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Researchers at the European XFEL have developed a new device for X-ray measurements at high photon energies—a so-called Laue spectrometer. It enables X-ray light with photon energies of more than 15 kiloelectronvolts to be detected with improved efficiency and highest precision.

This is important for researching technically significant materials that, for example, transport electricity without losses or ensure that chemical processes run more efficiently. The findings are published in the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation.

To unravel the secrets of the world of atoms, molecules and materials in general, scientists often use special measurement devices known as spectrometers. They work by recording the light that objects emit. From the way in which the objects do that, researchers learn a lot about the physical processes that take place in the materials.

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In this episode, renowned AI researcher Pedro Domingos, author of The Master Algorithm, takes us deep into the world of Connectionism—the AI tribe behind neural networks and the deep learning revolution.

From the birth of neural networks in the 1940s to the explosive rise of transformers and ChatGPT, Pedro unpacks the history, breakthroughs, and limitations of connectionist AI. Along the way, he explores how supervised learning continues to quietly power today’s most impressive AI systems—and why reinforcement learning and unsupervised learning are still lagging behind.

We also dive into:
The tribal war between Connectionists and Symbolists.
The surprising origins of Backpropagation.
How transformers redefined machine translation.
Why GANs and generative models exploded (and then faded)
The myth of modern reinforcement learning (DeepSeek, RLHF, etc.)
The danger of AI research narrowing too soon around one dominant approach.

Whether you’re an AI enthusiast, a machine learning practitioner, or just curious about where intelligence is headed, this episode offers a rare deep dive into the ideological foundations of AI—and what’s coming next.

Continue reading “How Connectionism Is Reshaping the Future of Machine Learning | Pedro Domingos” | >

Significant advances in the diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart disease have transformed patient outcomes, leading to an expanding adult congenital heart disease population. Many of these adults require lifelong procedural interventions, frequently performed in catheterization labs under the guidance of echocardiography. This review explores the transesophageal echocardiographic aspect in key catheterization-based procedures.

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Alpha-1-antitrypsin is a so-called protease inhibitor, a type of enzyme inhibitor. It is produced in the liver but exerts its effects in the lungs, where it regulates immune cell activity. This regulation is crucial, and an overactive immune response can cause serious lung diseases.

However, some individuals carry a genetic mutation that causes the alpha-1 protein to fold incorrectly. As a result, too little functional alpha-1 is produced, and insufficient amounts reach the lungs.

The mutation is inherited from one or both parents. About 1 in 20 people in Europe carry the heterozygous form of the mutation—inherited from only one parent—and often experience no symptoms or only mild ones. In contrast, the rarer homozygous form, inherited from both parents, affects approximately 1 in 2000 individuals and is much more severe.

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Researchers from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw (IIMCB) have described a new mechanism that improves the efficiency of mRNA-based therapies. The research findings could facilitate the development of novel therapeutics against cancers and infectious diseases.

The scientific experiments were carried out at IIMCB, but important contributions also came from collaborators at the Faculty of Physics and Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw, the Medical University of Warsaw, and the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The study by the Polish researchers has just been published in Nature.

“mRNA vaccines played a key role in controlling the spread of the pandemic. However, mRNA itself is an exceptionally unstable molecule. This does not affect the safety of the therapy but limits its effectiveness—for example, by shortening the duration of action. A particularly important role in mRNA stability is played by its so-called poly(A) . In our research, we examined these limitations,” says Prof. Andrzej Dziembowski from the Laboratory of RNA Biology—ERA Chairs Group at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, one of the lead authors of the study.

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The exponential miniaturization of electronic chips over time, described by Moore’s law, has played a key role in our digital age. However, the operating power of small electronic devices is significantly limited by the lack of advanced cooling technologies available.

Aiming to tackle this problem, a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, led by researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, describes a significant increase in performance for the of electronic chips.

The most promising modern methods for chip cooling involve using microchannels embedded directly into the chip itself. These channels allow water to flow through, efficiently absorbing and transferring heat away from the source.

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