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Aug 19, 2023

A 77-year-old talks to an AI-companion robot called ElliQ over a dozen times daily to combat her loneliness: ‘It really is like having somebody else in here’

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Hundreds of elders are using an AI-powered robot to combat their loneliness — and it appears to be offering companionship to one New Yorker getting daily breast cancer treatments.

Priscilla O’Kesson, a 77-year-old, told Spectrum News she has been using ElliQ, an AI-powered robot made by Israeli startup Intuition Robotics, to keep her company at her home in a town in Greene County called Catskill.

The AI-robot, designed to help older adults age on their own, uses voice commands and on-screen instructions to talk to and interact with users in real-time. ElliQ can conduct daily check-ins, act as a personal trainer, play games to stimulate the brain, and track their wellness goals, according to the robotics company.

Aug 19, 2023

Elon Musk Is Once Again Thinking About Elden Ring

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Musk may be turning to FromSoftware’s 2022 RPG for ideas on how to make the X app more ‘beautiful’.

Aug 19, 2023

Navigating AI Together: An EduMatch Exploration

Posted by in categories: education, ethics, robotics/AI

Join the EduMatch AI Exploration Conference on Oct 7, 12–4 PM ET. Explore AI’s role in ethics, education, work, and daily life.

Aug 18, 2023

One Gene Can Have a Major Impact on Strep Infection Severity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Group A streptococci are one of the most common pathogens that humans are exposed to, and they can cause infections with a wide range of severities, from mild rashes and sore throats to flesh-eating and systemic infections that can be fatal. The number of these infections is also on the rise, although the reasons are unclear. Now researchers have learned more about why these pathogens can be mild in some people, and hit others hard. The findings have been reported in Nature Communications.

Scientists suspected that some interaction between a person’s genetics and the bacterial pathogen could be leading to such varied outcomes, said study co-author Fredric Carlsson, a researcher at Lund University.

Aug 18, 2023

What is an embryo? Scientists say definition needs to change

Posted by in category: futurism

Lab-grown structures with the potential to develop into fetuses should be defined — and regulated — as embryos, some researchers say.

Aug 18, 2023

Postdoctoral Fellow in Microbial Genomics, Bacterial Pathogenesis and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, health

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the largest institutes in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. The Bacterial Pathogenesis and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit (chief John Dekker) in the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology in the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) within NIAID seeks candidates for a postdoctoral fellowship position in microbial genomics.

This position will offer a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of pathogen genomics, systems biology, and clinical infectious diseases. The lab uses a variety of genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, imaging, and molecular approaches to study bacterial pathogens and antimicrobial resistance, with a focus on intra-host evolution in the context of infection. Access to state-of-the-art short-and long-read sequencing, metabolomics, optical, and computational resources is available. See more information about the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit under chief John P. Dekker and an example of their recent work.

Aug 18, 2023

La IA que detecta emociones: ¿pseudociencia para el control de fronteras?

Posted by in category: futurism

Sobre IA, reconocimiento de emociones y Darwin.

Aug 18, 2023

Researchers develop arrays of tiny crystals that deliver efficient wireless energy

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, drones, military, robotics/AI

Imagine a person on the ground guiding an airborne drone that harnesses its energy from a laser beam, eliminating the need for carrying a bulky onboard battery.

That is the vision of a group of University of Colorado at Boulder scientists from the Hayward Research Group.

In a new study, the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering researchers have developed a novel and resilient photomechanical material that can transform into without heat or electricity, offering innovative possibilities for energy-efficient, wireless and remotely controlled systems. Its wide-ranging potential spans across diverse industries, including robotics, aerospace and biomedical devices.

Aug 18, 2023

A new way to identify chiral molecules with light could vastly improve detection efficiency

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Chiral molecules are those that have two versions that are mirror images, like our right and left hands. These molecules have the same structure but different properties when they interact with other molecules, including those inside our bodies. This is important for example in drug molecules, where only the right-or left-handed version may have the desired effect.

Detecting and quantifying the chirality of matter however has been difficult. Current methods using a form of light that produces a (right-or left-twisting) helix have the problem that each turn of the helix is much larger than the molecules. This creates important challenges for detecting molecular chirality.

Now, researchers at Imperial College London, with collaborators in Germany and Spain, have come up with a new way to use light to detect chirality. Instead of making light helix in space, they have devised a way to make it in time using lasers with moderate intensities.

Aug 18, 2023

A new ‘spin’ on ergodicity breaking

Posted by in categories: military, particle physics

In a recent Science paper, researchers led by JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye, along with collaborators JILA and NIST Fellow David Nesbitt, scientists from the University of Nevada, Reno, and Harvard University, observed novel ergodicity-breaking in C60, a highly symmetric molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged on the vertices of a “soccer ball” pattern (with 20 hexagon faces and 12 pentagon faces).

Their results revealed ergodicity breaking in the rotations of C60. Remarkably, they found that this ergodicity breaking occurs without symmetry breaking and can even turn on and off as the molecule spins faster and faster. Understanding ergodicity breaking can help scientists design better-optimized materials for energy and heat transfer.

Many everyday systems exhibit “ergodicity” such as heat spreading across a frying pan and smoke filling a room. In other words, matter or energy spreads evenly over time to all system parts as energy conservation allows. On the other hand, understanding how systems can violate (or “break”) ergodicity, such as magnets or superconductors, helps scientists understand and engineer other exotic states of matter.