Lifeboat Foundation

You’ve probably never heard of many of the data firms registered under a new law, but they’ve heard a lot about you. A list, and tips for opting out.

[Source image: ksenia_bravo/iStock].

Human memory happens in many parts of the brain at once, and some types of memories stick around longer than others.

Termitomyces titanicus’s cap can measure three feet across.

Just as most of the matter in the universe is thought to be “dark matter,” much of Earth is populated by a kind of microbial analogue: microorganisms that are known to exist but have never been grown in a laboratory.

A new study, published last September in mSystems, suggests such microbes could account for up to 81 percent of all bacterial genera that live outside the human body. These little-known organisms could hold the secrets to new tools for treating disease and could help us understand life in extreme environments, such as those on other planets.

Two huge bubbles, thousands of light-years across, have been discovered jiggling near the center of a distant galaxy. They could be spitting all over Earth.

A startup called CogitAI has developed a platform that lets companies use reinforcement learning, the technique that gave AlphaGo mastery of the board game Go.

Gaining experience: AlphaGo, an AI program developed by DeepMind, taught itself to play Go by practicing. It’s practically impossible for a programmer to manually code in the best strategies for winning. Instead, reinforcement learning let the program figure out how to defeat the world’s best human players on its own.

Drug delivery: Reinforcement learning is still an experimental technology, but it is gaining a foothold in industry. DeepMind has talked of using it to optimize the performance of data centers and wind turbines. Amazon recently launched a reinforcement-learning platform, but it is aimed more at researchers and academics. CogitAI’s first commercial customers include those working in robotics for drug manufacturing. Its platform lets the robot figure out the optimal way to process drug orders.

Continue reading “Now any business can access the same type of AI that powered AlphaGo” »

Physicists have used a seven-qubit quantum computer to simulate the scrambling of information inside a black hole, heralding a future in which entangled quantum bits might be used to probe the mysterious interiors of these bizarre objects.

Experts’ opinions on the new drug, designed for people suffering from the most extreme forms of treatment-resistant depression and administered in the form of a nasal spray, are split.

To make headway on the mystery of consciousness, some researchers are trying a rigorous new way to test competing theories.