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AI captures particle accelerator behavior to optimize machine performance

Keeping high-power particle accelerators at peak performance requires advanced and precise control systems. For example, the primary research machine at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility features hundreds of fine-tuned components that accelerate electrons to 99.999% the speed of light.

The electrons get this boost from radiofrequency waves within a series of resonant structures known as cavities, which become superconducting at temperatures colder than deep space.

These cavities form the backbone of Jefferson Lab’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), a unique DOE Office of Science user facility supporting the research of more than 1,650 nuclear physicists from around the globe. CEBAF also holds the distinction of being the world’s first large-scale installation and application of this superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) technology.

Creating CAR-T Cells Using Current Alzheimer’s Antibodies

A team of researchers has biologically engineered T cells with currently available Alzheimer’s drugs in order to directly attack the characteristic amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s disease.

Building on the current paradigm

Most Alzheimer’s treatments used in the clinic are-mabs, monoclonal antibodies that are designed to attack the amyloid beta plaques that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. However, while they have been found to have enough meaningful benefits in clinical trials to be approved by the FDA, they are not a cure, and some analyses question their effectiveness [1].

Lateral habenula and periaqueductal gray neurons signal reward prediction error and continuity of reward expectancy to drive reward-seeking behavior

Lee and Hikosaka show how animals overcome challenges and ultimately achieve goals. They find that LHb and PAG neurons encode prediction errors and the continuity of reward expectancy, with tonic PAG activity sustaining reward expectancy despite prediction errors.

Organic molecule stores solar energy for years, then releases it as heat on demand

When the sun goes down, solar panels stop working. This is the fundamental hurdle of renewable energy: how to save the sun’s power for a rainy day—or a cold night. Chemists at UC Santa Barbara have developed a solution that doesn’t require bulky batteries or electrical grids. In a paper published in the journal Science, Associate Professor Grace Han and her team detail a new material that captures sunlight, stores it within chemical bonds and releases it as heat on demand.

The material, a modified organic molecule called pyrimidone, is the latest advancement in molecular solar thermal (MOST) energy storage.

“The concept is reusable and recyclable,” said Han Nguyen, a doctoral student in the Han Group and the paper’s lead author.

Graham Priest: Dialetheism & the Limits of Classical Logic

For 2,500 years, Western thought has treated contradiction as catastrophic.

From Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction to modern formal systems, logic has operated under one sacred assumption: a statement cannot be both true and false.

But what if that assumption is wrong?

In my latest Singularity. FM conversation, I sit down with Graham Priest — one of the world’s leading philosophers of logic and the foremost defender of *dialetheism* — the view that some contradictions are true.

We explore:

• Why the liar paradox still unsettles logicians • How paraconsistent logic blocks “explosion” • Whether classical logic is incomplete rather than universal • What Buddhist philosophy understood about contradiction centuries ago • And whether AI systems may require non-classical logics to model human reasoning.

Continue reading “Graham Priest: Dialetheism & the Limits of Classical Logic” | >

Single gene found to influence gut bacteria balance and IBD susceptibility

Two recent studies from the University of California, Riverside, published in the same issue of Gut Microbes highlight the role of a gene called PTPN2 in protecting the gut from harmful bacteria linked to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Led by Declan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, the studies show that when PTPN2 does not function properly, the gut becomes more vulnerable to infection and inflammation.

People with IBD often have higher levels of AIEC, a harmful type of E. coli bacteria. AIEC can attach to the gut lining, invade gut cells, damage the gut’s protective barrier, and worsen inflammation.

Origami-inspired ring lets users ‘feel’ virtual worlds

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are technologies that allow users to immerse themselves in digital worlds or enhance their surroundings with computer-generated filters or images, respectively. Both these technologies are now widely used worldwide, whether to experience video games and media content in more engaging ways or improve specific training and assist professionals in their daily tasks.

To date, VR and AR have primarily focused on what users see and hear, primarily improving the quality of digital experiences from a visual and auditory standpoint. The sense of touch, on the other hand, has been in great part overlooked.

Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Istanbul Technical University recently developed a new wearable device that could allow users to also realistically “feel” tactile sensations aligned with what they are experiencing in a virtual world. This device, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, is an origami-inspired ring that measures forces on a user’s skin, pushing back onto the finger to produce specific sensations.

Why Time Doesn’t Exist | Leonard Susskind

We experience time as something that flows. Seconds pass. Moments disappear. The future becomes the present and then turns into the past.

But modern physics does not describe time this way.

In this video, we explore why time — as we intuitively understand it — may not exist at the fundamental level of reality.

Drawing on ideas associated with Leonard Susskind, this documentary examines how relativity and quantum physics challenge the idea of a flowing temporal river. Einstein’s theory removes the notion of a universal present. There is no global “now” that sweeps across the universe.

Without a universal present, the idea of time flowing becomes difficult to define physically.

In the relativistic picture, spacetime is a four-dimensional structure. Events are not created moment by moment. They are embedded in geometry. The equations of physics do not contain a moving present. They describe relations between events.

Continue reading “Why Time Doesn’t Exist | Leonard Susskind” | >
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