Dan Kummer – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Wed, 11 Jun 2025 07:04:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 Netherlands Team’s AI Drone Wins Against Human Pilot at Racing Event https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/netherlands-teams-ai-drone-wins-against-human-pilot-at-racing-event https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/netherlands-teams-ai-drone-wins-against-human-pilot-at-racing-event#respond Wed, 11 Jun 2025 07:04:07 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/netherlands-teams-ai-drone-wins-against-human-pilot-at-racing-event

Netherlands’ MavLab (TU Delft) finished the race faster than the human-controlled drone.

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AI-enabled control system helps autonomous drones stay on target in uncertain environments https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/ai-enabled-control-system-helps-autonomous-drones-stay-on-target-in-uncertain-environments https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/ai-enabled-control-system-helps-autonomous-drones-stay-on-target-in-uncertain-environments#respond Wed, 11 Jun 2025 07:03:51 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/ai-enabled-control-system-helps-autonomous-drones-stay-on-target-in-uncertain-environments

An autonomous drone carrying water to help extinguish a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada might encounter swirling Santa Ana winds that threaten to push it off course. Rapidly adapting to these unknown disturbances inflight presents an enormous challenge for the drone’s flight control system.

To help such a stay on target, MIT researchers developed a new, machine learning-based adaptive control algorithm that could minimize its deviation from its intended trajectory in the face of unpredictable forces like gusty winds.

The study is published on the arXiv preprint server.

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The algorithms that help scientists sort through a universe of change https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/the-algorithms-that-help-scientists-sort-through-a-universe-of-change https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/the-algorithms-that-help-scientists-sort-through-a-universe-of-change#respond Wed, 11 Jun 2025 07:03:29 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/the-algorithms-that-help-scientists-sort-through-a-universe-of-change

Astronomers use brokers to identify which signals to pursue in an endless stream of alerts.

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Neurosymbolic AI Could Be the Answer to Hallucination in Large Language Models https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/neurosymbolic-ai-could-be-the-answer-to-hallucination-in-large-language-models https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/neurosymbolic-ai-could-be-the-answer-to-hallucination-in-large-language-models#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:05:29 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/06/neurosymbolic-ai-could-be-the-answer-to-hallucination-in-large-language-models

The emerging field of neurosymbolic AI could solve these issues, while also reducing the enormous amounts of data required for training LLMs. So what is neurosymbolic AI and how does it work?

LLMs work using a technique called deep learning, where they are given vast amounts of text data and use advanced statistics to infer patterns that determine what the next word or phrase in any given response should be. Each model—along with all the patterns it has learned—is stored in arrays of powerful computers in large data centers known as neural networks.

LLMs can appear to reason using a process called chain-of-thought, where they generate multi-step responses that mimic how humans might logically arrive at a conclusion, based on patterns seen in the training data.

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Surprise Link Between Menthol And Alzheimer’s Found in Mice https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/surprise-link-between-menthol-and-alzheimers-found-in-mice https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/surprise-link-between-menthol-and-alzheimers-found-in-mice#respond Tue, 27 May 2025 02:09:55 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/surprise-link-between-menthol-and-alzheimers-found-in-mice

In recent years, scientists discovered something strange: When mice with Alzheimer’s disease inhale menthol, their cognitive abilities improve.

It seems the chemical compound can stop some of the damage done to the brain that’s usually associated with the disease.

In particular, researchers noticed a reduction in the interleukin-1-beta (IL-1β) protein, which helps to regulate the body’s inflammatory response – a response that can offer natural protection but one that leads to harm when it’s not controlled properly.

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Microsoft wants to tap AI to accelerate scientific discovery https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/microsoft-wants-to-tap-ai-to-accelerate-scientific-discovery https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/microsoft-wants-to-tap-ai-to-accelerate-scientific-discovery#respond Tue, 20 May 2025 07:06:40 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/05/microsoft-wants-to-tap-ai-to-accelerate-scientific-discovery

Can AI speed up aspects of the scientific process? Microsoft appears to think so.

At the company’s Build 2025 conference on Monday, Microsoft announced Microsoft Discovery, a platform that taps agentic AI to “transform the [scientific] discovery process,” according to a press release provided to TechCrunch. Microsoft Discovery is “extensible,” Microsoft says, and can handle certain science-related workloads “end-to-end.”

“Microsoft Discovery is an enterprise agentic platform that helps accelerate research and discovery by transforming the entire discovery process with agentic AI — from scientific knowledge reasoning to hypothesis formulation, candidate generation, and simulation and analysis,” explains Microsoft in its release. “The platform enables scientists and researchers to collaborate with a team of specialized AI agents to help drive scientific outcomes with speed, scale, and accuracy using the latest innovations in AI and supercomputing.”

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Scientists create rewired brain cells that could cure Alzheimer’s https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/scientists-create-rewired-brain-cells-that-could-cure-alzheimers https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/scientists-create-rewired-brain-cells-that-could-cure-alzheimers#respond Fri, 25 Apr 2025 06:11:41 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/scientists-create-rewired-brain-cells-that-could-cure-alzheimers

In a world-first, scientists have figured out how to reprogram cells to fight — and potentially reverse — brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine created lab-grown immune cells that can track down toxic brain buildup and clear it away, restoring memory and brain function in mice.

They did this by turning stem cells — which can become any cell in the body — into brain immune cells called microglia.

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Artificial mitochondrial nanorobots deliver energy to damaged hearts through oral administration https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/artificial-mitochondrial-nanorobots-deliver-energy-to-damaged-hearts-through-oral-administration https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/artificial-mitochondrial-nanorobots-deliver-energy-to-damaged-hearts-through-oral-administration#respond Fri, 25 Apr 2025 06:11:25 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/artificial-mitochondrial-nanorobots-deliver-energy-to-damaged-hearts-through-oral-administration

Scientists have developed oral nanorobots that target damaged heart tissue, deliver energy, and repair mitochondrial function, offering a novel approach to treating ischemic heart disease.

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Universal photonic artificial intelligence acceleration https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/universal-photonic-artificial-intelligence-acceleration https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/universal-photonic-artificial-intelligence-acceleration#respond Mon, 14 Apr 2025 07:03:25 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/universal-photonic-artificial-intelligence-acceleration

A photonic processor capable of running advanced artificial intelligence models with near-electronic precision is introduced, marking a substantial step towards post-transistor computing technologies.

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Master switch gene can turn immune cells into cancer eradicators https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/master-switch-gene-can-turn-immune-cells-into-cancer-eradicators https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/master-switch-gene-can-turn-immune-cells-into-cancer-eradicators#respond Mon, 14 Apr 2025 02:07:15 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2025/04/master-switch-gene-can-turn-immune-cells-into-cancer-eradicators

To grow, cancer tumors must hijack the immune system for their needs. One of the main tricks that most tumors use is to manipulate a type of immune cell called a macrophage, causing it to protect the tumor from the rest of the immune system, recruit blood vessels and help the cancer spread to other tissues.

Now researchers in Prof. Ido Amit’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science have used state-of-the-art gene editing and single-cell and AI technologies to identify a master switch that turns macrophages into cancer helpers.

Based on this discovery, the team developed a new therapy that was shown to be effective in mice with bladder tumors, one of the most common types of cancer in humans and one for which only limited therapeutic innovations are currently available. The discovery is presented in a paper published in the journal Cancer Cell.

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