Researchers from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI's Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems have recently developed a new learning model for the restricted Boltzmann machine (a neural network) which helps optimize the processes of semantic encoding, visualization and data recognition.

Today, deep neural networks with different architectures, such as convolutional, recurrent and autoencoder networks, are becoming an increasingly popular area of research. A number of high-tech companies, including Microsoft and Google, are using deep neural networks to design various intelligent systems. Together with deep neural networks, the term "deep" learning has gained currency.

In deep learning systems, the processes of feature selection and configuration are automated, which means that the networks can choose between the most effective algorithms for hierarchal feature extraction on their own. Deep learning is characterized by learning with the help of large samples using a single optimization algorithm. Typical optimization algorithms configure the parameters of all operations simultaneously and effectively estimate every neural network parameter's effect on error with the help of the so-called backpropagation method.

"The neural networks' ability to learn on their own is one of their most intriguing properties," explained Vladimir Golovko, Professor at the MEPhI Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems. "Just like biological systems, neural networks can model themselves, seeking to develop the best possible model of behavior."

Over time, we've learned how to read the body language of horses - from understanding whether the movement of its ears, head, legs and tail mean its relaxed, anxious, angry or alert.

But it turns out horses are capable of pulling faces just like humans, too - which may shed more light on what they're feeling.

In fact, horses can make 17 facial movements - which is at least three more than our relatives, the chimpanzees, and just 10 less than humans.

In order to try and identify whether horses can pull more than just a long face, researchers at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom created the Equine Facial Action Coding System (EquiFACS) to determine any discrete expressions made by horses.

By dissecting a horse's head and identifying its facial musculature, in addition to watching 15 hours of horse behavior in 86 horses ranging in breed and age, they were able to log any possible faces that the animals can make.

The discovery of gravitational waves was the crowning glory of Einstein's relativity. They might now have provided the first hint of something to scupper it

A LONG time ago, in a galaxy far away, two black holes collided. We know this because more than a billion years later, on the morning of 14 September 2015, we felt it: in the world's most exquisitely sensitive measuring device, laser beams shifted ever so slightly as ripples in space-time washed over Earth.

This first detection of gravitational waves was the culmination of an epic scientific quest, and a stunning endorsement of general relativity, Einstein's landmark theory of gravity. Since then, our detectors have seen them five more times. But this is just the start - and although everything we have learned from the first waves is consistent with Einstein's masterpiece, the coming deluge of sightings could tear it apart.

Something unexpected has been gradually making itself known to geologists in the United States. A huge mass of molten rock is creeping upwards beneath the nation's north eastern states.

"The upwelling we detected is like a hot-air balloon, and we infer that something is rising up through the deeper part of our planet under New England," says Rutgers University geophysicist Professor Vadim Levin.

Traces of the brooding mass only became evident through a large-scale new seismic study.

The idea that there may be a super volcano brewing under Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire is something of a surprise.

A new spacecraft dedicated to cleaning up some of the alarming quantities of space junk - including old satellites and defunct spacecraft - encircling Earth has been launched from the ISS.

There are more than 22,000 pieces of man-made debris larger than 4 inches (10cm) currently being tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network. The RemoveDEBRIS spacecraft will test methods to clean up litter orbiting the Earth - litter which threatens to damage or destroy satellites and manned space missions.

In 2016, a window on the International Space Station (ISS) cracked after being struck with just a tiny fleck of debris.

The (220lb) 100kg RemoveDEBRIS craft is equipped with a big net and harpoon to carry out its clean-up, and also contains a Vision Based Navigation (VBN) system which will use 2D cameras and 3D LIDAR technology to track debris.

The US risks being outpaced by China in groundbreaking military hi-tech, including artificial intelligence, robotics and big data, former US Deputy Defense Secretary warned, adding "this is what it feels like to be offset."

The United States "should be prepared to be surprised" in any conflict with China, not only because Beijing has done a lot to modernize its armed forces, but also how much it has invested in next-generation military technology, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work told a conference 'Strategic competition: Maintaining the edge' hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

"As I watch the ongoing military technical competition in the Western Pacific, in between our two great power rivals - especially China - I find myself saying: This is what it feels like to be offset," Work added. "And I got to tell you - it doesn't feel very good."

A Chinese space station's mysterious manoeuvres have sparked fears it's about to plunge to Earth.

Earlier this year, Beijing's Tiangong 1 satellite burned up over the South Pacific after spending months locked in a death spiral. Now Tiangong-2, its sister craft, was spotted diving 60 miles toward the surface of our planet before mysteriously climbing back to its usual orbital height.

The strange movements suggest China has a plan for its spaceship. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Space News: 'It seems likely that the lowering of Tiangong-2's orbit is the first step in safely disposing of it.'

What is "now"? It is an idea that physics treats as a mere illusion, yet it is something we are all familiar with. We tend to think of it as this current instant, a moment with no duration. But if now were timeless, we wouldn't experience a succession of nows as time passing. Neither would we be able to perceive things like motion. We couldn't operate in the world if the present had no duration. So how long is it?

That sounds like a metaphysical question, but neuroscientists and psychologists have an answer. In recent years, they have amassed evidence indicating that now lasts on average between 2 and 3 seconds. This is the now you are aware of - the window within which your brain fuses what you are experiencing into a "psychological present". It is surprisingly long. But that's just the beginning of the weirdness. There is also evidence that the now you experience is made up of a jumble of mini subconscious nows and that your brain is choosy about what events it admits into your nows. Different parts of the brain measure now in different ways. What's more, the window of perceived now can expand in some circumstances and contract in others.

Now is clearly a slippery concept. Nevertheless, it would be good to pin it down because it could tell us something about the bigger picture of how the brain tracks time. Not just that, the perception of the present is also crucial to how we experience the world. If events appear simultaneous when they aren't, that has implications for our understanding of what causes what. "Your sense of nowness underpins your entire conscious experience," says Marc Wittmann at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany. Understanding now even helps us address the question of whether we have free will.

We have long known that the brain contains structures that use cycles of light and dark to set its daily clock. How it tracks the passing of seconds and minutes is much less well understood. At this level, there are two broad types of timing mechanism, an implicit and an explicit one. The explicit one relates to how we judge duration - something we're surprisingly good at. The implicit mechanism is the timing of "now" - it is how the brain defines a psychological moment and so structures our conscious experience.

Polluted air doesn't just affect our physical health, but it can disturb our psychological health too. The findings of a recent study show that exposure to air pollution, or even just the belief that you've been exposed to toxic air whether you have or not, can compromise a person's sense of morality.

Researchers from Columbia University conducted experimental studies and surveys of past data to find indications of air pollution exposure affecting crime and deviant behavior. The results showed a link between pollutants and a person's likelihood of committing a criminal act or cheating. The authors believe the connection has to do with increased anxiety that people experience in areas with greater levels of pollution.

"Our findings suggest that air pollution not only corrupts people's health, but also can contaminate their morality," says first author Jackson G. Lu, a behavioral scientist at Columbia Business School, in a release by the Association for Psychological Science.

Previous research has associated elevated levels of air pollution to heightened anxiety in individuals, which has long been correlated with unethical behaviors.

Scientists no longer need a time machine to study Neanderthal cognitive abilities, after a group of geneticists managed to successfully create miniature Neanderthal brains.

A group of geneticists at the University of California, San Diego led by Professor Alysson Muotri conducted a breakthrough experiment, engineering miniature pea-sized versions of the Neanderthal brain.

The results of this unprecedented experiment were presented at June's UCSD conference called 'Imagination and Human Evolution.'