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Jul 7, 2023

The bio-inspired ‘transformer’ that crawls, rolls and flies

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Robots are often designed for a particular purpose, but what if they could transform to tackle new challenges. Enter M4, the multi-modal mobility morphobot. It draws inspiration from the natural world by adapting how it uses its limb-like rotors and wheels to move in a wide range of ways, saving energy and making it more versatile.

You can read more about M4 in the research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39018-y

Jul 6, 2023

Chromosome Imbalances Drive Cancer, And Removing Extras Can Stop It

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing

Many cancer cells carry too many or too few chromosomes, a condition known as aneuploidy. Scientists have known this for a very long time, but the impact of aneuploidy has been unclear. Researchers recently developed a computational tool that analyzed cells from thousands of cancer patients. This effort identified critical regions of chromosomes that can be harmful or beneficial to tumor cells when they are deleted or duplicated. The findings have been reported in Nature.

In this study, the investigators developed a method called BISCUT (Breakpoint Identification of Significant Cancer Undiscovered Targets), which located where major changes start and end in chromosomes. Regions that were often found were more likely to help cancer cells survive while less commonly found regions were associated with a lack of cancer cell growth or their death. For example, one-third of all cancer cells in The Cancer Cell Genome Atlas lack one arm of chromosome 8.

Jul 6, 2023

Mysterious giant 300,000-year-old hand axes were found at an Ice Age site in England. Scientists can’t work out why they are so big

Posted by in category: climatology

“We describe these tools as ‘giants’ when they are over 22cm long and we have two in this size range,” senior archaeologist Letty Ingrey of the UCL Institute of Archeology said in a press release.

The largest of the two hand axes, which is about 12 inches long, is “one of the longest ever found in Britain,” said Ingrey, who participated in the excavation.

Archaeologists think these types of tools were typically used to butcher or skin animals.

Jul 6, 2023

Yes, You Can Control Your Dreams: The Strange Science of Lucid Dreaming

Posted by in category: science

Once dismissed as a new age fad, lucid dreaming has gained attention as a possible performance enhancer and therapeutic tool.

Jul 6, 2023

Fluxonium Qubit Retains Information For 1.43 Milliseconds — 10x Longer Than Before

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, quantum physics

Superconducting quantum technology has long promised to bridge the divide between existing electronic devices and the delicate quantum landscape beyond. Unfortunately progress in making critical processes stable has stagnated over the past decade.

Now a significant step forward has finally been realized, with researchers from the University of Maryland making superconducting qubits that last 10 times longer than before.

What makes qubits so useful in computing is the fact their quantum properties entangle in ways that are mathematically handy for making short work of certain complex algorithms, taking moments to solve select problems that would take other technology decades or more.

Jul 6, 2023

Transcription Factors Can Bind RNA & Have a Big Impact

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry

Some transcription factors are known as master regulators, and they can have an impact on many different biochemical pathways and processes in cells. | Cell And Molecular Biology.

Jul 6, 2023

Gargantuan black hole ‘switches on,’ becoming one of the brightest objects ever seen

Posted by in category: cosmology

A black hole 10 billion light-years away suddenly ‘switched on’, becoming one of the brightest transient objects ever detected.

Jul 6, 2023

Video: World’s most advanced humanoid robot, Ameca, draws a cat

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

Engineered Arts, a company that designs, engineers, and manufactures humanoid robots, which is also behind Ameca, has now given Ameca the power to imagine drawings.

In a video released on their YouTube Channel on June 29, 2023, Ameca is being asked to make a drawing of a cat. Previously, Engineered Arts have demonstrated Ameca’s ability to express many different kinds of human emotions and their ability to speak in multiple languages.

Continue reading “Video: World’s most advanced humanoid robot, Ameca, draws a cat” »

Jul 6, 2023

Introducing Superalignment

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

While this is an incredibly ambitious goal and we’re not guaranteed to succeed, we are optimistic that a focused, concerted effort can solve this problem: indent-0 not-italic [em_&]:indent-2] [^problem] There are many ideas that have shown promise in preliminary experiments, we have increasingly useful metrics for progress, and we can use today’s models to study many of these problems empirically.

Ilya Sutskever (cofounder and Chief Scientist of OpenAI) has made this his core research focus, and will be co-leading the team with Jan Leike (Head of Alignment). Joining the team are researchers and engineers from our previous alignment team, as well as researchers from other teams across the company.

We’re also looking for outstanding new researchers and engineers to join this effort. Superintelligence alignment is fundamentally a machine learning problem, and we think great machine learning experts—even if they’re not already working on alignment—will be critical to solving it.

Jul 6, 2023

Space junk monitoring satellite begins operations

Posted by in categories: government, satellites

UK company ODIN Space has demonstrated a space junk sensor, which could map and analyse debris with sub-centimetre precision.

SpaceX recently launched a Falcon 9 rocket delivering the Transporter 8 mission, a rideshare carrying various microsatellites and nanosatellites into orbit for commercial and government customers. These payloads included new sensor technology by ODIN Space, installed on a D-Orbit ION satellite. ODIN Space has now confirmed that the spacecraft has successfully begun to capture data from its surroundings.