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Nov 27, 2024

Robots get ‘syllabus’ to start teaching each other, no humans needed

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

RoVi-Aug lets robots autonomously share skills, increasing efficiency and success by 30%, all without human input.


RoVi-Aug enables robots to autonomously share skills across models, boosting efficiency and success rates by 30% without human intervention.

Nov 27, 2024

Molecular and genetic insights into human ovarian aging from single-nuclei multi-omics analyses

Posted by in categories: genetics, life extension

The molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying ovarian aging are incompletely understood. Here the authors provide single-nuclei RNA and ATAC-seq of human ovarian tissue from four young and four reproductively aged donors, revealing coordinated transcriptomic and epigenomic changes across cell types and highlighting a role for mTOR signaling in reproductive aging.

Nov 27, 2024

Small Molecule Found to Weaken Immune Cells in Lung Cancer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, health, neuroscience

To maintain a healthy immune system, doctors advise patients to take vitamins and minerals. Vitamins have many functions that benefit the body, including resisting infection, energy boost, aiding in blood clotting, improving brain function, generation of red blood cells, promoting a healthy gut microbiome, improving wound healing, preventing eye deterioration, and developing strong bones. We can get vitamins from various sources, including orange juice, which is rich in vitamin C, folate, and potassium. Physicians often recommend supplements for patients low on specific vitamins. However, dysregulation of vitamins can weaken the immune system and promote overall bad health. One vitamin in particular that helps maintain cellular function includes B12. This vitamin is essential to generate DNA and red blood cells, and aids in nerve function, energy conversion, and protein metabolism. When a patient has a B12 deficiency it can result in muscle weakness, numbness in hands and feet, difficulty walking, nausea, loss of appetite, and unintentional weight loss. In addition, it can allow the buildup of a small molecule known as methylmalonic acid (MMA).

In healthy tissues, vitamin B12 helps break down MMA. In B12 deficient patients, MMA is increased and can be measured through blood or urine samples. Methylmalonic acid is produced when proteins in your muscle, known as amino acids, are broken down. Tests to determine B12 deficiency or a genetic disorder are done by physicians at birth and after the appearance of symptoms related to B12 deficiency. Interestingly, a group of scientists have discovered a new deleterious role of MMA in lung carcinoma.

A recent publication from Oncogene, by Dr. Ana P. Gomes and others, demonstrated that MMA in aged patients weakens immune cell function and promotes lung cancer progression. Gomes is a professor of molecular oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida. Her work specifically focuses on understanding metabolic changes as we age and how this change in metabolism influences cancer risk.

Nov 27, 2024

Marya Schechtman on Personal Identity (Topics in Successful Mind Uploading)

Posted by in category: futurism

An interview with Prof. Marya Schechtman from the Carboncopies Foundation Winter 2020 Workshop held on March 15, 2020.

Nov 27, 2024

Slower Than Light Interstellar Travel

Posted by in category: space travel

Spacedock delves into relativity and the mean of reaching other stars without an FTL drive.

Initiative for Interstellar Studies art by Macrebisz for Project Hyperion:
https://linktr.ee/macrebisz.
https://www.projecthyperion.org/

Continue reading “Slower Than Light Interstellar Travel” »

Nov 27, 2024

Scientists develop novel high-fidelity quantum computing gate

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, robotics/AI

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing and Toshiba have succeeded in building a quantum computer gate based on a double-transmon coupler (DTC), which had been proposed theoretically by Hayato Goto, Senior Fellow at Toshiba, as a device that could significantly enhance the fidelity of quantum gates. Using this, they achieved a fidelity of 99.90 percent for a two-qubit device known as a CZ gate and 99.98 percent for a single-qubit gate. This breakthrough, which was carried out as part of the Q-LEAP project, not only boosts the performance of existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices but also helps pave the way for the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computation through effective quantum error correction.

The DTC is a new kind of tunable coupler composed of two fixed-frequency transmons—a type of qubit that is relatively insensitive to charge noise—coupled through a loop with an additional Josephson junction. Its architecture addresses one of the most pressing challenges in quantum computing: the development of hardware to entangle qubits in a high-fidelity manner. High gate fidelity is essential for minimizing errors and enhancing the reliability of quantum computations. The DTC scheme stands out by achieving both suppressed residual interaction and rapid high-fidelity two-qubit gate operations, even for highly detuned qubits. Though fidelity of 99.9 percent has been routinely achieved for single-qubit gates, error rates for two-qubit gates are typically 0.5 percent or more, mainly due to interactions between the qubits known as the ZZ interaction.

The key to the current work, published in Physical Review X, is the construction of qubits using state-of-the-art fabrication techniques and gate optimization using a type of machine learning known as reinforcement learning. These approaches allowed the researchers to translate the theoretical potential of the DTC into practical application. They used these approaches to balance two types of remaining errors—leakage error and decoherence error—that remained within the system, selecting a length of 48 nanoseconds as an optimal compromise between the two error sources. Thanks to this, they achieved fidelity levels among the highest reported in the field.

Nov 27, 2024

MIT takes a page from Tony Stark, edges closer to an ARC fusion reactor

Posted by in categories: education, nuclear energy

Circa 2016


MIT has been developing a small fusion reactor prototype, three of which could power the City of Boston if they were fully built. Though the project lost federal funding for its current fusion device, the school plans to press ahead on building a new, more advanced prototype.

Nov 27, 2024

Mercedes reinvents the brakes for electric vehicles

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

In the simplest terms, nearly every modern car on the planet uses disk brakes: a rotor attached to a hub with a caliper with brake pads fixed to the control arm at each wheel. The driver presses the brake pedal and hydraulic fluid is pushed down the brake lines into the caliper, expanding the pistons and pushing the brake pads against the rotor, slowing down the rotation of the rotor connected to the hub, thus slowing down the wheel.

There are other systems, like drum brakes, air brakes, band brakes, the Flintstones method, et cetera, that have also been around since the dawn of the automotive industry. The concept almost always remains the same: using friction to slow down. And so it doesn’t go unsaid, yes, there are compression brake systems as well, but that’s entirely different.

Mercedes-Benz has put a new spin on an age-old concept with what it calls “in-drive brakes” for electric vehicles. The system being developed at the company’s research and development department in Sindelfingen, Germany, integrates the brakes right into the drivetrain, in an arrangement that works very much like a transmission brake. It resembles clutch plates – but with a unique twist.

Nov 27, 2024

Mercedes’ Solar Paint Could Make Plugging In EVs a Thing of the Past

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

A photovoltaic paste under development could turn ordinary body panels into solar panels.

Nov 27, 2024

Three Reasons AI Agents Require The Leap Of Faith

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

In an era where AI has been sold to us as a panacea, able to make significant improvements at a fast rate, it was undoubtedly going to fail to keep up. Yes, adopting AI agents involves a leap of faith, particularly for those who have been disillusioned by previous AI solutions. But with lower costs, enhanced accuracy and a manageable onboarding curve, the benefits of AI agents have the potential to far outweigh the perceived risks. As industries grapple with labor shortages and rising operational costs, those willing to embrace digital transformation could find themselves ahead of the curve.

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