Lifeboat Foundation

Artificial intelligence models are being used to try to predict the future of artificial intelligence research. Thankfully, none of them say we are due an AI apocalypse.

Physicists are (temporarily) augmenting reality in order to crack the code of quantum systems.

Calculating the collective behavior of a molecule’s electrons is necessary to predict a material’s properties. Such predictions could one day help scientists create novel drugs or create materials with desirable qualities like superconductivity. The issue is that electrons may become ‘quantum mechanically’ entangled with one another, which means they can no longer be treated individually. For any system with more than a few particles, the entangled network of connections becomes outrageously difficult for even the most powerful computers to unravel directly.

Now, quantum physicists from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics (CCQ) in New York City have found a workaround. By adding extra “ghost” electrons in their computations that interact with the system’s actual electrons, they were able to simulate entanglement.

A recent book explores what they’re telling one another in different locations.

Lessons from COVID vaccine development and approval can aid the process.

According to Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, the founders of the German company BioNTech, mRNA vaccines that can help target cancer could be ready for use before the end of this decade, The Guardian.

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Continue reading “Cancer vaccine could be ready for use by 2030, say BioNTech founders” »

AI image generator Dall-E2 is about to find a new host. Microsoft will integrate the AI-based image generator with Microsoft Designer, a video-making tool to be available within the Microsoft Office suite. Till recently, Dall-E2 which is looked down upon as an app meant for only playing around with text prompts will be a part of Microsoft’s AI graphic design app. Designers and video makers who find it difficult to search for unique images can now leverage Microsoft’s Designer app to compose videos with imagery of their choice. Microsoft’s venture is seen as a step toward competing with design major Canva, which boasts more than 100 million active users. During the Ignite Conference held recently, Microsoft announced that it would integrate Dall-E 2 into the yet-to-be-released Designer app as well as existing Bing and Edge.

There is a lot of uranium in seawater, but it is difficult to extract. A new gel may make marine uranium extraction economically feasible.

So, today we are releasing the Crossmodal 3,600 dataset, which provides 261,375 reference captions in 36 languages for a geographically diverse set of 3,600 images.

I recently wrote about how viscoelastic fluids can be used in liquid body armor to stop bullets. While spacetime isn’t a fluid in the traditional sense, it has many of the same properties. In particular, it deforms when a massive body or any energy at all passes through it. The spacetime manifold resists deformation and seeks to return to flatness whenever a massive body passes on. This property is elasticity.