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Jul 21, 2020

Machines can learn unsupervised ‘at speed of light’ after AI breakthrough, scientists say

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

Performance of photon-based neural network processor is 100-times higher than electrical processor.

Jul 21, 2020

Video claims asteroid impact coming in November, but experts weigh in

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, mathematics

A video on Youtube claims a forecast of near-Earth objects (NEOs) shows one of these may hit Earth in November.

On November 2, 2020 an object labeled 2018 VP1″ is currently projected to come very close to Earth. The video is a little off on its math. Even so, Mike Murray of the Delta College Planetarium in Bay City, says don’t worry.

Jul 21, 2020

New: Mars In 4K

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, space

Mars in 4 K.


A world first. New footage from Mars rendered in stunning 4K resolution. We also talk about the cameras on board the Martian rovers and how we made the video.

Continue reading “New: Mars In 4K” »

Jul 21, 2020

Will GPT-3 Kill Coding?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

In 2017, researchers asked: Could AI write most code by 2040? OpenAI’s GPT-3, now in use by beta testers, can already code in any language. Machine-dominated coding is almost at our doorstep.

Jul 21, 2020

Researchers Just Took a Major Step Toward Decoding the Entire Human Genome

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

17 years after the Human Genome Project, researchers unlocked the X chromosome.

Jul 21, 2020

IBM Seriously Just Turned an Atom Into The World’s Smallest Hard Drive

Posted by in categories: computing, nanotechnology, particle physics

Circa 2017


Data storage technology continues to shrink in size and grow in capacity, but scientists have just taken things to the next level — they’ve built a nanoscale hard drive using a single atom.

Continue reading “IBM Seriously Just Turned an Atom Into The World’s Smallest Hard Drive” »

Jul 21, 2020

SpaceX Starlink beta test: coverage area, pricing, how to sign up and more

Posted by in category: internet

SpaceX is set to launch a beta version of its Starlink internet connectivity constellation.

Jul 21, 2020

Mysterious 450-foot ‘blue hole’ off Florida has researchers looking for signs of life

Posted by in category: futurism

Tales of the ocean swallowing places are as ancient as the myth of Atlantis, but there is an element of truth in the science, according to a NOAA-backed expedition set for Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The ocean does open up and consume areas of sea floor.

However, these are basically sink holes, similar to those that gobble suburban homes in Florida, NOAA says.

Jul 21, 2020

CRISPR C-to-G base editors for inducing targeted DNA transversions in human cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, engineering

CRISPR-guided DNA cytosine and adenine base editors are widely used for many applications1,2,3,4 but primarily create DNA base transitions (that is, pyrimidine-to-pyrimidine or purine-to-purine). Here we describe the engineering of two base editor architectures that can efficiently induce targeted C-to-G base transversions, with reduced levels of unwanted C-to-W (W = A or T) and indel mutations. One of these C-to-G base editors (CGBE1), consists of an RNA-guided Cas9 nickase, an Escherichia coli –derived uracil DNA N-glycosylase (eUNG) and a rat APOBEC1 cytidine deaminase variant (R33A) previously shown to have reduced off-target RNA and DNA editing activities5,6. We show that CGBE1 can efficiently induce C-to-G edits, particularly in AT-rich sequence contexts in human cells. We also removed the eUNG domain to yield miniCGBE1, which reduced indel frequencies but only modestly decreased editing efficiency. CGBE1 and miniCGBE1 enable C-to-G edits and will serve as a basis for optimizing C-to-G base editors for research and therapeutic applications.

Jul 21, 2020

Unparalleled inventory of the human gut ecosystem

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

An international team of scientists has collated all known bacterial genomes from the human gut microbiome into a single large database, allowing researchers to explore the links between bacterial genes and proteins, and their effects on human health.

This project was led by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and included collaborators from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Trento, the Gladstone Institutes, and the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Their work has been published in Nature Biotechnology.