Originally published on Towards AI.

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Explore the evolving landscape of service robots, including their wide-ranging applications across industries such as healthcare, logistics, hospitality, public safety, and education.

Dark Stars Could Explain Dark Matter and Fast Radio Bursts, Challenging Our Understanding of Black Holes

A theory suggests that black holes, rather than being empty voids in space, might actually be “dark stars” filled with incredibly dense and exotic matter. This concept could provide new insights into two of the universe’s greatest mysteries: the nature of black holes and the elusive dark matter.

Black holes, as understood through Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, are regions in space where matter is so compact that it warps space-time, creating a gravitational pull so intense that even light cannot escape. The center of a black hole is believed to contain a singularity, an infinitely small and dense point where gravity becomes infinitely strong. This singularity is surrounded by an event horizon, a boundary beyond which light and matter cannot escape.

During a median follow-up of 5.6 years, 286 cases of incident dementia were observed. After adjustment for established dementia risk factors, including cardiovascular risk factors, patients with ICAD (regardless of luminal stenosis) had an independently higher risk for incident dementia than those without ICAD (HR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.17–2.11). The presence of stenosis 50% on MRA was associated with even higher risk (HR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.29–2.78). An important limitation was the investigators’ inability to determine dementia subtypes.

This prospective trial adds further observational evidence that ICAD is independently associated with dementia. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that earlier stages of atherosclerosis (i.e., involvement of the arterial wall without luminal narrowing) are also associated with increased risk. While the pathophysiology of this association has yet to be elucidated, I will counsel my patients with ICAD about this association and will strongly recommend proven management strategies (e.g., smoking cessation, lipid lowering) to mitigate vascular disease progression, given the higher risk of dementia in those with luminal disease.

A surprise assistant?

But you might notice that something is missing: this radiation doesn’t seem to encode, in any way, knowledge of the information that went into the creation of the black hole in the first place. Somewhere along the way, information was destroyed. That’s the key puzzle behind the black hole information paradox. No one seriously disputes the initial setup of the puzzle: that information exists, and that the information (and entropy) does in fact go into the black hole both when it’s first created and also as it grows. What is up for debate, and what in fact is the big question behind the information paradox, is whether that information comes back out again or not.

The way we calculate what comes out of a black hole via Hawking radiation, despite the fact that Hawking radiation has been around for a full half century as of 2024, hasn’t changed all that much over the past 50 years. What we do is assume the curvature of space from general relativity: the fabric of space is curved by the presence of matter and energy, and general relativity tells us exactly by how much.

We then perform our quantum field theory calculations in that curved space, detailing the radiation that comes out as a result. That’s where we learn that the radiation has the temperature, spectrum, entropy, and other properties we know that it possesses, including the fact that it doesn’t appear to encode that initial information when the radiation comes out.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field flipped — and now, scientists have recreated the haunting sound it made during that cataclysmic event.

Using data from the European Space Agency’s three-satellite Swarm mission delving deep into our planet’s magnetic field, Danish and German researchers have managed to map and recreate the sounds of what is known as the Laschamp event, which resulted in Earth’s magnetic field briefly flipping 41,000 years ago.

During this event, which was named after the Laschamps lava flows in France where evidence of this flip was first discovered in the 1960s, our planet’s magnetic field weakened to just five percent of its normal strength.

Time, in this view, doesn’t look like a line in which one event causes another. Instead, eight events might be the eight vertices of a cube. Each point may connect with new geometric shapes that arise inside the cube—the vertices of which are also events—or the cube could become a point in a larger geometry. In any case, time is building a geometry like a crystal.

THE TEAM BUILT TWO ARTIFICIAL BRAINS to operate according to these theories so they could observe what happens without the interference of human projections, narratives, and emotions, and compare them with human subjects. An artificial brain doesn’t have an ego or a sense of existential dread, among other things, that might muddy the results. On the other hand, they were limited to a smaller number of primes because the machines don’t have other attributes humans do have.

The goal isn’t just to isolate consciousness or define it. It is for humans to understand and recalibrate along the lines of universal consciousness. Bandyopadhyay and his team want to build a better world by beginning not with human logic but by observing the patterns nature itself has created–the universal invariables.

While caloric restriction (CR) has long been associated with increased lifespan, the study found that its effectiveness is highly influenced by individual genetic factors; some mice on restrictive diets experienced a notable lifespan extension, while others saw minimal gains.

New research on mice suggests that while extreme caloric restriction may extend lifespan, genetic resilience plays a critical role.

Companies that embrace a data-driven culture will be better able to thrive in not just life sciences, but every industry. By leveraging AI and strengthening the collaboration between humans and machines, organizations can achieve better quality, ensure data-driven decision-making and democratize data across their enterprise.

It’s incredible to think of where we’ll be in just a few short years. Those who can adapt to a data-first culture and not only implement AI technologies, but also understand its application and address the challenges, will be better positioned for success.

I’ll close with this—follow the data. Make decisions based on that data. That’s it. It’s that simple. In the search for truth, data-driven decisions are the way forward.