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Category: robotics/AI

Mapping cell development with mathematics-informed machine learning

The development of humans and other animals unfolds gradually over time, with cells taking on specific roles and functions via a process called cell fate determination. The fate of individual cells, or in other words, what type of cells they will become, is influenced both by predictable biological signals and random physiological fluctuations.

Over the past decades, medical researchers and neuroscientists have been able to study these processes in greater depth, using a technique known as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). This is an experimental tool that can be used to measure the gene activity of individual cells.

To better understand how cells develop over time, researchers also rely on mathematical models. One of these models, dubbed the drift-diffusion equation, describes the evolution of systems as the combination of predictable changes (i.e., drift) and randomness (i.e., diffusion).

Software allows scientists to simulate nanodevices on a supercomputer

From computers to smartphones, from smart appliances to the internet itself, the technology we use every day only exists thanks to decades of improvements in the semiconductor industry, that have allowed engineers to keep miniaturizing transistors and fitting more and more of them onto integrated circuits, or microchips. It’s the famous Moore’s scaling law, the observation—rather than an actual law—that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit tends to double roughly every two years.

The current growth of artificial intelligence, robotics and cloud computing calls for more powerful chips made with even smaller transistors, which at this point means creating components that are only a few nanometers (or millionths of millimeters) in size. At that scale, classical physics is no longer enough to predict how the device will function, because, among other effects, electrons get so close to each other that quantum interactions between them can hugely affect the performance of the device.

AI makes quantum field theories computable

An old puzzle in particle physics has been solved: How can quantum field theories be best formulated on a lattice to optimally simulate them on a computer? The answer comes from AI.

Quantum field theories are the foundation of modern physics. They tell us how particles behave and how their interactions can be described. However, many complicated questions in particle physics cannot be answered simply with pen and paper, but only through extremely complex quantum field theory computer simulations.

This presents exceptionally complex problems: Quantum field theories can be formulated in different ways on a computer. In principle, all of them yield the same physical predictions—but in radically different ways. Some variants are computationally completely unusable, inaccurate, or inefficient, while others are surprisingly practical. For decades, researchers have been searching for the optimal way to embed quantum theories in computer simulations. Now, a team from TU Wien, together with teams from the U.S. and Switzerland, has shown that artificial intelligence can bring about tremendous progress in this area. Their paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

AI sheds light on mysterious dinosaur footprints

A new app, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), could help scientists and the public identify dinosaur footprints made millions of years ago, a study reveals.

For decades, paleontologists have pondered over a number of ancient dinosaur tracks and asked themselves if they were left by fierce carnivores, gentle plant-eaters or even early species of birds?

Now, researchers and dinosaur enthusiasts alike can upload an image or sketch of a dinosaur footprint from their mobile phone to the DinoTracker app and receive an instant analysis.

Cloudflare misconfiguration behind recent BGP route leak

Cloudflare has shared more details about a recent 25-minute Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) route leak affecting IPv6 traffic, which caused measurable congestion, packet loss, and approximately 12 Gbps of dropped traffic.

The BGP system helps route data across different networks called autonomous systems (AS) that send it to destination through smaller networks on the internet.

The incident was caused by an accidental policy misconfiguration on a router and affected external networks beyond Cloudflare customers.

EU launches investigation into X over Grok-generated sexual images

The European Commission announced today that it has launched formal proceedings under the Digital Services Act to investigate whether X properly assessed risks before deploying its Grok artificial intelligence tool, following its use to generate sexually explicit images.

The commission noted that these potential risks “seem to have materialised,” seeing that the AI-powered tool was used to create “manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.”

“Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” said EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen. “With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA, or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children — as collateral damage of its service.”

An ultrastructural map of a spinal sensorimotor circuit reveals the potential of astroglia modulation

Using cell reconstructions and synapse mapping in zebrafish, Koh and Avalos Arceo et. al. reveal a vertebrate local spinal sensorimotor circuit map, revealing how neurons and glia are structurally positioned in a circuit. This resource provides insight into how glia and synaptic thresholding could modulate information flow through complex neural networks.

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