Even the exact definition of AGI is still heavily debated, making it a murky milestone.
Regardless, the stakes are high: the AI industry has poured untold billions of dollars into building out datacenters to train AI models, an investment that’s likely many years away from paying off.
Naturally, OpenAI CEO and hypeman Sam Altman has remained optimistic. During a Reddit AMA this week, he even claimed that AGI is “achievable with current hardware.”
The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on Tuesday, in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration.
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, will be flown to the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission, and later released into orbit about 400 kilometres above the Earth.
Named after the Latin word for “wood”, the palm-sized LignoSat is tasked to demonstrate the cosmic potential of the renewable material as humans explore living in space.
Researchers develop nanomaterial textiles for wireless power, allowing real-time data transmission without the need for bulky batteries.
Posted in military, robotics/AI
Meta is letting the US military and defense contractors use its Llama AI model for national security purposes.
Posted in materials
Revealing hidden layers in superconducting nickelates.
In a collaborative effort, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (MPI-FKF) have discovered a new crystal structure in La₃Ni₂O₇, a material known to exhibit high-temperature superconductivity under high pressure.
Marking a major breakthrough in medical development, scientists have used AI to design antibodies from scratch.
Oh my. And here I was about to get Starlink.
Starlink has suspended new subscriptions in Nairobi and neighbouring Kiambu, Machakos, Narok, Murang’a and Nakuru regions, citing a network capacity overload due to increased demand.
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a well-known gene delivery tool with a wide range of applications, including as a vector for gene therapies. However, the molecular mechanism of its cell entry remains unknown. Here, we performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of the AAV serotype 2 (AAV2) capsid and the universal AAV receptor (AAVR) in a model plasma membrane environment. Our simulations show that binding of the AAV2 capsid to the membrane induces membrane curvature, along with the recruitment and clustering of GM3 lipids around the AAV2 capsid. We also found that the AAVR binds to the AAV2 capsid at the VR-I loops using its PKD2 and PKD3 domains, whose binding poses differs from previous structural studies. These first molecular-level insights into AAV2 membrane interactions suggest a complex process during the initial phase of AAV2 capsid internalization.
New research sets the most stringent limit yet on the mass of the graviton, suggesting it may indeed be massless as predicted by Einstein’s theory of gravity.
The small-scale FDA-cleared trial is designed to evaluate both the safety and initial efficacy of RB-ADSCs in nine patients with Alzheimer’s. Regeneration Biomedical’s CTAD presentation focused on the first three enrolled patients, who each received a single dose of RB-ADSCs delivered directly into the lateral ventricles of the brain using an “Ommaya reservoir” – a device implanted under the scalp to bypass the blood-brain barrier, a major obstacle in Alzheimer’s treatments.
Biomarker analysis at the 12-week mark demonstrated reductions in both p-Tau and amyloid-beta – two proteins strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease progression. In cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from the three patients, p-Tau levels decreased to “normal” levels, while amyloid PET scans also showed a reduction in amyloid buildup.
Regeneration Biomedical also reported its treatment produced signs of cognitive improvement, with two of the three patients showing increased Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores, a common measure of cognitive function.
