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“The challenge is applying agentic AI in the enterprise setting or in innovation-driven industries, like materials science R&D or pharma, where there is higher uncertainty and risk,” said Connell. “These more complex environments require a very nuanced understanding by the agent in order to make trustworthy, reliable decisions.”

Also: What is Google’s Project Mariner? This AI agent can navigate the web for you.

As with analytical and gen AI, data — particularly real-time data — is at the core of agentic AI success. It’s important “to have an understanding of how agentic AI will be used and the data that is powering the agent, as well as a system for testing,” said Connell. “To build AI agents, you need clean and, for some applications, labeled data that accurately represents the problem domain, along with sufficient volume to train and validate your models.”

Scientists at Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders (NERF), under the direction of Prof. Vincent Bonin, have released two innovative studies that provide fresh perspectives on the processing and distribution of visual information in the brain. These studies contest conventional beliefs regarding the straightforwardness of visual processing, instead emphasizing the intricate and adaptable nature of how the brain understands sensory information.

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Thanks to their genetic makeup, their ability to navigate mazes and their willingness to work for cheese, mice have long been a go-to model for behavioral and neurological studies.

In recent years, they have entered a new arena—virtual reality—and now Cornell researchers have built miniature VR headsets to immerse them more deeply in it.

The team’s MouseGoggles—yes, they look as cute as they sound—were created using low-cost, off-the-shelf components, such as smartwatch displays and tiny lenses, and offer visual stimulation over a wide field of view while tracking the mouse’s eye movements and changes in pupil size.

Johns Hopkins computer scientists have created an artificial intelligence system capable of “imagining” its surroundings without having to physically explore them, bringing AI closer to humanlike reasoning.

The new system—called Generative World Explorer, or GenEx—needs only a single still image to conjure an entire world, giving it a significant advantage over previous systems that required a robot or agent to physically move through a scene to map the surrounding environment, which can be costly, unsafe, and time-consuming. The team’s results are posted to the arXiv preprint server.

“Say you’re in an area you’ve never been before—as a human, you use environmental cues, past experiences, and your knowledge of the world to imagine what might be around the corner,” says senior author Alan Yuille, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins.

Summary: Researchers identified variants in the DDX53 gene, located on the X chromosome, as contributors to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These genetic variants, found predominantly in males, provide critical insights into the biological mechanisms behind autism’s male predominance.

The study also uncovered another potential gene, PTCHD1-AS, near DDX53, linked to autism, emphasizing the complexity of ASD’s genetic architecture. This research highlights the importance of the X chromosome in ASD and opens avenues for more precise diagnostics and therapeutics.

The findings challenge current models, urging a re-evaluation of how autism is studied. These discoveries mark a significant step in understanding the genetic underpinnings of autism.

Internal emails from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) reveal that the regulator withheld knowledge of DNA contamination risks relating to the modRNA vaccines from the public, presenting a picture of certainty on safety where there is none.

Released under Freedom of Information (FOI), the cache of emails shows that high-level TGA staff knew elements of the modRNA vaccines can enter the cell nucleus and integrate into the genome, despite the agency’s official line that such events are not possible.

However, TGA personnel appear more preoccupied with “allaying fears in the public” than with investigating the potential risks.