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Articles on Big data

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Spotting plastic waste from space and counting the fish in the seas: here’s how AI can help protect the oceans

Humans are expert pattern-finders. But artificial intelligence tools are better at trawling through vast data sets to find anything from waste dumps to heat-tolerant corals.
France’s goalkeeper #01 Hugo Lloris (C) jumps for the ball during the Qatar 2022 World Cup quarter-final football match between England and France at the Al-Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, north of Doha, on December 10, 2022. Jewel Samad/AFP

World Cup 2022: crunching 150 years of big data to predict the winner

After Brazil’s exit, who might be on course to win in 2022? Experts crunch 150 years of big data to predict the winner.
Elements affecting the popularity of songs change over time and should be continuously explored, say data science researchers. (Shutterstock)

Can big data really predict what makes a song popular?

Whether we’re talking songs that are popular on Spotify, or were Billboard hits through the ‘40s up to recent years, popularity cannot be attributed solely to quantifiable acoustic elements.
Smart technology is demonstrated on a farm in Newark, Mo. (Dilip Vishwanat/AP Images/U.S. Cellular)

The dangers of big data extend to farming

Big data from social media have been revealed as biased, but we should also pay attention to agriculture firms whose play for big data is likely to have detrimental environmental and social impacts.
Identifying the difference between normal genetic variation and disease-causing mutations can sometimes be difficult. Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Genetic mutations can be benign or cancerous – a new method to differentiate between them could lead to better treatments

Tumors contain thousands of genetic changes, but only a few are actually cancer-causing. A quicker way to identify these driver mutations could lead to more targeted cancer treatments.
Commercial satellite companies provide views once reserved for governments, like this image of a Russian military training facility in Crimea. Satellite image (c) 2021 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images

Technology is revolutionizing how intelligence is gathered and analyzed – and opening a window onto Russian military activity around Ukraine

National security professionals and armchair sleuths alike are taking advantage of vast amounts of publicly available information and software tools to monitor geopolitical events around the world.
Ancient military innovations – like the bit and bridle that enabled mounted horseback riding – changed the course of history. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/British Museum via WikimediaCommons

The horse bit and bridle kicked off ancient empires – a new giant dataset tracks the societal factors that drove military technology

Did ancient technological advancements drive social innovation, or vice versa? Studying cause and effect in the ancient world may seem like a fool’s errand, but researchers built a database to do just that.

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