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Storytelling has evolved beyond mere narration—it’s now about immersion, interaction, and creating a deep emotional connection. Few organizations understand this better than National Geographic, a brand renowned for bringing the natural world to life through visually stunning, fact-driven content. With their latest digital experience, “Into the Amazon,” National Geographic has raised the bar even higher, blending cutting-edge technology with unparalleled storytelling to offer audiences a front-row seat to one of the planet’s most vital ecosystems: the Amazon rainforest.

At a time when the world’s environmental challenges are more pressing than ever, National Geographic’s “Into the Amazon” doesn’t just inform viewers; it transforms how we understand the Amazon’s role in the global ecosystem. This article explores how innovative technologies—such as interactive 3D mapping, augmented reality, and immersive media formats —are being harnessed to deliver a uniquely engaging experience. It also reflects on the broader implications for the future of digital storytelling, where technology and narrative merge to create impactful, lasting impressions.

As digital media continues to dominate, audience expectations have shifted. Passive consumption is no longer enough—today’s audiences crave interaction, engagement, and experiences that go beyond the screen. Immersive storytelling, particularly in the environmental and scientific fields, has emerged as a powerful tool to captivate and educate.

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Officials in southern California are advising some residents against leaving their homes as wildfire smoke worsens air quality in the region.

On Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in San Diego broadcast an air quality alert from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). The alert warned of increased fine particle pollution from wildfire smoke across parts of southern California, and it is expected to remain in place until 11 p.m. local time Tuesday.

“If you smell smoke or see ash due to a wildfire, remain indoors with windows and doors closed or seek alternative shelter, if feasible,” the alert said. “Avoid vigorous physical activity and run your air conditioner and/or an air purifier. If possible, do not use whole house fans or swamp coolers that bring in outside air. Avoid burning wood in your fireplace or firepit and minimize sources of indoor air pollution such as candles, incense, pan-frying, and grilling.”

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Sara Imari Walker is a professor of physics at Arizona State University and the author of a new book Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence. As I wrote in my review of the book, I’m a big fan of Walker’s work (full disclosure, we have collaborated before on a paper and a proposal).

The subject of her work and the new book is what might be called the “Physics of Life.” This is different from biophysics, which tries to account for specific physics aspects of biological processes. Instead, the Physics of Life has a more ambitious goal: to understand what separates living from non-living systems.

Along with her collaborators, Walker developed Assembly Theory, which focuses on “selection” and is a fundamental physics account for the difference between life and non-life. Assembly Theory quantifies complexity by measuring how many unique steps are needed to build a molecular structure. By identifying complex patterns that signify biological processes, this framework could help scientists detect life forms on other worlds — even those that may not look like anything we’re familiar with on Earth.

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British scientists have stored DNA information for an entire human on a crystal, which could be used to bring back humanity if we become extinct.

The team from the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) used lasers to inscribe the data on a 5D crystal, which they said can survive for billions of years.

Unlike other storage formats, it does not degrade over time.

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In science fiction movies like Frankenstein and Re-Animator, human bodies are revived, existing in a strange state between life and death. While this may seem like pure fantasy, a recent study suggests that a “third state” of existence might actually be present in modern biology.

According to the researchers, this third state occurs when the cells of a dead organism continue to function after its death, sometimes gaining new capabilities they never had while the organism was alive.

Amazingly, if further experiments on cells from dead animals — including humans — prove this ability, it could even challenge the definition of legal death.

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With only 6.6B activate parameters, GRIN MoE achieves exceptionally good performance across a diverse set of tasks, particularly in coding and mathematics tasks.

Microsoft releases GRIN😁 MoE

GRadient-INformed MoE

Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/GRIN-MoE-Demo/GRIN-MoE model: https://huggingface.co/microsoft/GRIN-MoE github:

With only 6.6B activate parameters, GRIN MoE achieves exceptionally good performance across a…

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SUBJECT: Assessing China’s current AI development and forecasting its future technology priorities.

In July 2024, the Atlantic Council Global China Hub (AC GCH) and the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) convened experts and policymakers in the second of a two-part private workshop series to gather insights into China’s technology priorities today and in the future. Participants discussed Beijing’s posture on artificial intelligence (AI) development and deployment today, including the hurdles China’s AI industry faces amid US-China technology competition, as well as Beijing’s policy priorities over the next decade. This memo summarizes insights gathered during the workshop.

In today’s strategic competition between the United States and China, both countries seek to bolster their nations’ innovation ecosystems and enhance their ability to develop and deploy breakthrough technologies. The United States is committed to maintaining US technological leadership in the long term, as Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo demonstrated at the Reagan National Defense Forum in December 2023, when she stated that “America leads the world in artificial intelligence. America leads the world in advanced semiconductor design, period… e’re a couple years ahead of China. No way are we going to let them catch up. We cannot let them catch up.”

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