Weight regain is only part of the story. Scientists are discovering how stopping GLP-1 drugs may affect the heart, blood sugar, and other protective benefits that go well beyond the scale.
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Fractal patterns reveal hidden limits to AI predictability
Researchers at the University of Sydney have identified a fundamental mathematical reason why artificial intelligence systems can learn different behaviors even when trained under almost identical conditions, a discovery that could help improve the reliability and trustworthiness of AI technologies.
The study by Professor Pulin Gong from the School of Physics and his Ph.D. student Andrew Ly has been published in Nature Machine Intelligence.
As AI systems become increasingly embedded in health care, business, research and everyday life, ensuring they behave consistently and predictably has become a major challenge. The new research suggests that some forms of AI unpredictability are not due to engineering flaws or inconsistencies in computer hardware, but arise from the underlying mathematics of how neural networks learn.
ALIX Regulates Tumor-Mediated Immunosuppression by Controlling EGFR Activity and PD-L1 Presentation
(Cell Reports 24, 630–641; July 17, 2018)
As published, blots showing the PD168393-sensitive, EGF-dependent phosphorylation of the CrkII-based Picchu-X biosensor in HCC1954 cells (Figure 1A) were inadvertently duplicated from an experiment showing the Mo-IPQA-sensitive, EGF-dependent phosphorylation of the CrkII-based Picchu-X biosensor in HCC1954 cells. This latter experiment was published as Figure 1B in PMID: 28166195.
Mo-IPQA is a PD168393 derivative, and figures for both papers were prepared concurrently, leading to the inadvertent duplication.
Experts Share Their Tips For Spotting If The ‘Person’ Calling You Is Actually AI
“A modern chatbot writes warm, clean, grammatically perfect text, often better than the average person in a hurry. If you are scanning for typos or robotic phrasing, you are using a 2022 test on a 2026 system,” he said.
“What has not been solved is consistency, specificity, and backbone.”
Instead, you need to think about speed and sentence shape. “Chatbots answer almost instantly, and every answer is roughly the same length and structure, neatly organised, often with a tidy summary at the end,” said Martynenko.
Smarter cities need more than smart algorithms. They need trust
We’ve never had a better understanding of how cities move, but turning that knowledge into smoother, cleaner and more equitable trips remains a challenge. The main obstacle to sustainable mobility may not be technological, but rather political and organizational.
Apps track buses in real time, sensors count cars and pedestrians and algorithms predict traffic jams. Advances in data-driven analytics even promise to let bus networks adjust service frequency to demand or to coordinate deliveries with fewer vehicles. And yet, getting across a city is often still a struggle: breakdowns, congestion, double-parked delivery vehicles blocking buses and cyclists, night shifts that end after the subway has stopped running.
Improving urban mobility without increasing emissions or deepening inequalities in access means making better use of existing data rather than building more infrastructure. One thing is becoming clear: mobility data is still underutilized. It can only transform how we get around if it’s shareable, representative and actionable.
Researchers create light-activated cages for ‘protein killer’ molecules
Researchers have created a molecular “cage” that keeps protein-degrading drug molecules inactive until they are exposed to low-energy red light. The technology, called RuPHOTACs, controls when and where these molecules become active, which could help scientists develop treatments that destroy specific proteins while limiting unwanted effects elsewhere.
The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Some AI bots work harder to defy stereotypes, study finds
Large language models (LLMs), the technology that powers tools like Gemini and ChatGPT, are more nuanced than ever. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t biased. Some models are more prejudiced than others, a Rutgers University researcher has found.
In findings published in Nature Machine Intelligence, Calvin K. Lai, an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers-New Brunswick, reports that although LLM outputs are increasingly aligned with human values, the processes by which they reason are often rooted in deep-seated stereotypes.
“What we found across most models is that they consistently reproduced human implicit biases during their reasoning process,” said Lai, a member of the scientific advisory board at Project Implicit, a nonprofit organization for research and education on hidden biases. “No one wants models that are spewing out stuff that is racist or sexist.”
Ancient Human DNA Reveals Hidden Connections Across Ice Age Europe
At the same time, the researchers found evidence for long-term population continuity in southwestern Europe. Genomic data from Chufín Cave in northern Spain indicate that western European ancestry persisted in the region over thousands of years. The team also analysed ancient human DNA preserved directly in cave sediment. At El Mirón Cave in Cantabria, they recovered enough human nuclear DNA from a 22,000-year-old layer to determine its genetic ancestry – despite the absence of human bones or teeth. “Sedimentary DNA allows us to recover genetic information from periods where human remains are missing,” says senior author Ron Pinhasi, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna, whose team led this study. “This gives us a way to connect archaeological layers with the genetic ancestry of the people who occupied a site.” The El Mirón DNA shows that this ancestry persisted through the Last Glacial Maximum, supporting the idea of the Iberian Peninsula as an Ice Age refuge.
What mother and son reveal about mating
In southern Italy, the team analysed Ostuni1b, a male fetus and most likely the son of the previously studied woman Ostuni1. His father probably came from the same genetic population, yet the parents were not closely related – suggesting mating practices that helped avoid high levels of inbreeding. Together, the findings show that regional population continuity could coexist with genetic exchange over large distances. Gelabert’s team is now combining sedimentary DNA with advanced proteomic analyses to investigate the first trans-European expansions of modern humans and their interactions with carnivores where organic remains are scarce.
Cerebellar and frontal lobe alterations in pulmonary hypertension implicate an inflammatory lung vascular/brain axis
Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine, Pittsburgh Heart, Lung, and Blood Vascular Medicine Institute, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine;
2Department of Computational and Systems Biology; and.
3McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Key oddity of quantum physics may run even deeper than anticipated
Quantum mechanics’ probabilistic nature has puzzled researchers for more than a century. A new analysis shows that ridding the theory of this odd characteristic may be even harder than anticipated.
Infamously, quantum objects can exist in combinations of seemingly mutually exclusive states, such as in the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, where the animal is in a mix of states that makes it seem both alive and dead, and also neither. Left undisturbed and isolated, the cat remains mixed, but if it is observed – if an experimenter opens its box, say – it abruptly reduces to just one, unmixed state.