNet - Tiernan Ray
Headlines are filled with disembodied, etherial AIs that miraculously figure stuff out like babies. Reporters are partly to blame for the bad quality …
Bacteria
Scientists Created Bacteria With a Synthetic Genome. Is This Artificial Life?
The New York Times - By CARL ZIMMER
Scientists have created a living organism whose DNA is entirely human-made — perhaps a new form of life, experts said, and a milestone in the field of synthetic biology. Researchers at the Medical Research
Leonardo Da Vinci
This is Leonardo da Vinci's design for a 'smart city' that was centuries ahead of its time
weforum.org - Alessandro Melis
The word “genius” is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci – a true Renaissance man, he embodied scientific spirit, artistic …
Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall: A Global Face for Global Peace
howstuffworks.com - Jesslyn Shields
Some people just don't quit. It's OK to quit — occasionally it's best to — but let Dr. Jane Goodall be an example to us all: Sometimes you have a …
Chewing Gum
Turns Out You Can Learn a Lot from 10,000-Year-Old Chewing Gum
Popular Mechanics - By David Grossman
Back then, gum came from trees and was used to build weapons. Chewing gum is a grand human tradition, as archeologists have discovered. A new study shows that the first people to settle in Scandinavia
Cultural Heritage
Climate Change Poses a Threat to Cultural Heritage
scientificamerican.com - Victoria Herrmann
I was nine when I first saw the numbers: 176924 inked unforgivingly into my grandfather's skin. As the grandchild of Auschwitz concentration camp …
Consumer News
Scientists Create ‘Nanopixels’ That Could Change Displays Forever
Tom's Guide - Jesus Diaz
Taking inspiration from squids’ color-changing skin, researchers have created pixels that are a million times smaller than the ones in your phone’s …
Artificial Intelligence
AI arrives in London as futuristic exhibition kicks off
metro.co.uk - Jeff Parsons
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a big topic in the world these days, just take a look at our current Future of Everything series to see how much …
Physics
Physics | Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine - Marcus Woo
Water-bearing minerals reveal that Earth’s mantle could hold more water than all its oceans. Researchers now ask: Where did it all come from? If and …
Science
A Squid-Like Mollusk Showed Up in Ancient Amber, and No One Knows How
Popular Mechanics - By Daisy Hernandez
Amber comes from the fossilization of tree resin. So what gives? Scientists have found an extinct squid ancestor in a 100-million-year-old, 3-centimeter-long piece of Burmese amber. The ammonite (a marine
Mathematics
Parents Say That Toys Designed to Spark a Love for Science and Math Are Really Messy
People - Helen Murphy
These STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) toys often come with hundreds of tiny pieces As toys meant to inspire a love for science and math become more and more popular with parents of young
Tech Trends
Scientists Redesigned an Entire Genome to Create The Most Synthetic Life Form Yet
ScienceAlert - MIKE MCRAE
Scientists have reworked the DNA of Escherichia coli to help us understand apparent redundancies in its genetic code. At four million base pairs in …
Chocolate
Want to know what makes chocolate taste so great? It’s physics
theprint.in - Mywish Anand
Kodaikanal: There are the Swiss and the Belgians to thank, of course, but humans owe their deepest debt for rich, tempting chocolate to someone, or …
World News
Scientists create world’s first living organism using radically redesigned DNA
scmp.com - The Guardian
Scientists have created the world’s first living organism that has a fully synthetic and radically altered DNA code.The lab-made microbe, a strain of …
Animals
Are there any animals that prepare or cook their food?
sciencefocus.com - Dr Alastair Gunn
We’re the only animals who cook our food, but others certainly join us in the prepping department. For example, adult bigheaded ants place food onto …
Autism
Autism May Be Diagnosed By Age Two
scientificamerican.com - Jessica Wright, Spectrum
Clinicians can reliably diagnose autism in some toddlers roughly two years earlier than the typical age of diagnosis, a new study suggests. The …
Innovation
Watch this device translate silent thoughts into speech
Fast Company - Eillie Anzilotti
The implications that this headset can read internal speech vibrations are enormous: For people who can’t speak out loud due to illness or injury, AlterEgo might return their ability to communicate in
Innovation
The business of the future is ethical, sustainable, and employee-owned
Fast Company - Eillie Anzilotti
Companies that lay out strong environmental goals and share ownership with their workers outperform all other businesses on all social impact measurements. You may not know it, but when you’re buying from

Briana Brownell

Magazines

Uncanny Learning

Followers

S D

Mohammed.H.Mirza

Flips

Canada lacks laws to tackle life-and-death problems posed by artificial intelligence, experts say

Scientists start to unravel how the brain forgets

Scientists create the loudest possible sound

Michelangelo’s earliest surviving drawing created when artist was 12 discovered

How we might protect ourselves from malicious AI

Esther Wojcicki on Teaching Kids to Be Independent Thinkers

The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus

The Mystifying Case of the Missing Planets

SF Facial Recognition Ban: What Now For AI (Artificial Intelligence)?

Microsoft aims to train and certify 15,000 workers on AI skills by 2022

Facebook’s A.I. Whiz Now Faces the Task of Cleaning It Up. Sometimes That Brings Him to Tears.

Space Engineer: We Could Move Earth’s Orbit to Escape a Dying Sun

Why is AI reporting so bad?

Scientists Created Bacteria With a Synthetic Genome. Is This Artificial Life?

This is Leonardo da Vinci's design for a 'smart city' that was centuries ahead of its time

Jane Goodall: A Global Face for Global Peace

Turns Out You Can Learn a Lot from 10,000-Year-Old Chewing Gum

Climate Change Poses a Threat to Cultural Heritage

Scientists Create ‘Nanopixels’ That Could Change Displays Forever

AI arrives in London as futuristic exhibition kicks off

Physics | Quanta Magazine

A Squid-Like Mollusk Showed Up in Ancient Amber, and No One Knows How

Parents Say That Toys Designed to Spark a Love for Science and Math Are Really Messy

Scientists Redesigned an Entire Genome to Create The Most Synthetic Life Form Yet

Want to know what makes chocolate taste so great? It’s physics

Scientists create world’s first living organism using radically redesigned DNA

Are there any animals that prepare or cook their food?

Autism May Be Diagnosed By Age Two

Watch this device translate silent thoughts into speech

The business of the future is ethical, sustainable, and employee-owned