Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 2235

Is it possible to invent a computer that computes anything in a flash? Or could some problems stump even the most powerful of computers? How complex is too complex for computation? The question of how hard a problem is to solve lies at the heart of an important field of computer science called computational complexity. Computational complexity theorists want to know which problems are practically solvable using clever algorithms and which problems are truly difficult, maybe even virtually impossible, for computers to crack. This hardness is central to what’s called the P versus NP problem, one of the most difficult and important questions in all of math and science.

This video covers a wide range of topics including: the history of computer science, how transistor-based electronic computers solve problems using Boolean logical operations and algorithms, what is a Turing Machine, the different classes of problems, circuit complexity, and the emerging field of meta-complexity, where researchers study the self-referential nature of complexity questions.

Featuring computer scientist Scott Aaronson (full disclosure, he is also member of the Quanta Magazine Board). Check out his blog: https://scottaaronson.blog/

Read the companion article about meta-complexity at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/complexity-theorys-50-year-jo…-20230817/

Continue reading “P vs. NP: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Computer Science” | >

📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/U5sBEHBUhndiJJDz/?mibextid=xfxF2i

In the realm of computing technology, there is nothing quite as powerful and complex as the human brain. With its 86 billion neurons and up to a quadrillion synapses, the brain has unparalleled capabilities for processing information. Unlike traditional computing devices with physically separated units, the brain’s efficiency lies in its ability to serve as both a processor and memory device. Recognizing the potential of harnessing the brain’s power, researchers have been striving to create more brain-like computing systems.

Efforts to mimic the brain’s activity in artificial systems have been ongoing, but progress has been limited. Even one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Riken’s K Computer, struggled to simulate just a fraction of the brain’s activity. With its 82,944 processors and a petabyte of main memory, it took 40 minutes to simulate just one second of the activity of 1.73 billion neurons connected by 10.4 trillion synapses. This represented only one to two percent of the brain’s capacity.

In recent years, scientists and engineers have delved into the realm of neuromorphic computing, which aims to replicate the brain’s structure and functionality. By designing hardware and algorithms that mimic the brain, researchers hope to overcome the limitations of traditional computing and improve energy efficiency. However, despite significant progress, neuromorphic computing still poses challenges, such as high energy consumption and time-consuming training of artificial neural networks.

Continue reading “Scientists built a Cyborg computer with living brain tissue” | >

Progression independent of relapse activity (PIRA) has been increasingly recognized in people with multiple sclerosis (MS; NEJM JW Neurol May 24 2022 and JAMA Neurol 2022; 79:682). To learn more about PIRA, investigators used data from the Italian MS Register on 16,130 patients with relapsing-remitting MS, including 1,383 with pediatric-onset MS (POMS; median age at onset, 16), 14,113 with adult-onset MS (AOMS; median age at onset, 29), and 634 with late-onset MS (LOMS; median age at onset, 52).

Compared with patients with POMS, patients with LOMS had the highest incidence of PIRA (hazard ratio

, 2.98), followed by those with AOMS (HR, 1.42). Compared with the POMS patient group, the LOMS patient group had the lowest risk for relapse-associated worsening (HR, 0.69), followed by the AOMS group (HR, 0.88). Cumulative PIRA incidence was 1.3% of patients at age 20 years, increased rapidly between ages 21 and 30 (9%), and rose progressively from 40 to 70 (from 22% to 79%). Cumulative incidence of relapse-associated worsening showed a different pattern of increases over time (e.g., 0.5% at age 20; 7.8% at age 40; 14.4% at age 50; 24.1% at age 60; 27.7% at age 70).

These authors provide data supporting the notion that MS pathophysiology is different between patients with PIRA and those with relapse-associated worsening. While relapse-associated worsening seems to increase gradually and reach a plateau, PIRA begins in the 20s and continues to increase. PIRA encompasses accumulating neurodegenerative processes, supporting the concept that a subset of patients experience progression even within the relapsing-remitting phase of the disease.

Read more | >

SpaceX rockets are tearing holes in the Earth’s atmosphere as they make their return to the surface, triggering what scientists are calling “SpaceX auroras,” a newly coined term that refers to red, spherical spots in the night sky that can easily be seen with the naked eye.

As Spaceweather.com reports, the name isn’t entirely accurate as they’re technically not auroras. They’re the result of SpaceX rockets burning their engines in the Earth’s ionosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere where solar radiation ionizes atoms and molecules to create a protective layer of electrons.

That means that as the rocketmaker ratchets up its launch schedule, that could be a problem, because the ionosphere serves an important technical function by ensuring the stability of shortwave radio communication and GPS signals.

Read more | >

SpaceX is making progress at Starbase, collaborating with the US Transportation Command and Air Force, potentially becoming a major source of revenue, while also facing potential competition from Relativity Space, and experiencing design errors but still managing to save samples.

Questions to inspire discussion.

What progress has SpaceX made at Starbase?
—SpaceX has made significant progress at Starbase, including construction of the Starfactory, residential area, and Rocket Garden, but the fate of prototype ships remains uncertain.

Read more | >

Tesla has unveiled “Optimus Gen 2”, a new generation of its humanoid robot that should be able to take over repetitive tasks from humans.

Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, has not been taken seriously by many outside of the more hardcore Tesla fans, and for good reason.

When it was first announced, it seemed to be a half-baked idea from CEO Elon Musk with a dancer disguised as a robot for visual aid. It also didn’t help that the demo at Tesla AI Day last year was less than impressive.

Read more | >

People may be more than two times likelier to develop schizophrenia-related disorders if they owned cats during childhood than if they didn’t:

Living with cats as a child has once again been linked to mental health disorders, because our furry friends apparently can’t catch a break.

In a new meta-analysis published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, Australian researchers identified 17 studies between 1980 and 2023 that seemed to associate cat ownership in childhood with schizophrenia-related disorders — a sample size narrowed down from a whopping 1,915 studies that dealt with cats during that 43-year time period.

As anyone who’s read anything about cats and mental health knows, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that infection from the Toxoplasma gondii parasite, which is found in cat feces and undercooked red meat, may be linked to all sorts of surprising things. From mental illness to an interest in BDSM or a propensity for car crashes, toxoplasmosis — that’s the infection that comes from t. gondii exposure — has been thought of as a massive risk factor for decades now, which is why doctors now advise pregnant people not to clean cat litter or eat undercooked meat.

Continue reading “Childhood Cat Exposure Once Again Linked to Schizophrenia” | >

Researchers have come one step closer to answering why, in some patients, a type of lymphoma changes from indolent to aggressive, and in particular, they are closer to identifying which patients are at high risk of this change happening.

Part of the answer lies in the in the tumor, explains Associate Professor Maja Ludvigsen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University. Maja is one of the authors of a new study on the subject, which has just been published in the journal Blood Advances.

Follicular lymphoma is an incurable lymphoma. But unlike many other cancers, it is not always aggressive from the start. This means that patients with the disease have to live with the uncertainty of when—and how—the cancer will develop. It also means frequent visits to the hospital to monitor any acute developments.

Read more | >