Map apps may have changed our world, but they still haven’t mapped all of it yet. Specifically, mapping roads can be difficult and tedious: Even after taking aerial images, companies still have to spend many hours manually tracing out roads. As a result, even companies like Google haven’t yet gotten around to mapping the vast majority of the more than 20 million miles of roads across the globe.

Gaps in maps are a problem, particularly for systems being developed for self-driving cars. To address the issue, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have created RoadTracer, an automated method to build road maps that’s 45 percent more accurate than existing approaches.

The University of Waterloo launched the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute today, bringing together a large group of researchers and businesses to advance technology and prepare Canada for future economic disruption.

Waterloo AI uniquely focuses on end-to-end innovation ranging from foundational to operational AI. Foundational AI advances the field as a whole through research in a number of areas, including statistical learning, deep learning, game theory and data science. Operational AI develops scalable, secure and transparent solutions for a wide range of applications.

One morning at the Shambhala Music Festival in the Kootenays a few years ago, young scientist-to-be Paige Whitehead looked around at the vast piles of discarded glow sticks everywhere and was struck by the thought that there surely had to be a more environmentally friendly way to party.

Much more than merlot is being harvested from the vineyards dotting the landscape near UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Scientists have engineered an enzyme which can digest some of our most commonly polluting plastics, providing a potential solution to one of the world’s biggest environmental problems.

If you've ever noticed yourself thinking about the timing of a plan in two opposing ways – something that feels longer off than your actual time calculation -- you’re on to something. New research shows our different ways of estimating time don't necessarily move in lock-step.

Shared fates and experiences in a community can help it withstand changes to water availability due to climate change, a recent study by Sandia National Laboratories researchers found.

A moss capable of removing arsenic from contaminated water has been discovered by researchers from Stockholm University. And it happens quickly – in just one hour, the arsenic level is so low that the water is no longer harmful for people to drink. The study has been published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) is an UN-led programme aiming to increase carbon sequestration in tropical forests. REDD+ is included among technologies for negative emissions, which stand for a large share of the emission reductions in the climate models internationally agreed on to keep global warming below 2°C. But increasing forest cover in developing counties can threaten other values, as shown in this new study. In southern Ethiopia the tree heather heathlands above the treeline are regularly burnt in order to improve livestock pasture, a practice that authorities within the REDD+ system now tries to stop in order to increase carbon storage. A new study from Stockholm University shows that the ancient pasture burning maintains biodiversity and habitats for alpine plant species not found anywhere else

Plants may have exerted greater influence on our terrestrial ecosystems than the megaherbivores that used to roam our landscapes, according to new research.