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A new literature review of papers on “common mycorrhizal networks” seems to indicate the science behind them is not as strong as once thought.

Akin to the Ents from “The Lord of the Rings,” there is an idea in modern botany that trees can “talk” to one another through a delicate web of fungus filaments that grows underground. The idea is so alluring that it has gained traction in popular culture and has even been termed the “wood-wide network.”

However, according to Justine Karst, associate professor from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Agricultural, Life, and Environmental Sciences, it could all be nonsense.

Jacquesvandinteren/iStock.

“It’s great that CMN research has sparked interest in forest fungi, but it’s important for the public to understand that many popular ideas are ahead of the science,” says Karst.

Continue reading “Can trees talk to each other with fungal networks? Study raises doubts” | >

The powerful flare caused a radio blackout over South America.

The Sun sent out a very powerful solar flare in the morning hours of Saturday EST time. NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory captured a video of the same.

Sunspots and solar flares.

Thomas Faull/iStock.

Solar flares are powerful eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from a region of the Sun with an intense magnetic field. This high-intensity magnetic field temporarily stops the convection process on the solar surface, which cools down the region. When observed from a distance, it appears darker than the solar disc and is known as a sunspot.

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Meta is preparing a fresh round of job cuts, according to a report from the Financial Times. Two people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that there has been a lack of clarity around budgets and the future headcount at the company. The job cuts are expected to take place around March, but it’s unknown how people could be affected.

The lack of clarity has resulted in staff noting that not much work is getting done, as managers have been unable to plan ahead, the report says. Certain budgets that would normally be finalized by the end of the year still haven’t been finalized, and decisions that would usually take days to be signed off on are now taking a month in some cases.

Meta did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

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You may not yet have tried Microsoft’s new Bing Chat search engine which uses a next-generation OpenAI model said to be more powerful than ChatGPT. There’s a waiting list to be granted access currently—however, one Stanford student has managed to gain more access than Microsoft or OpenAI developers intended. Using a method known as a prompt injection, Kevin Liu was able to encourage the ChatGPT-like bot to cough up its secrets.

How one student convinced the new ChatGPT-alike Bing Chat search to reveal its secrets.

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Over the past decade, I’ve kept a close eye on the emergence of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Throughout, one truth remained constant: Despite all the hype, AI-focused startups and established tech companies alike have failed to move the needle on the nation’s overall health and medical costs.

Finally, after a decade of underperformance in AI-driven medicine, success is approaching faster than physicians and patients currently recognize.

The next version, ChatGPT4, is scheduled for release later this year, as is Google’s rival AI product. And, last week, Microsoft unveiled an AI-powered search engine and web browser in partnership with OpenAI, with other tech-industry competitors slated to join the fray.

It remains to be seen which company will ultimately win the generative-AI arms race. But regardless of who comes out on top, we’ve reached a tipping point.

In the same way the iPhone became an essential part of our lives in what seemed like no time, ChatGPT (or whatever generative AI tool leads the way) will alter medical practice in previously unimaginable ways.

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Challenger search engine Neeva wants to replace the familiar “10 blue links” in search results with something more fitting for the modern AI age.

Back in December, Neeva co-founder and CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, who previously spearheaded Google’s advertising tech business, teased new “cutting edge AI” and large language models (LLMs), positioning itself against the ChatGPT hype train.

“ChatGPT cannot give you real time data or fact verification,” Ramaswamy wrote at the time. “In our upcoming upgrades, Neeva can.”

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The effects of vitamin C on clinical outcomes in critically ill patients remain controversial due to inconclusive studies. This retrospective observational cohort study evaluated the effects of vitamin C therapy on acute kidney injury (AKI) and mortality among septic patients.

Electronic medical records of 1,390 patients from an academic hospital who were categorized as Treatment (received at least one dose of 1.5 g IV vitamin C, n = 212) or Comparison (received no, or less than 1.5 g IV vitamin C, n = 1178) were reviewed. Propensity score matching was conducted to balance a number of covariates between groups. Multivariate logistic regressions were conducted predicting AKI and in-hospital mortality among the full sample and a sub-sample of patients seen in the ICU.

Data revealed that vitamin C therapy was associated with increases in AKI (OR = 2.07 95% CI [1.46–2.93]) and in-hospital mortality (OR = 1.67 95% CI [1.003–2.78]) after adjusting for demographic and clinical covariates. When stratified to examine ICU patients, vitamin C therapy remained a significant risk factor of AKI (OR = 1.61 95% CI [1.09–2.39]) and provided no protective benefit against mortality (OR = 0.79 95% CI [0.48–1.31]).

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Watch the extended cut of the Singularity, starring Adam Driver in a journey for truth and a website that makes websites.

Visit thesingularity.squarespace.com to Enter the Singularity.

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