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Mar 26, 2024

Specific Gut Microbes are Linked to a Lower Risk of Infection

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

There are trillions of microbes in the human gastrointestinal tract, each of which expresses its own genome, and carries out a variety of biochemical processes. Gut microbes can generate a variety of molecules that can have a significant impact on human health, such as vitamins, specially modified bile acids, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs).

SCFAs have fewer than six carbon atoms, and are found in a few major forms, including acetate, propionate, and butyrate. When we eat fibers that are tough to digest, gut microbes metabolize them instead, and generate SCFAs. Many links have been found between butyrate and human health; it is thought to have roles in the maintainence of epithelial barriers, prevention of gut inflammation in the gut and colorectal cancer, and oxidative stress relief.

Mar 26, 2024

When Will Homo Sapiens Go Extinct?

Posted by in category: futurism

Other species of human used to walk the Earth. Homo sapiens are the last to survive.

Mar 26, 2024

Explained: AlterEgo—a Device With Which You Can Communicate With Machines With The ‘internet In Your Head’

Posted by in categories: internet, robotics/AI, wearables

This article is almost a year old, yet still wildly interesting.

An MIT scientist developed a wearable BCI device that allows users to access the internet with their minds.

The wearable device records neural signals as and when a person hears or thinks of words.

Continue reading “Explained: AlterEgo—a Device With Which You Can Communicate With Machines With The ‘internet In Your Head’” »

Mar 26, 2024

Google Pushing Its Unsafe Search AI on Users Who Didn’t Opt In

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Don’t want Google’s experimental AI search feature embedded into your search pages? Too bad.

According to Search Engine Land, Google has started unleashing its AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) product, which was previously available for users only on an opt-in basis, into the browsers of users who didn’t choose to partake in Google’s AI search experiment.

Google has defended the unsolicited SGE-ification of its platform, telling Search Engine Land that it’s thus far only incorporated SGE automatically into a “subset of queries” that take up a “small percentage of search traffic in the US” and arguing further that the rollout will allow them to glean feedback from the users who, again, didn’t elect to opt into the generative AI search service.

Mar 26, 2024

Nanospikes: A Novel Approach to Virus-Killing Surfaces

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

What non-invasive methods can be developed to kill viruses on site? This is what a recent study published in ACS Nano hopes to address as a team of international researchers have developed a silicon surface containing nanospikes capable of preventing viruses from replicating or killing them entirely. This study holds the potential to help develop a passive way of mitigating the spread of viruses within a myriad of environments, including scientific laboratories and healthcare facilities.

“Our virus-killing surface looks like a flat black mirror to the naked eye but actually has tiny spikes designed specifically to kill viruses,” said Dr. Natalie Borg, who is a senior lecturer in the STEM | Health and Biomedical Sciences at RIMT University and a co-author on the study. “This material can be incorporated into commonly touched devices and surfaces to prevent viral spread and reduce the use of disinfectants.”

For the study, researchers at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication took inspiration from insects, some of which possess their own version of nanospikes on their wings that can damage fungi and bacteria. To produce the nanospikes, the team blasted smooth silicon wafers with ions, resulting in nanospikes measuring 290 nanometers in height and 2 nanometers thick, the latter of which is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. They then tested their new material on the hPIV-3 virus, which is responsible for causing pneumonia and bronchitis, finding their nanospikes exhibited a 96 percent success rate in either preventing the virus from replicating or shredding them to pieces completely.

Mar 26, 2024

How the brain’s GPS helps you know where you are

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Researchers show for the first time the role endocannabinoid signals play in living animals moving about in the environment.

Mar 26, 2024

Acclaimed Movie Secretly Contained AI Generated Imagery

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI

A movie released to critical acclaim has now been met with intense backlash after fans discovered it included AI-generated images.

Written and directed by siblings Cameron and Colin Cairnes, “Late Night With the Devil,” is a horror movie starring David Dastmalchian as a 70s talk show host. Through found footage, it shows a once “lost” live TV broadcast on Halloween, in which the evening’s guest, a young girl, claims to be demonically possessed.

Critics and audiences alike have raved about the movie since it premiered at the SXSW film festival — but that goodwill proved to be short-lived. In a scathing and now viral review shared on Letterboxd, a user called out the movie for having AI “all over” certain sequences, garnering thousands of likes and inciting tons of fiery discourse on other social media platforms.

Mar 26, 2024

Accelerando: Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories written by British author Charles Stross

Posted by in categories: futurism, singularity

As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free e-book under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Accelerando won the Locus Award in 2006, and was nominated for several other awards in 2005 and 2006, including the Hugo, Campbell, Clarke, and British Science Fiction Association Awards.

The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three generations of a family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine in the period 2001 to 2004. According to Stross, the initial inspiration for the stories was his experience working as a programmer for a high-growth company during the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

Continue reading “Accelerando: Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories written by British author Charles Stross” »

Mar 26, 2024

Survey reveals almost half of all managers aim to replace workers with AI, could use it to lower wages

Posted by in categories: employment, robotics/AI

A hot potato: A lot of companies try to assuage fears that employees will lose their jobs to AI by assuring them they’ll be working alongside the tech, thereby improving efficiency and making their duties less tedious. That claim feels less convincing in light of a new survey that found 41% of managers said they are hoping to replace workers with cheaper AI tools in 2024.

A report by Beautiful.ai, which makes AI-powered presentation software, surveyed over 3,000 managers about AI tools in the workplace, how they’re being implemented, and what impact they believe these technologies will have.

The headline takeaway is that 41% of managers said they are hoping that they can replace employees with cheaper AI tools in 2024. This backs up previous reports that looked at potential jobs losses caused by generative AI, including one from September that predicted the technology would replace over 2 million US jobs by 2030. An earlier study claimed that generative AI could affect 300 million jobs globally.

Mar 26, 2024

OpenAI Let Directors Make Short Films With Sora and the Results Are Wild

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI

OpenAI has given a number of directors, production companies, and creative agencies early access to its Sora text-to-video generator — and the results range from astonishing to downright terrifying.

Toronto-based multimedia production company Shy Kids used the next-generation generative AI tool to come up with a whimsical short film about “Air Head,” a man who has a balloon instead of a head.

The short film is an impressive example of the tech’s capabilities, showing off Sora’s striking ability to generate relatively believable and photorealistic video footage in response to a text prompt.

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