Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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The emerging field of neurosymbolic AI could solve these issues, while also reducing the enormous amounts of data required for training LLMs. So what is neurosymbolic AI and how does it work?

LLMs work using a technique called deep learning, where they are given vast amounts of text data and use advanced statistics to infer patterns that determine what the next word or phrase in any given response should be. Each model—along with all the patterns it has learned—is stored in arrays of powerful computers in large data centers known as neural networks.

LLMs can appear to reason using a process called chain-of-thought, where they generate multi-step responses that mimic how humans might logically arrive at a conclusion, based on patterns seen in the training data.

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People who follow a MIND diet, even if started later in life, were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or related forms of dementia, according to new research.

The MIND diet stands for “Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay” and combines many elements of the Mediterranean diet and DASH (“Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension”). It emphasizes brain-healthy foods like leafy greens, berries, nuts and olive oil.

The study, being presented Monday at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting, analyzed data from nearly 93,000 U.S. adults aged 45 to 75 starting in the 1990s.

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Objective To improve early diagnosis of patients who have basilar artery occlusion (BAO) and to provide evidence for treatment decisions based on clinical characteristics, treatment strategies, and prognostic outcomes of cases of bilateral hearing loss as a prodromal symptom.

Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of six patients who had BAO with an initial symptom of hearing loss. This analysis encompassed demographic data, clinical symptoms, examination findings, treatment approaches, and prognostic outcomes.

Results Six patients (mean age 62±16.5 years) presented with bilateral sudden hearing loss and were diagnosed with proximal BAO. All had subtle initial symptoms, leading to diagnostic delays (mean 13 ± 5.4 hours). Five underwent endovascular treatment (EVT), and all patients required rescue balloon angioplasty because of underlying atherosclerotic stenosis.

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The venous system maintains the health of our brains by removing deoxygenated blood and other waste products, but its complexity and variability have made scientific study difficult. Now, a UC Berkeley-led team of researchers has developed an innovative MRI technique that may expand our understanding of this critical system.

In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers demonstrate how their new imaging method, Displacement Spectrum (DiSpect) MRI, maps blood flows “in reverse” to reveal the source of blood in the ’s veins. This approach could help answer long-standing questions about brain physiology as well as provide a safer, more efficient way to diagnose disease.

Like some current MRI methods, DiSpect uses the water in our blood as a tracing agent to map perfusion, or blood flow, in the brain. The water’s hydrogen atoms possess a quantum mechanical property called spin and can be magnetized when exposed to a magnetic field, like an MRI scanner. But what makes DiSpect unique is its ability to track the “memory” of these nuclear spins, allowing it to map blood flow back to its source.

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A trial of an interactive game that trains people to alter their brain waves has shown promise as a treatment for nerve pain—offering hope for a new generation of drug-free treatments.

The PainWaive technology, developed by UNSW Sydney researchers, teaches users how to regulate abnormal brain activity linked to chronic nerve , offering a potential in-home, noninvasive alternative to opioids.

A recent trial of the technology, led by Professor Sylvia Gustin and Dr. Negin Hesam-Shariati from UNSW Sydney’s NeuroRecovery Research Hub, has delivered promising results, published in the Journal of Pain.

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Are we facing tech-stinction?

An Oklahoma tech expert predicted that artificial intelligence will become so omnipresent on the planet that Earth — with a current estimated population of about 8 billion — will have just 100 million people left by the year 2300.

“It’s going to be devastating for society and world society,” Subhash Kak, who teaches computer science at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, told the Sun. “I think people really don’t have a clue.”

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That, he says, is when the Universe begins to speak. “We’ve come out of that process and, through ever-deepening complexity, arrived at the ability to understand how it all took place. The Universe, in the form of humans, is now understanding its infancy, its adolescence, and its later stages. We are the place where the whole sequence has become aware of itself.”

“We really need to make use of this empirical knowledge and understand how it can help us in our own lives. How do we grow from it?” asks philosopher of science Nancy Ellen Abrams, speaking with her co-author Joel Primack. “It’s just like with medicine — we don’t make the discoveries, but we get the benefit when we’re sick.” A few thousand people, she notes, have learned to think about the Universe as a whole, based on evidence, not myth. “What people can do with this is reevaluate what we are as human beings.”

That begins, they suggest, with embracing the scale of billions of years — not just as backdrop, but as the substance of our very identity. “We are not a package of organs inside skin,” Abrams says. “We are an embodiment of the history of the Universe, literally history embodied in an incredibly emergent phenomenon here.” Seen this way, our lives gain meaning from deep time.

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