23 November 2019 | New Scientist | 9Space exploration Artificial intelligence
Clare Wilson Donna Lu
BEING in microgravity can have
strange effects on the body – now
it has emerged that it can make
people’s blood flow backwards.
The changes to circulation caused
two astronauts to develop small
blood clots, which could have been
fatal, though they came to no harm.
Blood flow was affected in a
vessel called the left internal jugular
vein, one of two that normally move
blood out of the head when we are
lying down. When we are upright,
they mostly collapse to stop too
much blood from draining out
of the head, with our circulation
taking a different route through
veins with more resistance instead.
On Earth, people have been
observed with backwards blood
flow in the left internal jugular vein
if there is a blockage lower down,
such as from a chest tumour.
Microgravity is known to change
people’s blood flow, so Karina
Marshall-Goebel of KBR, an
engineering company based in
Texas, and her colleagues wondered
if it would also affect this vein.
They carried out measurements
and scans of the blood vessel in nine
men and two women on the ground
before and after their missions
on the International Space Station.
The astronauts took measurements
50 and 150 days into their flights
(JAMA Network Open, doi.org/dfb6).
In two of the astronauts, the
blood flow was backwards while in
space, perhaps because the lack of
gravity caused organs in the chest
to shift around, pressing on the vein
lower down, says Marshall-Goebel.
Blood in this vein was stagnant
in another five crew members.
In one of these, the scan revealed a
clot. “That was definitely alarming,”
says Marshall-Goebel. Clots can be
fatal if they reach the lungs, so the
person began taking blood-thinning
drugs. A small clot was also spotted
in one astronaut who had already
returned to Earth. ❚
Some astronauts’
blood flows the
wrong way
AD BLOCKERS aren’t going
to be useful for much longer.
Major entertainment firms
including 20th Century Fox
are now using artificial
intelligence to digitally insert
advertisements and products
into movies and TV shows
after they have been filmed.
The companies are using
technology developed by
UK firm Mirriad to insert flat
posters on buildings, walls and
buses in already-filmed scenes
and even to add 3D objects.
It has the potential to make
advertising more targeted and
ubiquitous than ever before,
and also virtually impossible
to avoid. The technology blurs
the line between advertising
and entertainment, and could
take the feel of a production
outside a director’s creative
vision for it.
The technique has been used
to insert ads into shows such
as Modern Family, which is
produced by 20th Century Fox.
In the US, Mirriad has also
worked with Univision, NBC
Universal and Sony Pictures
Television so far. In Europe,
Mirriad has partnerships with
French broadcasters FranceTelevision and TF1, and with
RTL in Germany. In China,
Mirriad-inserted ads have been
seen by more than 100 million
viewers on video-streaming
website Tencent Video.
Mirriad analyses films or TV
episodes for spaces where ads or
objects could be inserted, using
an AI to identify information
about each scene – whether it
is on a street, for example, or
of a family. Scenes shot in living
rooms, say, may contain tablespace where bottles of particular
drinks brands can be inserted.
“We can recognise all the scenes
when people are in an elevator,”
says Ann Wang at Tencent
Video. This lets them insert
posters on the elevator walls.
The goal is to train the AI to
understand emotion, context
and continuity across scenes,
so ad insertion can be fully
automated, says Mirriad
CEO Stephan Beringer.
Mirriad and Tencent Video
both have plans to tailor thesein-video ads to individual
viewers. Tencent has the
technology to show different
advertisements to different
people, but hasn’t yet launched
the feature, says Wang.
Take a scenario in which two
people are separately watching
a television series. “You would
be watching the exact same
scene, but we would be seeing
different things,” says Beringer –
say, a silver or red car, or
different brands of soft drink.
Mirriad can produce several
versions of each ad, and what a
viewer sees would depend on
how the company targets them.
“Consumers are not always
aware that the commercial
content is being blended in
with the cultural content,”
says Caroline Moraes at the
University of Birmingham, UK.
“There’s a blurring of lines.”
Firms have long paid
for product placement in
entertainment, but there
are specific concerns with
ad-insertion technology. For
example, actors may be seen to
be endorsing items that appear
in scenes with them, which they
may have little say in because
the ads are added after filming.
Creative integrity and
continuity within a show or
film are also factors. And new
ads inserted into older content
may not be in line with what a
film or TV director wanted to do.
There are strict rules around
product placement, but these
may need updating for this
more sophisticated and
potentially more targeted kind
of advertising. 20th Century Fox
didn’t respond to New Scientist’s
requests for comment. ❚Ads and products get
pasted into TV shows
ER
IC^ MCC
ANDL
ES
S/ABC- TV
/KOBA
L/SHUTTER
ST
OCKModern Family has
episodes with digitally
inserted adverts“ It has the potential to
make advertising more
targeted and ubiquitous
than ever before”