Lifeboat Foundation

The biggest buzz in ground-based astronomy these days is the soon to be completed Rubin Observatory and its forthcoming wide field Large Synoptic Sky Survey.

When the widefield optical Rubin Observatory comes online later this year, it will not only revolutionize astronomy, but the art of science data management as well.

Singular alleges Google copied tech for AI in major products.

Google is set to go before a federal jury in Boston on Tuesday in a trial over accusations that processors it uses to power artificial intelligence technology in key products infringe a computer scientist’s patents, reports Reuters.

This comes after the New York Times slapped copyright infringement charges on OpenAI and investor Microsoft.

OpenAI, in a blog post, has called the New York Times’ lawsuit against them ‘wihout merit.’ The news organizations alleges copyright infringement on the part of OpenAI and Microsoft.

The design solves dendrite-related issues by creating a multilayer battery with diverse materials and managing dendrites by containment.

Research unveils novel solid-state batteries with lithium metal anode and provides insights into revolutionary battery materials.

Figure 101’s skills were developed through a 10-hour training period, with it gaining the knowledge simply by observing humans perform the task.

Significant progress

Continue reading “Figure 101: Watch how this AI-powered humanoid robot learns to brew coffee” »

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote or something.

First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.

This approach was used by the philosopher Aristotle and is used now by Elon Musk and Charlie Munger. It allows them to cut through the fog of shoddy reasoning and inadequate analogies to see opportunities that others miss.

Continue reading “First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge” »

Year 2021 face_with_colon_three

Creatine plays a pivotal role in cellular bioenergetics, acting as a temporal and spatial energy buffer in cells with high and fluctuating energy requirements (1). Jeopardizing delicate creatine homeostasis can be detrimental to many energy-demanding tissues, including the brain. For instance, cerebral creatine hypometabolism accompanies various neurological conditions, including a number of developmental disorders (2, 3), neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases (4, 5), and brain cancer (6). A reduced creatine availability in the brain has been thus recognized as an apposite therapeutic target, and supplying exogenous creatine to compensate for a disease-driven shortfall emerged as a first possible approach. However, early success in animal models of neurological diseases was not corroborated in human trials, with the use of creatine supplementation proved largely disappointing in clinical studies with a number of symptomatic neurological disorders [for a detailed review, see (7)]. A meager delivery of creatine to the brain could be partly due to a low activity/density of creatine transporter (CT1 or SLC6A8), a transmembrane sodium-and chloride-dependent protein that mediates creatine uptake into the target cells (8). For that reason, the upregulation of CT1 function has been identified as an innovative course of action to facilitate creatine uptake, with several exotic agents and routes were cataloged so far, including glucocorticoid-regulated kinases, mammalian target of rapamycin, ammonia, and Klotho protein (9).

Besides other vehicles, Klotho protein (Clotho; HFTC3) is put forward as a possible stimulator of CT1 function that can uplift creatine allocation to the target tissues. This membrane-bound pleiotropic enzyme (also exists in a circulating form) participates in many metabolic pathways, including calcium-phosphate metabolism, nutrient sensing, and remyelination (10). Klotho is highly expressed in neuronal cells of the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and spinal cord (11). The role of Klotho in high-phosphate energy metabolism modulation was revealed a few years ago when Amilaji et al. (12) found that the co-expression of Klotho protein increases a creatine-induced current in CT1-expressing cells. The authors reported that the current through CT1 was a function of the extracellular creatine levels, with the maximal creatine-induced current was higher in cells expressing CT1 together with Klotho than in cells expressing CT1 alone (29.5 vs. 20.2 nA).

NASA’s efforts to return astronauts to the moon have been delayed — again.

In a major step towards returning humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently announced they will be providing the airlock for NASA’s Lunar Gateway, which is the planned space station that will be in orbit around the Moon and responsible for ferrying future astronauts to and from the lunar surface.

Artist’s rendition of the Lunar Gateway (left) and a potential future airlock provided by the UAE (right). (Credit: NASA)

“The United States and the United Arab Emirates are marking a historic moment in our nations’ collaboration in space, and the future of human space exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We are in a new era of exploration through Artemis – strengthened by the peaceful and international exploration of space. The UAE’s provision of the airlock to Gateway will allow astronauts to conduct groundbreaking science in deep space and prepare to one day send humanity to Mars.”