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Pushing The Boundaries Of Research To Build A Synthetic Kidney — Dr. Andrew McMahon, Ph.D. & Lewis Kleinberg, University Kidney Research Organization (UKRO)


The University Kidney Research Organization (UKRO — https://ukrocharity.org/) is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit charity, co-founded prominent entertainment attorney Kenneth Kleinberg, inspired by his personal journey with kidney disease, focused on supporting medical research and education related to the causes, treatment, and eradication of all forms of kidney disease.

Dr. Andrew McMahon, Ph.D. (https://keck.usc.edu/faculty-search/andrew-p-mcmahon/) is Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, Provost Professor and the inaugural holder of the W. M. Keck Professorship of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and is responsible for overseeing UKRO’s Synthetic Kidney Project. In addition, Dr. McMahon chairs the recently created Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Keck School. He also holds an appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.

Previously Dr. McMahon served as professor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and principal faculty member in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as well as led the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology.

Dr. McMahon received his bachelor’s degree from St. Peter’s College, Oxford University and his Ph.D. from University College in London. He subsequently worked for three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

The world’s preeminent linguist has spoken — and he seems mighty tired of everyone’s whining about artificial intelligence as it stands today.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Noam Chomsky said that although the current spate of AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing AI “have been hailed as the first glimmers on the horizon of artificial general intelligence” — the point at which AIs are able to think and act in ways superior to humans — we absolutely are not anywhere near that level yet.

“That day may come, but its dawn is not yet breaking, contrary to what can be read in hyperbolic headlines and reckoned by injudicious investments,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cognitive scientist mused.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX has cleared the final hurdle for launching its new giant Starship from Texas as early as next week on a first test flight.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued the long-awaited license on Friday. SpaceX announced that Starship — the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket — could soar as soon as Monday.

No people or satellites will be aboard the 394-foot (120-meter) rocket. SpaceX will attempt to send the spacecraft atop the colossal booster around the world, from the southern tip of Texas all the way to Hawaii. The first stage will be discarded in the Gulf of Mexico and the spacecraft into the Pacific. No landings will be attempted for this debut.

The yacht No Stress has five operating modes using two sources of power.

As the world goes ga-ga over the wonders of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it can improve our daily use apps and make them more intuitive, Italian ship maker Rossinavi has deployed the technology to ease the crew’s workload onboard its latest yacht, No Stress.

The nearly 164 feet (50 m) long super yacht has a sporty design and looks set to cruise the ocean waters with its fast-displacement hull form. However, the ship is making headlines because, under the hood, a computer system has been tasked to monitor and manage power consumption while the passengers look to de-stress away from their hectic lives.

The open-source project is based on a dataset of up to 180,000 annotated amateur drawings.

In the face of increasing competition, it appears that Meta is significantly upping its artificial intelligence (AI) game.

This open-source project is based on a dataset of up to 180,000 annotated amateur drawings. The company has made this dataset and animation code available for AI researchers and creators to use and innovate further.


Dusan Stankovic/iStock.

Following the release of the “Segment Anything Model,” the tech giant has unveiled yet another interesting and fun AI-based project. The project, called Animated Drawings, allows you to turn your doodles into animations. And it could be the next big thing.

Bedrock allows its users to build and scale generative AI applications like chatbots.

Becoming the latest actor to join the generative AI space race, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched Bedrock. Not to be confused with OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard which are AI-powered chatbots.

What Bedrock does is allowing users to build and scale generative AI applications such as chatbots, text generation, image generation using language prompts, etc. There’s a range of pre-trained models that the users can customize and embed their own data into and then integrate and deploy in applications using the AWS tools.

The travel and tourism sector has become a prime focus for cyberattacks in recent times, resulting in ransomware incidents arising from data breaches. Against this backdrop, cybersecurity concerns within the industry have escalated with a 4 pc year-on-year (YoY) rise in 2022, reflecting the prevailing sentiment, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

In its report, Company Filing Analytics Database, GlobalData says that sentiment for airlines, travel services, and lodging rose by 6 pc, 4 pc, and 1 pc, respectively, in 2022 over 2021.

“Companies are consistently working on information and network security projects to set up a reliable technical protection and security management mechanism to ensure customer security and prevent data leakage. A severe data security incident can lead to operational disturbances and cause significant financial damage to the business,” says Misa Singh, Business Fundamentals Analyst at GlobalData.