Tropical cyclone Freddy may be longest on record after lasting 32 days
Technology

Tropical cyclone Freddy may be longest on record after lasting 32 days

The path taken by Cyclone Freddy across the Indian Ocean World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is considering whether tropical cyclone Freddy should be named the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record as it clocks up its 32nd day. “Freddy is pretty unusual,” says Liz Ritchie-Tyo at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Most tropical […]

Flight Paths book review: Why understanding migration may save bird species
Technology

Flight Paths book review: Why understanding migration may save bird species

Technology has revealed the truth about the migration of birds like snow geese. Steve Byland/istockphoto/getty images Flight PathsRebecca Heisman (Harper Collins) QUESTIONS about how and why so many birds make extraordinarily arduous annual migrations – and where they are going – have puzzled us for years. Perhaps they are flying to the moon, speculated 17th-century English […]

AI trained on YouTube and podcasts speaks with ums and ahs
Technology

AI trained on YouTube and podcasts speaks with ums and ahs

An AI can generate more natural-sounding synthetic speech by including pauses Shutterstock/PrinceOfLove Generating speech with different rhythms and pauses makes it sound more human-like, according to an assessment of an artificial intelligence trained on speech taken from YouTube and podcasts. Most artificial intelligence text-to-speech systems are trained on data sets of acted speech, which can […]