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Category: biotech/medical – Page 849

The Godfather in Conversation: Why Geoffrey Hinton is worried about the future of AI

“It’s a time of huge uncertainty,” says Geoffrey Hinton from the living room of his home in London. “Nobody really knows what’s going to happen … I’m just sounding the alarm.”

In The Godfather in Conversation, the cognitive psychologist and computer scientist ‘known as the Godfather of AI’ explains why, after a lifetime spent developing a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, he is suddenly warning about existential threats to humanity.

A University of Toronto University Professor Emeritus, Hinton explains how neural nets work, the role he and others played in developing them and why the kind of digital intelligence that powers ChatGPT and Google’s PaLM may hold an unexpected advantage over our own. And he lays out his concerns about how the world could lose control of a technology that, paradoxically, also promises to unleash huge benefits – from treating diseases to combatting climate change.

Scientists discover new microglial population important for memory and learning

Following more than seven years of research, researchers at the University of Seville-IBiS (Institute of Biomedicine of Seville) have identified a new key cell type with a critical role in the developmental processes of memory and learning. This breakthrough has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Neuroscience.

The research, led jointly by the University of Seville-IBiS and Karolinska Institutet, helps to understand how neural systems with decisive functions for human behavior mature. The in-depth study highlights the role of microglia, a group of cells that has been the subject of substantial information in recent years due to its involvement in various brain pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease.

New Covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will likely protect against Eris variant

The drugmakers designed their updated vaccines to target the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which is slowly declining nationwide. But health experts and initial data suggest that the new shots will still be effective against Eris, or EG.5, and other widely circulating variants – all of which are descendants of omicron.

“I think that these vaccines will provide very substantial protection against EG.5. Maybe just a little bit of loss, but it’s nothing that I’m very concerned about,” Dr. Mark Mulligan, director of the NYU Langone Vaccine Center, told CNBC. “It looks like we’re going to be OK.”

All three companies are still waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to approve their vaccines, meaning those jabs won’t be available to the public for a month or so. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has to decide which Americans should get the shots and how often.

Did Tryptophan And/Or Serine Mess Up Blood Biomarkers? (Blood Test #5 in 2023 Analysis)

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Woman’s mystery illness turns out to be 3-inch snake parasite in her brain

A neurosurgeon in Australia pulled a wriggling 3-inch roundworm from the brain of a 64-year-old woman last year—which was quite the surprise to the woman’s team of doctors and infectious disease experts, who had spent over a year trying to identify the cause of her recurring and varied symptoms.

A close study of the extracted worm made clear why the diagnosis was so hard to pin down: the roundworm was one known to infect snakes—specifically carpet pythons endemic to the area where the woman lived—as well as the pythons’ mammalian prey. The woman is thought to be the first reported human to ever have an infection with this snake-adapted worm, and it is the first time the worm has been found burrowing through a mammalian brain.

When the woman’s illness began, “trying to identify the microscopic larvae, which had never previously been identified as causing human infection, was a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Karina Kennedy, a professor at the Australian National University (ANU) Medical School and Director of Clinical Microbiology at Canberra Hospital, said in a press release.

Transferring Longevity DNA Across Species: Gene from Naked Mole Rat Extends Mouse Lifespan

Naked mole rats are rodents that are about the size of a mouse with a key difference, aside from having no fur — they’re extremely long-lived — reaching ages of around 40 years old. For comparison, lab mice live an average of about three and a half years. To explain their extensive lifespans, researchers have sought to pinpoint how naked mole rats evade the onset of age-related diseases like cancer. In doing so, they’ve identified a form of gelatinous substance called hyaluronan, which has anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties. Now, the question of whether the benefits of the naked mole rat’s abundant levels of this form of hyaluronan — called high molecular mass hyaluronic acid (HMM-HA) — can be exported to other species has recently drawn attention.

Published in Nature, Gorbunova and colleagues from the University of Rochester show that genetically modifying mice to harbor an enzyme that produces HMM-HA extends their lifespan. The researchers go on to show that increasing HMM-HA reduces the prevalence of cancer. Additionally, the nmrHAS2 gene improves the healthspan of mice by countering physiological dysfunction, as measured with a frailty score. These findings provide the first evidence that genes from long-lived species can be exported to other species, perhaps conferring benefits to humans one day.

Study findings provide new insight into how breast cancer evolves

From the early stages of cell mutations starting in puberty to their manifestations as breast cancer in later years, the entire process has remained shrouded in mystery.

Now, a team of researchers at Kyoto University has revealed the mechanism by which is formed in the cells of the mammalian epithelium, whose main function is to secrete milk. The paper is published in the journal Nature.

According to the team’s first analysis, approximately 20 mutations accumulate annually in each epithelial cell until menopause. After menopause, however, the mutation rate significantly decreases.

Critical digital infrastructure: Why societies are becoming so vulnerable to cyberattacks |Techtopia

For weeks, a cyberattack paralyzed the German district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in 2021, bringing its whole administration to a standstill. It was a stark illustration of how hackers can knock out entire communities in milliseconds — and how digital technology has become vital for running our societies.

Such “critical digital infrastructure” helps boost efficiency. But it also makes communities ever more vulnerable to hacking. And attacks are on the rise. In this episode of Techtopia, DW Chief Technology Correspondent Janosch Delcker investigates how a criminal industry makes billions by taking computers hostage — and how governments can use similar methods as a political weapon.

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“Holy grail” molecule kills all types of solid cancer tumors

A team of scientists at the City of Hope Hospital – one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States – has recently developed what could potentially be a “holy grail” molecule that can effectively eradicate all solid cancer tumors while leaving healthy cells unaffected.

In preclinical trials, this molecule – called AOH1996 – was found to target and eradicate the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) protein, which usually contributes to the growth and repair of a variety of cancer tumors.

Most of the previous targeted anti-cancer therapies focus on a single pathway, enabling cancers to mutate and eventually become resistant. By contrast, since AOH1996 targets a cancerous variant of PCNA, a protein that in its mutated form is crucial in DNA replication and repair of all types of tumors, its effectiveness is higher and its range of action significantly broader.