Conservative female politicians look happier and more attractive in pictures than liberals, according to artificial intelligence. A study conducted in Denmark and published in Scientific Reports found that those on the right were more likely to have happier facial expressions, whereas liberals looked more neutral. The scientists inputted some 3,200 photos of political candidates who ran in the 2017 Danish municipal election into Microsoft Azure’s Face API tool to assess the person’s emotional state. The analysis found 80 per cent of the faces displayed a happy expression, while 19 per cent read as neutral. “For females (though not males), high attractiveness scores were found among those the model identified as likely to be conservative,” read the findings. “These results are credible given that previous research using human raters has also highlighted a link between attractiveness and conservatism.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Meanwhile, left-leaning male politicians showed more neutral, less happy faces than their conservative counterparts, the study found. “Attractiveness was not the only correlate of model-predicted ideology,” the scientists explained. “We also found that expressing happiness is associated with conservatism for both genders. “Previous work has found smiling in photographs to be a valid indicator of extraversion,” they continued. “And while extraversion is not broadly associated with ideology some studies have found that right-wing politicians are more extraverted.” Scientists noted that “because attractiveness generally helps electoral success, all candidates are incentivised to provide an attractive photograph.” “Politicians on the left and right may have different incentives for smiling — for example, smiling faces have been found to look more attractive which is comparatively important for conservative politicians,” the paper reads. “Future work is needed to explore the extent to which happy faces are indicative of conservatism outside of samples of politicians." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can classify four subtypes of Parkinson’s disease with up to 95% accuracy. Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in London “trained” a computer program to recognise the subtypes of the condition using images of stem cells from patients. The team said their work, published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, could pave the way for personalised medicine and targeted drug discovery. Sonia Gandhi, assistant research director and group leader of the Neurodegeneration Biology Laboratory at the Crick, said: “We understand many of the processes that are causing Parkinson’s in people’s brains. The hope is that one day this could lead to fundamental changes in how we deliver personalised medicine Sonia Gandhi, Francis Crick Institute “But, while they are alive, we have no way of knowing which mechanism is happening, and therefore can’t give precise treatments. “We don’t currently have treatments which make a huge difference in the progression of Parkinson’s disease. “Using a model of the patient’s own neurons, and combining this with large numbers of images, we generated an algorithm to classify certain subtypes – a powerful approach that could open the door to identifying disease subtypes in life. “Taking this one step further, our platform would allow us to first test drugs in stem cell models, and predict whether a patient’s brain cells would be likely to respond to a drug, before enrolling into clinical trials. “The hope is that one day this could lead to fundamental changes in how we deliver personalised medicine.” Parkinson’s is a condition in which parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years. Symptoms include involuntary shaking of particular parts of the body, slow movement, and stiff and inflexible muscles. But there is also a wide range of other physical and psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety, problems sleeping, and memory problems. These vary from person to person due to differences in the underlying mechanisms causing the disease. The researchers said that until now, there was no way to accurately differentiate Parkinson’s subtypes. It means people are given nonspecific diagnoses and do not always have access to targeted treatments, support or care, the team added. For the study, the researchers generated stem cells, which have the ability to develop into specialised cell types in the body, from patients’ own cells. The team then used those cells to chemically create four different subtypes of Parkinson’s: two involving pathways leading to toxic build-up of a protein called alpha-synuclein and two involving pathways associated with dysfunctional mitochondria, the cell’s battery packs. Working with the British technology company Faculty AI, the team developed machine-learning algorithms which were able to accurately predict the Parkinson’s subtype when presented with images it had not seen before. James Evans, a PhD student at the Crick and UCL, and first co-author of the study, said: “Now that we use more advanced image techniques, we generate vast quantities of data, much of which is discarded when we manually select a few features of interest. “Using AI in this study enabled us to evaluate a larger number of cell features, and assess the importance of these features in discerning (the) disease subtype. “Using deep learning, we were able to extract much more information from our images than with conventional image analysis. “We now hope to expand this approach to understand how these cellular mechanisms contribute to other subtypes of Parkinson’s.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Oxford scientists find no evidence to suggest Facebook not good for wellbeing Many adults would struggle to understand video-sharing platforms’ rules – Ofcom Ozzy Osbourne PlayStation tweet which failed to reveal link to Sony banned

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Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will deliver the keynote speech at the tech company’s annual Connect conference. Zuckerberg and guests are expected to unveil the new Meta Quest 3 VR headset and, the company says, reveal how Meta is bringing mixed reality to life. Zuckerburg will speak about how AI can help people connect and express themselves in new ways, according to the company. And he will showcase Meta’s latest products and updates that will help developers build the future of human connection. This year’s Connect is being billed as a two-day virtual event focused on AI and virtual, mixed and augmented realities, as it seeks to put its mark on these emerging technologies. The highlight of the two-day event event will likely be the keynote, where Meta is expected to announce its much-hyped Quest 3 mixed-reality headset. Zuckerberg is expected reveal the Quest 3’s features, pricing, and availability. Read More ‘Shocking’ rise in number of children falling victim to sextortion, charity says Elon Musk warns of ‘civilisational risk’ posed by AI at historic gathering ChatGPT boss says he’s achieved human-level AI, then says he’s ‘just memeing’

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