If you want to be great at games, consider paying attention to Albert Einstein’s advice, which is to learn the rules of the game, and then play better than anyone else. Of course, this is easier said than done. But if you’re an AI like DeepMind, then it would be much easier for you — so much easier that you can even skip Einstein’s first advice.

DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has previously made groundbreaking strides using reinforcement learning to teach programs to master the Chinese board game Go and the Japanese strategy game Shogi, as well as chess and challenging Atari video games. In all those instances, computers were given the rules of the game.

But Nature reported… that DeepMind's MuZero has accomplished the same feats—and in some instances, beat the earlier programs—without first learning the rules.

Programmers at DeepMind relied on a principle called "look-ahead search." With that approach, MuZero assesses a number of potential moves based on how an opponent would respond. While there would likely be a staggering number of potential moves in complex games such as chess, MuZero prioritizes the most relevant and most likely maneuvers, learning from successful gambits and avoiding ones that failed.

More details about this over at TechXplore.

Wow!

(Image Credit: PIRO4D/ Pixabay)

For many years, scientists have been trying to understand reality through the laws of physics. However, it would seem that the more they try to understand, the more confused they become. The reason for this? Quantum philosophy. ScienceX tells us four ways of how this certain subject challenges your perception of reality. Learn more about this over at the site.

(Image Credit: insspirito/ Pixabay)

Sven Johnson had to make a video for the final exam in some media class, demonstrating his understanding of different technical aspects of production. What makes Sven's project stand out is that his brother is comedian and successful YouTuber Gus Johnson (previously at Neatorama), who volunteered to help out by appearing on camera. Sven has not revealed what grade he received. -via reddit

While dressed as the impulse control-impaired character Eddie Johnson from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Timothy Browning of Ashland, Kentucky celebrated Christmas morning the traditional way. He got out his flamethrower and blasted the snow off of his driveway. He is thus the model to all men about how we should conduct ourselves during this yuletide season. Let us do likewise--assuming that we can construct a functional flamethrower in our workshops.

-via Dave Barry

Flatscreen television sets have opened up a whole new world to dogs and cats, who used to pay no attention at all to cathode-ray tube TV. Ella is a senior rescue cat who loves to watch TV, but she prefers to see one particular film, every day if possible. You can see more of Ella at her Instagram page.

As soon as you get over your food coma from eating so many Christmas treats, it's time to get ready for another holiday! In the US, especially the South, it's traditional to serve hog jowl (or ham hocks or just ham) along with black-eyed peas and your favorite greens to celebrate the New Year. It's supposed to auger health and prosperity. But there's no need to limit yourself to only what you've eaten before. You might want to look to other countries if you want to institute new food traditions for the holiday. Here's a sampling:

1. Spain

In Spain, it's customary to eat 12 grapes right at midnight on New Year's Eve, representing good luck for each of the coming 12 months.

8. Turkey

In Turkey, some smash pomegranates in the doorways of their homes. As the tradition goes, the number of seeds that fly out predict how much good fortune you'll have in the coming year.

Read about more New Year food traditions at Food52. -via The Week

Mileva Marić Einstein was a brilliant physicist who is little known today, mainly because she was a woman born in 1875. The reason she is known at all is because she was married to Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919. Their collaboration in both science and life started in 1896 when both were at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In what appeared to be a pattern set for their entire time together, Mileva dragged Albert through his classes.

Albert and Mileva became inseparable, spending countless hours studying together. He attended only a few lectures, preferring to study at home. Mileva was methodical and organized. She helped him channel his energy and guided his studies as we learn from Albert’s letters, exchanged between 1899-1903 during school holidays: 43 letters from Albert to Mileva have been preserved but only 10 of hers remain(5).

Mileva had better grades than Albert, but the professor giving the final oral exam gave her such low marks that she did not graduate. Her four male classmates did. Albert and Mileva went on to collaborate on groundbreaking physics research, but Mileva's name rarely appeared in published papers, possibly because she knew from experience that her participation could diminish those papers and therefore Albert's job prospects. What she felt would advance their future together ended up costing her everything. Read the story of Mileva Einstein at Scientific American. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Unbekannt)

You don't like Christmas music? Shove it down people's throats!

Fun by Khöömïï, Tuvan, Sygyt throat singers.

It was hiding in plain sight, too. A graduate research assistant at the University of Kansas has discovered not one, but three new species of snakes preserved in the university’s Biodiversity Institute’s biodiversity collection. The snake specimens were overlooked until Jeff Weinell discovered that they were actually new species, and now these specimens are the only known members of a new snake genus called Levitonius: 

The newly identified Levitonius mirus, also known as Waray dwarf burrowing snake, is native to the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Philippines, an exceptionally biodiverse archipelago that includes at least 112 land snake species, according to the study.

The snake has among the fewest number of vertebrae of any snake species in the world, according to the study, and has a long and narrow skull relative to its size, Weinell explained in a conversation with CNN. Its scales are highly iridescent, and it is likely that its diet is based on earthworms.

Weinell emphasized the importance of collaboration between US-based scientists and scientists in the Philippines, furthering the understanding of biodiversity in the region.

Image via CNN 

It’s smaller than we would imagine a ‘sea dragon’ to be. The Thalassodraco etchesi or Etches sea dragon is a small marine reptile from 150 million years ago. The species, whose remains have been discovered in a marine deposit in Dorset,  England, may have been able to dive to extreme depths, and are also described as "streamlined marine predators from the Late Jurassic period." IGN has more details: 

“This ichthyosaur has several differences that makes it unique enough to be its own genus and species,” paleontologist Megan L. Jacobs said. “New Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs in the United Kingdom are extremely rare, as these creatures have been studied for 200 years. We knew it was new almost instantly, but it took about a year to make thorough comparisons with all other Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs to make certain our instincts were correct. It was very exciting to not be able to find a match.”

This specific specimen was discovered in 2009 and was estimated to have been about 6 feet long. It was discovered by fossil collector Steve Etches MBE after a "cliff crumbled along the seaside."

It appears to have some similarities to sperm whales with its "extremely deep rib cage" that may have allowed for larger lungs and space so internal organs weren't crushed under the pressure. It also had large eyes, which meant it could have been able to see well in low light.

Its hundreds of tiny teeth seem to indicate a diet that may have consisted of squid and small fish, and "the teeth are unique by being completely smooth."

Image via IGN

While we may insist that our environment influences our preferences, new research reveals that our genes also have influence over our preferences. Our genes control how much of our behavior might have a biological predisposition. This means that we might have been born to have a particular behavior or characteristic, as the Next Web details: 

Research has shown genes may predispose not only our height, eye colour or weight, but also our vulnerability to mental ill-health, longevity, intelligence and impulsivity. Such traits are, to varying degrees, written into our genes — sometimes thousands of genes working in concert.

Most of these genes instruct how our brain circuitry is laid down in the womb, and how it functions. We can now view a baby’s brain as it is built, even 20 weeks before birth. Circuitry changes exist in their brains that strongly correlate with genes that predispose for autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They even predispose for conditions that might not emerge for decades: bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia.

Increasingly we are faced with the prospect that predispositions to more complex behaviors are similarly wired into our brains. These include which religion we choose, how we form our political ideologies, and even how we create our friendship groups.

Image via The Next Web

Okay, "wraps" doesn’t mean Yianni Charalambous puts wrapping paper around luxury cars as gifts, no. Charalambous specializes in customizing rare and expensive cars for celebrities. If a celebrity isn’t satisfied by how their Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche, McLaren, Bentley, or Rolls Royce look, they can hire Charalmbous’ services to customize their beloved cars. Check out the delicate and intricate process on how he changes the look of celebrities’ expensive automobiles.

It seems that not all people get a unique set of swirls on their fingertips. This unique condition, which manifested in Apu Sarker’s family, is a rare genetic mutation. The condition, called Adermatoglyphia, renders people affected with it to have no fingerprints and a reduced amount of sweat glands on their hands, as BBC details: 

Apu, who is 22, lives with his family in a village in the northern district of Rajshahi. He was working as a medical assistant until recently. His father and his grandfather were farmers.

The men in Apu's family appear to share a genetic mutation so rare it is thought to affect only a small handful of families in the world: they have no fingerprints.

Back in the day of Apu's grandfather, having no fingerprints was no big deal. "I don't think he ever thought of it as a problem," Apu said.

But over the decades, the tiny grooves that swirl around our fingertips - known properly as dermatoglyphs - have become the world's most collected biometric data. We use them for everything from passing through airports to voting and opening our smartphones.

[...]

A dermatologist in Bangladesh has diagnosed the family's condition as congenital palmoplantar keratoderma, which Prof Itin believes developed into secondary Adermatoglyphia - a version of the disease which can also cause dry skin and reduced sweating on palms and feet - symptoms reported by the Sarkers.

More testing would be needed to confirm that the family has some form of Adermatoglyphia. Professor Sprecher said his team would be "very glad" to assist the family with genetic testing. The results of those tests might bring the Sarkers some certainly, but no relief from the day to day struggles of navigating the world without fingerprints.

Image via BBC

It's time for Barry Petchesky's annual list of things people had to go to emergency rooms to have removed from various bodily orifices in the preceding year. That includes the ears, nose, throat, penis, vagina, and rectum.

All reports are taken from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits, all descriptions are verbatim, and hey don’t put that in there, you might lose it.

Most of the list is just the object and its size, but there are some quotes from the reports. The reports of earbuds stuck in ears are quite believable, and the things pulled from noses appear to be mostly children, but you can almost hear the skepticism in the quotes about how objects became stuck in rectums -as reported by the patients. See the list at Defector.

I pet my dog every chance I get. Do you (if you have one, that is) have to pet your furry companion before you leave?  Researchers recommend you do. Giving pups a little pat before we head out actually keeps them calm while we’re away. According to a study published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, gently petting a dog before leaving home has a positive effect on the animal’s stress response: 

The researchers monitored the dogs’ behaviors while the owners were gone, measured the dogs’ heart rates before and after the separation, and noted the animals’ salivary cortisol after their owners left (excess drooling can be a sign of stress). The experimenters noticed that though none of the dogs were highly stressed, the animals from both groups spent almost half the time looking for their missing owners.

However, the key difference between the groups was that dogs who were pet before their owners left exhibited more calm behaviors when their owners were missing and had a lower heart rate after the reunion compared to dogs in the neutral condition. The researchers conclude that this topic needs further study, though they write that the findings suggest “that petting a dog before a brief separation from the owner may have a positive effect, making the dog calmer during the separation itself.”

Image via First For Women