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Marvin Minsky, the pioneering artificial intelligence theorist, died of cerebral hemorrhage Sunday (January 24) at the age of 88 at a hospital in Boston. Apart from being the founding father of the field of artificial intelligence, Minsky was, during his long tenure as professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an innovative explorer of the mysteries of the human mind.

Born in New York City on August 9, 1927, Minsky’s father Henry was a noted eye surgeon who served as director of Mount Sinai Hospital’s ophthalmology department in Manhattan. His mother, the former Fannie Reiser, was active in Zionist causes.

The MIT’s Media Lab that he headed had a broad, interdisciplinary mandate to explore technology, multimedia and design.

According to a new study, it is being said that keeping a conspiracy hidden is a tough task since one of the conspirators will unravel the secret in due course of time. A research has been undertaken to calculate the time that is taken for a conspiracy to get revealed in front of the masses, deliberately or inadvertently.

An equation has been formulated by Dr. David Grimes, a post-doctoral physicist at Oxford University, to calculate the time required for the revelation of a conspiracy. The formula has been formulated on the basis of three parameters, namely the number of involved schemers, time that has passed since the conspiracy and the basic probability of the failure of a conspiracy.

Leading medical societies and the federal government have come up with a public campaign to increase awareness of prediabetes and help people understand it and know how to prevent type 2 diabetes.

In the US, over one-third of adults have prediabetes, a condition wherein blood glucose levels become higher than normal but not sufficiently high for type 2 diabetes consideration.

In an editorial on the American Medical Association (AMA) website, Stephen R. Permut, MD, wrote that up to 70% of people with prediabetes may contract type 2 diabetes. He mentioned that people suffering from prediabetes have a 20% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease in comparison with people without prediabetes.

On Sunday, local organizers said that Rio de Janeiro's Olympic venues are going to be checked every day during the games in a bid to stop the spread of a mosquito-borne virus related to an uncommon birth defect. The condition can also result into paralysis.

Brazil is facing Zika virus outbreak, which as per health officials here could be behind a rise in microcephaly cases, wherein infants take birth with unusually tiny heads, and the paralysis-causing Guillain-Barre syndrome.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended expectant women to avoid travel to Brazil and 21 other Zika outbreaks facing countries.

A team of scientists at the Plymouth University carried out a research to assess the composition of paints that are applied on the playing equipments installed at 50 parks across Cornwall, Devon, Hampshire and Somerset in England. The research revealed that the level of the toxic lead at the parks was up to 40 times higher than the recommended levels. These levels are highly dangerous for the young children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has lead among its list of the top 10 chemicals that are primary reason for public health concern. The level of lead that is approved under the European guidelines in 1977 for the playgrounds is a maximum of 0.25%. However, the playing equipment installed at a Plymouth-park that was constructed in 2009 was assessed to contain 10% of lead.

Dr Linda Mah of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto, Canada, has carried out an evaluation of published research on the affect of stress and anxiety on the various parts of our brain. Dr Mah and her team found that excessive stress can result in certain modification in the brain, leading to depression and Alzheimer. The evaluation revealed that constant stress and anxiety can harm the primary areas of the brain that are responsible for emotional responses, thinking and memory.