World’s First Living Robots Assembled from Frog Stem Cells

“These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth,” Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, tells The Guardian. “They are living, programmable organisms.” Levin and other researchers in the US have created the first-ever living machines: robots composed of biological tissue, assembled from African clawed frog (xenopus laevis) stem cells and designed on …

Improved Weather Forecasts Made Using Neural Networks

Using a vast neural network capable of making ultra-quick decisions based on images and predictive learning (rather than physics or meteorology), Google researchers may have finally figured out how to make weather forecasts hour by hour. Traditionally, weather forecasts have taken up to three hours to form, and thus are a little less accurate. As for Google’s, their neural network can formalize a report in …

MAAT’s Playmode Exhibition Intertwines Art and Games

Playful but precise and poignant, the Playmode exhibition (curated by Filipe Pais and Patrícia Gouveiaat and on now through 17 February) at Lisbon’s Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology features works by David Shrigley, Mary Flanagan and plenty of others. The work range from dark and conceptual to entertaining and emotionally informative, and span visual art and gaming to form coherent narratives about life and …