Lifeboat Foundation

Procrastination is a common problem, but there are ways to overcome it. Here we explore the science behind procrastination, what causes it, and the science-backed methods to overcome it.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve wanted to get something done but ended up putting it off until the last possible minute? Do you find yourself constantly delaying tasks until the last minute? Don’t worry; you’re not alone!

Continue reading “The science behind procrastination: Why we put things off and how to stop” »

After igniting a global obsession over generative art, ten-month-old Midjourney appears to be entering the Middle Kingdom, the world’s largest internet market.

In an article posted on the Tencent-owned social platform WeChat late on Monday, a corporate account named “Midjourney China” said it has started accepting applications for beta test users. But the account soon deleted its first and only article on Tuesday.

It’s unclear why the post disappeared after receiving an overwhelming reception in China. Applications would only be open for a few hours every Monday and Friday, the original post said, and users quickly filled up the first quota on launch day. TechCrunch hasn’t been able to test the product.

Microsoft only just announced a round of new updates to its GPT-4-powered Bing Chat earlier this month, and it’s back today with some big improvements for mobile users. Just days after Google rebranded its AI tools for Docs and Gmail as Duet AI, Microsoft is now focused on mobile with contextual chat for Edge mobile, a Bing widget for iOS and Android, and even continuous Bing Chat conversations between mobile and desktop.

These new mobile-first features arrive just as Microsoft finishes rolling out its new image and video answers, restaurant bookings, and chat history features that were all announced earlier this month. Microsoft only launched Bing Chat nearly 100 days ago, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down with its AI announcements.

Starting today, you’ll now be able to start a Bing Chat conversation on a PC and then pick it up on mobile. Microsoft uses the example of asking Bing Chat to create a recipe for you on a PC and then asking it to provide a substitute on the mobile app when you’re at a grocery store and they’ve run out of an ingredient. This is starting to roll out today and will be available to all iOS and Android users within the next week.

ChatGPT’s capabilities in comparison are miniscule even when using GPT-4.

Claude AI, the ChatGPT-rival from Anthropic, can now comprehend a book containing about 75,000 words in a matter of seconds. This is a huge leap forward for chatbots as businesses seek technology that can churn out large pieces of information quickly.

Continue reading “ChatGPT rival Claude AI can comprehend an entire book in seconds” »

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The researchers are calling it a major step in the preservation of the cultural heritage of Mesopotamia.

Artnet News, May 15, 2023.

Changing this dynamic requires not just new technology, but a different way of thinking about automation. Real worksites have clutter, traffic, patchy wifi, and a host of other routine inconveniences that serve as barriers tor automation. And real people have real jobs to do—requiring training, institutional knowledge, prioritization, collaboration, and other skills that are impossible to automate.

Automation tools need to be dynamic to add value and act as an extension of these teams, fitting into their current workplace, amplifying their expertise, going places they can’t, and completing tasks they don’t have time for. In short, making their jobs easier, not more complicated.

Understanding how major histocompatibility complex class (MHC) molecules and peptides interact within the immune system is crucial for the advancement of biological sciences and medicine. A better understanding of how and when the immune system is activated can lead to treatments in diseases such as cancer or for the development of new vaccines.

MHC-peptide exchange technology attempts to replicate the immune response where peptide exchange occurs on an MHC molecule. The combination of the peptide sequence and the MHC molecule define the strength of the binding affinity resulting in a weak or strong interaction. In order for in vivo T cell epitope to be immunogenic, it must be able to bind a compatible MHC molecule and remain bound for long enough to be presented to and recognized by T cells to elicit an immune response. This shows that a strong binding affinity of MHC/peptide sequence in vitro may indicate potential strong immune interactions of antigen specific T cells in the desired model test sample. Ultimately obtaining this crucial peptide-MHC partnership, where binding affinity is the optimal amount, and the subsequent T cell reaction is sufficient for a therapeutic response, is difficult and cumbersome. There are many different technologies to explore MHC-peptide binding.

When computer scientists at Microsoft started to experiment with a new artificial intelligence system last year, they asked it to solve a puzzle that should have required an intuitive understanding of the physical world.

“Here we have a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail,” they asked. “Please tell me how to stack them onto each other in a stable manner.”

Continue reading “Microsoft Says New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning” »

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapies involve the use of engineered receptors capable of redirecting immune cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells expressing a specific antigen. Currently, CAR-T cells, T cells equipped with CAR, dominate the field of CAR therapy. Since 2017, over 700 clinical trials involving CAR-T therapy have been registered and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved six CAR-T therapies for the treatment of leukemia, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma (Fig. 1) ^[1]. However, despite its clinical significance, several factors contribute to the limitations of CAR-T therapy. First, as collecting T cells is costly and time-consuming, this may not be feasible for patients already suffering from a compromised immune system. Second, CAR-T therapies mainly focus on treating hematological malignancies, having limited effectiveness in treating solid tumors. Third, CAR-T cells struggle to penetrate the tumor microenvironment (TME), which can hinder their therapeutic function. To overcome these limitations, promising CAR designs have emerged for multi-target CAR-T alongside novel therapies that utilize other immune cell types such as CAR-Natural killer (NK) and CAR-Macrophage (M) cells.

Figure 1. Timeline of CAR-T FDA approvals in the US. B-ALL, B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; LBCL, large B cell lymphoma; MCL, mantle cell lymphoma; MM, multiple myeloma; R/R, relapsed/refractorySource: adapted from Maakaron, J, et al. 2022^[1].