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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Mathematics: Statistics

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Rock faces in Namibia are decorated with hundreds of stone-age images not only of animals and human footprints, but also of animal tracks. These have been largely neglected to date as researchers lacked the knowledge required to interpret them. Archaeologists have now worked together with animal tracking experts to investigate the engraved animal tracks on six rock faces in more detail, and were able to determine detailed information on the species, age, sex, limbs, side of the body, trackway and relative direction of the tracks.

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Between 1840 and 1867, thousands of enslaved Africans who had been 'liberated' from slave ships intercepted by the British Royal Navy were taken to the South Atlantic island of St Helena. But little is written in history books or otherwise known about the lives of these individuals. Now, ancient DNA analyses offer the first direct evidence for the origins of St Helena's liberated Africans.

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The global population of people older than 65 years of age is rapidly increasing the need for care. Although care robots are a promising solution to fill in for caregivers, their social implementation has been slow and unsatisfactory. A team of international researchers has now developed the first universal model that can be employed across cultural contexts to explain how ethical perceptions affect the willingness to use care robots.

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Researchers have dated drawings of Gua Sireh Cave in Sarawak, uncovering a sad story of conflict in the process.

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A new study has demonstrated that the atlatl (i.e. spear thrower) functions as an 'equalizer', a finding which supports women's potential active role as prehistoric hunters.

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Archaeologists have long been drawing conclusions about how ancient tools were used by the people who crafted them based on written records and context clues. But with dietary practices, they have had to make assumptions about what was eaten and how it was prepared. A new study analyzed protein residues from ancient cooking cauldrons and found that the people of Caucasus ate deer, sheep, goats, and members of the cow family during the Maykop period (3700--2900 BCE).

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Cranial modification is a form of body alteration where the head is pressed or bound to permanently deform the skull. The practice has been reported across various cultures throughout history. Researchers report that the Hirota people -- who lived on the southern Japanese island of Tanegashima between the 3rd to 7th century CE -- also conducted cranial modification, with indication that both males and females performed the practice.

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A new DNA study has nuanced the picture of how different groups intermingled during the European Stone Age, but also how certain groups of people were actually isolated. Researchers produced new genetic data from 56 Central and Eastern European individuals from the Stone Age.

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The success of artificial intelligence technologies depends largely on how physicians interpret and act upon a tool's risk predictions -- and that requires a unique set of skills that many are currently lacking, according to a new perspective article.

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New study identifies concerning gaps between how human radiologists score the accuracy of AI-generated radiology reports and how automated systems score them. Researchers designed two novel scoring systems that outperform current automated systems that evaluate the accuracy of AI narrative reports. Reliable scoring systems that accurately gauge the performance of AI models are critical for ensuring that AI continues to improve and that clinicians can trust them.

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Researchers have developed a highly efficient method to investigate systems with long-range interactions that were previously puzzling to experts. These systems can be gases or even solid materials such as magnets whose atoms interact not only with their neighbors but also far beyond.

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An international team of linguists and geneticists has achieved a significant breakthrough in our understanding of the origins of Indo-European, a family of languages spoken by nearly half of the world's population.

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Scientists have recently proposed a workflow that can dramatically accelerate the search for novel materials with improved properties. They demonstrated the power of the approach by identifying more than 50 strongly thermally insulating materials. These can help alleviate the ongoing energy crisis, by allowing for more efficient thermoelectric elements, i.e., devices able to convert otherwise wasted heat into useful electrical voltage.

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Why do some people take part in genetic studies while others do not? The answer may lie within our genetic makeup. According to a groundbreaking study, people who participate in genetic studies are genetically more likely to do so, leaving detectable 'footprints' in genetics data. This breakthrough equips researchers with the ability to identify and address participation bias, a significant challenge in genetic research.

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We humans can be a scary acquaintance for whales in the wild. This includes marine biologists tagging them with measuring devices to understand them better. These experiences can make whales behave erratically for a while. Such behaviour can affect research quality and highlights an animal ethics dilemma. Now, researchers have figured out how to solve the problems with math.

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Researchers have discovered some of the largest early prehistoric stone tools in Britain.

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Many factors influence where a landslide will occur, including the shape of the terrain, its slope and drainage areas, the material properties of soil and bedrock, and environmental conditions like climate, rainfall, hydrology and ground motion resulting from earthquakes. Geologists have developed a new technique that uses artificial intelligence to better predict where and why landslides may occur could bolster efforts to protect lives and property in some of the world's most disaster-prone areas. The new method improves the accuracy and interpretability of AI-based machine-learning techniques, requires far less computing power and is more broadly applicable than traditional predictive models.

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Researchers have identified the oldest decisive evidence of humans' close evolutionary relatives butchering and likely eating one another.

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In the space of a few months generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, Google's Bard and Midjourney, have been adopted by more and more people in a variety of professional and personal ways. But growing research is underlining that they are encoding biases and negative stereotypes in their users, as well as mass generating and spreading seemingly accurate but nonsensical information. Worryingly, marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by the fabrication of this nonsensical information.

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How do asset markets work? Which stocks behave similarly? Economists, physicists, and mathematicians work intensively to draw a picture but need to learn what is happening outside their discipline. A new paper now builds a bridge.