
-
Myanmar quake victim rescued after 5 days as aid calls grow
-
Real Madrid coach Ancelotti tax fraud trial set to begin
-
Warner showcases 'Superman' reboot, new DiCaprio film
-
'Incredible' Curry scores 52 as Warriors down Grizzlies, Bucks edge Suns
-
Asian markets edge up but uncertainty rules ahead of Trump tariffs
-
Nintendo's megahit Switch console: what to know
-
Nintendo to unveil upgrade to best-selling Switch console
-
China practises hitting key ports, energy sites in Taiwan drills
-
Oil, sand and speed: Saudi gearheads take on towering dunes
-
All eyes on Tsunoda at Japan GP after ruthless Red Bull move
-
'Image whisperers' bring vision to the blind at Red Cross museum
-
Hay shines as New Zealand make 292-8 in Pakistan ODI
-
Other governments 'weaponising' Trump language to attack NGOs: rights groups
-
UK imposes online entry permit on European visitors
-
How a Brazilian chief is staving off Amazon destruction
-
Meme politics: White House embraces aggressive alt-right online culture
-
China launches military drills in Taiwan Strait
-
US senator smashes record with 25-hour anti-Trump speech
-
Brazil binman finds newborn baby on garbage route
-
US senator smashes record with marathon anti-Trump speech
-
Trump advisor Waltz faces new pressure over Gmail usage
-
Niger junta frees ministers of overthrown government
-
Trump set to unleash 'Liberation Day' tariffs
-
Boeing chief to acknowledge 'serious missteps' at US Senate hearing
-
Real Madrid hold Real Sociedad in eight-goal thriller to reach Copa del Rey final
-
Nuno salutes 'special' Elanga after stunning strike fires Forest
-
PSG survive scare against Dunkerque to reach French Cup final
-
Sundowns edge Esperance as crowd violence mars quarter-final
-
Nottingham Forest beat Man Utd, Saka scores on Arsenal return
-
Elanga wonder-goal sinks Man Utd as Forest eye Champions League berth
-
Stock markets mostly advance ahead of Trump tariffs deadline
-
US movie theaters urge 45-day 'baseline' before films hit streaming
-
Saka scores on return as Arsenal beat Fulham
-
Third-division Bielefeld shock holders Leverkusen in German Cup
-
Ball-blasting 'Torpedo bats' making waves across MLB opening weekend
-
Newsmax shares surge more than 2,000% in days after IPO
-
Thousands of Hungarians protest against Pride ban law
-
GM leads first quarter US auto sales as tariffs loom
-
Tesla sales tumble in Europe in the first quarter
-
No 'eye for an eye' approach to US tariffs: Mexico
-
NFL club owners back dynamic kickoffs, delay tush push vote
-
Trump 'perfecting' new tariffs as nervous world braces
-
Trump nominee says to press UK on Israel arms
-
French court says Le Pen appeal ruling could come before presidential vote
-
The battle to control assets behind Bosnia crisis
-
Prabhsimran powers Punjab to IPL win over Lucknow
-
Mass layoffs targeting 10,000 jobs hit US health agencies
-
Tiger's April Foolishness: plan to play Masters just a joke
-
Myanmar quake toll passes 2,700, nation halts to honour victims
-
Turkish fans, artists urge Muse to cancel Istanbul gig

Google AI tool predicts danger of genetic mutations
Researchers at Google DeepMind, the tech giant's artificial intelligence arm, on Tuesday introduced a tool that predicts whether genetic mutations are likely to cause harm, a breakthrough that could help research into rare diseases.
The findings are "another step in recognising the impact that AI is having in the natural sciences," said Pushmeet Kohli, vice president for research at Google DeepMind.
The tool focuses on so-called "missense" mutations, where a single letter of the genetic code is affected.
A typical human has 9,000 such mutations throughout their genome; they can be harmless or cause diseases such as cystic fibrosis or cancer, or damage brain development.
To date, four million of these mutations have been observed in humans, but only two percent of them have been classified, either as disease-causing or benign.
In all, there are 71 million such possible mutations. The Google DeepMind tool, called AlphaMissense, reviewed these mutations and was able to predict 89 percent of them, with 90 percent accuracy.
A score was assigned to each mutation, indicating the risk of it causing disease (otherwise referred to as pathogenic).
The result: 57 percent were classified as probably benign, and 32 percent as probably pathogenic -- the remainder being uncertain.
The database was made public and available to scientists, and an accompanying study was published on Tuesday in the journal Science.
AlphaMissense demonstrates "superior performance" than previously available tools, wrote experts Joseph Marsh and Sarah Teichmann in an article also published in Science.
"We should emphasize that the predictions were never really trained or never really intended to be used for clinical diagnosis alone," said Jun Cheng of Google DeepMind.
"However, we do think that our predictions can potentially be helpful to increase the diagnosed rate of rare disease, and also potentially to help us find new disease-causing genes," Cheng added.
Indirectly, this could lead to the development of new treatments, the researchers said.
The tool was trained on the DNA of humans and closely-related primates, enabling it to recognize which genetic mutations are widespread.
Cheng said the training allowed the tool to input "millions of protein sequences and learns what a regular protein sequence looks like."
It then could identify a mutation and its potential for harm.
Cheng compared the process to learning a language.
"If we substitute a word from an English sentence, a person that is familiar with English can immediately see whether this word substitution will change the meaning of the sentence or not."
C.Garcia--AMWN