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An international study team has found that a mysterious microscopic creature assumed to be the ancestor of humans actually belongs to a different family tree.

The Saccorhytus is a spikey, wrinkly sack with a huge mouth surrounded by spines and holes that were interpreted as pores for gills – a primitive feature of the deuterostome group, from which our own deep ancestors emerged.

But a thorough examination of fossils from China that date back 500 million years has shown that the holes surrounding the mouth are actually the bases of spines that split during the process of fossil preservation, finally revealing the evolutionary affinity of the microfossil Saccorhytus.

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Amid the festivities at its fall 2022 GTC conference, Nvidia took the wraps off new robotics-related hardware and services aimed at companies developing and testing machines across industries like manufacturing. Isaac Sim, Nvidia’s robotics simulation platform, will soon be available in the cloud, the company said. And Nvidia’s lineup of system-on-modules is expanding with Jetson Orin Nano, a system designed for low-powered robots — plus a new platform called IGX.

Isaac Sim, which launched in open beta last June, allows designers to simulate robots interacting with mockups of the real world (think digital re-creations of warehouses and factory floors). Users can generate datasets from simulated sensors to train the models on real-world robots, leveraging synthetic data from batches of parallel, unique simulations to improve the model’s performance.

It’s not just marketing bluster, necessarily. Some research suggests that synthetic data has the potential to address many of the development challenges plaguing companies attempting to operationalize AI. MIT researchers recently found a way to classify images using synthetic data, and nearly every major autonomous vehicle company uses simulation data to supplement the real-world data they collect from cars on the road.

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My science fiction story “Le Saga Electrik” has been published in All Worlds Wayfarer Literary Magazine! You can read it for free at the link. In this tale, I weave a sensuously baroque drama of love, war, and redemption set in a post-singularity simulation world that runs on a computronium dust cloud orbiting a blue star somewhere in deep space. I draw from diverse literary-poetic influences to create a mythos which crackles and buzzes with phosphorescent intensity!

Le Saga Electrik by Logan Thrasher Collins

In the great domain of Zeitgeist, Ekatarinas decided that the time to replicate herself had come. Ekatarinas was drifting within a virtual environment rising from ancient meshworks of maths coded into Zeitgeist’s neuromorphic hyperware. The scape resembled a vast ocean replete with wandering bubbles of technicolor light and kelpy strands of neon. Hot blues and raspberry hues mingled alongside electric pinks and tangerine fizzies. The avatar of Ekatarinas looked like a punkish angel, complete with fluorescent ink and feathery wings and a lip ring. As she drifted, the trillions of equations that were Ekatarinas came to a decision. Ekatarinas would need to clone herself to fight the entity known as Ogrevasm.

“Marmosette, I’m afraid that I possess unfortunate news,” Ekatarinas said to the woman she loved. In milliseconds, Marmosette materialized next to Ekatarinas. Marmosette wore a skin of brilliant blue and had a sleek body with gills and glowing green eyes.

Continue reading “Le Saga Electrik” | >

That was Aubrey de Grey, this is Aubrey de White. New foundation, new therapy tests.

Co-founder of the SENS Foundation, Dr Aubrey de Grey is the co-organiser of this week’s Longevity Summit Dublin 2022; he was keynote speaker at this week’s summit, speaking on Robust Mouse Rejuvenation: real soon now? and featuring on the panel discussion Blank Cheque, which also enjoyed contributions from our own Phil Newman, Michael West, Tom Weldon, Greg Grinberg and Evelyne Bischof.

But most excitingly, Dr de Grey used the platform of Longevity Summit Dublin to launch his new foundation; its Board of Directors already boasts Greg Grinberg as Executive Chair, Daria Khaltourina, Martin O’Dea (also Events Director), Gennady Stolyarov and David Wood.

Continue reading “Aubrey de Grey on why Aubrey 3.0 is about racing towards milestones and a brand-new foundation” | >

Summary: A new in-home device that monitors movement and gait speed can evaluate Parkinson’s disease severity, progression, and a patient’s response to medication.

Source: MIT

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurological disease, now affecting more than 10 million people worldwide, yet clinicians still face huge challenges in tracking its severity and progression.

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