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An international team of physicists has successfully measured the size of a certain type of neutrino to a certain degree. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes experiments they conducted that involved measuring the radioactive decay of the element beryllium.

Neutrinos are subatomic particles with a mass very close to zero. They also have a half-integral spin and rarely react with normal matter. To date, three kinds of neutrinos have been identified, each by association with an electron, muon or tau particle. Physicists have become more interested in neutrinos over the past several years because it is thought better understanding them may lead to a better understanding of why there is more matter than antimatter in the known universe.

One of the first questions that needs to be answered about neutrinos is their size. This is important because it allows building the right size and shape of neutrino detectors. Currently, they are very large, which allows for what is believed to be their largest possible theoretical size—several meters—though it is believed they are smaller. In this new effort, the research team conducted experiments with beryllium to measure the size of an electron-associated neutrino.

Two studies published in the latest issue of Science have revealed that birds, reptiles, and mammals have developed complex brain circuits independently, despite sharing a common ancestor. These findings challenge the traditional view of brain evolution and demonstrate that, while comparable brain functions exist among these groups, embryonic formation mechanisms and cell types have followed divergent evolutionary trajectories.

The pallium is the region where the neocortex forms in mammals, the part responsible for cognitive and complex functions that most distinguishes humans from other species. The pallium has traditionally been considered a comparable structure among mammals, birds, and reptiles, varying only in complexity levels. It was assumed that this region housed similar neuronal types, with equivalent circuits for sensory and cognitive processing.

Previous studies had identified the presence of shared excitatory and , as well as general connectivity patterns suggesting a similar evolutionary path in these vertebrate species.

A study led by Prof. Li Hai from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed that the balance between habitual and goal-directed decision-making strategies is influenced by the availability of working memory resources.

The findings, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, provide a new framework for understanding how sequential decisions are made.

Everyday decisions often involve a series of choices aimed at reaching a goal-whether selecting a restaurant or deciding on the route. People vary in how they make decisions: some rely on habits, while others adjust based on new information and changing goals.

Three studies at the University of Zurich demonstrate that hypnosis alters activity in the large-scale functional networks of the brain. It also affects the neurochemical milieu of specific brain areas.

Hypnosis has so far been something of a black box from the scientific perspective. Up to now, we have not had the data to prove whether hypnosis really is an extraordinary state of human consciousness, or simply in the subject’s imagination. Yet it remains a topic of fascination for many.

A well-known women’s magazine recently dedicated an entire dossier to hypnosis. And now and again we’ll hear of a remarkable hypnosis success story. For example, in 2018 at the Hirslanden Klinik St. Anna in Lucerne, a 45-year-old man had a metal plate removed from his lower arm under hypnosis only, without any anesthetic or . Much to the amazement of the surgical team, the man did not experience any significant pain either during or after the operation, as the Swiss public broadcaster SRF Puls health magazine program reported on 17 September of that year.

“It might be that to get superhuman intelligence, you do need some level of sentience. We can’t rule that out either; it’s entirely possible. Some people argue that that kind of real intelligence requires sentience and that sentience requires embodiment. Now, there is a view in philosophy, called computational functionalism, that [argues] sentience, sapience, and selfhood could just be the computations they perform rather than the body they’re situated in. And if that view is correct, then it’s entirely possible that by recreating the computations the brain performs in AI systems, we also thereby recreate the sentience as well.”

Birch is saying three things here. First, it’s reasonable to suggest that “superintelligence” requires sentience. Second, we could potentially recreate sentience in AI with certain computations. Therefore, if we want AI to reach “superintelligence” we would need it to be sentient. We would need AI to feel things. ChatGPT needs to know pain. Gemini needs to experience euphoria.

The fact that underlies Birch’s book and our conversation is that intelligence is not some deus ex machina dropped from the sky. It is not some curious alien artifact uncovered in a long, lost tomb. It’s nested within an unfathomably long evolutionary chain. It’s the latest word in a long sentence. But the question Birch raises is: Where does AI fit in the book of evolved intelligence?