Stanislaw Ulam Memorial Lecture Series Ricard Solé Universitat Pompeu Fabra, SFI Lecture 2: Synthetic Brains and Minds: What is Possible? In our search fo…
An exploration of The AI Farm Hypothesis and what it might mean for alien life and the Fermi Paradox.
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Agility robotics/X
Company Agility Robotics recently announced that preparations are in all swing for the opening of this manufacturing unit named “RoboFab.” The Agility’s press release mentioned that the facility’s construction began last year.
A major upgrade of the Linac Coherent Light Source has been completed at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, California. This latest version is 8,000 times faster and 10,000 times brighter, enabling scientists to observe molecular events in unprecedented detail.
Credit: Greg Stewart.
Continue reading “X-ray laser could transform atomic-scale research” »
As befits the child of a scientist, Martin Picard’s young son, 3, is already learning about biology with an age-appropriate textbook, “Cell Biology for Babies.” Picard winces a little whenever the book calls mitochondria the “powerhouses of the cell” but figures he has plenty of time as his son grows older to explain why the tiny organelles are much more than simple energy sources.
Picard is a leading proponent of mitochondrial psychobiology (a phrase he coined), an emerging field that examines how psychological states like stress influence mitochondrial functions, which in turn influence mental and physical health.
Continue reading “Exploring the mind-mitochondria connection” »
The chipmaker is developing a sequel to its Tunnel Falls quantum processor. Quantum computing in coming years could improve batteries, finance and AI.
Google DeepMind has used its technology to identify parts of human DNA that might cause diseases.
Here are some more specs: Frontier uses approximately 50,000 processors, compared with the most powerful laptop’s 16 or 24. It consumes 20 million watts, compared with a laptop’s 65 or so. It cost $600 million to build.
When Frontier came online, it marked the dawn of so-called exascale computing, with machines that can execute an exaflop—or a quintillion (1018) floating point operations a second. Since then, scientists have geared up to make more of these blazingly fast computers: several exascale machines are due to come online in the US and Europe in 2024.
From Iran to China to Russia, there’s an escalating ‘cat-and-mouse’ game between the censors and those trying to evade them.
I want to talk about the battle that’s raging every day between people who want to censor online content and those who want to protect access to a free and open internet.
It also relates to a recent scoop about a new Google product that’s designed to make it easier for developers to build censorship-resistant apps. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is a space worth paying attention to.
