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Apr 12, 2023

Large-scale invasion of unicellular eukaryotic genomes

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Eukaryotic genomes contain a variety of endogenous viral elements (EVEs), which are mostly derived from RNA and ssDNA viruses that are no longer functional and are considered to be “genomic fossils.” Genomic surveys of EVEs, however, are strongly biased toward animals and plants, whereas protists, which represent the majority of eukaryotic diversity, remain poorly represented. Here, we show that protist genomes harbor tens to thousands of diverse, ~14 to 40 kbp long dsDNA viruses. These EVEs, composed of virophages, Polinton-like viruses, and related entities, have remained hitherto hidden owing to poor sequence conservation between virus groups and their repetitive nature that precluded accurate short-read assembly. We show that long-read sequencing technology is ideal for resolving virus insertions. Many protist EVEs appear intact, and most encode integrases, which suggests that they have actively colonized hosts across the tree of eukaryotes. We also found evidence for gene expression in host transcriptomes and that closely related virophage and Polinton-like virus genomes are abundant in viral metagenomes, indicating that many EVEs are probably functional viruses.

Apr 12, 2023

Battery Technology Advancing At A Good Clip

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, sustainability, transportation

Electric vehicles feature lithium-ion battery packs today. They are heavy. But in the future lithium-air batteries that are more energy dense, lighter, and smaller could revolutionize EV design.


Lithium-air provides 4x greater energy density, and gets the oxygen needed in the chemical process from the surrounding air.

Apr 12, 2023

Intelligence Explosion — Part 1/3

Posted by in categories: big data, computing, evolution, futurism, innovation, internet, machine learning, robotics/AI, singularity, supercomputing

The GPT phenomenon and the future of humanity in the face of advances in Artificial Intelligence.

The Age of Artificial Intelligence is an increasingly present reality in our daily lives. With the rise of technologies such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), the possibility of creating machines capable of performing tasks that were previously exclusive to humans has emerged.

One of these technologies is the Generative Pre-trained Transformer, better known as GPT. It’s the Large Language Model (LLM) developed by OpenAI.

OpenAI was founded in San Francisco, California in 2015 by Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Peter Thiel, among others, who collectively pledged $1 billion. Musk resigned from the board in 2018, but continued to be a donor to the project.

Continue reading “Intelligence Explosion — Part 1/3” »

Apr 12, 2023

Elon Musk’s Twitter now working on a generative AI project, says report

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI

The company procured thousands of GPUs and has hired AI researchers in the recent past.

The mystery of what Elon Musk plans to do with Twitter may have just begun to unravel. Even as Musk tries to hide it all behind the veil of X, an Insider.


Sundry Photography/ iStock.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s Twitter now working on a generative AI project, says report” »

Apr 12, 2023

US begins study of possible rules to regulate AI like ChatGPT

Posted by in categories: education, policy, robotics/AI, security

WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) — The Biden administration said Tuesday it is seeking public comments on potential accountability measures for artificial intelligence (AI) systems as questions loom about its impact on national security and education.

ChatGPT, an AI program that recently grabbed the public’s attention for its ability to write answers quickly to a wide range of queries, in particular has attracted U.S. lawmakers’ attention as it has grown to be the fastest-growing consumer application in history with more than 100 million monthly active users.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a Commerce Department agency that advises the White House on telecommunications and information policy, wants input as there is “growing regulatory interest” in an AI “accountability mechanism.”

Apr 12, 2023

TeraWulf Announces it Has Deployed BITMAIN Miners at the Nuclear-Powered Nautilus Facility

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, business, nuclear energy, solar power, sustainability

“TeraWulf generates domestically produced Bitcoin powered by 91% nuclear, hydro, and solar energy with a goal of utilizing 100% zero-carbon energy.”


EASTON, Md.—()—TeraWulf Inc. (Nasdaq: WULF) (“TeraWulf” or the “Company”), which owns and operates vertically integrated, domestic Bitcoin mining facilities powered by more than 91% zero-carbon energy, today announced that the Company is deploying solely BITMAIN Technologies Ltd. (“BITMAIN”) manufactured mining equipment to fill its 50 MW of capacity at the nuclear-powered Nautilus bitcoin mining facility.

“BITMAIN’s carbon neutral strategy and best-in-class mining equipment make BITMAIN an ideal partner to scale our zero-carbon digital infrastructure at Nautilus” Tweet this

Continue reading “TeraWulf Announces it Has Deployed BITMAIN Miners at the Nuclear-Powered Nautilus Facility” »

Apr 12, 2023

The world’s largest holographic display is here

Posted by in categories: engineering, entertainment

😗year 2022


Bigger isn’t always better, but when the Looking Glass Factory announces a beast of a holographic display, it tickles our rods, cones and curiosity equally. The screen doesn’t require glasses or other tech to view the effects. Viewable by groups of 50 people, the display generates up to 100 different perspectives of 3D content from 100 million points of light every 60th of a second.

The company claims its 8K-resolution, 65-inch display is five times larger than any other 3D holo display ever shown off. The new display is “group viewable,” meaning that it differs from a lot of the other offerings out there that can be seen by only one person at a time. The company highlights marketing, engineering and design-forward applications as possible uses. The new display is the fourth display in Looking Glass Factory’s growing (geddit?!) lineup.

Continue reading “The world’s largest holographic display is here” »

Apr 12, 2023

Midjourney: AI picture generator is now restricted to tackle misuse

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The company is terminating free trials owing to “exceptional demand and trial misuse.”

After users used its AI picture generator to produce high-profile deep fakes, Midjourney has decided to stop offering it for free. The company is terminating free trials owing to “exceptional demand and trial misuse,” according to CEO David Holz on Discord.

Midjourney tries to overcome unwanted attention nowadays, primarily because of the “arrested Donald Trump.” Also, deep fake Pope Francis wearing a trendy coat drew attention. Although the images were soon determined to be fake, there is a worry that malicious actors could distribute false information using Midjourney, OpenAI’s DALL-E, and other similar generators.

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Apr 12, 2023

AI race: Chinese giant Alibaba enters the fray with its bilingual AI model

Posted by in categories: habitats, robotics/AI

The AI race has just gone global.

Chinese e-commerce and technology giant, Alibaba, unveiled its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model Tongyi Qianwen, a ChatGPT-like service, earlier today. The service can work in English and Chinese and will be rolled out across Alibaba products, ranging from Slack-like communication apps to smart home speakers.

Interest in the area of large language models has increased in the recent past after ChatGPT took the world by storm.

Continue reading “AI race: Chinese giant Alibaba enters the fray with its bilingual AI model” »

Apr 12, 2023

GPT-3 training consumed 700k liters of water, ‘enough for producing 370 BMWs’

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI, transportation

The data centers that help train ChatGPT-like AI are very ‘thirsty,’ finds a new study.

A new study has uncovered how much water is consumed when training large AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. The estimates of AI water consumption were presented by researchers from the Universities of Colorado Riverside and Texas Arlington in a pre-print article titled “Making AI Less ‘Thirsty.’”

Continue reading “GPT-3 training consumed 700k liters of water, ‘enough for producing 370 BMWs’” »