A study used computer models to investigate how cities and climate change influenced the destructive and deadly rainstorm that struck the Rotterdam-Brussels-Cologne metropolitan region on July 14, 2021. The study found that the interplay of large-scale climate and local-scale urbanization intensified the storm, causing more rainfall than either climate or urbanization on its own.

Seeking a way of preventing audio models for AI machine learning from being fooled Warnings have emerged about the unreliability of the metrics used to detect whether an audio perturbation designed to fool AI models can be perceived by humans Research 20/12/2021 Jon Vadillo Jon Vadillo. Photo: Nagore Iraola. UPV/EHU. Researchers at the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country show that the distortion metrics used to detect intentional perturbations in audio signals are not a reliable measure of human perception, and have proposed a series of improvements. These perturbations, designed to be imperceptible, can be used to cause erroneous predictions in artificial intelligence. Distortion metrics are applied to assess how effective the methods are in generating such attacks.

Magnets and superconductors don’t normally get along, but a new study shows that ‘magic-angle’ graphene is capable of producing both superconductivity and ferromagnetism, which could be useful in quantum computing.

Researchers have developed an optical biopsy system that can distinguish between cancerous and healthy liver tissue. The technology makes use of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and lifetime fluorescence measurements to evaluate makers of cellular metabolism that differ between healthy and cancerous cells. The system has higher accuracy than traditional biopsies, possibly making liver cancer diagnosis easier.