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Olaf Sporns.
September 15, 2014

Abstract: Recent years have seen a rapid expansion of empirical and theoretical studies in connectomics – the emerging science of structural and functional brain networks. In this talk I will survey some of the recent advances and a few of the challenges for connectomics research, with an emphasis on human brain connectivity. Of particular interest are studies that employ network science methods for analyzing and modeling connectivity patterns. These studies have shown the existence of highly connected hub regions that play crucial roles in brain communication and the integration of information. Future applications of brain modeling and computation for understanding brain function and dysfunction will also be discussed. Overall, the new field of connectomics offers a unique opportunity for building a theoretical understanding of the function of the human brain.

Someday soon, we’ll speak entire universes into existence.

This article is a guide to the companies building the generative artificial intelligence technology that will lead to these virtual worlds (games, simulations, metaverse applications).

Existing market maps describing the landscape for generative AI lack a convincing organization, instead seeming to be random boxes based on functionality. Since most of my readers are interested in the technologies and companies powering things like games, simulations and metaverse applications — you’ll find this map helpful in charting who is moving these specific experiences forward.

Scientists have made one of the most precise maps of the universe’s matter, and it shows that something may be missing in our best model of the cosmos.

Created by pooling data from two telescopes that observe different types of light, the new map revealed that the universe is less “clumpy” than previous models predicted — a potential sign that the vast cosmic web that connects galaxies is less understood than scientists thought.

According to our current understanding, the cosmic web is a gigantic network of crisscrossing celestial superhighways paved with hydrogen gas and dark matter. Taking shape in the chaotic aftermath of the Big Bang, the web’s tendrils formed as clumps from the roiling broth of the young universe; where multiple strands of the web intersected, galaxies eventually formed. But the new map, published Jan. 31 as three separate studies in the journal Physical Review D, shows that in many parts of the universe, matter is less clumped together and more evenly spread out than theory predicts it should be.

Summary: A new brain mapping study reveals a neural network in cuttlefish that involves chemosensory function and body pattern control which the cuttlefish utilize for foraging and camouflage.

Source: University of Queensland

New mapping of the cuttlefish brain could explain how, and why, the marine animal employs its distinct camouflage ability according to researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ).

One question for Paul Sutter, author of “The Remarkable Emptiness of Existence,” an article in Nautilus this month. Sutter is a theoretical cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, where he studies cosmic voids, maps the leftover light from the big bang, and develops new techniques for finding the first stars to appear in the cosmos.

What is our universe expanding into?

That’s a great question. The answer, though, is that it’s not a great question. It’s a little tricky, so let me walk you through it. Yes, our universe is expanding. Our universe has no center and no edge. The Big Bang didn’t happen in one location in space. The Big Bang happened everywhere in the cosmos simultaneously. The Big Bang was not a point in space. It was a point in time. It exists in all of our paths.

Words by pau aleikum & marta handenawer.

This article started as a discussion between friends, sparked by the release of ChatGPT last December. Instantly, our minds were racing with the massive amount of tremendously stupid and not-so-stupid applications it could have for our work at Domestic Data Streamers. It is clear that AI is a valuable tool you could use to finish assignments more quickly, but what would be lost in that process? Using ChatGPT feels like cheating; using a shortcut to finish your work, it’s so easy that it can feel as if you are not working at all. This obviously comes with a cost. If you don’t write those words, you are less likely to remember them and less likely to internalize knowledge or connect it to other fields of knowledge you already have. And that, friends, is a problem for education. The Atlantic recently declared that “The College Essay Is Dead,” and although I disagree, this calls for further exploration.

The use of ChatGPT to write academic projects has been a source of significant concern in academia. Three of the four universities we work with have already sent out emails asking that teachers acknowledge the existence of this technology and prepare for it. This is the next phase in our journey from manual calculation to technology-aided information recall, just as we evolved from adding up numbers in our minds to calculators and from basic orientation to Google Maps.

If anyone accuses you of “living in a bubble” there is an astronomically correct, if not always convincing, response: we all do. The Sun sits inside what is known as the Local Bubble, a space within the Milky Way galaxy some 1,000 light-years across in which interstellar material is scarce. It can be hard to map something from the inside, but that’s what astronomers have tried to do with the Local Bubble’s magnetic fields.

It’s easy to imagine that anything distinctive about our Solar System’s location must be connected to our apparent uniqueness. However, superbubbles like our own are not particularly rare; indeed, the galaxy has enough of them to prompt comparisons with Swiss cheese. They are left behind by supernova explosions that push gas and dust out of surrounding regions. The material swept out by the explosion concentrates on the bubble’s surface – still so thin it would be considered a vacuum by Earthly standards, but dense enough to trigger star formation.

Nevertheless, our knowledge of superbubbles in general and the Local Bubble, in particular, is almost as thin as the material inside. The magnetic mapping of the Local Bubble, presented at the American Astronomical Society’s 241st meeting, is an attempt to address that.

An international team of scientists have successfully mapped the magnetic field of our galaxy, the Milky Way, using telescopes that observe the sky in the microwave range. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The team used the QUIJOTE (Q-U-I JOint TEnerife) Collaboration, sited at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This comprises two 2.5 m diameter telescopes, which observe the sky in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the mapping began in 2012. Almost a decade later, the Collaboration has presented a series of 6 , giving the most accurate description to date of the polarization of the emission of the Milky Way at microwave wavelengths. Polarization is a property of transverse waves such as that specifies the direction of the oscillations of the waves and signifies the presence of a magnetic field.