AI discovers that Not Every Fingerprint is Unique

AI discovers that not every fingerprint is unique
Saliency map highlights areas that contribute to the similarity between the two fingerprints from the same person. Credit: Gabe Guo,/Columbia Engineering

From “Law and Order” to “CSI,” not to mention real life, investigators have used fingerprints as the gold standard for linking criminals to a crime. But if a perpetrator leaves prints from different fingers in two different crime scenes, these scenes are very difficult to link, and the trace can go cold.

It’s a well-accepted fact in the forensics community that fingerprints of different fingers of the same person—”intra-person fingerprints”—are unique and, therefore, unmatchable.

A team led by Columbia Engineering undergraduate senior Gabe Guo challenged this widely held presumption...

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Nube, the Almost Invisible Galaxy that Challenges the Dark Matter Model

Nube, the almost invisible galaxy that challenges the dark matter model
The Nube galaxy. The figure is a composition of a color image and a black and white image, to pick out the background. Credit: GTC/Mireia Montes

Nube is an almost invisible dwarf galaxy discovered by an international research team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL) and other institutions.

The name was suggested by the 5-year-old daughter of one of the researchers in the group and is due to the diffuse appearance of the object. Its surface brightness is so faint that it had passed unnoticed in the various previous surveys of this part of the sky due to the object’s diffuse appearance as if it were some kind of ghost...

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Main Regulator for the Body`s ‘Oven’ discovered

Main regulator for the body`s oven discovered
Main regulator for the body`s oven discovered – (from left): Prof. Alexander Pfeifer and Dr. Laia Reverte-Salisa identify protein that increases the formation of good brown and beige fat.© University Hospital Bonn (UKB) / Alessandro Winkler

Bonn researchers identify protein that increases the formation of good brown and beige fat. Brown fat cells convert energy into heat — a key to eliminating unwanted fat deposits. In addition, they also protect against cardiovascular diseases. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Life & Health” at the University of Bonn have now identified the protein EPAC1 as a new pharmacological target to increase brown fat mass and activity. The long-term aim is to find medicines that support weight loss...

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New Study uses Machine Learning to Bridge the Reality Gap in Quantum Devices

New study uses machine learning to bridge the reality gap in quantum devices
(a) Device geometry including the gate electrodes (labeled G1–G8), donor ion plane, and an example disorder potential experienced by confined electrons. Typical flow of current from source to drain is indicated by the white arrow. (b) Schematic of the disorder inference process. Colors indicate the following: red for experimentally controllable variables, green for quantities relevant to the electrostatic model, blue for experimental device, and yellow for machine learning methods. Dashed arrows represent the process of generating training data for the deep learning approximation and are not part of the disorder inference process. Credit: Physical Review X (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.14.011001

A study led by the University of Oxford has used the power of machine learning to ove...

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