大象传媒

The first results of a human trial of an experimental vaccine to protect against Ebola were published this week. They suggest the drug is safe and may help the immune system to recognise the virus.

A Hammerhead Shark's Journey
For the first time, the movements of a young hammerhead shark were tracked for ten months using an electronic tracker. By doing this, the research team were able to follow the shark as it moved through the Gulf of California. James Ketchum, the Director of Marine Conservation at Pelagios Kakunj谩, a Mexican non-profit, explains why understanding where a shark goes is crucial for developing effective conservation measures.

Australopithecus Discovery 40 Years On
The 23November 2014 was a significant 40th birthday. Or, to be a bit more precise, it was a 3, 200,000, 40th birthday. On that day in 1974, Donald Johanson and his team in Ethiopia discovered the fossilised remains of AL 288-1, who became universally known as Lucy.

Drinking milk
Over the years the results of research examining whether milk prevents fractures have been mixed, and some studies even suggest an increase in fracture rates. To try and settle this, Karl Michaelsson, professor of medical epidemiology at Uppsala University in Sweden, conducted a vast observational study of 107,000 people. They kept diaries of their diet and were followed up for more than a decade. The results were that people who drank more than three glasses of milk a day were twice as likely to die at the end of the study period. Women also had a 15% higher rate of fractures. Professor Michaelsson explains a possible hypothesis for what might be going on.

Hot gossip
If language elevates us above other animals, why does human society seem to spend so much time gossiping? Perhaps it's because without gossip there would be no society and language would be much less interesting.

Tony Sale Computer Conservation Award
The latest Tony Sale Award for computer conservation to honour the specialists and enthusiasts who reconstruct vintage computers has been shared this year. The winners are: the IBM 1401 Demo Lab, a restoration of one of the most significant machines in computer history by the Computer History Museum in California, and Z1 Architecture and Algorithms, a virtual reconstruction of the 1930s Konrad Zuse mechanical computer, by the Free University of Berlin.

Can Machines Think?
Neuroscientist, chess master and world-champion gamer, Demis Hassabis is this week's winner of the Royal Society's Mullard Award. In 2011, he founded an AI company, Deep Mind which was acquired by Google earlier this year for 拢400million. He tells us why he believes one of the best tests for artificial intelligence is an ability to learn how to play computer games.

Photo Credits: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Ebola vaccine 'promising' say scientists