Oldest intact shipwreck

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the world’s oldest intact shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Sea where it appears to have lain undisturbed for more than 2,400 years.

The 23-metre (75ft) vessel, thought to be ancient Greek, was discovered with its mast, rudders and rowing benches all present and correct just 2 km below the surface. A lack of oxygen at that depth preserved it, the researchers said.

“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology  (MAP), the team that made the find. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.”

The ship was probably a trading vessel of a type that researchers say was “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum”. That work, which dates from about the same period, depicts a similar vessel bearing Odysseus past the sirens, with the Homeric hero tied to the mast to resist their songs.

The team plans to leave the vessel where it was found.  The University of Southampton  carbon dated a small piece and the results “confirmed it as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind”. The team said the data will be published at the Black Sea MAP conference at the Wellcome Collection in London later this week.

The international team of maritime archaeologists, scientists and marine surveyors is on a three-year mission to explore the depths of the Black Sea to gain a greater understanding of the impact of prehistoric sea-level changes.

They have found more than 60 shipwrecks which vary in age from a “17th-century Cossack raiding fleet, through Roman trading vessels, complete with amphorae, to a complete ship from the classical period”.

The MAP documentary team will show made a two-hour film at the British Museum next week.

The ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum: the shipwreck is believed to be a vessel similar to that shown bearing Odysseus.

Photograph: Werner Forman/UIG via Getty Images

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What Is Deep Learning AI?

by Bernard Marr

 While the technology is evolving—quickly—along with fears and excitement, terms such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning may leave you perplexed. 

I hope that the following 8 practical examples will help to clarify the actual use of deep learning technology today. 

    1.  Virtual assistants

Whether it’s Alexa or Siri or Cortana, the virtual assistants of online service providers use deep learning to help understand your speech and the language humans use when they interact with them.

    2.  Translations

In a similar way, deep learning algorithms can automatically translate between languages. This can be powerful for travellers, business people and those in government.

    3.  Vision for driverless delivery trucks, drones and autonomous cars

The way an autonomous vehicle understands the realities of the road and how to respond to them whether it’s a stop sign, a ball in the street or another vehicle is through deep learning algorithms. The more data the algorithms receive, the better they are able to act human-like in their information processing—knowing a stop sign covered with snow is still a stop sign.

    4.  Chatbots and service bots

Chatbots and service bots that provide customer service for a lot of companies are able to respond in an intelligent and helpful way to an increasing amount of auditory and text questions thanks to deep learning.

    5.  Image colorization

Transforming black-and-white images into colour was formerly a task done meticulously by human hand. Today, deep learning algorithms are able to use the context and objects in the images to colour them to basically recreate the black-and-white image in colour. The results are impressive and accurate.

    6.  Facial recognition

Deep learning is being used for facial recognition not only for security purposes but for tagging people on Facebook posts and we might be able to pay for items in a store just by using our faces in the near future. The challenges for deep-learning algorithms for facial recognition is knowing it’s the same person even when they have changed hairstyles, grown or shaved off a beard or if the image taken is poor due to bad lighting or an obstruction.

    7.  Medicine and pharmaceuticals

From disease and tumour diagnoses to personalised medicines created specifically for an individual’s genome, deep learning in the medical field has the attention of many of the largest pharmaceutical and medical companies.

    8.  Personalised shopping and entertainment

Ever wonder how Netflix comes up with suggestions for what you should watch next? Or where Amazon comes up with ideas for what you should buy next and those suggestions are exactly what you need but just never knew it before? Yep, it’s deep-learning algorithms at work.

The more experience deep-learning algorithms get, the better they become. It should be an extraordinary few years as the technology continues to mature.

From Bernard Marr & Co. and Forbes (edited)

'French Spiderman' climbs London skyscraper (video)

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The Last Straw for Plastic? (video)

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Bullet-proof cars

The bulletproofing business is booming in Mexico. Last year nearly 3,000 cars were armour-plated in Mexico, the world’s second-largest market, up from 2,200 in 2013. 

Most customers prefer to put protective glass and armoured plates on their own carrs, rather than buy a purpose-built bulletproof car. Installation takes over a month and costs up to $55,000 but for Mexico City’s ultra-wealthy and other wary motorists the peace of mind is invaluable. 

Brazil is the world’s largest market by far. Since 2002, sales of armoured cars have risen fourfold to over 15,000 last year.

São Paulo state has a rate of robbery more than twice as high as Mexico City’s. Its inhabitants therefore have a greater need for a bulletproof car that can repel an armed roadside bandit. 

Mexican criminals usually carry heavier weapons than Brazilian thugs do.  The “Type IV” armour which repels bullets from guns like the ak-47 costs three times as much as Brazilian armour and adds 30% to a car’s weight,. That's why owners must replace the brakes every six months.

Improving technology may change that calculation. Diamond Glass’s panes are 22mm thick, half what was needed a decade ago. Firms are making lightweight armour that does not weigh cars down. Such advances will reduce prices, making armour affordable for more motorists, whether they need it or not.

Article from The Economist (edited)

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European Parliament ban on single-use plastics

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to ban some single-use plastics — such as drinking straws and disposable cutlery — across the European Union and a reduction on others in an effort to reduce ocean waste.

Members of the European Parliament passed the measure overwhelmingly, by a vote of 571 to 53, with 34 abstentions.

Before the legislation goes into effect, the European Parliament must negotiate with the European Council of government ministers from its member states. The council will make a decision on Dec. 16.

This ambitious legislation against single-use plastics  is essential to protect the marine environment and reduce the costs of environmental damage attributed to plastic pollution in Europe, estimated at 22 billion euros by 2030.

The legislation calls for direct bans on

Single-use plastic items such as "plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks or cotton buds" will be totally banned by 2021.

Consumption of single-use plastics "for which no alternative exists," such as single-use food boxes or containers for fruits, vegetables or ice cream, must be reduced by at least 25 percent by 2025, according to the legislation.

Tobacco producers will have to reduce waste from tobacco products and cigarette filters containing plastic by 50 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2030. They will have to cover the costs of waste collection for their products, "including transport, treatment and litter collection."

Member states should also ensure that at least 50 percent of lost or abandoned fishing gear containing plastic is collected per year, with a recycling target of at least 15 percent by 2025. Fishing gear represents 27 percent of waste found on Europe's beaches."

The European Parliament also seeks to recycle a target of 90 percent of all recyclable drink bottles by 2025.

The measures are the latest in a growing, global movement to reduce single-use plastic waste. 

Plastic makes up more than 80 percent of marine litter.

Last year the United Nations  "declared war" on ocean plastic and stated:

"Each year, more than 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the oceans, wreaking havoc on marine wildlife, fisheries and tourism, and costing at least $8 billion in damage to marine ecosystems. Up to 80 per cent of all litter in our oceans is made of plastic.

"According to some estimates, at the rate we are dumping items such as plastic bottles, bags and cups after a single use, by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish."

The movement to eliminate plastic straws is also spreading across the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Starbucks will drop plastic straws worldwide by 2020.

McDonald's  is beginning to use paper straws instead of plastic ones in some 1,300 restaurants in the U.K. and Ireland. It uses about 1.8 million straws a day in the U.K., and will have 100 percent of its packaging come from "renewable, recycled, or certified" sources by 2025.

Article from NPR (edited)

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The "Portrait of Edmond Belamy" is "signed" by part of the machine learning algorithm used to create it. 

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China's new mega-bridge

A new bridge in southern China will officially open on Wednesday morning local time. It will shave more than two hours off the trip from Hong Kong to Zhuhai on the mainland. The result of nearly nine years of construction, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project even includes a tunnel in its 34 miles across the Pearl River Delta.

The bridge will carry six lanes of traffic — and drivers will have the novel experience of going underwater in two spots, where artificial islands were created to house openings for a four-mile tunnel.

It will be 55 km long and is the world's longest sea bridge. Estimates of its final cost range as high as $20 billion.

Construction on the project started in December 2009. Since then, it has repeatedly hit delays, accidents and budget overruns. Deadlines for the bridge's opening were put off in both 2016 and 2017.

The bridge will avoid hours of traffic along the coast of the Greater Bay Area and its planners hope the new connection boosts economic ties in a region that includes Hong Kong, Macau and cities in Guangdong Province.

China's Xinhua news agency says the area is "home to more people than the entire U.K., has three of the biggest container ports in the world, and a larger GDP than Australia."

That economic activity and infrastructure is the main reason the project's designers opted to take the roadway underwater. They were looking to solve two important complications. Part of the bridge crosses two shipping lanes and passes next to Hong Kong International Airport.

Officials pledged to protect Chinese white dolphins that live in the delta.

The finished product contains enough steel to build 60 Eiffel Towers and enough concrete to construct 22 Chrysler Buildings. It can withstand strong earthquakes and super typhoons.

To use the bridge, private cars will need special permits that have been tightly controlled, Toll prices for vehicles using the bridge will range from 60 yuan (about $8.50) to 300 yuan (about $43).

Chinese media outlets are reporting that the bridge is built to last more than a century.

While there is genuine excitement about the bridge from shipping and transportation companies, people in Hong Kong have mixed feelings about it. Many have questions about how useful the bridge will be, and there are concerns that China's central government might use the bridge as another way to weaken Hong Kong's independence.

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Photo credit  Chen Jimin for China Daily 

Jamal Khashoggi's Complicated History

Correct and detect the mistakes. You will find at least ONE per paragraph

1.    For the first time since Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance in Oct. 2, Saudi Arabia acknowledged late Friday that he died in the country's consulate in Istanbul.

2.    He had 59.

3.    The announcement came after repeated denials by the Saudis that they knew what happened to him.

4.    Whereas the world is waiting for further answers about Khashoggi's death, more details about his background are coming to light.

5.    They paint an interesting picture of a man whose family has deep ties to the Saudi monarchy that goes back generations.

6.    Jamal Khashoggi's grandfather was the doctor to King Abdul Aziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia on the 1930s.

7.    His uncle Adnan become a celebrity billionaire as the weapons broker for another Saudi monarch, King Fahd.

8.    "They were a rich family, educated," said Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C. He knew Jamal Khashoggi for many years ago and saw him as a loyalist who later became a critic of the royal family.

9.    Ali al-Ahmed acknowledged that he had much disagreements with Khashoggi, who wanted to see gradual reforms by the monarchy, while Ahmed would like to replace it with a democratic government.

10.In the years after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks, Khashoggi visited to the U.S. with the message that the Saudi leadership was still a trustworthy American ally.

11.Khashoggi eventually moved to Washington on 2005 and worked at the Saudi Embassy as a key adviser to the ambassador.

12."He was very close to the royal family in Saudi Arabia," said Khaled Saffuri, an Arab-American activist in Washington who knew Khashoggi since 25 years.

13."We used to getting together for cigars for lunch or breakfast once in a while. We also met frequently at think tanks here in D.C. Whenever there was an event about the Middle East he never missed it."

14.As a journalist in his younger years, Khashoggi interviewed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the 1980s. Khashoggi later became a newspaper editor. Not unexpectedly, however he thought his own way, he was fired twice for coverage that offended the royal family.

15.In 2015, two crucial things have happened. First, Mohammed bin Salman came to power, initially as a deputy crown prince. Second, Khashoggi was named head of a new television station called Al Arab.

16.But on the very first day, the station was shut in six hours however the station aired an interview with a prominent government critic.

       17.Until this point, Khashoggi was on Saudi TV every day.

18.But as Mohammed bin Salman began shaking up the kingdom, Khashoggi was barred of media appearances.

19.So when he was silenced and knew he was on the losing end of this palace infighting he decided leaving Saudi Arabia in a self-imposed exile.

20.Khashoggi moved to the Washington suburb of McLean, Va. last year. He lived in the same house he bought a decade earlier when he represented the royal family at the Saudi Embassy.

21.In recent days President Trump noted that Khashoggi wasn't a U.S. citizen but he had many ties to America. Khashoggi graduated from Indiana State University in 1982. His four adult children were all U.S. educated, and unless two are U.S. citizens.

22.And as he began remake his life in the U.S., Khashoggi became more critical of the crown prince.

23.On Oct. 2, Khashoggi died at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey — the country where his family has lived for generations before moving to Saudi Arabia.

Edited from NPR

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The five most expensive bottles of wine ever

As Europe nursed its wounds right after the Second World War’s end in 1945, top Burgundy producer Romanee-Conti made just 600 bottles of dark red nectar before pulling up its vines for replanting.

On October 13th two of those 600 were sold in separate auction bids for a total of just over $1 million at Sothebys in New York. Three more bottles from the 1937 vintage went for a total of $930,000.

All five bottles beat the previous record for  most expensive bottle of wine of any size, a $304,375 six-liter bottle of Cheval-Blanc 1947, sold in Geneva in 2010. (The records don’t include bottles auctioned for charity.) The two 1945 bottles also eclipsed the previous record for a standard-sized wine bottle—$233,000 at a Hong Kong auction in 2010.

The highest bid was for the first bottle from 1945, which went for $558,000. That’s 17 times more expensive than Sothebys’ upper estimate of $32,000. A few minutes later, the second bottle of 1945 sold for $496,000. Three magnums of the 1937 were then sold for $310,000 each, having been given an upper estimate of $40,000.

The total collection, from the personal cellar of wine producer Robert Drouhin, sold for $7.3 million. Nine of its 100 bottles went for six-figure sums.

The 1945 vintage is “rare and wonderful,” Serena Sutcliffe, head of Sothebys international wine department, wrote in the lot notes. “The best bottles are so concentrated and exotic, with seemingly everlasting power—a wine at peace with itself.”

In her description of the 1937 bottles, she recalls being served a glass at a friend’s birthday evening. “Incredible projection of super scent. Unbelievable taste of rich fruit, pure Christmas pudding. The longest finish in the world. Totally enchanting—I nurtured my glass all evening,” she wrote. “At this age, it is the luck of the draw and, this time, boy, were we lucky.”

From Quartz