Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified antibodies targeting a hard-to-spot region of the influenza virus, shedding light on the relatively unexplored “dark side” of the neuraminidase (NA) protein head. The antibodies target a region of the NA protein that is common among many influenza viruses, including H3N2 subtype viruses, and could be a new target for countermeasures. The research, led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center, part of NIH, was published today in Immunity.

Influenza, or flu, sickens millions of people across the globe each year and can lead to severe illness and death. While vaccination against influenza reduces the burden of the disease, updated vaccines are needed each season to provide protection against the many strains and subtypes of the rapidly evolving virus. Vaccines that provide protection against a broad range of influenza viruses could prevent outbreaks of new and reemerging flu viruses without the need for yearly vaccine reformulation or vaccinations.

One way to improve influenza vaccines and other countermeasures is to identify new targets on the virus’s surface proteins in “conserved” regions—portions that tend to be relatively unchanged between different strains of the virus. Influenza NA is a surface protein containing a globular head portion and a narrow stalk portion.

During a demonstration, a Motorola representative showed how the phone could bend in various ways to wrap around a wrist or stand up on a table.

When the phone is wrapped around the wrist, the way information is displayed changes. For example, the apps appear at the top of the screen.

The representative said the phone is “contextually aware” so adapts depending on how it has been bent.

Fast and cheap for AI inference (responding to chat prompts with very low latency at very high speeds.)

Discussing how it works, benchmarks, how it compares to other AI accelerators and the future outlook!

Continue reading “The Fastest AI Chip in the World Explained” »

The effort to give robots AI brains is revealing big practical challenges—and bigger ethical concerns.

By David Berreby

Panprotopsychism instantiated.

Shared with Dropbox.

Alan Thompson is an AI expert who is closely tracking progress to AGI.

His definition is:

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a machine capable of understanding the world as well as—or better than—any human, in practically every field, including the ability to interact with the world via physical embodiment.

A process that leverages capillary interactions between oligomers in an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane substrate and deposited Ga enables the formation of Ga nanodroplets with nanoscale gaps in a single step. Gap-plasmon resonances excited within the nanogaps give rise to structural colours that can be tuned by changing the oligomer content in the substrate or by mechanical stretching.

Understanding Neuromorphic Engineering.

Neuromorphic Engineering draws inspiration from the human brain’s architecture and functioning, aiming to create electronic systems that mimic the brain’s ability to process information in a parallel, energy-efficient, and adaptable manner. Unlike traditional computing, which relies on sequential processing, neuromorphic systems leverage neural networks to enable faster and more efficient computation.

Mimicking the Human Brain.

Kurihara, Y., Takahashi, T. & Osu, R. The topology of interpersonal neural network in weak social ties. Sci Rep 14, 4,961 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55495-7

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