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French startup Mistral AI has released its new language model Mixtral 8x7B via a torrent link. Mixtral is a mixture-of-experts model, following an architecture that OpenAI is rumored to be using for GPT-4, but on a much larger scale.

There are no benchmarks, blog posts, or articles about the model yet, but Mistral-7B — the first version of Mistral AI — generally performed very well and was quickly adopted by the open-source community. Mistral is thought to have used the MegaBlocks MoE library for training. The Paris-based company was recently valued at nearly $2 billion.

In this episode of the Lifespan podcast, Dr. David Sinclair and co-host Matthew LaPlante dissect the topic of brain aging. They explore evidence suggesting that the brain ages more slowly than other parts of the body and highlight how cognitive function is impacted by aging. Different interventions aimed at preserving brain health are also discussed, including a plant-based diet, exercise, metformin, NAD boosters, and sufficienh #Wellness #DavidSinclair #Longevity #BrainHealth #Healthspan

In Episode 3 of the Lifespan Podcast, Dr. David Sinclair and Matthew LaPlante dive deeply into the science of non-dietary interventions that mimic adversity and promote health. They begin by highlighting how different types of physical activity (i.e., low-intensity aerobic exercise, high-intensity aerobic exercise, and weight training) protect against age-related disease and enhance longevity. David and Matthew additionally highlight the latest evidence behind hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cold therapy, and heat therapy. As they discuss different adversity mimetics, they also explain how these interventions influence aging at the molecular and physiological levels.

In this episode, Dr. David Sinclair and co-host Matthew LaPlante discuss how frequently we should eat, what food we should avoid, and what food we should pursue. They discuss the science behind how a “low energy state,” which can be induced by a period of fasting, combats aging and promotes health. They also walk through research that points to the benefits of a mostly plant-based diet for slowing aging and offer key insights into when to eat and what to eat to maximize longevity. #Food #DavidSinclair #Longevity

Biologist and genetics expert Dr. David Sinclair is out to prove he can live past 100 years old, and he thinks you can too. On this episode Sinclair goes in-depth on the process of aging and the techniques you can incorporate into your life that help you live a longer, healthier life, including optimizing your diet, the benefits of exercise, the role of a positive attitude, the importance of sleep, the three supplements he takes every day, why it’s never too late to slow the process of aging, and so much more.

How much stress do pipes undergo when a liquid flows through them, and how does it depend on the degree of curvature of the pipe?

Bends in pipes are especially crucial, for example in the aortic arch that connects to the left ventricle of the human heart. Piping systems in industrial plants often include bends of 90 degrees or more, can be helical, and can even have 180-degree bends. Fluid mechanists in Sweden have analyzed in such pipes with a 180-degree bend. Their research is published in the journal Physical Review Fluids.

Bends in pipes are different than their straight sections because, in the curved sections, there are outward centrifugal forces due to the inertia of the liquid inside. That force is balanced by a pressure gradient from the outer wall of the to the inner wall. Because the fluid velocities in an imaginary slice through the pipe will not be equal in the curved section—for example, the velocity near the outer wall of the pipe will be greater than near the inner wall—a secondary pattern, besides the motion through the pipe, is set up perpendicular to the main flow direction.

The team at EPFL’s Photonic Systems Laboratory (PHOSL) has developed a chip-scale laser source that enhances the performance of semiconductor lasers while enabling the generation of shorter wavelengths.

This pioneering work, led by Professor Camille Brès and postdoctoral researcher Marco Clementi from EPFL’s School of Engineering represents a significant advance in the field of photonics, with implications for telecommunications, metrology, and other high-precision applications.

The study, published in the journal Light: Science & Applications, reveals how the PHOSL researchers, in collaboration with the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements, have successfully integrated semiconductor lasers with silicon nitride photonic circuits containing microresonators. This integration results in a hybrid device that emits highly uniform and precise light in both near-infrared and visible ranges, filling a technological gap that has long challenged the industry.

A recent study by European scientists shows that highly sensitive sensors based on color centers in a diamond can be used to record electrical activity from neurons in living brain tissue. The work is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Before people encounter symptoms of diseases such as dementia, slight changes have usually occurred already in the . It may be that parts of the brain are swelling up or clumps of proteins are forming. These small changes might influence how in the brain signal each other and communicate, how information is processed and memorized.

Medical scientists want to study these minor changes that occur in the very early stages of a disease. That way, the intention is to learn more about the causes of the disease to provide new insights and more efficient treatments. Today, microscopic studies on the brain are performed with one of two strategies: Optical inspection of brain tissue samples from animals or deceased patients that suffer from the studied disease or measurements of the signals from the nerve cells using wires, coloring, or light.