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May 15, 2023

The future of generative AI is niche, not generalized

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability

The relentless hype surrounding generative AI in the past few months has been accompanied by equally loud anguish over the supposed perils — just look at the open letter calling for a pause in AI experiments. This tumult risks blinding us to more immediate risks — think sustainability and bias — and clouds our ability to appreciate the real value of these systems: not as generalist chatbots, but instead as a class of tools that can be applied to niche domains and offer novel ways of finding and exploring highly specific information.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The news that a dozen companies have developed ChatGPT plugins is a clear demonstration of the likely direction of travel. A “generalized” chatbot won’t do everything for you, but if you’re, say, Expedia, being able to offer customers a simple way to organize their travel plans is undeniably going to give you an edge in a marketplace where information discovery is so important.

May 15, 2023

Capsule captures first look inside digestion in healthy people

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

Using a specially designed capsule, researchers can now voyage through the digestive system, collecting new data about digestion and microorganisms. The work by a team including researchers at the University of California, Davis, Stanford University and Envivo Bio Inc., is published May 10 in papers in Nature and Nature Metabolism.

Most of the process of digestion takes place in our small intestine, where enzymes break down food so it can be absorbed through the gut wall.

“The small intestine has so far only been accessible in sedated people who have fasted, and that’s not very helpful,” said Professor Oliver Fiehn, director of the West Coast Metabolomics Center at UC Davis. Metabolomics is the study of the metabolome, the small molecules involved in metabolism in cells, tissues and organs. Fiehn is senior author on the Nature Metabolism paper and co-corresponding author on the Nature paper. Jacob Folz, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis, is first author on the Nature Metabolism paper.

May 15, 2023

Drones navigate unseen environments with liquid neural networks

Posted by in categories: drones, robotics/AI

In a series of quadrotor closed-loop control experiments, the drones underwent range tests, stress tests, target rotation and occlusion, hiking with adversaries, triangular loops between objects, and dynamic target tracking. They tracked moving targets, and executed multi-step loops between objects in never-before-seen environments, surpassing performance of other cutting-edge counterparts.

The team believes that the ability to learn from limited expert data and understand a given task while generalizing to new environments could make autonomous drone deployment more efficient, cost-effective, and reliable. Liquid neural networks, they noted, could enable autonomous air mobility drones to be used for environmental monitoring, package delivery, autonomous vehicles, and robotic assistants.

“The experimental setup presented in our work tests the reasoning capabilities of various deep learning systems in controlled and straightforward scenarios,” says MIT CSAIL Research Affiliate Ramin Hasani. “There is still so much room left for future research and development on more complex reasoning challenges for AI systems in autonomous navigation applications, which has to be tested before we can safely deploy them in our society.”

May 15, 2023

Creating the Lab of the Future; What does it entail?

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

As part of our SLAS US 2023 coverage, we speak to Luigi Da Via, Team Leader in Analytical Development at GSK, about the lab of the future, and what it may look like.

Please, can you introduce yourself and tell us what inspired your career within the life sciences?

Hello, my name is Luigi Da Via, and I am currently leading the High-Throughput Automation team at GSK. I have been with the company for the past six years, and I’m thrilled to be contributing to the development of life-saving medicines through the application of cutting-edge technology and automation.

May 15, 2023

Dr. Emre Ozcan & Walid Mehanna — Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany — Tech As A Force For Good In Health

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, governance, health, information science

Technology As A Force For Good In People’s Lives — Dr. Emre Ozcan, PhD, VP, Global Head of Digital Health & Walid Mehanna, Group Data Officer And Senior Vice President, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.


EPISODE DISCLAIMER — At any time during this episode when anyone says Merck, in any context, it shall always be referring to Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Continue reading “Dr. Emre Ozcan & Walid Mehanna — Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany — Tech As A Force For Good In Health” »

May 15, 2023

Dr. Devi SenGupta, MD, MPhil — Executive Director of Clinical Development, Gilead Sciences

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

EPISODE DISCLAIMER — The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.

Dr. Devi SenGupta, MD, MPhil, is Executive Director of Clinical Development at Gilead Sciences (https://www.gilead.com/), where she leads the company’s HIV cure development program and during her time at the company has led multiple HIV treatment and cure studies. As head of the HIV cure program, she provides strategic direction for cross-functional internal teams and external multi-stakeholder collaborations developing combination approaches aimed at achieving long-term HIV remission.

Continue reading “Dr. Devi SenGupta, MD, MPhil — Executive Director of Clinical Development, Gilead Sciences” »

May 15, 2023

Google Quantum AI Breaks Ground: Unraveling the Mystery of Non-Abelian Anyons

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Summary: For the first time, Google Quantum AI has observed the peculiar behavior of non-Abelian anyons, particles with the potential to revolutionize quantum computing by making operations more resistant to noise.

Non-Abelian anyons have the unique feature of retaining a sort of memory, allowing us to determine when they have been exchanged, even though they are identical.

The team successfully used these anyons to perform quantum computations, opening a new path towards topological quantum computation. This significant discovery could be instrumental in the future of fault-tolerant topological quantum computing.

May 15, 2023

Stellantis halts battery plant construction over dispute with Canadian govt

Posted by in categories: government, sustainability, transportation

OTTAWA, May 15 (Reuters) — Automaker Stellantis (STLAM.MI) has stopped all construction at a more-than C$5 billion ($3.74 billion) electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Windsor, Canada, over a disagreement with the federal government about subsidies, a spokesperson for the company said on Monday.

“Effective immediately, all construction related to the battery module production on the Windsor site has stopped,” the spokesperson said.

Canada’s industry ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

May 15, 2023

SpaceX hires former NASA human spaceflight official Kathy Lueders to help with Starship

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

Kathy Lueders, the most recent top human spaceflight official at NASA, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency a couple of weeks ago, CNBC has learned.

Lueders’ role will be general manager, and she will work out of the company’s “Starbase” facility in Texas, reporting directly to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell, people familiar with the matter told CNBC.

It’s a key hire for SpaceX as the company aims to make its massive Starship rocket safe to fly people in the coming years. Lueders, a respected expert in the sector, is already familiar with the company’s human spaceflight work to date.

May 15, 2023

Part 1 on the Race to Create a Permanent Human Presence in Low-Earth-Orbit

Posted by in category: space travel

A commercial space station called Orbital Reef may be deployed this decade, one of many planned for low-Earth orbit.


In Part 1 looking at LEO space station deployment we focus on two front runners: the Axiom Space Station and Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef.