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Mint
11-08-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Who was Miguel Uribe? Colombia's president-hopeful dies two months after being shot in the head
Colombia's President hopeful Miguel Uribe died on Monday, two months after being shot at a political rally in June, his family has said. He was 39 at the time of his death. Miguel Uribe Turbay's family announced his death on the day, saying that the politician passed away at a hospital in Colombia's capital, Bogota, more than two months after the attack. 'Rest in peace, love of my life. I will take care of our children,' his wife, María Claudia Tarazona, wrote in a social media post confirming his death. 'I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you.' On 7 June, Uribe sustained fatal injuries after he was shot three times, twice in the head, while giving a campaign speech in a park and had remained in an intensive care unit in serious condition with episodes of slight improvement. He had several neurosurgeries following the attack, all in vain. Authorities have detained six people, including a teenager who was apprehended at the scene. The accused was formally charged this month with attempted murder and illegal possession of a weapon. It remains unclear who ordered the attack. Probe is still on regarding the case. Born in 1986, Miguel Uribe Turbay was the son of assassinated journalist Diana Turbay and the grandson of Colombia's former President Julio César Turbay Ayala. He was a right-wing senator and member of the opposition conservative Democratic Centre party, which was founded by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The two leaders are not related. The assassination is the starkest sign yet that the country's stability is unravelling a year before President Gustavo Petro is set to leave office. Uribe's killing will likely reshape Colombia's 2026 presidential race — which so far lacks a clear front-runner — and potentially sideline candidates hoping to defend Petro's legacy. A lawyer with a master's degree in public administration, Miguel Uribe entered politics as a councilman for Bogota at the age of 26. Uribe studied at Bogotá's Universidad de los Andes and Harvard's Kennedy School. He had expressed his intentions to run for President in 2026.
Mint
29-04-2025
- Science
- Mint
Clicks & growls: Why AI's hearing the call of the wild
Google has used artificial intelligence (AI) to decode and mimic dolphin sounds, advancing our understanding of marine life. But can AI truly outperform human insight in interpreting animal communication? Also Read | Return of Indian tech brands: Is it for real this time? Dolphins are famously socially skilled, intelligent, agile, joyful and playful, thus sharing many emotional similarities with (some) humans. Just as British ethologist Jane Goodall studied the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees, Denise Herzing has studied dolphin communication in the wild since 1985, making The Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) the longest running underwater dolphin research project in the world. Google, in partnership with Georgia Tech and WDP, used an AI model to analyse vocal patterns much like a language model, identifying structure and predicting sequences. Also Read | Why Pakistan's trade ban is more sound than fury Dolphins use distinct sounds for different social situations: whistles act like names for individual identification, especially between mothers and calves; squawks often occur during conflicts; and click buzzes are used in courtship. DolphinGemma, Google's 400 million parameter model that runs on Pixel6 smartphones, decodes these sounds by combining audio tech with data from WDP acquired by studying wild dolphins in the Bahamas. On National Dolphin Day (14 April), Google showcased advances to its AI model that can now analyse dolphin vocal patterns and generate realistic, dolphin-like sounds. Also Read | Return of the dire wolf: Is this a Game of Clones? AI is being used to detect how parrots, crows, wolves, whales, chimpanzees and octopuses communicate. NatureLM-audio is the first audio-language model built for animal sounds and can generalize to unseen species. Other projects use AI and robotics to decode sperm whale clicks, or listen to elephants to detect possible warning calls and mating signals. It aids conservation by monitoring endangered species. Decoding communication reveals ecosystem health, alerting us to pollution and climate change. It enhances human-animal interactions and fosters empathy. AI, combined with satellite imagery, camera traps and bioacoustics, is being used in Guacamaya to monitor deforestation and protect the Amazon, a collaboration between Universidad de los Andes, Instituto SINCHI, Instituto Humboldt, Planet Labs and Microsoft AI for Good Lab. AI can detect animal sound patterns, but without context— is the animal mating, feeding or in danger?—its interpretations are limited. The risk of humans assuming animals 'talk" like humans do, messy field data, and species-specific behaviours can complicate analysis. AI might identify correlations but not true meaning or intent. Human intuition helps. These systems often require custom models and extensive resources, making large-scale, accurate decoding of animal communication a complex effort.
