Lifeboat Foundation

A hyper-sensitive instrument, deep underground in Italy, has finally succeeded at the nearly impossible task of detecting CNO neutrinos (tiny particles pointing to the presence of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) from our sun’s core. These little-known particles reveal the last missing detail of the fusion cycle powering our sun and other stars.

In results published on November 26, 2020, in the journal Nature (and featured on the cover), investigators of the Borexino collaboration report the first detections of this rare type of neutrinos, called “ghost particles” because they pass through most matter without leaving a trace.

The neutrinos were detected by the Borexino detector, an enormous underground experiment in central Italy. The multinational project is supported in the United States by the National Science Foundation under a shared grant overseen by Frank Calaprice, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton; Andrea Pocar, a 2003 graduate alumna of Princeton and professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst; and Bruce Vogelaar, professor of physics at the Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

There is a renaissance occurring in the field of artificial intelligence. For some drawn-out specialists in the field, it isn’t excessively self-evident. Many are making against the advancements of Deep Learning is anyway an amazingly radical departure from classical methods.

Old style A.I. procedures has zeroed in generally on the legitimate premise of cognition, Deep Learning by contrast works in the territory of cognitive intuition. Deep learning frameworks display behavior that seems biological despite not being founded on biological material. It so happens that humankind has fortunately discovered Artificial Intuition as Deep Learning.

Artificial intuition is a simple term to misconstrue since it seems like artificial emotion and artificial empathy. In any case, it contrasts fundamentally. Scientists are dealing with artificial intuition so that machines can impersonate human behavior all the more precisely. Artificial intuition plans to distinguish a human’s perspective in real-time. Along these lines, for instance, chatbots, virtual assistants and care robots can react to people all the more appropriately in context. Artificial intuition is more similar to human intuition since it can quickly evaluate the totality of a situation, including subtle indicators of a specific activity.

A new survey of our galaxy by astronomers with VERA in Japan has shown that Earth is both moving faster and is closer to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy than previously thought. But don’t worry, our planet is safe!

Over the past decade or so, roboticists and computer scientists have tried to use reinforcement learning (RL) approaches to train robots to efficiently navigate their environment and complete a variety of basic tasks. Building affordable robots that can support and manage the exploratory controls associated with RL algorithms, however, has so far proved to be fairly challenging.

Researchers at Aalto University and Ote Robotics have recently created RealAnt, a low-cost, four-legged robot that can effectively be used to test and implement RL algorithms. The new robotics platform, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, is a minimalistic and affordable real-world version of the ‘Ant’ robot simulation environment, which is often used in RL research.

Continue reading “RealAnt: A low-cost quadruped robot that can learn via reinforcement learning” »

For a new pancreatic cancer treatment, researchers attached a chemotherapy drug to an antibody that targets a molecule on the outside of cancer cells.

Remember when the idea of a robotic hand was a clunky mitt that could do little more than crush things in its iron grip? Well, such clichés should be banished for good based on some impressive work coming out of the WMG department at the U.K.’s University of Warwick.

If the research lives up to its potential, robot hands could pretty soon be every bit as nimble as their flesh-and-blood counterparts. And it’s all thanks to some impressive simulation-based training, new A.I. algorithms, and the Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand created by the U.K.-based Shadow Robot Company (which Digital Trends has covered in detail before.)

Researchers at WMG Warwick have developed algorithms that can imbue the Dexterous Hand with impressive manipulation capabilities, enabling two robot hands to throw objects to one another or spin a pen around between their fingers.

Circa 2014

Somebody should sign this bot up for the NFL.

Life is almost back to normal in Melbourne, Australia. Here’s how they did it.

The Voyager probes have detected an entirely new kind of electron burst outside the solar system.

It is the first time this “unique physics” have been detected by a spacecraft, and could allow for new breakthroughs in our understanding of the “interstellar medium”, or the space between the stars.

The two Voyager spacecraft were launched by NASA more than 40 years ago, with the aim of flying to the far reaches of our solar system. They have now gone even further than that, reaching interstellar space, and exploring the gaps between the stars, giving us the first glimpses of what it might be like in that mysterious zone.