Lifeboat Foundation

The discovery of a hot spot for horizontal gene transfer draws attention to the possible roles of parasites and ecology in such changes.

After years of development, researchers have managed to shrink two-photon microscopy into a device that can be mounted on rodents’ heads without impeding behaviour.

I guess it’s time for Twitter execs to go home, and for me to start using Twitter again. They killed my chamber of commerce account, then when I opened a personal account, they kept asking for my phone number every time I logged in. If I give you my number once and you send me an sms, I’m not giving it to you again, as that’s not safe.

It ends months of bad blood between the two parties regarding the takeover, with Elon Musk complaining about fake accounts on the platform and claims by a whistleblower that Twitter misled regulators about security risks.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, Facebook to start sharing advertising data with Kenya’a tax agency, and the police.

In the terms, the company said businesses placing adverts across its different platforms would have given it consent to share information with government agencies looking for such information to assist in lawful investigations.

“Our licence to deliver your ad will end when we have completed your order. You understand, however, that…you consent that Meta may disclose your advertising content, and all information associated with your advertising, to a governmental entity or body if Meta believes that disclosure would assist in a lawful investigation,” says the company in the terms that will be effective January 3, 2023.

Continue reading “Facebook to share traders’ data with State agencies” »

Werner Syndrome and Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome are two examples of the rare genetic disorders known as progeroid syndromes that cause signs of premature aging in children and young adults. Patients with progeroid syndromes have pathologies and symptoms that are often linked to aging, including osteoporosis, cataracts, heart disease, and type II diabetes.

This aging is characterized by the gradual loss of nuclear architecture and an underlying tissue-specific genetic program, but the causes are unclear. Scientists have discovered a potential new target for treating these syndromes by preventing nuclear architecture loss.

In this Robotics 24/7 Roundtable, attendees can hear from e-commerce, retail, and omnichannel experts on best practices for selecting and using a variety of robots.

Pachyderms sport more brain cells for their ears alone than humans have for their whole face.

AI image generators, which create fantastical sights at the intersection of dreams and reality, bubble up on every corner of the web. Their entertainment value is demonstrated by an ever-expanding treasure trove of whimsical and random images serving as indirect portals to the brains of human designers. A simple text prompt yields a nearly instantaneous image, satisfying our primitive brains, which are hardwired for instant gratification.

Although seemingly nascent, the field of AI-generated art can be traced back as far as the 1960s with early attempts using symbolic rule-based approaches to make technical images. While the progression of models that untangle and parse words has gained increasing sophistication, the explosion of generative art has sparked debate around copyright, disinformation, and biases, all mired in hype and controversy.

Continue reading “How AI image generators could help robots” »

Over the last three decades, the digital world that we access through smartphones and computers has grown so rich and detailed that much of our physical world has a corresponding life in this digital reality. Today, the physical and digital realities are on a steady course to merging, as robots, Augmented Reality (AR) and wearable digital devices enter our physical world, and physical items get their digital twin computer representations in the digital world.

These digital twins can be uniquely identified and protected from manipulation thanks to crypto technologies like blockchains. The trust that these technologies provide is extremely powerful, helping to fight counterfeiting, increase supply chain transparency, and enable the circular economy. However, a weak point is that there is no versatile and generally applicable identifier of physical items that is as trustworthy as a blockchain. This breaks the connection between the physical and digital twins and therefore limits the potential of technical solutions.

In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, an interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Professors Jan Lagerwall (physics) and Holger Voos (robotics) from the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and Prof. Mathew Schwartz (architecture, construction of the built environment) from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, U.S., propose an innovative solution to this problem where physical items are given unique and unclonable fingerprints realized using cholesteric spherical reflectors, or CSRs for short.