Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at Hokkaido University and Amoeba Energy in Japan have, inspired by the efficient foraging behavior of a single-celled amoeba, developed an analog computer for finding a reliable and swift solution to the traveling salesman problem—a representative combinatorial optimization problem.

Many real-world application tasks such as planning and scheduling in logistics and automation are mathematically formulated as combinatorial optimization problems. Conventional digital computers, including supercomputers, are inadequate to solve these complex problems in practically permissible time as the number of candidate solutions they need to evaluate increases exponentially with the problem size—also known as combinatorial explosion. Thus new computers called Ising machines, including quantum annealers, have been actively developed in recent years. These machines, however, require complicated pre-processing to convert each task to the form they can handle and have a risk of presenting illegal solutions that do not meet some constraints and requests, resulting in major obstacles to the practical applications.

These obstacles can be avoided using the newly developed ‘electronic amoeba,’ an analog computer inspired by a single-celled amoeboid organism. The amoeba is known to maximize nutrient acquisition efficiently by deforming its body. It has shown to find an approximate solution to the traveling salesman problem (TSP), i.e., given a map of a certain number of cities, the problem is to find the shortest route for visiting each city exactly once and returning to the starting city. This finding inspired Professor Seiya Kasai at Hokkaido University to mimic the dynamics of the amoeba electronically using an analog circuit, as described in the journal Scientific Reports. “The amoeba core searches for a solution under the electronic environment where resistance values at intersections of crossbars represent constraints and requests of the TSP,” says Kasai. Using the crossbars, the city layout can be easily altered by updating the resistance values without complicated pre-processing.

Simone Pika and colleagues tested the cognitive skills of eight hand-raised ravens at four, eight, 12 and 16 months of age using a series of tests. The skills the authors investigated included spatial memory, object permanence—understanding that an object still exists when it is out of sight—understanding relative numbers and addition, and the ability to communicate with and learn from a human experimenter.

The authors found that the cognitive performance of ravens was similar from four to 16 months of age, suggesting that the speed at which the ravens’ cognitive skills develop is relatively rapid and near-to-complete by four months of age. At this age ravens become more and more independent from their parents and start to discover their ecological and social environments. Although task performance varied between individuals, ravens generally performed best in tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers and worst in tasks testing spatial memory.

Scientists find routes using arches of chaos that can lead to much faster space travel.

Circa 2019

In a feat sure to fire up ethical and philosophical debate, a new system has restored circulation and oxygen flow to a dead mammal brain.

Drones with flamethrowers! 😃 They seem to be using it to burn hornets nests and debris.

This flamethrower drone can shoot a 23-foot-long stream of fire.

“Researchers report today that they’ve created a nontoxic and nonhallucinogenic chemical cousin of ibogaine that combats depression and addictive behaviors in rodents. The work provides new hope that chemists may one day be able to create medicines for people that offer the purported therapeutic benefits of ibogaine and other psychoactive compounds without their side effects.”

Analog of ibogaine could hold hope for humans.

“” As sunlight hits the houses, bedroom windows adjust their opacity to allow the natural light to wake sleepy residents,” Terminus said on its website, which also highlights tranquil green spaces like rooftop gardens. “Once the light has filled the room, an AI virtual housekeeper named Titan selects your breakfast, matches your outfit with the weather, and presents a full schedule of your day.” The city, which includes offices, homes, public spaces and self-driving cars that move around under the ever watchful eye of AI, is due for completion in about three years, according to Terminus.”

Web Summit conference hears plans by Danish architecture firm BIG and Chinese tech company Terminus to build an AI-run city in Chongqing.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yRu8wrr8jxQ

Solid Power is now producing a 22-layer ASSB (all-solid-state battery) with 330 Wh/kg and 20 Ah, and it intends to enter automotive validation in 2022.