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Aug 26, 2023

This new technology could change AI (and us)

Posted by in categories: existential risks, robotics/AI

Organoid intelligence is an emerging field in computing and artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, an Australian startup Cortical Labs developed a cybernetic system made from human brain cells. They called it DishBrain and taught it to play Pong.

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Aug 26, 2023

What not to do when doing your own research

Posted by in category: futurism

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A lot of scientists make jokes about people who do their own research. I want you to know, it’s of course completely okay if you do your own research — provided you do it right. But how do you do that? I have collected some tips that I hope you will find useful.

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Aug 26, 2023

New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

By Charlie Wood

Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting codes suggests that the task might be slightly more feasible than many feared.

Aug 26, 2023

The first observation of neutrinos at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, particle physics

Neutrinos are tiny and neutrally charged particles accounted for by the Standard Model of particle physics. While they are estimated to be some of the most abundant particles in the universe, observing them has so far proved to be highly challenging, as the probability that they will interact with other matter is low.

To detect these particles, physicists have been using detectors and advanced equipment to examine known sources of . Their efforts ultimately led to the observation of neutrinos originating from the sun, cosmic rays, supernovae and other cosmic objects, as well as and nuclear reactors.

A long-standing goal in this field of study was to observe neutrinos inside colliders, particle accelerators in which two beams of particles collide with each other. Two large research collaborations, namely FASER (Forward Search Experiment) and SND (Scattering and Neutrino Detector)@LHC, have observed these collider neutrinos for the very first time, using detectors located at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. The results of their two studies were recently published in Physical Review Letters.

Aug 26, 2023

Jan Leike on OpenAI’s massive push to make superintelligence safe in 4 years or less

Posted by in categories: business, existential risks, robotics/AI

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world’s most pressing problems and what you can do to solve them. Learn more, read the summary and find the full transcript on the 80,000 Hours website: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/jan-leike-superalignment.

In July, OpenAI announced a new team and project: Superalignment. The goal is to figure out how to make superintelligent AI systems aligned and safe to use within four years, and the lab is putting a massive 20% of its computational resources behind the effort.

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Aug 26, 2023

The Million Molecule Challenge To Find The Next Longevity Treatment | Prof Matt Kaeberlein Ep4

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

For C. Elegans, but but a cool use for the technology.


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Here Prof Kaeberlein talks about the million molecule challenge and why he thought that it was necessary.

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Aug 26, 2023

Stanford Medicine-led research identifies gene ‘fingerprint’ for brain aging

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

Most of us who’ve reached middle age have noticed a slowing in memory and cognition, but scientists don’t have a clear picture of the molecular changes that take place in the brain to cause it.

Now, a study in mice has determined that the most pronounced changes occur in the white matter, a type of nervous system tissue that’s integral to transmitting signals across the brain. The study also examined two treatments — caloric restriction and infusions of plasma from young mice — that affect certain regions of the brain, with the plasma appearing to slow the age-related decline.

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Aug 26, 2023

Human Devolution Morlocks & C.H.U.D.s

Posted by in category: futurism

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Humanity has evolved in the face of much hardship and turmoil, and invented technologies to aid us, but could an end to hardships be our undoing and cause us to devolve?

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Aug 26, 2023

Why the empty atom picture misunderstands quantum theory

Posted by in categories: chemistry, particle physics, quantum physics, space

The association between this mass concentration and the idea that atoms are empty stems from a flawed view that mass is the property of matter that fills a space. However, this concept does not hold up to close inspection, not even in our human-scale world. When we pile objects on top of each other, what keeps them separated is not their masses but the electric repulsion between the outmost electrons at their touching molecules. (The electrons cannot collapse under pressure due to the Heisenberg uncertainty and Pauli exclusion principles.) Therefore, the electron’s electric charge ultimately fills the space.

Anyone taking Chemistry 101 is likely to be faced with diagrams of electrons orbiting in shells.

In atoms and molecules, electrons are everywhere! Look how the yellow cloud permeates the entire molecular volume in Figure 1. Thus, when we see that atoms and molecules are packed with electrons, the only reasonable conclusion is that they are filled with matter, not the opposite.

Aug 26, 2023

A new ape from Türkiye and the radiation of late Miocene hominines

Posted by in category: genetics

The origin of the hominines is among the most hotly debated topics in paleoanthropology. The traditional view, ever since Darwin, holds that hominines and hominins originate in Africa, where the earliest hominins are found and where all extant non-human hominines live. More recently a European origin has been proposed, based on the phylogenetic analysis of late Miocene apes from Europe and Central Anatolia1,2,3 The fossils described here attest to a lengthy history of hominines in Europe, with multiple taxa in the eastern Mediterranean known for at least 2.3 Ma4,5,6,7 Our phylogenetic analysis, based on the new specimens described here and a large sample of other fossil and extant hominoids (Supplementary Note 1, Tables 1, 2), supports previous research confirming the hominine status of the eastern Mediterranean apes2,3,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 Our most parsimonious phylogenetic results suggest that hominines in the eastern Mediterranean evolved from dryopithecins in central and western Europe, though there are alternative interpretations21,22,23,24. Either way, the oldest known hominines are European. They may have dispersed into Europe from ancestors in Africa, only to become extinct22 However, the more likely and more parsimonious interpretation is that hominines evolved over a lengthy period in Europe and dispersed into Africa before 7 Ma.

For some time, the only known late Miocene ape from Anatolia was Ankarapithecus, which is alternatively described as a stem hominid or a pongine25,26,27, but not a hominine. It is easily distinguished from Our anopithecus and Graecopithecus from Greece and Bulgaria25,26,27 In 2007, a new species of Our anopithecus was described from Çorakyerler in central Anatolia28. Since then, thousands of vertebrate fossils have been recovered at Çorakyerler, including a well-preserved ape partial cranium29 (Fig. 1) The O. turkae holotype, a fragmented palate, was originally distinguished from O. macedoniensis in its shorter premaxilla, narrower palate, morphologically similar (homomorphic) upper premolars (as opposed to P3 being more triangular than P4), smaller male canines and possibly larger size28. However, recovery of the new cranium and our reanalysis of the published material requires a reassessment of this conclusion and justifies the naming of a new genus of Miocene hominine.