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About 100 million metric tons of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), one of the world’s most commonly used plastics, are produced annually, using more than 15 times the energy needed to power New York City for a year and adding enormous amounts of plastic waste to landfills and oceans.

Cornell chemistry researchers have found ways to reduce the environmental impact of this ubiquitous —found in milk jugs, shampoo bottles, playground equipment and many other things—by developing a machine-learning model that enables manufacturers to customize and improve HDPE materials, decreasing the amount of material needed for various applications. It can also be used to boost the quality of recycled HDPE to rival new, making recycling a more practical process.

“Implementation of this approach will facilitate the design of next-generation commodity materials and enable more efficient polymer recycling, lowering the overall impact of HDPE on the environment,” said Robert DiStasio Jr., associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S).

James Fodor discusses what he is researching, mind uploading etc.

As of 2020, James Fodor, is a student at the Australian National University, in Canberra, Australia. James’ studies at university have been rather diverse, and have at different times included history, politics, economics, philosophy, mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and biology. Eventually he hopes to complete a PhD in the field of computational neuroscience.

James also have a deep interest in philosophy, history, and religion, which he periodically writes about on his blog, which is called The Godless Theist. In addition, James also has interests in and varying levels of involved in skeptical/atheist activism, effective altruism, and transhumanism/emerging technologies. James is a fan of most things sci-fi, including Star Trek, Dr Who, and authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.

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Contemplate a future where tiny, energy-efficient brain-like networks guide autonomous machines—like drones or robots—through complex environments. To make this a reality, scientists are developing ultra-compact communication systems where light, rather than electricity, carries information between nanoscale devices.

In this study, researchers achieved a breakthrough by enabling direct on-chip communication between tiny light-sensing devices called InP nanowire photodiodes on a silicon chip. This means that light can now travel efficiently from one nanoscale component to another, creating a faster and more energy-efficient network. The system proved robust, handling signals with up to 5-bit resolution, which is similar to the information-processing levels in biological neural networks. Remarkably, it operates with minimal energy—just 0.5 microwatts, which is lower than what conventional hardware needs.

S a quadrillionth of a joule!) and allow one emitter to communicate with hundreds of other nodes simultaneously. This efficient, scalable design meets the requirements for mimicking biological neural activity, especially in tasks like autonomous navigation. + In essence, this research moves us closer to creating compact, light-powered neural networks that could one day drive intelligent machines, all while saving space and energy.

The future of AI is here—and it’s running on human brain cells! In a groundbreaking development, scientists have created the first AI system powered by biological neurons, blurring the line between technology and biology. But what does this mean for the future of artificial intelligence, and how does it work?

This revolutionary AI, known as “Brainoware,” uses lab-grown human brain cells to perform complex tasks like speech recognition and decision-making. By combining the adaptability of biological neurons with the precision of AI algorithms, researchers have unlocked a new frontier in computing. But with this innovation comes ethical questions and concerns about the implications of merging human biology with machines.

In this video, we’ll explore how Brainoware works, its potential applications, and the challenges it faces. Could this be the key to creating truly intelligent machines? Or does it raise red flags about the ethical boundaries of AI research?

What is Brainoware, and how does it work? What are the benefits and risks of AI powered by human brain cells? How will this technology shape the future of AI? This video answers all these questions and more. Don’t miss the full story—watch until the end!

#ai.
#artificialintelligence.
#ainews.

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Guiding light around dynamic regions of a scattering object by means of propagating light through the most ‘stable’ channel within a moving scattering medium is demonstrated, potentially advancing fields such as deep imaging in living biological tissue and optical communications through turbulent air and underwater.

Using a systems and synthetic biology approach to study the molecular determinants of conversion, Wang et al. find that proliferation history and TF levels drive cell fate in direct conversion to motor neurons.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have performed the first imaging of embryos using cameras designed for quantum measurements.

The University’s Center of Light for Life academics investigated how to best use ultrasensitive technology, including the latest generation of cameras that can count individual packets of light energy at each pixel, for life sciences.

Center director Professor Kishan Dholakia said the sensitive detection of these packets of light energy, termed photons, is vitally important for capturing in their natural state—allowing researchers to illuminate with gentle doses of light.

Sulfate-reducing bacteria break down a large proportion of the organic carbon in the oxygen-free zones of Earth, and in the seabed in particular. Among these important microbes, the Desulfobacteraceae family of bacteria stands out because its members are able to break down a wide variety of compounds—including some that are poorly degradable—to their end product, carbon dioxide (CO2).

A team of researchers led by Dr. Lars Wöhlbrand and Prof. Dr. Ralf Rabus from the University of Oldenburg, Germany, has investigated the role of these microbes in detail and published the findings of their comprehensive study in the journal Science Advances.

The team reports that the bacteria are distributed across the globe and possess a complex metabolism that displays modular features. All the studied strains possess the same central metabolic architecture for harvesting energy, for example.

Melanized fungi although dangerous to human biology actually are remarkable because they adapted to the radiation which could give more clues to how humans could evolve to survive radiation exposure long term.


There’s an organism thriving within the Chernobyl disaster zone that is not only enduring some of the harshest living conditions imaginable, but potentially helping to improve them too.

The fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 is still fascinating the scientific community nearly 40 years on, with new developments emerging all the time.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine features a level of radiation that is six times the legal limit of human exposure for workers at 11.28 millirem – but there is still a living organism that has adapted to live and thrive there.

In an amazing achievement akin to adding solar panels to your body, a northeast sea slug sucks raw materials from algae to provide its lifetime supply of solar-powered energy, according to a study by Rutgers University–New Brunswick and other scientists.

“It’s a remarkable feat because it’s highly unusual for an animal to behave like a plant and survive solely on photosynthesis,” said Debashish Bhattacharya, senior author of the study and distinguished professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers–New Brunswick. “The broader implication is in the field of artificial photosynthesis. That is, if we can figure out how the slug maintains stolen, isolated plastids to fix carbon without the plant nucleus, then maybe we can also harness isolated plastids for eternity as green machines to create bioproducts or energy. The existing paradigm is that to make green energy, we need the plant or alga to run the photosynthetic organelle, but the slug shows us that this does not have to be the case.”

The sea slug Elysia chlorotica, a mollusk that can grow to more than two inches long, has been found in the intertidal zone between Nova Scotia, Canada, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, as well as in Florida. Juvenile sea slugs eat the nontoxic brown alga Vaucheria litorea and become photosynthetic – or solar-powered – after stealing millions of algal plastids, which are like tiny solar panels, and storing them in their gut lining, according to the study published online in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.