Lifeboat Foundation

Anyone else find it fascinating that we have all this tech and still can’t compete with nature?

A trio of researchers at City University of Hong Kong has developed a tiny drone based on the maple seed pod. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, Songnan Bai, Qingning He and Pakpong Chirarattananon, describe how they used the maple seed pod as an inspiration for increasing flight time in under 100-gram drones.

Maple seed pods are well known for their helicopter-type design. As they fall from the tree, they spin like a helicopter rotor with no engine, increasing their distance from the tree as they are blown afar. In this new effort, the researchers sought to take advantage of the efficiency inherent in the structure of the maple seed pod to increase flight time for tiny drones. To that end, they built a tiny drone that can spin like the maple seed pod to keep aloft. The resulting drone could fly for nearly twice as long as those with a traditional four-rotor design.

Continue reading “Tiny drone based on maple seed pod doubles flight time” »

According to a new theory by LMU chemists led by Thomas Carell, it was a novel molecular species composed of RNA

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule similar to DNA that is essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. Both are nucleic acids, but unlike DNA, RNA is single-stranded. An RNA strand has a backbone made of alternating sugar (ribose) and phosphate groups. Attached to each sugar is one of four bases—adenine (A), uracil (U), cytosine ©, or guanine (G). Different types of RNA exist in the cell: messenger RNA (mRNA), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and transfer RNA (tRNA).

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Continue reading “Top 20 Awesome Robot Animals” »

People seem to be continually surprised, over and over again, by the new capabilities of big machine learning models, such as PaLM, DALL-E, Chinchilla, SayCan, Socratic Models, Flamingo, and Gato (all in the last two months!). Luckily, there is a famous paper on how AI progress is governed by scaling laws, where models predictably get better as they get larger. Could we forecast AI progress ahead of time by seeing how each task gets better with model size, draw out the curve, and calculate which size model is needed to reach human performance?

At DeepMind, we’re embarking on one of the greatest adventures in scientific history. Our mission is to solve intelligence, to advance science and benefit humanity.

To make this possible, we bring together scientists, designers, engineers, ethicists, and more, to research and build safe artificial intelligence systems that can help transform society for the better.

Continue reading “Welcome to DeepMind: Embarking on one of the greatest adventures in scientific history” »

The latest COVID-19 variant – dubbed BA.2.12.1 – has been linked to 43% of total coronavirus cases in the U.S., a jump from 7% in April.

And, as more data about the variant becomes known, a pattern in early symptoms is emerging. BA.2.12.1 is a descendant of the BA.2 virus, a subvariant of the omicron strain of COVID. It has the ability transmit easier than its predecessors and expect it to become the dominant strain of COVID-19 within a few weeks.

Like previous COVID omicron strains, BA.2.12.1 often presents with upper respiratory symptoms that can appear like the flu. Experts said BA.2.12.1 is triggering mild breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals with people feeling like they are suffering from a cold or seasonal allergies.

The individuals live together but are not linked to the case announced on 7 May, health agency says.

The idea of black holes have been around for over 200 years. Today, we’re seeing them in previously unimaginable ways.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is itching to meet his Chinese doppelgänger — that is, if the man actually resembles the billionaire in real life.

But first, some background for those unfamiliar with the self-described “Elong Musk.”

In recent months, a video of Ma Yilong, a Chinese man who seemingly bears a striking resemblance to Musk, went viral not only due to his uncanny resemblance, but also because it was unclear whether it was a deepfake or not.