NASA is asking people to help it label thousands of photos from Mars. The labels will be used to train a computer system to recognize different surfaces on Mars. This will help NASA drive its rovers safely for longer periods of time.
Published in “Science”
Among the more unusual news stories recently…Prague holds an outdoor dinner at a 550 yard (500 meter) table, a contest app keeps players' fingers glued to their screens for days, and a Berlin transportation company wants smelly riders.
Scientists have been surprised and impressed with the long-distance travel of two birds recently, a common cuckoo who flew from southern Africa to Mongolia, and an eastern curlew, who flew from Australia to China.
In 2019, Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was wrongly arrested for stealing five watches from a store. Though he didn't do it, he was arrested after his face was "recognized" by a computer system. Now he's making a complaint against the Detroit police.
Scientists have discovered that massive amounts of microplastics are falling into remote areas in protected US national parks every year. The tiny bits of plastic are carried there by winds and rains.
In today's news roundup, a dust cloud from the Sahara Desert reaches all the way to the US, Pakistan reports that 30% of its pilots have fake licenses, and NASA renames its headquarters for Mary Jackson, its first black female engineer.
Saniniu Laizer, who works as a miner in Tanzania, has suddenly become a millionaire after finding and selling two large chunks of a gemstone called Tanzanite. The stones found by Mr. Laizer were the largest samples of Tanzanite ever found.
Students in Christiansburg, Virginia have an unusual option for getting books this summer - having them delivered by drone. The Montgomery County School District is teaming up with a company called Wing to deliver summer reading by drone.
A Hood Island giant tortoise named Diego has returned to his home island in the Galapagos after becoming the father of up to 800 tortoises. Diego's efforts have helped raise the number of Hood Island tortoises from 15 to nearly 2,000.
Among the more unusual news stories recently, America's "#1 movie" has only been seen by two people, a weather reporter turns his back yard into a weather map, and a fisherman in Galicia, Spain turns up a 700-year-old statue.
For the first time in over 135 years, the United States got more energy from renewable sources like solar, wind, and water energy, than it did from coal. That's a big change, and it may be the beginning of the end for coal.