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Why hasn’t #MachineLearning conquered SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 (P.S., SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the #virus, while COVID-19 is the name of the disease)? One of the possible answers is that the virus “learns” faster than machines through “mutations”.

That causes us thinking: If mutation is such an efficient weapon (for virus), can we learn something from it and then apply our understanding to #DeepLearning to create “fast-mutating” #DeepLearning models capable of helping us to fight intractable crisis like a #pandemic?

https://bit.ly/3c9GE5s

Virus Mutation https://bit.ly/35xVvUQ

#COVID19 #AI #technology #innovation #NeuralNetworks

The remarkable capacity of some viruses to adapt to new hosts and environments is highly dependent on their ability to generate de novo diversity in a short period of time. Rates of spontaneous mutation vary amply among viruses. RNA viruses mutate faster than DNA viruses, single-stranded viruses mutate faster than double-strand virus, and genome size appears to correlate negatively with mutation rate. Viral mutation rates are modulated at different levels, including polymerase fidelity, sequence context, template secondary structure, cellular microenvironment, replication mechanisms, proofreading, and access to post-replicative repair. Additionally, massive numbers of mutations can be introduced by some virus-encoded diversity-generating elements, as well as by host-encoded cytidine/adenine deaminases. Our current knowledge of viral mutation rates indicates that viral genetic diversity is determined by multiple virus- and host-dependent processes, and that viral mutation rates can evolve in response to specific selective pressures.

Continue reading “Mechanisms of viral mutation” | >

Tom Cruise is going to film in space thanks to Elon Musk.

EXCLUSIVE: I’m hearing that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk’s Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film – an action adventure – to be shot in outer space. It’s not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff.

Mission: Impossible Fallout took a break, literally when he broke his ankle in a leap from one rooftop to the other and he also hung from a helicopter; he hung from the side of a jet plane during takeoff in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, and in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol he scaled the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai skyscraper, and executed stunts 123 floors up. He is meticulous in preparing these stunts he does, which are frightening just to watch.

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SAN DIEGO, May 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Global Institute of Stem Cell Therapy and Research (GIOSTAR), the worldwide leader in stem cell research, is pleased to announce that they have received an approval for a COVID-19 clinical trial, led by their Medical Director Dr. Prabhat Soni. GIOSTAR will conduct the trial using stem cells to treat COVID-19 patients, under the approval of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “expanded access for compassionate use” program. The Institute is exploring a promising alternative approach to the devastating disorder, which leverages the anti-inflammatory properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). According to Dr. Soni, the investigation is based upon two decades of stem cell research by GIOSTAR Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Anand Srivastava.

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Rhesus macaques don’t monkey around when it comes to HIV; they have a protein that effectively disables invading HIV particles.

A group of University of Chicago scientists announced an innovative study that explains how the macaques’ immune protein, called TRIM5α, works its magic. It also represents a significant step forward in the science of modeling how complex biological proteins assemble themselves, the scientists said.

“These proteins work together to encase the HIV capsid in a hexagonal net and restrict viral activity,” said postdoctoral fellow Alvin Yu and lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Communications.

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In the summer of 2010, I had the opportunity to be part of the team that designed and built the first passive freezer that we’d ever heard of. The idea was simple, we create a well-insulated room and stack several thousand 2-liter bottles full of salt water along the walls. In the winter, we open hatches in the ceiling and everything freezes. At the end of the winter, we close the hatches and it stays at about 25°F for the whole year.

The team of students, led by physics teacher Tom Tailer ran some calculations to make sure the physics added up and calculated that we needed about 3000 bottles and about 18 inches of foam insulation on the walls and ceiling for good performance. We built the structure and insulated it using waste styrofoam, ground-up using a modified leaf shredder.

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Scaling Up

There’s a long way to go between a proof-of-concept prototype and installing an engine in a real plane. But the prototype was able to launch a one-kilogram steel ball 24 millimeters into the air. That’s the same thrust, proportional to scale, as a conventional jet engine.

“Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine,” lead researcher and Wuhan University engineer Jau Tang said in a press release.

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Spinels are oxides with chemical formulas of the type AB2O4, where A is a divalent metal cation (positive ion), B is a trivalent metal cation, and O is oxygen. Spinels are valued for their beauty, which derives from the molecules’ spatial configurations, but spinels in which the trivalent cation B consists of the element chrome (Cr) are interesting for a reason that has nothing to do with aesthetics: They have magnetic properties with an abundance of potential technological applications, including gas sensors, drug carriers, data storage media, and components of telecommunications systems.

A study by Brazilian and Indian researchers investigated a peculiar kind of spinel: zinc-doped manganese chromite. Nanoparticles of this material, described by the formula Mn0.5 Zn0.5 Cr2O4 [where manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn) compose the A-site divalent cation], were synthesized in the laboratory and characterized by calculations based on density functional theory (DFT), a method derived from that is used in solid-state physics and chemistry to resolve complex crystal structures.

The material’s structural, electronic, vibrational and were determined by X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. A report of the study has been published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials with the title “Structural, electronic, vibrational and magnetic properties of Zn2+ substituted MnCr2O4 nanoparticles.”

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Circa 2018

We propose that fungi Basidiomycetes can be used as computing devices: information is represented by spikes of electrical activity, a computation is implemented in a mycelium network and an interface is realized via fruit bodies. In a series of scoping experiments, we demonstrate that electrical activity recorded on fruits might act as a reliable indicator of the fungi’s response to thermal and chemical stimulation. A stimulation of a fruit is reflected in changes of electrical activity of other fruits of a cluster, i.e. there is distant information transfer between fungal fruit bodies. In an automaton model of a fungal computer, we show how to implement computation with fungi and demonstrate that a structure of logical functions computed is determined by mycelium geometry.

The fungi are the largest, widely distributed and oldest group of living organisms [1]. The smallest fungi are microscopic single cells. The largest mycelium belongs to Armillaria bulbosa, which occupies 15 hectares and weights 10 tons [2], and the largest fruit body belongs to Fomitiporia ellipsoidea, which at 20 years old is 11 m long, 80 cm wide, 5 cm thick and has an estimated weight of nearly half-a-ton [3]. During the last decade, we produced nearly 40 prototypes of sensing and computing devices from the slime mould Physarum polycephalum [4], including the shortest path finders, computational geometry processors, hybrid electronic devices, see the compilation of the latest results in [5].

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