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Probabilistic modelling

Four major steps are entailed in generating successful probabilistic modelling through the Bean Machine. The modelling is based on generative techniques, the data collected from Python dictionaries where it is associated with random variables. The learning step improves the model’s knowledge based on observations, and the results are stored for further analysis.

Continue reading “Meta’s Bean Machine: The Hot Topic In Probabilistic Programming” »

All we can say about most of the 4,000+ known exoplanets is that they exist. Their physical characteristics are unknowable with current technology, but a few have given up some secrets. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified a magnetic field around the exoplanet HAT-P-11b. Earth’s magnetic field is essential for our continued existence, and this is the first time we’ve confirmed one around an exoplanet.

Earth and several other objects in our solar system have magnetic fields, a consequence of the way planets and moons interact with the solar wind. On Earth, the magnetosphere deflects damaging radiation, which would otherwise render the surface inhospitable. Fields surrounding exoplanets could serve a similar purpose. There was every reason to think exoplanets could have magnetic fields like the ones we see locally, but this is the first time we’ve been able to confirm that.

Astronomers from the University of Arizona observed the exoplanet HAT-P-11 b across six transits — that’s when the exoplanet passes in front of its host star from our perspective. This is how the HATNet Project discovered HAT-P-11 b in 2009. It was confirmed and further characterized later using radial velocity measurements from the Keck Observatory, which is the other standard method for detecting distant planets. Although, HAT-P-11 b is relatively close in the grand scheme at just 123 light years away.

Sediments in which archaeological finds are embedded have long been regarded by most archaeologists as unimportant by-products of excavations. However, in recent years it has been shown that sediments can contain ancient biomolecules, including DNA. “The retrieval of ancient human and faunal DNA from sediments offers exciting new opportunities to investigate the geographical and temporal distribution of ancient humans and other organisms at sites where their skeletal remains are rare or absent,” says Matthias Meyer, senior author of the study and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

To investigate the origin of DNA in the sediment, Max Planck researchers teamed up with an international group of geoarchaeologists—archaeologists who apply geological techniques to reconstruct the formation of sediment and sites—to study DNA preservation in sediment at a microscopic scale. They used undisturbed blocks of sediment that had been previously removed from archaeological sites and soaked in synthetic plastic-like (polyester) resin. The hardened blocks were taken to the laboratory and sliced in sections for microscopic imaging and genetic analysis.

The researchers successfully extracted DNA from a collection of blocks of sediment prepared as long as 40 years ago, from sites in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. “The fact that these blocks are an excellent source of ancient DNA—including that originating from hominins—despite often decades of storage in plastic, provides access to a vast untapped repository of genetic information. The study opens up a new era of ancient DNA studies that will revisit samples stored in labs, allowing for analysis of sites that have long since been back-filled, which is especially important given travel restriction and site inaccessibility in a pandemic world,” says Mike Morley from Flinders University in Australia who led some of the geoarchaeological analyses.

Zap Energy’s new Z-pinch fusion reactor promises a simpler approach to an elusive goal.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the devastating impact of acute lung inflammation (ALI), which is part of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that is the dominant cause of death in COVID-19. A potential new route to the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS comes from studying how neutrophils—the white blood cells responsible for detecting and eliminating harmful particles in the body—differentiate what materials to uptake by the material’s surface structure, and favor uptake of particles that exhibit “protein clumping,” according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers investigated how neutrophils are able to differentiate between bacteria to be destroyed and other compounds in the bloodstream, such as cholesterol particles. They tested a library consisting of 23 different protein-based nanoparticles in mice with ALI which revealed a set of “rules” that predict uptake by neutrophils. Neutrophils don’t take up symmetrical, rigid particles, such as viruses, but they do take up particles that exhibited “protein clumping,” which the researchers call nanoparticles with agglutinated protein (NAPs).

“We want to utilize the existing function of neutrophils that identifies and eliminates invaders to inform how to design a ‘Trojan horse’ nanoparticle that overactive neutrophils will intake and deliver treatment to alleviate ALI and ARDS,” said study lead author Jacob Myerson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics. “In order to build this ‘Trojan horse’ delivery system, though, we had to determine how neutrophils identify which particles in the blood to take up.”

In news that definitely doesn’t sound like a dystopian nightmare, researchers in China have developed a machine that can charge people with crimes using artificial intelligence.

The scientists claim the technology can decide on charges with more than 97 per cent accuracy, based on verbal descriptions of the case. The machine was built as a time-saving device and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procuratorate, the country’s busiest district prosecution office.

Trained using more than 17,000 cases dating from 2015 to 2020, it can run on a desktop computer and decides whether to press a charge by analysing hundreds of “traits” obtained from a human-generated case description, South China Morning Post reports.

These are some of the fun science stories from this year that we couldn’t wait to talk about with friends.

Juno just picked up some odd frequencies at Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, which hint at its structure below. This includes the possibility of water oceans.

Emerging technologies including AI, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 5G, and blockchain (and related digital currencies) have all progressed on their own merits and timeline. Each has found a degree of application, though clearly AI has progressed the furthest. Each technology is maturing while overcoming challenges ranging from blockchain’s energy consumption to VR’s propensity for inducing nausea. They will likely converge in readiness over the next several years, underpinned by the now ubiquitous cloud computing for elasticity and scale. And in that convergence, the sum will be far greater than the parts. The catalyst for this convergence will be the metaverse — a connected network of always-on 3D virtual worlds.

The metaverse concept has wide-sweeping potential. On one level, it could be a 3D social media channel with messaging targeted perfectly to every user by AI. That’s the Meta (previously Facebook) vision. It also has the potential to be an all-encompassing platform for information, entertainment, and work.

Continue reading “How AI, VR, AR, 5G, and blockchain may converge to power the metaverse” »