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Bioelectrical signaling in the African clawed frog modulates both resistance to infection and tail regeneration. Michael Levin at Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA, and colleagues have used genetic technologies and drug treatments to manipulate the bioelectrical properties of tissues in frog embryos. Reducing the electric gradient between the inside and outside of cells (depolarization) increased the embryos’ survival rate to bacterial infection, whereas increasing the resting potential (hyperpolarization) had the opposite effect. The authors found that serotonergic signaling and an increase in the number of myeloid cells underpin depolarization-induced immunity. Interestingly, embryos undergoing tail regeneration, which triggers depolarization, also showed increased resistance to infection.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink company is building a $14.7 million site in Austin, Texas.

According to MYSA, Neuralink plans to build new offices in Central Texas. A recent filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) revealed that Neuralink’s new offices will be at 2,200 Caldwell Lane, Del Valle, TX 78617.

The filings also hint that Neuralink is working on a multi-building campus within a property that stretches 37 acres. The property is located 20 minutes away from Tesla Giga Texas.

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have developed a new method for controlling the growth of physical micro-runners. They used an external magnetic field to assemble paramagnetic colloidal spheres—i.e. only magnetic due to external influences—into rods of a certain length. Colloidal particles are tiny particles in the micro-or nanometer range that can be used in medicine as carriers of biochemicals.

For at least half a century, it has been popular to compare brains and minds to computers and programs. Despite the continuing appeal of the computational model of the mind, however, it can be difficult to articulate precisely what the view commits one to. Indeed, critics such as John Searle and Hilary Putnam have argued that anything, even a rock, can be viewed as instantiating any computation we please, and this means that the claim that the mind is a computer is not merely false, but it is also deeply confused.

It all started at a Denny’s in San Jose in 1993. Three engineers—Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem—gathered at the diner in what is now the heart of Silicon Valley to discuss building a computer chip that would make graphics for video games faster and more realistic. That conversation, and the ones that followed, led to the founding of Nvidia, the tech company that soared through the ranks of the stock market to briefly top Microsoft as the most valuable company in the S&P 500 this week.

The company is now worth over $3.2 trillion, with its dominance as a chipmaker cementing Nvidia’s place as the poster child of the artificial intelligence boom—a moment that Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, has dubbed “the next industrial revolution.”

On a conference call with analysts last month, Huang predicted that the companies using Nvidia chips would build a new type of data center called “AI factories.”