An artificial intelligence algorithm can transform still images into a high-resolution, explorable 3D world, with potential implications for film effects and virtual reality.

A trippy maths program that visualises the inside of strange 3D spaces could help us figure out the shape of the universe.

Henry Segerman at Oklahoma State University and his colleagues have been working to interactively map the inside of mathematical spaces known as 3-manifolds using a program called .

“I’ve been thinking about these things for 20 years, but we never had pictures,” says Segerman.

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A 3-manifold is like a generalised version of ordinary three-dimensional space. “A 3-manifold is something that looks like three-dimensional space if you look at just a little piece of it,” says Segerman. “But it might be connected in some weird way around the back.”

Different manifolds may or may not have boundary. “There might be a place where you can’t go any further,” says Segerman.

To understand this, it helps to think of a 2-manifold, which is a generalised version of two-dimensional space. A 2-manifold could be a flat space that goes on forever, but it could also be a sphere or a Möbius strip, which you can loop around forever, yet never go round the edge.

The team looked at 3-manifolds with the shape of a knot removed from them. “Three-dimensional manifolds where we’ve removed a knot from space – those have boundary where the knot used to be,” says Segerman.

This removal has strange effects on the space. For example, pink balls morph into cigar shapes as the program comes up with different geometries inside where the knot was (see video above).

“You can’t just use ordinary graphics as you would in computer games,” says Segerman. “You have to build it from the ground up.”

One of the interests of this branch of maths, called topology, is the shape of the universe. “Does it go on forever in all directions? Does it somehow loop around on itself?” asks Segerman. “We can’t see far enough to know.”

The team hopes that other mathematicians can use the program for visualisations that may lead to future ideas.

Not so smart. Lumos Labs, the firm behind the popular Lumosity brain training games, has settled charges of making false claims about the games’ benefits brought by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Claims that they stave off memory loss and protect against dementia were not supported by science, argued the FTC. .

Mysterious tools

The islands of South-East Asia may have once been home to several forms of prehistoric human, perhaps even a species new to science. Stone tools discovered on Sulawesi in Indonesia date back at least 118,000 years – long before modern humans reached the area – and it’s not clear yet who made them (Nature, ).

Bird flu reaches UK

Bird flu has been found on a chicken farm in Dunfermline, UK. Tests suggest the viral strain will cause only a mild form of the disease in birds. There is a very low risk to human health. Nonetheless, the birds at the farm will be culled, and restrictions are in place to limit the movement of poultry in the area.

Alien 3D printing

Asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources has revealed the first object 3D-printed from meteorite ore, a scale model of one of its spacecraft parts. The rock was found on Earth and the printing was done here, but in future the company plans to mine and manufacture in space.

Wildlife protection

Parrots, pythons and giant clams are among the species that may get extra protection through the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which is meeting in Geneva this week. The meeting will also discuss action against several countries for failing to stem trade in endangered species.

(Image: Jim Naughten)

These photos of a lar gibbon skeleton were taken at London’s Grant Museum of Zoology – from locations 6.4 centimetres apart. Unfocus your eyes until the images overlap, and they may fuse, allowing you to see the gibbon in 3D. You may also feel that the skeleton is moving: the ribcage seems to belly out, the stance becomes lifelike. You might even get the sense that you are looking out of someone else’s eyes – unless your eyes are exactly 6.4 centimetres apart, that is.

This sense of presence, of witnessing a moment, appeals to artist , whose “stereograms” portray animals preserved by Victorian collectors. “The effect of looking at a stereoscopic image is magical and transformative,” he says. “There’s a strong sense of being present in the past” – appropriate enough for a technology as old as photography itself.

(Image: Jim Naughten)

For those who struggle to fuse the images, help is at hand. Visitors to Naughten’s show Animal Kingdoms, at the in London from 26 September, and later in the year at the in New York, will be handed special stereoscopic viewers (see photo). , complete with stereoscopic glasses, is in production.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Gibbon in stereo”