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Robot dogs are protecting data centers. Operators are seeing payoffs

As companies pour billions into sprawling industrial campuses for cloud and AI computing, some data center operators are experimenting with four-legged bots — about the size of large dogs — that can patrol fences, inspect equipment, and flag any issues before they turn into costly outages.

“I was literally at a data center this week,” Merry Frayne, senior director of product management at Boston Dynamics, the maker of Spot, told Business Insider. “We’ve seen a huge, huge uptick in interest from data centers in the last year, I’d say, which is probably not surprising given the investment in that space.”

Robot dogs have already been deployed by first responders, the military, and in other industrial sectors such as oil and mining. But the rapid pace of data center buildouts is creating another niche for the mechanical quadrupeds.

Feed Your Curiosity with Curiosity Box, use code ‘isaac25’ to get 25% off

From abiogenesis to AI, we rank the top Great Filter candidates and test them against the data to see which best explains the Fermi Paradox. Is the universe empty, or just dangerous? We explore ten filters—cosmic, biological, and civilizational—that could silence civilizations before they spread.

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Could We Accidentally Destroy the Universe?
Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
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Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
5:08 #10 The Fine-Tuned Universe & Rare Earth
12:55 #9 Abiogenesis (The Origin of Life)
16:29 #8 Complex Cells & Eukaryotes
20:14 #7 Multicellularity and Specialization
22:39 #6 Sexual Reproduction & Genetic Innovation
23:54 #5 Complex Animal Life
25:24 Curiosity
26:39 #4 Extended Childhood & Cooperative Rearing
29:17 #3 Long-Term Climate Stability
31:40 #2 Intelligence That Produces Technology
35:11 #1 The Late Filters: Surviving Technology, Ourselves, and Expanding Beyond the Home System.

Read more

We Might Be Completely Wrong About Reality

Space. Time. Matter. What is reality? And if it’s so fundamental, why do we all experience it so differently? Join us for a marathon through the discoveries and paradoxes that suggest modern physics is pointing to a deeply uncomfortable truth: that our picture of the universe is far from complete, and what we think about reality may be completely wrong.

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00:00 Reality Is Already Broken
00:57 Scientists Build a Window into the Fourth Dimension
23:16 The Physicist Who Says Reality Is Not What It Seems
1:28:45 The Black Hole Paradox That Keeps Physicists Awake at Night
1:50:40 Sean Carroll: The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
2:46:40 What are the foundations of reality?

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Boy, 7, dies of brain condition caused by world’s most contagious disease — years after he had it as a baby

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that causes high fever, cough, red/watery eyes, and a characteristic blotchy rash, spreading through airborne droplets. It primarily affects children but can strike anyone, with severe cases leading to pneumonia, brain swelling, or death. Prevention is primarily through the MMR vaccine, which is 97% effective.

//He had contracted measles as a baby of just 7 months old — but fast-forward years later to when he was 6 and experiencing cognitive deterioration and seizures.

Doctors eventually diagnosed him with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a neurological disease that can develop years after a measles infection.

This brain disorder usually starts with subtle personality changes, like memory loss, irritability or mood swings. Over time, it can progress to involuntary muscle spasms, loss of coordination, severe brain damage, coma — and almost always death.\
.

What is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE): Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a rare, fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system caused by a persistent, mutated measles virus infection. Typically affecting children or adolescents years after an initial infection, it causes cognitive decline, myoclonic jerks, and seizures, leading to death within 1–3 years. There is no cure, though prevention via measles vaccination is highly effective.

Even those who make a full recovery from the initial infection face a lurking threat: a deadly disease that remains latent until striking — and killing — years later.

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‘Right to Compute’ bill passes House, while proposed data center precautions flop

The New Hampshire House continued to embrace a hands-off attitude toward technology regulation during two jam-packed session days on Wednesday and Thursday.

Representatives passed a bill proposing a broad “right to compute,” while killing other safeguard proposals aimed at data centers and artificial intelligence.

House Bill 1124, sponsored by New Boston Republican Keith Ammon, proposes enshrining the right of New Hampshire residents to “make use of computational tools” for any purpose, with carve-outs for cases where the government deems such use dangerous to the public.

C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat RNA drives transcriptional dysregulation through genome-wide DNA: RNA hybrid G-quadruplexes

Transcriptional dysregulation hexanucleotide repeats in ALS

Repeat hexanucleotide RNAs in C9orf72 are implicated in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia disease pathogenesis but the mechanisms of action remain incompletely understood.

The researchers demonstrate that expanded C9orf72 G4C2 repeat RNAs bind gene promoters across the genome and form DNA: RNA hybrid G-quadruplexes (HQs) structures with DNA.

These structures obstruct RNA polymerase II and transcription factors, repress gene expression, and heighten neuronal vulnerability, providing mechanistic insights into neurodegeneration in ALS and FTD. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/hexanucleotide-repeat

Liu et al. demonstrate that expanded C9orf72 G4C2 repeat RNAs bind gene promoters across the genome and form HQ structures with DNA. These structures obstruct key transcription machinery, repress gene expression, and heighten neuronal vulnerability, providing mechanistic insights into neurodegeneration in ALS and FTD.

Mathematicians find one pi formula to rule them all

From the article:

“Each equation [for calculating π ] seemed unrelated to the others. But in late 2025, a team of seven AI researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology found a previously unknown mathematical structure underlying hundreds of pi formulas, including those of Archimedes, Euler and Ramanujan. “It’s not every day that you get to cite Archimedes,” says Ph.D. student Michael Shalyt, part of the team. The structure, called a conservative matrix field, or CMF, acts as a kind of mathematical common ancestor, showing how formulas that look nothing alike turn out to be different expressions of the same underlying object.”

A mixture of AI and algorithms uncovered a hidden structure spanning 2,000 years of equations for pi.

By Lyndie Chiou edited by Clara Moskowitz.

PCIF1-mediated m6Am modification in ACC neurons participates in inflammatory pain and anxiety

Liu et al. demonstrate that the m6Am methyltransferase PCIF1 in ACC neurons is crucial for both the initiation and maintenance of inflammatory pain and comorbid anxiety. They further reveal that PCIF1 modulates these behaviors by targeting Gap43 m6Am modification, thereby promoting GAP43 expression.

Interactive Zebrafish Embryo Single-Cell Atlas

A developmental atlas for genes and cells.

The interplay between genes and cells during the development of a fertilized egg into an embryo is highly complex. Previous methods captured gene activity only in 2D slices, making whole-embryo visualization impossible and offering limited spatial detail, often missing subcellular patterns.

The new method now enables the research team to visualize the activities of thousands of genes throughout the entire embryo and link them to cell maturation and movement. The result is a comprehensive atlas of early development, along with new insights into how genes and cells shape the growing embryo. The study was published in Science.

The team developed a new imaging technology called weMERFISH. It enables the direct measurement of the activity of nearly 500 genes in entire tissues with subcellular resolution.

From these measurements, the researchers created an atlas of early embryonic development. “By combining previous single-cell data with our gene activity measurements, we were able to calculate spatial patterns of thousands of genes and the activity of around 300,000 potential regulatory regions,” says the author. The data are freely accessible through the web platform MERFISHEYES (http://schier.merfisheyes.com). “The atlas is intended as a resource for developmental biologists around the world.”

With the help of the atlas, the researchers were also able to clarify how clear boundaries between different tissues form, for example between muscle and backbone tissue. They discovered a zone of cells in which the activity of many genes changes dramatically and differs from one side to the other.

A comparison of early and later stages showed that these genes are initially active on both sides but later only on one. And there are hardly any cells that cross this boundary. “These boundaries do not arise because cells are intermingled and then sort, but mainly because cells change their genetic program,” says the author.

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