Lifeboat Foundation

The researchers built a dynamic data acquisition platform to capture human arm motion during assembly tasks.

A team of researchers from the Beijing Institute of Technology has developed a new method to control robots that can assemble satellites in space. The technique is inspired by the human arm, which can adjust its damping to perform different tasks with precision and stability. The researchers published their findings in Cyborg and Bionic Systems.

Space operations with robots and challenges

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ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI, far outpaces all other AI chatbot apps on mobile devices in terms of downloads and is a market leader by revenue, as well. However, it’s surprisingly not the top AI app by revenue — several photo AI apps and even other AI chatbots are actually making more money than ChatGPT, despite the latter having become a household name for an AI chat experience.

Since its launch on mobile devices in May of this year, ChatGPT’s downloads and revenue have continued to grow. In its first month, when the app was available on iOS only, it topped 3.9 million downloads, which grew to 15.1 million by June, according to an analysis of the AI app market by Apptopia. Then, following a slight dip in July, ChatGPT grew again to top 23 million downloads as of September 2023.

In addition, ChatGPT’s usage on mobile devices has similarly grown from just over 1.34 million monthly active users in May to now 38.88 million as of September.

The pioneering AI researcher and activist shares her personal journey in a new book, and explains her concerns about today’s AI systems.

Joy Buolamwini, the renowned AI researcher and activist, appears on the Zoom screen from home in Boston, wearing her signature thick-rimmed glasses.

As an MIT grad, she seems genuinely interested in seeing old covers of MIT Technology Review that hang in our London office. An edition of the magazine from 1961 asks: “Will your son get into college?”

While European nations are ahead on dimensions like equality, social progress, and climate change redressal, they lack technological advancements in comparison to the United States. The European region, including the UK, still lacks the investment and culture necessary for a startup ecosystem prevalent in California’s Silicon Valley.

The Valley is a globally recognized hub for technology and innovation. Many of the world’s leading technology companies, like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are based there. However, Europe also has notable… More.

Silicon Valley overshadows the EU in tech, but with the advent of new-age artificial intelligence, Europe’s leading entrepreneurs think it could offer the Euro startup ecosystem to be a key player in the race.

Travis Gienger is a talented gourd-grower, and he’s used to earning accolades for his colossal pumpkins. Since 2020, he’s won three of the past four World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off competitions—and this year’s entry topped them all. Weighing in at 2,749 pounds, Gienger’s gourd has set a new world record for the heaviest pumpkin.

Nicknamed “Michael Jordan,” the pumpkin took the crown during the annual championship in Half Moon Bay, California, this week, reports Heidi Raschke of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). It easily beat out last year’s champion—Gienger’s own 2,560-pounder, which set a new North American record and which he later turned into the world’s largest jack o’lantern.

“I was not expecting that. It was quite the feeling,” says Gienger, a 43-year-old landscape and horticulture teacher at Anoka Technical College, to the Associated Press (AP). He has been growing pumpkins since he was a teenager, following in the footsteps of his father.

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In a recent study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, researchers describe the relationship between problematic internet use (PIU) and the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Study: The relationship between problematic internet use and attention deficit, hyperactivity and impulsivity: A meta-analysis. Image Credit: Alexxndr / Shutterstock.com

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Whenever measurement precision nears the uncertainty limit set by quantum mechanics, the results become dependent on the interaction dynamics between the measuring device and the system. This finding may explain why quantum experiments often produce conflicting results and may contradict basic assumptions regarding physical reality.

Two quantum physicists from Hiroshima University recently analyzed the dynamics of a measurement interaction, where the value of a physical property is identified with a quantitative change in the meter state. This is a difficult problem, because quantum theory does not identify the value of a physical property unless the system is in a so-called “eigenstate” of that physical property, a very small set of special quantum states for which the physical property has a fixed value.

The researchers solved this fundamental problem by combining information about the past of the system with information about its future in a description of the dynamics of the system during the measurement interaction, demonstrating that the observable values of a physical system depend on the dynamics of the measurement interaction by which they are observed.

A German-French research team led by Bayreuth microbiologist Dirk Schüler presents new findings on the functionality of proteins in magnetic bacteria in the journal mBio. The research is based on previous results published recently in the same journal.

In this study, the Bayreuth scientists used bacteria of the species Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense to decipher the function of genes that are presumably involved in the biosynthesis of magnetosomes in other magnetic bacteria that are difficult to access.

Magnetic bacteria contain magnetic particles consisting of nanocrystals of an iron mineral inside their cells. These organelle-like particles are known in research as magnetosomes. Like links in a chain, well over 20 of these particles are regularly lined up one after the other. The magnetic moments of the individual crystals add up so that the chain—similar to a compass needle—has the function of a magnetic sensor: It aligns the bacterial cell in the relatively weak magnetic field of the Earth.

Research led by Peking University, China, has discovered a single type of retinal photoreceptor cell in Drosophila (fruit fly) is involved in both visual perception and circadian photoentrainment by co-releasing histamine and acetylcholine at the first visual synapse.

In a paper, “A single photoreceptor splits perception and entrainment by cotransmission,” published in Nature, the team details the discovery that the Drosophila visual system segregates visual perception and circadian photoentrainment by co-transmitting two neurotransmitters, histamine and acetylcholine, in the R8 photoreceptor cells.

Light detection involves capturing signals through photoreceptors in the eye, which are essential for image formation and subconscious visual functions, such as regulating biological rhythms according to the daily light-dark cycle (photoentrainment of the circadian clock). The optical system has distinct pathways for image formation (based on local contrast) and non-image-related tasks (based on global irradiance).