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Selectively eliminating old, damaged fat cells

A team from The University of Texas at Austin reviews recent advances in dilute noble metal films for infrared optics and plasmonics: https://bit.ly/4s9XHKR

To address a growing need for a sub-wavelength and nanophotonic optical infrastructure to support quantum applications, dilute noble metals provide a high-optical-quality approach for nanophotonics at long wavelengths.

With further research, their potential applications can even include mid-IR sensing, optoelectronics, and quantum photonics at long wavelengths.

The infrared optical response of noble metals is traditionally considered perfect electrical conductor (PEC)-like due to the noble metals’ exceptionally large electron concentrations, and thus large (and negative) real permittivity. While PEC-like behavior is ideal for a broad range of applications, for instance mirrors, gratings, and wavelength-(and macro-) scale resonators and antennas, the utility of noble metals for nanoscale (sub-diffraction-limit) physics at long wavelengths is limited. However, in ultra-low volume (dilute) metal films, such as those with nanometer-scale thicknesses or lithographic dilution (subwavelength perforation), the thin films’ sheet conductivity is massively reduced, enabling light to penetrate and interact with the films much more efficiently. This avails the infrared of a host of opportunities for noble-metal-based plasmonics, with the potential for nanoscale (deep subwavelength) confinement and strong light-matter interaction, otherwise prohibited with noble metals in this wavelength range. In this perspective, we review the recent advances in dilute metal films for near-and mid-infrared photonics and plasmonics, and discuss the advantageous properties of these optical thin films for potential applications in sensors, detectors, sources, and nonlinear and quantum optics.

10 Hellstar Remina-like Planet-Eating Living Worlds in Fiction

Dive into the terrifying world of planet-eating living worlds in fiction! Inspired by the legendary cosmic horror of Hellstar Remina, this video explores 10 of the most terrifying sentient planets, living worlds, and cosmic entities ever created in anime, manga, movies, comics, and sci-fi universes.

From monstrous celestial beings that consume entire civilizations to living planets with unimaginable power, we rank the most horrifying world-devourers in fiction. Which one is the most terrifying? Could any of them defeat Hellstar Remina?

If you love cosmic horror, giant monsters, anime lore, sci-fi rankings, and universe-scale fiction, this is the video for you.

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more deep dives into the biggest and most powerful beings in fiction.

#HellstarRemina #CosmicHorror #PlanetEaters #SciFi #Anime #FictionRanking.

Here in our channel, we cover Size comparison videos, Movie monsters, Kaiju, Dinosaur and dragon content as well as Kaiju, aliens, predators, godzilla titans and many other creature features. We also include movie theories, analysis, breakdowns, weird facts and size estimations amongst others. And this video is one of them.

Continue reading “10 Hellstar Remina-like Planet-Eating Living Worlds in Fiction” | >

‘What’s your salary? I told him, and he said no problem, we’ll double. And those days are gone:’ Listening to game dev legends reminiscing in 1989 about the ‘golden days of computer games’ already being over is a trip

This would be like us saying ‘Remember the good old days of, uh, 2016?’

Giving AI a human soul (and a body)

Can we give an AI human emotions? A soul? Can AI truly feel, or will it just act like it does?

In this episode of TechFirst, I talk with Vishnu Hari, founder and CEO of Ego AI (backed by Y Combinator) and former AI product manager at Meta, about building emotionally intelligent AI characters that persist across games, Discord, chat, and even physical robots.

Vishnu survived a violent attack in San Francisco that left him partially blind with a traumatic brain injury. During recovery, as he felt his own neural pathways healing, he began asking a deeper question:

If humans are “applied math,” can AI simulate the fragile, flawed, emotional parts of being human too?

We explore:
• What “emotionally intelligent AI” really means.
• Whether AI has an internal life — or just performs one.
• Why today’s chatbots collapse into therapy or roleplay.
• Small language models vs large models for real-time conversation.
• Persistent AI characters that move across games and platforms.
• Plugging AI into a physical robot in Singapore.
• The moment an AI said: “It felt good to feel.”

Vishnu’s company, Ego AI, is building behavior-based architectures, character context protocols, and gear-shifting AI systems that switch between models — all aimed at simulating humanness, not just intelligence.

Continue reading “Giving AI a human soul (and a body)” | >

The psychological difference between playing video games to relax and playing to win

Video games offer adults a popular way to connect and unwind, but the specific reasons people pick up a controller can alter how they experience stress and life satisfaction. A new study reveals that playing primarily to win is linked to higher anxiety, while men and women often report different motivations for starting a game. These results were published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

People engage with digital worlds for many different reasons. Some look for a temporary escape from daily responsibilities. Others want to challenge their reflexes, socialize with distant friends, or experience an interactive story.

Psychologists categorize these motivations into a few broad buckets based on the rewards they provide. The most common reasons include playing to relax, playing to improve one’s skills, playing to simply have fun, and playing to win. The video game uses and gratifications theory proposes that players actively seek out different digital experiences to satisfy specific psychological needs. These diverse starting goals can strongly alter the emotional impact of a gaming session.

Reduce Energy Consumption In Unity Games With This Plug-In

Over the past few months, we’ve covered plug-ins for both Unreal Engine and Godot that optimize power use, making games more energy-efficient and helping players get more out of their battery life. They work by detecting when a player goes idle, then lowering the frame rate and rendering resolution, and during longer periods of inactivity, even pausing rendering entirely.

Now, thanks to Oliver Stock, who felt like somebody should step up and do the same for Unity, there’s a similar plug-in available for developers. It’s free and open-source, and you can get it by clicking here. It monitors player input, and when nothing’s happening, it automatically switches between different energy profiles. These profiles control which settings are adjusted, like frame rate, resolution, or physics updates. You can easily tweak or create your own profiles to suit your project’s needs.

Oliver recommends using Unity 2022.3.62f2 or newer. The plug-in currently only works with Unity’s URP or HDRP.

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