Lifeboat Foundation

One of the central challenges for synthetic chemists is to impose control over free radicals. Highly reactive molecules with an unpaired electron, free radicals, may be familiar to you; these are the type of molecules we take antioxidant supplements for, in an effort to tame oxidative stress.

In the world of synthetic chemistry, however, free radicals hold a lot of promise.

“Free radical chemistry is very useful for the synthesis of both bioactive small molecules and everyday polymers,” said UC Santa Barbara chemistry professor Yang Yang, an author of a paper on the matter that appears in Nature Catalysis. “However, imposing stereocontrol over free-radical mediated reactions has eluded the asymmetric catalysis community for decades. We’re trying to develop biocatalytic strategies to further push the boundaries of free radical chemistry.”

July 20 (Reuters) — Cerebras Systems on Thursday said that it has signed an approximately $100 million deal to deliver the first of what could be up to nine artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers in a partnership with United Arab Emirates-based technology group G42.

The deal comes as cloud computing providers around the world are searching for alternatives to chips from Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), the market leader in AI computing whose products are in short supply, thanks to the surging popularity of ChatGPT and other services. Cerebras is one of several startups looking to challenge Nvidia.

Silicon Valley-based Cerebras said that G42 has agreed to purchase three of what it calls its Condor Galaxy systems, all of which it will build in the U.S. to speed up the roll out. The first one will come online this year, with two more coming in early 2024.

A protein fragment from the brain could be used to track progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The tell-tale fragment of tau protein was detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with the disease, and researchers now hope to develop a blood test using it.

Alzheimer’s is a disease of errant protein aggregates that include amyloid plaques and then later tau tangles. ‘Amyloid plaques begin to form about 10 to 20 years before the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s,’ says Randall Bateman, a neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine who helped lead the study. ‘Whereas tau tangles begin once the symptoms begin.’

Studies in two patient groups, each with hundreds of people, revealed that levels of the fragment in the CSF were indicative of tau clumps in the brain seen on imaging and were linked to symptoms of cognitive decline.

Developments in connectomics and network neuroscience over the past 20 years have led to new ways of investigating communication in complex brain networks. In this Review, Seguin, Sporns and Zalesky discuss the current landscape of models of brain network communication.

Is this hat conscious?
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Panpsychism is the idea that there is an element of consciousness in everything in the universe. The theory goes like this: You’re conscious. Ben Goertzel is conscious. And his hat is conscious too. What if consciousness isn’t about the brain at all, but it’s as inherent to our universe as space-time?“Now, panpsychism, to me, is not even that interesting, it’s almost obvious — it’s just the foundation, the beginning for thinking about consciousness… ” says Goertzel. It’s what comes after that excites him, like the emerging technology that will let us connect our minds to bricks, hats, earthworms, other humans, and super AGIs like Sophia, and perhaps glimpse at the fabric of consciousness. Goertzel believes brain-brain interfacing and brain-computer interfacing will unfold in the coming decades, and it’s by that means that we may finally crack the nut of consciousness to discover whether panpsychism makes any sense, and to learn why humans are so differently conscious than, for example, his hat.

Continue reading “Is this hat conscious? | Ben Goertzel on consciousness, panpsychism, and AGI | Big Think” »

Interview from the Conference “Emergence and Panpsychism” in Munich 2011.

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Ben Goertzel, Chief scientist of Hanson Robotics and co-creator of the world’s most famous android citizen, Sophia imagines how the “upload my mind” button will look like in the future.

Continue reading “Can We Live Forever as Digital Copies? | Dr. Ben Goertzel at Brain Bar” »

That’s a good idea! Definitely good news.

White House says it’s a ‘critical step’ towards the responsible development of the technology.

Keeping it within a democracy is a great idea.

Helsing AI is building an operating system for warfare and says it’ll only ever sell to democracies.