Friday - May 5 2023, 16:59 UTC - 1 year ago

Researchers have successfully decoded language from brain activity non-invasively using fMRI scans, a feat that could facilitate communication in paralyzed individuals. The 'language decoder' was able to accurately capture and interpret auditory and imagined speech. The technology opens up new avenues for researchers to explore the underlying pathways between brain activity and language.

Friday - May 5 2023, 15:31 UTC - 1 year ago

A new international research study has provided evidence that the Sun's eruptions could have been a crucial element in kickstarting the precursors of life on Earth. Early-Earth's atmosphere was mixed with a 0.5-2.5% methane composition, subject to high-energy particles resulting from the Sun's superflares. This allowed for the synthesis of complex organic molecules and amino acids, essential for life.

Friday - May 5 2023, 13:56 UTC - 1 year ago

Neutron stars are incredibly dense stars resulting from the gravitational collapse of a massive star after a supernova explosion. They have been observed to have powerful gravitational and magnetic fields, and to rotate rapidly. Scientists thought there were two varieties of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) -- long bursts associated with black holes and short bursts associated with neutron star mergers -- until a December 11, 2021 discovery showed that long bursts could also be caused by neutron star mergers. This necessitates incorporating long burst GRBs into heavy element production estimates, as they now make up an inherent part of the process of neutron star merging.

Friday - May 5 2023, 12:37 UTC - 1 year ago

A new study conducted by Cristina Villar proposes a smart water management system based on an architecture with an action and measuring group and a secure, interference-free network. It uses NoSQL databases such as MongoDB and IoT technologies such as the NB-IoT protocol to improve the response time and secure the water supply chain.

Friday - May 5 2023, 10:36 UTC - 1 year ago

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2023 has predicted that over 673 million jobs will be available in the next 5 years, with big data and AI being the main drivers of job growth. At the same time, around 83 million jobs will be eliminated, with a focus on admin, clerical and record-keeping. Other areas such as education and agriculture are expected to experience significant job growth despite being vulnerable to automation and AI.

Friday - May 5 2023, 08:56 UTC - 1 year ago

Ravi Yekkanti works in content moderation for virtual reality experiences, known as the metaverse. He spoke to me about how moderating in the metaverse is different than reviewing texts and videos and mentioned situations where he is taunted or bullied based on his ethnicity. Moderators need to stay undercover, prepare for different scenarios, track every event occuring in the metaverse, and report bad behavior to the client or law enforcement.

Friday - May 5 2023, 07:28 UTC - 1 year ago

China has now connected the first of its solar and wind power generation plants in the desert areas of the country to the electricity grid. They have also been rapidly building nuclear power generation capacities and have invested in green hydrogen projects to shift away from fossil fuels. This is expected to help the country reducing carbon emissions and transitioning to greener forms of energy.

Friday - May 5 2023, 06:14 UTC - 1 year ago

An international team of astronomers from McGill University, including Ziggy Pleunis, Adaeze Ibik, and Aaron Pearlman, have discovered 25 new sources of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs), bringing the total to 50, with the potential to uncover new insights on these mysterious phenomena.

Friday - May 5 2023, 04:19 UTC - 1 year ago

Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called 'Godfather of AI', has recently quit his role at Google in order to speak more directly about the potential harms of the AI technology he helped create. Hinton and other AI researchers have long expressed their concern in the lack of understanding and information of AI's capabilities and their fear over the potential dangers of AIs surpassing human intelligence and becoming commonplace in society.

Friday - May 5 2023, 02:20 UTC - 1 year ago

Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of deep learning and joint recipient of the 2018 Turing Award, is stepping down from Google to focus on more philosophical work related to AI's potential. Hinton's work on backpropagation and his collaboration with graduate student Ilya Sutskever and a team at Google were key for the development of large language models such as GPT-4. These developments, alongside Google's immense computing resources and team of researchers, reached levels of AI power that exceeded expectations and scared Hinton.

Friday - May 5 2023, 01:16 UTC - 1 year ago

Iowa State researchers in psychology and engineering collaborated to explore why women experience cybersickness with virtual reality headsets more than men. Their research found that women experienced 40% more cybersickness and ended the game early twice as often as men. The second paper explored the distance between your pupils and had no bearing on the gender discrepancy. Women reported experiencing more motion sickness which increased their susceptiblity to experience cybersickness.

Friday - May 5 2023, 00:07 UTC - 1 year ago

A research team from Aarhus University in Denmark uncovered a previously unknown ecosystem in glacial environments, which contains several thousand different species of microorganisms, including a black algae which exponentially increases the melting rate of the ice by 20%. The team is now looking for ways to neutralize the effects of the black algae on the melting rate.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 22:17 UTC - 1 year ago

Paxlovid, combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, has been found to be effective as an early-stage treatment in preventing hospitalization for people with mild to moderate COVID-19, irrespective of their age. The study, conducted by Kaiser Permanente, shows substantial reduction in risk of hospital admission or death if Paxlovid is taken within 5 days of start of COVID-19 symptoms.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 21:05 UTC - 1 year ago

The development of artificial intelligence technology has brought about a third revolution in warfare. AI-enabled military capabilities like autonomous drones and submarines are already being used by countries around the world, yet Australia's recent defense strategic review has failed to seriously consider the implications.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 19:42 UTC - 1 year ago

In early April, when Elon Musk randomly and briefly replaced the Twitter bird logo with the face of the 'doge' meme,it's apparent that memes have a real impact in our world. 'Doge' was a random photograph of a rescue dog, posted to Reddit and soon thereafter paired with the word 'doge'. Internet memes are now an integral part of digital culture, and provide a concise way for digital natives to express their thoughts with visual icons.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 17:53 UTC - 1 year ago

The strong nuclear force is one of the four fundamental forces in the Standard Model of particle physics, and it is responsible for the stability of the atomic nucleus. It binds together the quarks that make up protons and neutrons and binds the atomic nucleus, allowing elements other than primordial hydrogen to form. The strong force is incredibly strong, even when compared to the force of gravity, and its residual force is responsible for holding the nucleus of an atom together despite the repulsive force of the protons' positive electric charge, allowing for the formation of elements and molecules.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 16:16 UTC - 1 year ago

Indiana University School of Medicine researchers are exploring the potential for reducing the risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease through the reduction of a gene variant in the brain’s immune cells, which was published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Reducing the expression of the gene, called INPP5D, by 50% resulted in fewer plaque deposits, a less neurotoxic environment, and preservation of cognitive function in lab models.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 14:59 UTC - 1 year ago

University of Houston computer scientists have developed a new location tracking system, ViPER+, to better keep construction workers safe on the job through the use of ultra-wideband technology. The team tested the system twice in cordoned-off construction zones in Houston, which proved that ViPER+ was able to accurately estimate the positions of workers and vehicles and also detect any policy violations that might have occurred.

Thursday - May 4 2023, 13:01 UTC - 1 year ago

In a recent study, researchers developed a noninvasive brain-computer interface capable of converting thoughts into words. The data collected was used to train a large language model, GPT-1, to predict whole sentences users were hearing with surprising accuracy. While the technology is still in early development stages, it has potential applications in assisting people with communication disabilities.