PocketOS founder blames ‘Cursor running Anthropic’s flagship Claude Opus 4.6’ plus Railway’s infrastructure for data disaster.
Category: robotics/AI
Elicited Repetitive Daily Blindness Associated With Gain-of-Function SCN1A Variants and Responsiveness to Sodium Channel Blockers
Study demonstrates that elicited repetitive daily blindness is a clinical feature in patients with familial hemiplegic migraine 3 because of gain-of-function Nav1.1 variants. Patients in this report responded to sodium channel blocker medications.
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VirtuCamera 2 Has Arrived
It’s been a very long time, but the wait is finally over. If you’re not familiar with it, VirtuCamera by The Weird Byte is a real-time camera motion capture mobile app, originally released in 2021. It now returns with its biggest update yet, featuring a full-screen viewport, a redesigned user interface, and, most importantly, support for Android, as well as compatibility with newer versions of Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max, and Houdini.
You can now use it with Blender 5.1, 5.0, and LTS 4.5, Maya and 3ds Max 2026 and 2027, Houdini 21, and Cinema 4D 2026. On top of that, you can also build your own integration using the PyVirtuCamera Python API.
More features are also planned for the near future, including joystick support, custom script handling, and slider presets for commonly used values. Support for Unreal and Unity is “definitely possible”, according to the developers, “it depends on demand, how the app evolves, and where we focus next”
Why newborn memory circuits start crowded, then slim down as brains mature
The hippocampus is a key brain region involved in memory formation and spatial orientation. It transforms short-term memories into long-term ones, helping us retain and build upon our experiences. Researchers led by Magdalena Walz Professor for Life Sciences Peter Jonas at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) focus precisely on this area of the brain.
Their latest study, published in Nature Communications, reveals how the central neural network in the hippocampus develops after birth.
Imagine a blank sheet of paper in front of you. There’s nothing on it so you start writing, adding more and more information. This is the principle of tabula rasa—the “blank slate.”
AI tool may spot ADHD years before children are diagnosed
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects millions of children, yet many go years without a diagnosis, missing the chance for early support that can change long-term outcomes even when early signs are present. In a new study, Duke Health researchers found that artificial intelligence tools can analyze routine electronic health records to accurately estimate a child’s risk of developing ADHD years before a typical diagnosis. By reviewing patterns in everyday medical data, the approach could help flag children who may benefit from earlier evaluation and follow-up.
The research, published in Nature Mental Health, highlights how powerful insights can come from information already collected during regular health care visits to help support early decision making by primary care providers.
“We have this incredibly rich source of information sitting in electronic health records,” said Elliot Hill, lead author of the study and data scientist in the Department of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics at Duke University School of Medicine.
An interplanetary shortcut can speed up trips to Mars
Whether it’s robotic rovers heading to Mars or, one day, a crew of astronauts, a round-trip journey is an incredibly long one. But there may be a way to find a shortcut. A new study published in the journal Acta Astronautica suggests that hundreds of days could be shaved off a return trip to the Red Planet by using the early orbital data of asteroids. This could bring the total mission time down to as low as 153 days.
To identify optimal routes and calculate fuel needs, planners of interplanetary missions use precise planetary data. Sending missions to other worlds rarely involves early orbital data from asteroids.
When it comes to Mars missions, a key planning consideration is a phenomenon known as Mars opposition. This occurs roughly every 26 months when Earth passes directly between the sun and Mars. During this alignment, the two planets are on the same side of the sun, bringing Mars to its closest point to Earth.
Bananas, cups and peelers: Robots learn how to handle curved objects like fruits and tools
It does not take much to confuse some robots. A machine might be great at handling a simple object like a box, yet when it tries to work with a more irregular shape like a banana, it often fails.
But help is at hand. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL) and Idiap Research Institute have developed a new approach that lets robots more reliably manipulate a variety of different shapes by teaching them to follow the unique geometry of any object they encounter.
Their work is detailed in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics.
Machine learning offers faster, more reliable analysis of Fermi surfaces in search of spintronic materials
The search for next-generation electronic materials often starts with studying the Fermi surface, which serves as a map of a material’s electronic structure. Its shape varies with crystal structure, composition, and electronic band arrangement, directly impacting properties such as carrier density, magnetic behavior, and spin polarization. This makes it a crucial tool for understanding and engineering new materials.
The Fermi surface of a material is determined experimentally using techniques such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). However, interpreting ARPES data requires specialized expertise, and the measurements themselves are often susceptible to noise. As experiments produce larger amounts of data, carefully reviewing every image by hand becomes time-consuming and inefficient.
Better volcano eruption predictions on Earth—and Venus—thanks to Mauna Loa study
When Mauna Loa erupted in 2022, the largest lava flow headed on a path headed directly toward Daniel K. Inouye State Highway 200, also known as Saddle Road, a critical route that carries many residents from their homes on one side to their jobs on the other.
No one could accurately predict whether the lava would continue to flow and eventually block the highway, or stop short, sparing the road.
However, when the volcano next erupts scientists will be better able to monitor the eruption in real time and make more accurate predictions about where the lava will flow and when the volcano might erupt. These advances are thanks to the availability of satellite data from public and private sources as well as machine learning algorithms developed at Pitt with help from a colleague in Italy, as highlighted in a recent publication in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research.