UC Irvine scientist aids in project providing both environmental, medical benefits
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MiniMax-M1 is a new open source model with 1 MILLION TOKEN context and new, hyper efficient reinforcement learning
From a data platform perspective, teams responsible for maintaining efficient, scalable infrastructure can benefit from M1’s support for structured function calling and its compatibility with automated pipelines. Its open-source nature allows teams to tailor performance to their stack without vendor lock-in.
Security leads may also find value in evaluating M1’s potential for secure, on-premises deployment of a high-capability model that doesn’t rely on transmitting sensitive data to third-party endpoints.
Taken together, MiniMax-M1 presents a flexible option for organizations looking to experiment with or scale up advanced AI capabilities while managing costs, staying within operational limits, and avoiding proprietary constraints.
Scientists achieve 1,000-fold increase in solar electricity using ultra-thin layers
At the core of this discovery, published in Science Advances, is barium titanate (BaTiO₃), a material known for its ability to convert light into electricity, though not very efficiently on its own.
The scientists found that by embedding thin layers of barium titanate between two other materials – strontium titanate and calcium titanate – they could create a structure that produces significantly more electricity than barium titanate alone, even while using less of it.
The improvement is striking. The layered structures generated up to 1,000 times more electricity than the same amount of standalone barium titanate. The researchers were also able to fine-tune this effect by adjusting the thickness of each layer, giving them control over the system’s performance.
A dexterous and compliant aerial continuum manipulator for cluttered and constrained environments
Nature Communications paper.
Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55157-2
PDF link: https://rdcu.be/d7B8C
This paper proposes a highly dexterous and compliant aerial continuum manipulator (Aerial Elephant Trunk). We have proposed the design, designed the shape estimation method, developed a feedback controller, and proposed a whole-body motion planning module such that the UAV and the continuum manipulator could carry out tasks as a whole.
AET can perform various challenging aerial manipulation tasks, including but not limited to:
1) grasping object of various sizes and shapes;
2) traversing constrained pipelines with various shapes;
3) aerial writing/painting;
4) performing manipulation in various complex environments.
#robot #drone #uav #airplane #robotics #artificialintelligence #technology #learning #deeplearning @UAVfutures @fpvdrones @meninododronefpv @Thedroneracingleague @RobotFutureAI
Years of painting restoration work done in just hours by new technique
Although AI-based restoration methods can indeed bring new life to damaged paintings, the end result is typically a digital copy of the original painting. By contrast, a new MIT technique applies reversible repairs to the physical painting itself, in the form of a removable mask.
The process was developed by mechanical engineering graduate student Alex Kachkine, who restores paintings via traditional hand-painting techniques as a hobby.
He realized that many galleries have a number of paintings which never get displayed, because they require restoration that would take too long – and thus be too expensive – to perform by hand. Utilizing his method, however, restoration times could be reduced from years, months or weeks down to a matter of hours.
Big Tech pushes for 10-year ban on US states regulating AI
Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party
Dramatic stretch in quantum materials confirms 100-year-old prediction
Research from the University of St Andrews has set a new benchmark for the precision with which researchers can explore fundamental physics in quantum materials. The work has implications extending from materials science to advanced computing, as well as confirming a nearly 100-year-old prediction.
The researchers explored magnetoelastic coupling, which is the change in the size or shape of a material when exposed to a magnetic field. It is usually a small effect, but one that has technological consequences.
A team from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews has now discovered that this effect is remarkably large in a case where one wouldn’t have expected it—in a transition metal oxide. Oxides are a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. High-temperature superconductors are one of the most prominent examples of a transition metal oxide.
Physicists validate ratio method for studying halo nuclei
Theories must stand up to practical testing, and this is especially true in physics. Researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Texas A&M University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Surrey in the U.K. and Michigan State University have achieved such a milestone: They were able to experimentally demonstrate for the first time that the ratio method can be used to study atomic nuclei, and in particular unstable halo nuclei—thus underscoring the importance of this new reaction observable. The team published their results on May 28, 2025, in Physical Review Letters.
Scientists uncover magnetic-field control of ultrafast spin dynamics in 2D ferromagnets
A research team led by Prof. Sheng Zhigao from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Prof. A.V. Kimel from Radboud University, has demonstrated that strong magnetic fields can effectively regulate laser-induced ultrafast demagnetization in a two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnet.
New method enables scientists to surpass the resolution limit of fluorescence microscopy
Imagine you’re sitting at a pond, listening to the din of croaking frogs. You want to know how many frogs are in the pond, but you can’t pick out the individual croaks—only the combined sound rising and falling in volume as frogs start and stop communicating.
But what if you were able to examine these volume changes to figure out how many frogs are in the pond?
That’s the idea behind a new method developed by the Funke Lab at Janelia to count the individual molecules contained in a single spot of light detected by a fluorescence microscope—a quantity important for understanding the underlying biology of a living system. The paper is published in the journal Nano Letters.