Lifeboat Foundation

Some big treats are en route for Plus subscribers.

About 400 earthquakes have rumbled under Mount St. Helens since mid-July, the largest chain of shakes since the volcano finished erupting in 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey reported last week.

Small magnitude earthquakes, detected only by sensitive equipment, signal a volcano’s “recharging” as magma flows through chambers and cracks deep under the ground, said Wes Thelen, U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory geophysicist and seismologist.

Between late August and early September, scientists observed 40 to 50 earthquakes per week located between 2.5 to 5 miles below the crater floor, before recently dwindling to 30. To compare, Mount St. Helens averaged roughly 11 quakes per month since 2008.

Eric Schmidt is funding a nonprofit that’s focused on building an artificial intelligence-powered assistant for the laboratory, with the lofty goal of overhauling the scientific research process, according to interviews with the former Google CEO and officials at the new venture.

The nonprofit, Future House, plans to develop AI tools that can analyze and summarize research papers as well as respond to scientific questions using large language models — the same technology that supports popular AI chatbots. But Future House also intends to go a step further.

The “AI scientist,” as Future House refers to it, will one day be able to sift through thousands of scientific papers and independently compose hypotheses at greater speed and scale than humans, CEO Sam Rodriques said on the latest episode of the Bloomberg Originals series AI IRL.

In fact, the paper outlines that 80% of the helpers had a satellite nibbling on their “necks”. The ones that didn’t had satellite tendrils at the neck site, what we referred to as love bites earlier.

Satellite viruses usually have a gene that helps them assimilate effectively after entering their hosts, and not get killed off in the process. Surprisingly enough, in this instance, the satellite had no gene for integration. The scientists reckon that to thus remain safe, they must keep snuggled with their helper viruses every time they enter a host.

The study’s authors revealed that the satellite and helper have been co-evolving for a long time, and this unusual behaviour might’ve been a result of that process. It’s hard not to develop separation anxiety if you’ve been with someone for 100 million years, after all.

A new study shows how some species might be able to persevere during a drastically changing climate.

Almost like a tax shelter in a sense but to avoid AI regulations.

A floating data center containing thousands of Nvidia GPUs has raised questions over whether the practice could result in the creation of sovereign AI states in the future.

A team of archaeologists, geophysicists, geologists, and paleontologists affiliated with multiple institutions in Indonesia has found evidence showing that Gunung Padang is the oldest known pyramid in the world. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological Prospection, the group describes their multi-year study of the cultural heritage site.

Gunung Padang has for many years been considered a megalithic structure—it sits on top of an extinct volcano in West Java, Indonesia, and is considered by locals to be a sacred site. In 1998, it was declared to be a cultural heritage site. For many years there has been disagreement regarding the nature of the hill. Some have suggested it was made naturally with humans adding some adornments on top, while others have argued that evidence has suggested the hill was all or mostly man-made.

For this new study, the research team conducted a long-term, scientific study of the structure. Over the years 2011 to 2015, they studied the structure using seismic tomography, electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar. They also drilled down into the hill and collected core samples that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating techniques to learn the ages of the layers that make up the hill.

“Turns out, starfish genes suggest it contains multiple heads, one at the center and in each limb.”

Scientists couldn’t find the starfish head for the longest time since they were looking in the wrong place. Turns out, the head is all over its body.

With five more protons than should be stable, the newly discovered nitrogen-9 isotope sits right on the borderline of physical possibility.