GoKawiilHow sodium-ion batteries could change the world. Plus, the evolution of handedness with an ancient worm and how scientists are revealing the mysteries of the deep ocean.
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Computer scientist Pan Hui with a digital teaching avatar used at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou.Credit: Yawei Zhao
From assisting with health care to lecturing in universities, AI avatars are increasingly filling roles across China — so much so that the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace regulator, has released new rules for the virtual digital humans. They require that people consent to the use of their personal information, appearance or voice. And companies are banned from providing children and young people with virtual relatives or virtual intimate relationships, and from creating services that could lead to children becoming addicted to virtual human services. In response, some tech companies have begun disabling features that allow users to create their own customized AI avatars.
Nature | 7 min read
Reference: Administrative Measures for Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Public Comment) (in Chinese)
Around 550 million years ago, a flat, segmented, worm-like creature called Spriggina floundersi wiggled its way through the seafloor mud of the Ediacaran period. And when it wiggled, it tended to wiggle to the right, say researchers. A study of more than 100 Spriggina specimens from South Australia — where it’s the state fossil — found that about twice as many were bending in a right-turning direction when they died compared to the opposite direction. “The presence of handedness in any kind of functional asymmetry, really deep into the fossil record, gives us important and interesting information,” says evolutionary biologist Russell Bicknell.
Smithsonian Magazine | 5 min read
Reference: Scientific Reports paper
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