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Blog – Page 13

Can you make something invisible? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Negin Farsad discover the science behind invisibility with professor of physics and optical science, Greg Gbur. What would real-life invisibility look like?

Can you be invisible in other parts of the magnetic spectrum? We discuss transparency versus invisibility and how metamaterials help us interact with different wavelengths. What does light have to do in order to make something invisible? We break down invisibility cloaks and other invisibility devices from fiction.

Could you make yourself invisible to all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum? We explore the main challenges in achieving invisibility and the difference between passive and active invisibility. How useful of a power would it be?

We discuss the interaction between waves and matter. What makes some waves reflect off matter and others pass through? Learn about x rays and how they work, plus, an at-home invisibility trick using prisms. Finally, could you make someone invisible to time?

Continue reading “Invisibility: The Science of How Not To Be Seen with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Greg Gbur” | >

A spy presses a button on their suit and blinks out of sight. A wizard wraps himself in a cloak and disappears. A star pilot flicks a switch, and their ship vanishes into space. Invisibility is one of the most tantalizing powers in fiction, spanning all kinds of stories. But could this fantasy ever become a reality? Max G. Levy digs into the technologies that could make invisibility possible.

Lesson by Max G. Levy, directed by Michalis Kalopaidis, Zedem Media.

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Continue reading “How scientists are creating real-life invisibility cloaks — Max G. Levy” | >

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My name is Artem, I’m a graduate student at NYU Center for Neural Science and researcher at Flatiron Institute.

In this video, we explore how the brain tags which memories to keep and the role of a special brain wave – a hippocampal sharp-wave ripple in this process.

Continue reading “How Your Brain Chooses What to Remember” | >

Sam Harris and Roger Penrose discuss the mysteries of consciousness and selfhood.

Is the Self merely an illusion?

With a free trial, you can watch the full debate NOW at https://iai.tv/video/the-divided-self-sam-harris-roger-penro…escription.

Many have sought to divide the self into separate parts. From Aristotle’s distinction between the rational and irrational self to Freud’s separation of the conscious and unconscious mind, from Kahneman’s fast and slow self to McGilchrist’s selves of the left and right brain. But critics argue it makes no sense to see the self as divided. From Descartes to Sartre, many philosophers have concluded that to be conscious is to be conscious of something and there can be no further self hiding within consciousness. After all, if there are two aspects of the self does it not require a third to oversee or combine them? Meanwhile, neuroscience has been unable to identify a self at all let alone multiple selves.

Continue reading “Sam Harris and Roger Penrose | Consciousness, split brains, and the illusion of the Self” | >

Tesla plans to revolutionize manufacturing and achieve unprecedented growth by producing 100 million humanoid robots by 2035, leveraging advancements in AI and robotics to significantly enhance efficiency and profitability.

Questions to inspire discussion.

Production and Scaling.
🏭 Q: What are Tesla’s production targets for Optimus bots? A: Tesla aims to ramp up Optimus bot production to 10,000 per month in 2,024,100,000 per month in 2025, and 1 million per month in 2026, with aggressive growth targets of 1000% (10x) year-over-year.

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The rise of antimicrobial resistance and novel emerging diseases has put microbiology at the forefront of public perception. From microbial growth and viability assays to high-throughput drug screening, microplate-based assays offer a more cost and time-efficient alternative to traditional assays. Modern microplate readers allow researchers to perform assays under controlled atmospheric conditions and to produce highly reliable, reproducible, and accurate results in real-time.

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Can oncologists make better cancer treatment decisions if they consult fish? A clinical trial aims to find out.

Led by developmental biologist Rita Fior of the Champalimaud Foundation, the 5-year study is the first randomized trial in which patients will receive drugs that have been tested beforehand in zebrafish embryos implanted with the patients’ cancer cells. Retrospective studies have shown that so-called zebrafish avatars could have identified successful treatments if they had been deployed in advance, and Fior and colleagues now want to determine whether that ability can benefit patients.⁠

The first clinical trial of zebrafish embryos acting as cancer “avatars” will start soon.

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Drone show accidents highlight the challenges of maintaining safety in what engineers call “multiagent systems” — systems of multiple coordinated, collaborative, and computer-programmed agents, such as robots, drones, and self-driving cars.

Now, a team of MIT engineers has developed a training method for multiagent systems that can guarantee their safe operation in crowded environments. The researchers found that once the method is used to train a small number of agents, the safety margins and controls learned by those agents can automatically scale to any larger number of agents, in a way that ensures the safety of the system as a whole.

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