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Neuromorphic ionic computing in droplet interface synapses

Droplet interface bilayer was formed between two aqueous droplets immersed in hexadecane oil and lined with a lipid monolayer using the “lipid in” technique. First, to prepare the ~100-nm-diameter DPhPC large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs), 2 mg of DPhPC lipids dissolved in chloroform was placed into a glass vial. For different bilayer compositions, the total amount of DPhPC, cholesterol, and SM was kept at 2 mg while varying their mass ratios. The solvent was evaporated under an air stream and further dried overnight in a vacuum desiccator. Then, 1 ml of buffer was added to the desiccated lipid film to achieve a final lipid concentration of 2 mg/ml after a 30-s bath sonication. Unless otherwise noted, the buffer solutions in the droplets were 100 mM KCl, 10 mM tris, and 1 mM EDTA at pH 7.5. The mixtures were incubated at ambient temperature for 30 min. To form unilamellar vesicles, the samples underwent 7 freeze-thaw cycles, involving rapid freezing in liquid nitrogen and subsequent thawing at 50°C. The samples were then extruded through 100-nm pore-sized polycarbonate membranes 21 times using a mini-extruder (Avanti Polar Lipids).

Next, two 100-μm-diameter Ag/AgCl electrodes with ball-ended tips were made hydrophilic by coating with low-melt agarose in KCl buffer (3%, w/v). The electrodes were affixed to micromanipulators (NMN-21, Narishige) mounted onto an inverted optical microscope (Leica DMi1) and connected to a patch-clamp amplifier headstage input and ground. Approximately 600-nl droplets of LUV solution were carefully placed on the electrodes in the hexadecane oil bath using a micropipette. For reconstitution of α-HL in the bilayer, a diluted α-HL stock solution (0.5 mg/ml reduced to 1 μg/ml) was added to the LUV solution before droplet formation.

The droplets were incubated for at least 5 min to allow the formation of a self-assembled lipid monolayer. During this process, the droplets sagged slightly away from the electrode, becoming relatively free from strong electrode adhesion. Subsequently, the droplets were gently brought together to form a bilayer at the interface, which was confirmed by optical microscopy imaging and membrane capacitance measurements under an applied triangular voltage wave. The relative freedom of the droplets from the electrode ensures that the electrode-droplet interfaces do not interfere with the bilayer geometry or its structural response under the applied voltages (movie S1).

In 2073, to Tackle Overpopulation, Earth Resorts to Extreme Measures

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

Our team strives to create quality recaps of your favorite films. On the channel, you will find stories about movies in Sci-Fi, thriller, fantasy, horror, drama, fiction, trash, comedy, detective, psychological thriller, and dystopia genres. Each video will intrigue you with surprises and mystery. Leave the names of your favorite movies in the comments, and we will make an exciting review about each of them.

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Kira (Short Film on Human Cloning)

My new AI-assisted short film is here. Kira explores human cloning and the search for identity in today’s world.

It took nearly 600 prompts, 12 days (during my free time), and a $500 budget to bring this project to life. The entire film was created by one person using a range of AI tools, all listed at the end.

Enjoy.

~ Hashem.

Instagram: / hashem.alghaili.
Facebook: / sciencenaturepage.
Other channels: https://muse.io/hashemalghaili

Deus Ex Could Be a Command & Conquer RPG — John Romero Saved The Game

Spector originally pitched the project under the working title Troubleshooter at his former studio, Origin Systems. He wanted to create something truly new, saying he was tired of space marines, aliens, and wizards in hats.

The main character of Troubleshooter was meant to be Jake Shooter, a super-cop called in by secret agencies for high-risk missions.

“Deus Ex was part shooter, part stealth game, part RPG. I mean, how do you sell that? The argument I got from the Thief folks was that if you give players a gun, they won’t sneak. I was also asked, ‘Why don’t you just make a shooter?’ I learned the power of the word ‘no’ when pitching Deus Ex, let me tell you,” said Spector.

Playing games with robots makes people see them as more humanlike

The more we interact with robots, the more human we perceive them to become—according to new research from the University of East Anglia, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

It may sound like a scene from Blade Runner, but psychologists have been investigating exactly what makes interactions feel more human.

The paper reveals that playing games with robots to “break the ice” can help bring out their human side.

Could Google’s Veo 3 be the start of playable world models?

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI research organization DeepMind, appeared to suggest Tuesday evening that Veo 3, Google’s latest video-generating model, could potentially be used for video games.

In response to a post on X beseeching Google to “Let me play a video game of my veo 3 videos already,” and asking, “playable world models wen?” Hassabis responded, “now wouldn’t that be something.”

On Wednesday morning, Logan Kilpatrick, lead product for Google’s AI Studio and Gemini API, chimed in with a reply: “🤐🤐🤐🤐”

Can we fix AI’s evaluation crisis?

This is something that I often wonder about, because a model’s hardcore reasoning ability doesn’t necessarily translate into a fun, informative, and creative experience. Most queries from average users are probably not going to be rocket science. There isn’t much research yet on how to effectively evaluate a model’s creativity, but I’d love to know which model would be the best for creative writing or art projects.

Human preference testing has also emerged as an alternative to benchmarks. One increasingly popular platform is LMarena, which lets users submit questions and compare responses from different models side by side—and then pick which one they like best. Still, this method has its flaws. Users sometimes reward the answer that sounds more flattering or agreeable, even if it’s wrong. That can incentivize “sweet-talking” models and skew results in favor of pandering.

AI researchers are beginning to realize—and admit—that the status quo of AI testing cannot continue. At the recent CVPR conference, NYU professor Saining Xie drew on historian James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games to critique the hypercompetitive culture of AI research. An infinite game, he noted, is open-ended—the goal is to keep playing. But in AI, a dominant player often drops a big result, triggering a wave of follow-up papers chasing the same narrow topic. This race-to-publish culture puts enormous pressure on researchers and rewards speed over depth, short-term wins over long-term insight. “If academia chooses to play a finite game,” he warned, “it will lose everything.”

Developer Proves His Game Engine Runs Faster Than Unity on Web

Gabriel Dechichi, a developer you might know from his challenge of making an Unreal Engine game in 4 weeks, is building his own C engine, and he’s ready to prove it’s better than Unity, at least in web space.

Dechichi made a demo where you can add hundreds of running mannequins and see how your system reacts to the stress. The creator claims his engine is “10x faster, 10x lighter, 10x better” than other software, and 14 times quicker than Unity in particular.

It’s obvious from first glance even at 100 characters that Dechichi’s engine runs smoother, but I tested it on my MacBook Pro, and while the C engine works with 1,000 units at 250 ms and 1 FPS, Unity took forever to load so many characters at 1,300 ms and 1 FPS. So, I guess, Dechichi is right, and we’ll see a nice addition to the gamedev world soon.