Epic Games has shared its vision for Unreal Engine 6, outlining plans to unify Unreal Engine and UEFN while expanding creator workflows, scalability, and online ecosystems.
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Building Brains: The Molecular Logic of Neural Circuits
Thomas M. Jessel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, explores the human brain, the sophisticated product of 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, assembled during just nine months of embryonic development. The functions encoded by its trillion nerve cells direct all human behavior. Yet the brain is a biological organ made from the same building blocks as skin, liver and lung. How does the brain acquire its remarkable computational power? Answers lie in the details of its construction — the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of thousands of neural circuits, each wired for a specific behavior.
Developing brain cells routinely repair severe DNA damage during migration
Newborn nerve cells must squeeze through crowded, narrow spaces-through dense tissue, past other cells, between fibers-to reach the areas where they form neural circuits in the brain cortex.
In a new study published in Nature, researchers at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS) and their collaborators report that this journey causes widespread DNA damage in neurons, resulting in double-strand breaks where both strands of the double helix are completely severed. While this is the most severe type of DNA damage-capable of causing mutations and cell death-the team surprisingly found that it is a normal, routine feature of brain cortex formation, and a healthy brain quickly repairs it before harm occurs.
“The developing brain appears to have evolved to tolerate and repair the neuronal damage efficiently,” says Professor Mineko Kengaku, of WPI-iCeMS, who led the study. “But understanding the limits of that tolerance-and what happens when repair is incomplete-brings us closer to understanding a range of neurological conditions.”
The growing backlash to AI’s “race to replace” humans | The Economist
Opposition to artificial intelligence is uniting America’s left and right. Max Tegmark, physicist and chairman of the Future of Life Institute, argues that sentiment across the political spectrum, from Bernie Sanders to Steve Bannon, is turning against a \.
DP21577 The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7−−12, we study how generative AI affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered AI adoption in a difference-in-differences design. AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of AI users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. AI users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-AI users experience small learning losses.
AI, Quantum And The New Cybersecurity Framework Imperative
Understanding these technologies through the lens of resilience, rather than just innovation, is critical for cybersecurity leaders planning for the coming decade.
The key cybersecurity issue of the coming decade will not prevent every breach. It will be about maintaining trust and resilience in an age of increasing digital interdependence.
Organizations that embrace adaptive risk management, quantum preparedness, responsible AI governance, and resilience-by-design will be well-positioned to succeed in the Acceleration Era. The future belongs not only to the most inventive but also to the most trustworthy and resilient businesses.
Is Quantum Information More Fundamental Than Reality? | Vlatko Vedral
What if quantum information is more fundamental than space, time, matter, or even quantum mechanics itself?
Vlatko Vedral explores the implications of a Q-number-based reality for quantum gravity, pre-Big-Bang cosmology, the nature of time, and the possibility that quantum information lies beneath our deepest physical theories.
1:25 Quantum Gravity and Q Numbers.
4:30 Before the Big Bang.
7:42 Time, the Block Universe, and Q Numbers.
11:56 Quantum Mechanics at All Scales.
14:01 The Next Revolution in Physics.
Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born British physicist. He is best known for his contributions to quantum information theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum entanglement. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Imperial College London, where he graduated with a PhD.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers. #CloserToTruth #Cosmos #VlatkoVedral #QuantumInformation #QuantumGravity.
Maths is Cooked: AI’s Latest Breakthrough — And What’s Next
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As AI continues to improve its reasoning abilities, mathematicians are increasingly worried about the computer algorithms replacing them. In late May, those fears got even worse when OpenAI revealed that one of its general-purpose reasoning models had written a proof solving a math problem that’s sat unsolved for more than 80 years. But should they actually be worried? Let’s take a look.
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Beyond Neuralink: How China’s Bio-Tech Breakthrough Fuels Next-Gen Brain-Computer Interfaces
From ultra-flexible materials redefining brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to record-shattering global out-licensing deals, China’s biopharmaceutical sector is undergoing a profound qualitative transformation. ShanghaiEye takes you inside the Yunfan Future Factory and the cross-discipline innovation hub hosted by Chia Tai Tianqing (CTTQ)—a subsidiary of top-50 global pharma giant Sino Biopharmaceutical—to explore the cutting-edge ecosystem driving the future of global healthcare.
We examine a breakthrough BCI technology developed in Shanghai: an ultra-flexible photoresist material for neural electrode arrays. Ye Tianyang, CEO and Co-Founder of Yunfan Future, explains how this material—engineered to be 1,000 times softer than the rigid alternatives utilized by Western counterparts like Elon Musk’s Neuralink—exponentially reduces tissue damage and immune rejection. With dozens of human clinical trials already successfully completed worldwide, this innovation highlights the immense strength of Shanghai’s local talent pool and medical device supply chain.
The feature also spotlights the strategic roadmap of China’s pharmaceutical leaders. Eric Tse, CEO of Sino Biopharmaceutical and Chairman of CTTQ, breaks down their vision to build an open, interdisciplinary incubator. This global nexus bridges experts, scholars, and upstream and downstream partners, transforming Shanghai into a premier launchpad for international innovative drugs. Furthermore, Mr. Tse discusses the \.
Studying the Neural Circuit Mechanisms of Cognition Using Rodents
Brody is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His research focuses is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions using powerful emerging tools for studying neural mechanisms in rodents. Brody’s group uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory, and executive control, using a combination of high-throughput semiautomated behavior as well as computational, electrophysiological, pharmacological and optogenetic methods.