Machine learning deals with creating algorithms capable of learning from the provided data.
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Long-living wild mouse may hold secret to healthy aging
When it comes to health, some of our animal neighbors have extraordinary advantages. Ostriches, for example, are highly resistant to viruses, while sharks rarely develop cancer. And species like naked mole rats and bowhead whales live for astonishingly long periods of time, decades and centuries, respectively.
Researchers are now starting to understand why another species—the golden spiny mouse—seems to be unhindered by the negative health effects that typically accompany aging.
Reporting in Science Advances, researchers at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) have begun to uncover how this wild mouse, native to rocky deserts in the Middle East, resists physical, cognitive, and immunological decline while living six to seven times longer than other wild mice.
High-resolution in situ structures of hantavirus glycoprotein tetramers
Now online! The cryo-EM structures of Andes hantavirus (ANDV) glycoprotein tetramers, dimers of tetramers, and ADI-65534 Fab complexes on eVLPs unveil the molecular basis of New World hantavirus glycoprotein architecture, acid-induced membrane fusion, and antibody-mediated neutralization. Immunization with repRNA encoding ANDV-VLPs elicits high neutralizing-antibody titers.
Varicella zoster virus and the central nervous system
Varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection causes varicella and herpes zoster and, rarely, severe central nervous system (CNS) complications, including encephalitis. Ogunjimi et al. review the evidence linking herpes zoster with stroke and dementia, summarize innate and adaptive immune responses to VZV-related CNS disease, and debate the consequences of vaccination.
How close are we to true AI?
Understanding consciousness is the ultimate prize for creators of artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, consciousness theory will also shape how we view ourselves and our place in the world. Although AI systems can mimic human reasoning, they can only regurgitate the input data. They are sophisticated pattern recognizers and content remixers, but cannot step beyond the limitations of the input. Understanding consciousness would enable us to transition from synthetic to synthesis, unlocking unlimited potential.
Computer scientists hope that recurrent computation will somehow ‘awaken’ code to consciousness. Yet the spectacular achievements of large language and diffusion models have not moved beyond imitation. We train models on the outputs of consciousness—our language, our art, our logic—while remaining entirely ignorant of the process that produces them. An AI can write a gut-wrenching paragraph about sadness by replicating patterns, vocabulary, and syntax. But it knows nothing of grief. It can create a shadow play, yet knows nothing of the object that casts it. This imitation, while impressive, should not be mistaken for a proper understanding of consciousness. No amount of coloring can turn the shadow into a solid object.
To reverse-engineer the mind, we need a blueprint. The pressing need to advance AI is a physicalist theory of consciousness, the architecture of subjective experience itself. The Fermionic Mind Hypothesis (FMH) is such a physicalist framework. It posits that selfhood is structurally and functionally analogous to a fermion in physics. The self’s persistent core operates as an energy-regulating system, maintaining mental equilibrium through continuous thermodynamic cycles. Within this cycle, cognitive processes such as decision-making are wave-particle transitions that capture the inherent nondeterminism and contextual collapse of probabilistic mental states.
FDA-Approved Seizure Drug May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts
Unlike treatments that focus on removing plaques that have already formed, levetiracetam works differently. It blocks the production of toxic amyloid beta peptides in the first place.
Expanded Seq-Scope method boosts gene-mapping resolution within tissues
In 2021, a technology developed at University of Michigan, called Seq-Scope, revolutionized the ability to map gene activity within intact tissue at microscopic resolution, enabling researchers to measure all expressed mRNA molecules and determine precisely where they are located within the tissue, using an Illumina sequencer machine.
The team behind the Seq-Scope method, led by Jun Hee Lee, Ph.D., has recently taken the technology even further.
Their findings are described in Nature Communications.
Gut bacteria can sense their environment and it’s key to your health
Your gut bacteria are chemical detectives—sniffing out nutrients and even feeding each other to keep your microbiome thriving. Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria that constantly “sense” their surroundings to survive and thrive. New research shows that beneficial gut microbes, especially common Clostridia bacteria, can detect a surprisingly wide range of chemical signals produced during digestion, including byproducts of fats, proteins, sugars, and even DNA. These microbes use specialized sensors to move toward valuable nutrients, with lactate and formate standing out as especially important fuel sources.
The gut microbiome, also called the gut flora, plays a vital role in human health. This enormous and constantly changing community of microorganisms is shaped by countless chemical exchanges, both among the microbes themselves and between microbes and the human body. For these interactions to work, gut bacteria must be able to detect nutrients and chemical signals around them. Despite their importance, scientists still know relatively little about the full range of signals that bacterial receptors can recognize.
A key question remains. Which chemical signals matter most to beneficial gut bacteria?
These biological computers actually use neurons
In this video we look into one of the developing areas of computing: wetware. Most specifically neuromorphic computing, a science which uses actual neurons on chips.
We talk to Cortical labs, the company that developed the pong-playing dish brain, and professor Thomas Hartung to understand what the benefits of this technology are.
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