Lifeboat Foundation

Photosynthesis is the process that plants, algae, and even certain species of bacteria use to convert sunlight into oxygen and chemical energy stored as sugar (aka gluclose). But what are the mechanisms behind one of nature’s most profound processes?

These are questions that a team of researchers led by the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) hope to answer as they used quantum chemical calculations to examine a photosynthesis protein complex known as photosystem I (PSI) in hopes of better understanding the complete process of photosynthesis and how plants are able to convert sunlight to energy, specifically pertaining to how chlorophylls and the reaction center play their roles in the process.

GPT-4 is reportedly six times larger than GPT-3, according to a media report, and Elon Musk’s exit from OpenAI has cleared the way for Microsoft.

The US website Semafor, citing eight anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reports that OpenAI’s new GPT-4 language model has one trillion parameters. Its predecessor, GPT-3, has 175 billion parameters.

Semafor previously revealed Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI and the integration of GPT-4 into Bing in January and February, respectively, before the official announcement.

Although neutrinos are produced abundantly in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), until now no neutrinos produced in such a way had been detected. Within just nine months of the start of LHC Run 3 and the beginning of its measurement campaign, the FASER collaboration changed this picture by announcing its first observation of collider neutrinos at this year’s electroweak session of the Rencontres de Moriond. In particular, FASER observed muon neutrinos and candidate events of electron neutrinos. “Our statistical significance is roughly 16 sigma, far exceeding 5 sigma, the threshold for a discovery in particle physics,” explains FASER’s co-spokesperson Jamie Boyd.

In addition to its observation of neutrinos at a particle collider, FASER presented results on searches for dark photons. With a null result, the collaboration was able to set limits on previously unexplored parameter space and began to exclude regions motivated by dark matter. FASER aims to collect up to ten times more data over the coming years, allowing more searches and neutrino measurements.

FASER is one of two new experiments situated at either side of the ATLAS cavern to detect neutrinos produced in proton collisions in ATLAS. The complementary experiment, [email protected], also reported its first results at Moriond, showing eight muon neutrino candidate events. “We are still working on the assessment of the systematic uncertainties to the background. As a very preliminary result, our observation can be claimed at the level of 5 sigma,” adds [email protected] spokesperson Giovanni De Lellis. The [email protected] detector was installed in the LHC tunnel just in time for the start of LHC Run 3.

Saw this coming 5 or 10 years back. Soon concept of being a model will be non existent. Probably by 2030. And, once can realistically animate and walk around and speak, end of actors and acting also.

Levi’s is partnering with an AI company on computer-generated fashion models to “supplement human models.” The company frames the move as part of a “digital transformation journey” of diversity, equity, inclusion and sustainability. Although that sounds noble on the surface, Levi’s is essentially hiring a robot to generate the appearance of diversity while ridding itself of the burden of paying human beings who represent the qualities it wants to be associated with its brand.

Levi Strauss is partnering with Amsterdam-based digital model studio Lalaland.ai for the initiative. Founded in 2019, the company’s mission is “to see more representation in the fashion industry” and “create an inclusive, sustainable, and diverse design chain.” It aims to let customers see what various fashion items would look like on a person who looks like them via “hyper-realistic” models “of every body type, age, size and skin tone.”

Continue reading “Levi’s will ‘supplement human models’ with AI-generated fakes” »

The journal Nature published a groundbreaking new study by world-renowned Stanford neuroscientist Sergiu Pasca involving the transfer of human brain organoids into the brains of rats. Insoo Hyun, Director of the Center for Life Sciences and Public Learning at the Museum of Science, speaks candidly with Dr. Pasca about his research. Why did he do it? How might this uncover the mysteries of psychiatric disorders? And the Big Question we are all wondering about – can these rats ever develop “human-like” consciousness? Together they demystify the science.

00:33 Dr. Sergiu Pasca’s Romanian roots.
00:55 Why is Dr. Pasca’s work important for Psychiatry?
04:14 Dr. Pasca’s work with human brain organoids.
06:14 Challenges with using animal brains when trying to unlock mysteries of human psychiatric disorders.
07:13 Reason for Dr. Pasca’s latest research transplanting human brain organoids into rat brains.
08:47 How the human brain organoid transplantation into a rat brain is accomplished.
10:19 What Dr. Pasca learned from his experiment and its importance.
12:02 Brain cells’ amazing ability to take over and organize themselves in appropriate environments.
13:03 Will animals with human brain organoids in their brain develop human-like consciousness?
17:30 Will manipulating human neurons in a rat change the behavior of the rat?
19:43 Application of rat experiment findings for human patients.
22:07 The ethics and regulation of using animals in scientific research.
25:25 Why context matters in research of transplanting human brain organoids into rat brains and the challenge of people backfilling science they might not understand with mythology and science fiction.
32:28 Dr. Pasca’s inspiration to work so hard to unlock the mysteries of psychiatric disorders.

Continue reading “Using Human Brain Cells in Rats to Understand Psychiatric Disorders with Dr. Sergiu Pasca” »

🤖 Beeyond Ideas follows the story of Harry, the future human-machine synthesis.

Follow Harry’s adventure on Nex by subscribing to this channel.

Continue reading “Welcome to the World of Human-Machine Synthesis” »

You may already know that it’s important to wash your hands, wear a face mask and avoid sick people while neutropenic.

But is there anything else you should — or should not — be doing to avoid infections when you’re immunocompromised by a low white blood cell count during or after cancer treatment?

We spoke with internal medicine expert Carmen Escalante, M.D., for insight. Here are five precautions she shares with immunocompromised patients and their caregivers.

Continue reading “Neutropenic precautions: 5 dos and don’ts for this cancer treatment side effect” »

The future of virtual weddings is shiny, tacky… and sponsored.

Researchers have ‘hacked’ the earliest stages of photosynthesis, the natural machine that powers the vast majority of life on Earth, and discovered new ways to extract energy from the process, a finding that could lead to new ways of generating clean fuel and renewable energy. We didn’t know as.