Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Summary: Using AI, researchers identified Probucol, an existing anti-cholesterol drug that promotes the disposal of mitochondria, as a potential new therapy for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Source: PLOS

The words that researchers use to describe their results can be harnessed to discover potential new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, according to a new study publishing March 2nd in the open access journal PLoS Biology by Angus McQuibban of the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.

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One of the often-overlooked parts of movie-making is how Hollywood blockbusters are distributed worldwide. While subtitles are common, dubbed audiences more widely embrace films to the point that certain native stars get associated with English-speaking performers. Variety reports that the Italian dubbing workers and voice actors are going on strike over the studios laying the groundwork to replace them with AI dubbing.

Italian voice actors and dubbing workers have been on strike since February 21st and will continue for at least another week. The complaints from the workers sound very similar to those of Marvel’s VFX contractors: low wages, long hours, and an unsustainable pace of work. Now that AI programs are becoming widely available and more cost-efficient than human work, the union worries dubbing will be fully overtaken by machines.

Rodolfo Bianchi, head of Italy’s dubbing director’s organization ADID, explained, “We are forced to sign contracts in which we give away the rights to the use of our voice, this also involves the use of our voice for artificial intelligence purposes.” AI is already capable of realistic deep fakes, including appropriating celebrity voices, and with how far the technology has come in a relatively short period, Bianchi’s fears are well-founded. While a computer program would struggle to match the tone and tenor of a voice during a dramatic performance, it can be done, and it can be done cheaply.

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Researchers have created a roadmap for how to build tiny biocomputers out of human neurons or brain cells.

“We can use a culture of the human brain to show something which is not just living cells. We can show that this is learning, this is memorising, this is making decisions, it is possibly even at some point, ‘sentient’ in the sense that it can sense its environment,” Professor Thomas Hartung, a Johns Hopkins ‘organoids’ researcher, told Cosmos.

“We are the explorers who have stumbled into a completely new field.”

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“You could sort of see a home use for robots, certainly industrial uses for robots, humanoid robots,” he said.

Musk’s musings about AI came during Tesla’s first-ever Investor Day presentation, which was held at the carmaker’s Austin, Texas, Gigafactory.

During the presentation, Musk showed an updated video of the company’s “Optimus” robot prototype, which Musk said he aims to use in Tesla factories and sell to the public.

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A cybersecurity technique that shuffles network addresses like a blackjack dealer shuffles playing cards could effectively befuddle hackers gambling for control of a military jet, commercial airliner or spacecraft, according to new research. However, the research also shows these defenses must be designed to counter increasingly sophisticated algorithms used to break them.

Many aircraft, spacecraft and weapons systems have an onboard computer network known as military standard 1,553, commonly referred to as MIL-STD-1553, or even just 1553. The network is a tried-and-true protocol for letting systems like radar, flight controls and the heads-up display talk to each other.

Securing these networks against a is a national security imperative, said Chris Jenkins, a Sandia cybersecurity scientist. If a hacker were to take over 1,553 midflight, he said, the pilot could lose control of critical aircraft systems, and the impact could be devastating.

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Making an embryo is much like making a Lego castle: In the same way that a castle needs turrets and gargoyles and a moat, you need two legs and two eyes and a heart.

Except unlike the Lego Camelot, you don’t come with a picture on the box of what you’re meant to look like, much less an instruction manual—and you’re not going to be the one to assemble the structure. Instead, you’ll sit back and wait for the Lego pieces to organize themselves. Our cells, our little Lego pieces, assembled themselves. What’s even more astonishing is that when they get it right, all those cells get it right in broadly the same ways: We all managed to come out with the characteristic shape and proportions appropriate to our species (we can all spot a regulation-issue chicken, frog, mouse, or human shape).

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Hackers breached a website that allows people to buy and sell guns, exposing the identities of its users, TechCrunch has learned.

The breach exposed reams of sensitive personal data for more than 550,000 users, including customers’ full names, home addresses, email addresses, plaintext passwords and telephone numbers. Also, the stolen data allegedly makes it possible to link a particular person with the sale or purchase of a specific weapon.

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A joint effort in chemistry has resulted in an innovative method for utilizing carbon dioxide in a positive – even beneficial – manner: through electrosynthesis, it is integrated into a series of organic molecules that play a crucial role in the development of pharmaceuticals.

During the process, the team made an innovative discovery. By altering the type of electrochemical reactor used, they were able to generate two distinct products, both of which are useful in medicinal chemistry.

The team’s paper was recently published in the journal Nature. The paper’s co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Peng Yu and Wen Zhang, and Guo-Quan Sun of Sichuan University in China.

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