SOURCES
1) https://www.anthropic.com/institute/r… 8x coding improvement, 52x loop optimization with Fable/Mythos, 80% of code written by Claude.
2) https://darioamodei.com/post/policy-o… — Dario’s claim about extraordinary times and government being too slow.
3) https://darioamodei.com/essay/the-ado… — Broader worldview about Dario’s perception of existential risks.
4) https://darioamodei.com/essay/machine… — Dario’s original \.
An international team led by astronomers at the University of Sydney has uncovered the clearest evidence yet for the origin of an unusual class of cosmic signals. In doing so, they have identified a rare stellar system that is providing scientists with a natural laboratory to study extreme physics.
Using CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope, the team discovered a small, dense star, called a white dwarf, shredding material from its larger, but less dense, companion star.
As this material spirals in, it produces powerful bursts of radio waves and X-rays in a cycle that repeats every 1.4 hours.
After outliving Booker T. Bones, their second service dog, Brenda and Brian Marquis still needed help with some of the more difficult parts of daily life.
They found Robbie, a robot that rolls out of a hallway into their living room several times a day.
“Do you want to exercise now? Please answer yes or no,” the caregiver robot asks 59-year-old Brian Marquis, who has been living with a traumatic brain injury since a 2012 car crash.
A new study from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam–Rehbruecke (DIfE) and Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin shows for the first time that targeted control of human breathing rhythm can influence decision behavior by modulating heart and brain function. The research team led by Prof. Soyoung Q. Park was able to demonstrate that prolonged exhalation increases heart rate variability and the brain’s reward sensitivity, thus enabling us to make bolder decisions. The study was published in the journal Neuron.
Accelerated breathing and a rapid heart rate often lead to quick decision-making. Judgments under these circumstances can lead to more cautious decisions to minimize potential loss—whether it is making investments under time pressure, during a critical employee meeting or while quickly selecting a meal. In contrast, slow breathing and a calmer heart could presumably lead to assessing the situation more positively and making bolder decisions.
There’s a small fatty gland that sits behind your sternum and is often said to be ‘useless’ in adulthood.
Research, however, suggests the thymus gland is not nearly as expendable as experts once thought.
Although not all scientists agree on this.
In a study in 2023, US researchers found that those who get their thymus removed face an increased risk of death from any cause in the five years following the surgery.
A new single-protein analysis technique gives researchers an unprecedented ability to study proteins called scramblases, which have critical roles in biology. The development of the new technique, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, expands the toolkit available to cell biologists and biophysicists and could someday be useful in devising new strategies against multiple diseases.
Scramblases operate within cell membranes to rearrange the fat-related molecules, known as lipids, that make up those membranes. Their disruption of the usual layered organization of the membrane is essential for many important biological processes. In the study, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the researchers developed a fluorescence imaging-based technique—the first of its kind—for measuring the activity rates of individual scramblase proteins. Their demonstrations of the technique uncovered new findings on key scramblases and showcased the technique’s broad applicability.
“I’m excited about this new platform as it is versatile and provides unprecedented information on exactly how fast a single scramblase works,” said study co-senior author Dr. Anant Menon, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
How does a physical system such as the brain produce the ineffable phenomenon of conscious experience? Philosopher David Chalmers famously named this the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” in 1995. Proponents argue that, while cognitive functions such as categorisation or information integration might be explained mechanistically in the central nervous system, the origins of subjective experience resist such explanation. Detractors suggest that the Hard Problem is merely a collection of lesser puzzles that have yet to be solved through greater material understanding of the brain.
The heart of this controversy may lie in its core premise: that consciousness arises from a neuronal system organized around a brain. The deep entrenchment of this preconception isn’t surprising, given that our own consciousness is the only one we have access to. But this “brain-centrism” pervades the cognitive sciences, shaping our understanding of other beings and approaches to research. It’s one of several kinds of scientific chauvinism that currently limit the field of enquiry and hamper our scientific approach to other kinds of minds.