Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 11

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

Google’s top AI scientist says ‘learning how to learn’ will be next generation’s most needed skill

Speaking at an ancient Roman theater at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s DeepMind, said rapid technological change demands a new approach to learning and skill development.

“It’s very hard to predict the future, like 10 years from now, in normal cases. It’s even harder today, given how fast AI is changing, even week by week,” Hassabis told the audience. “The only thing you can say for certain is that huge change is coming.”

The neuroscientist and former chess prodigy said artificial general intelligence—a futuristic vision of machines that are as broadly smart as humans or at least can do many things as well as people can—could arrive within a decade. This, he said, will bring dramatic advances and a possible future of “radical abundance” despite acknowledged risks.

AI chips are getting hotter. A microfluidics breakthrough goes straight to the silicon to cool up to three times better

AI is hot – literally.

The chips that datacenters use to run the latest AI breakthroughs generate much more heat than previous generations of silicon. Anybody whose phone or laptop has overheated knows that electronics don’t like to get hot. In the face of rising demand for AI and newer chip designs, the current cooling technology will put a ceiling on progress in just a few years.

To help address this problem, Microsoft has successfully tested a new cooling system that removed heat up to three times better than cold plates, an advanced cooling technology commonly used today. It uses microfluidics, an approach that brings liquid coolant directly inside the silicon – where the heat is. Tiny channels are etched directly on the back of the silicon chip, creating grooves that allow cooling liquid to flow directly onto the chip and more efficiently remove heat. The team also used AI to identify the unique heat signatures on a chip and direct the coolant with more precision.

Unlocking the immune system’s instruction manual: How T follicular helper cells mount a flexible response

Scientists have uncovered how a key type of immune cell adapts its behavior depending on the type of infection, paving the way for better vaccines and advancing research into immune-related diseases.

In their study published in Nature Immunology, a WEHI-led research team has revealed how T follicular helper (Tfh) cells tailor their instructions to the depending on the pathogen they encounter.

The findings shed light on the molecular “instruction manual” that guides and long-term immunity, offering new tools to improve vaccine design and develop targeted therapies for immune-related conditions and other major health challenges, including cancer.

Visualization of blood flow sharpens artificial heart design

Using magnetic cameras, researchers at Linköping University have examined blood flow in an artificial heart in real time. The results make it possible to design the heart in a way to reduce the risk of blood clots and red blood cell breakdown, a common problem in today’s artificial hearts.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, was done in collaboration with the company Scandinavian Real Heart AB, which is developing an .

“The heart is a muscle that never rests. It can never rest. The heart can beat for a hundred years without being serviced or stopping even once. But constructing a pump that can function in the same way—that’s a challenge,” says Tino Ebbers, professor of physiology at Linköping University.

Piecing together the puzzle of future solar cell materials

Global electricity use is increasing rapidly and must be addressed sustainably. Developing new materials could give us much more efficient solar cell materials than at present; materials so thin and flexible that they could encase anything from mobile phones or entire buildings.

Using computer simulation and , researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now taken an important step toward understanding and handling halide perovskites, among the most promising but notoriously enigmatic materials.

Electricity use is constantly increasing globally and, according to the International Energy Agency, its proportion of the world’s total energy consumption is expected to exceed 50% in 25 years, compared to the current 20%.

/* */