The mayor called for a state of emergency and the closing of all schools after the Italian city was submerged under “acqua alta,” an exceptionally high tide. Source: Venice Battles Flooding Amid Highest Tide in 50 Years – The New York Times

A year ago Google reported a breakthrough artificial intelligence technology called BERT. BERT, which is used in Google’s internet search engine, learns from digitized information like Wikipedia entries, news articles, and old books. This presents Source: OODA Loop – A.I. Systems Echo Biases They’re Fed, Putting Scientists on Guard

Engineers have developed a way to control balance in Little HERMES, a two-legged, teleoperated robot — an essential step toward enabling a humanoid to carry out high-impact tasks in challenging environments. The work was done at MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Source: Two-legged robot mimics human balance Continue Reading

Scientists are finding that galaxies can move with each other across huge distances, and against the predictions of basic cosmological models. The reason why could change everything we think we know about the universe. Source: There’s Growing Evidence That the Universe Is Connected by Giant Structures – VICE

The air pollution is in the “hazardous” category and has been described as the worst so far this year. Source: India air pollution at ‘unbearable levels’, Delhi minister says – BBC News

The acting ambassador to Ukraine dropped a bombshell Wednesday, testifying to a previously unknown conversation that President Trump had that directly… Source: In Impeachment Surprise, Taylor Unveils New Evidence Directly Implicating Trump | Talking Points Memo