Saturday - July 15 2023, 08:45 UTC - 1 year ago

Prime numbers have been studied for centuries.Constructing large prime numbers is complicated, and can be done with either a random approach with a risk of inconsistency or a deterministic approach with heavy computational costs. In May, a team of scientists showed that a kind of hybrid approach could be used to output a prime number of a specific length with a high probability of getting the same prime number even if the algorithm is run multiple times.

Saturday - July 15 2023, 04:25 UTC - 1 year ago

The Turing Test has been the rallying call for the AI community for decades. It proposes that if an AI is capable of fooling a human in a text-based conversation, it could be regarded as intelligent. However, with the rise of powerful language models such as GPT-4, the Turing Test is on the cusp of being passed. Mustafa Suleyman proposes the Modern Turing Test, which challenges AI to take concrete actions in the real-world, such as turning a $100,000 investment into $1 million on a retail web platform. To pass this test, AI has to research, design, negotiate and even run marketing campaigns. With progress in language generative models, image recognition and AI advancements, something like this could be achievable in two years.

Friday - July 14 2023, 23:30 UTC - 1 year ago

The temperature of the US-China tech conflict just keeps rising. Tensions are rising due to export restrictions imposed by the US and allies, and China responding by instituting controls on gallium and germanium. The US-China relationship is continuing to worsen with Yellen's visit last week showing that this back-and-forth retaliation is not ending anytime soon. The tech war may expand out of the semiconductor field to involve things like battery technologies, where China has a larger advantage. Additionally Tesla is laying off workers in China, BYD is building factories in Brazil, and Shenzhen is facing population decline.

Friday - July 14 2023, 18:36 UTC - 1 year ago

Safe Street Rebels are placing traffic cones on Waymo and Cruise vehicles in San Francisco to disable the self-driving robotaxis. San Francisco citizens are concerned that these robotaxis are a nuisance and a safety threat. The CPUC will vote to expand AVs on Thursday, but Safe Street Rebels and citizens argue that they should not be allowed due to their risks.

Friday - July 14 2023, 14:11 UTC - 1 year ago

This article examines the history of language models and their evolution from simple chatbots to the revolutionary ChatGPT. We will also explore their impact on various industries, the ethical considerations, and what the future may hold for language models and for AI in general.

Friday - July 14 2023, 09:21 UTC - 1 year ago

ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter experienced a setback when the RIME antenna failed to deploy a few days after launch. The engineers had to figure out the fault and rectify it in order to move forward, as the mission to investigate the Jupiter system and its family of icy moons depended on its success.

Friday - July 14 2023, 05:00 UTC - 1 year ago

In a paper published in Science Advances, researchers from the University of California in San Diego proposed a novel method dubbed Ifegenia to disrupt malaria-spreading mosquitoes. Ifegenia works by using gene editing tools, specifically by genetically encoding a Cas9 nuclease with a guide RNA to target the femaleless gene, causing death of all female larvae. The males, however, will carry and spread the genetic mutations. Ifegenia is not likely to be hindered by genetic resistance, but it could have unintended consequences.

Friday - July 14 2023, 00:12 UTC - 1 year ago

Researchers from the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network have found that freshwater environments like lakes and reservoirs have a higher concentration of plastic than oceanic garbage patches, with human interaction identified as the main contributing factor. The research project was done by sampling surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs, and discovering plastic debris in all studied lakes and reservoirs. The two types of water bodies most vulnerable to plastic contamination are those in densely populated and urbanized areas and those with elevated deposition areas, long water retention times, and high levels of anthropogenic influence.

Thursday - July 13 2023, 19:46 UTC - 1 year ago

Research conducted by the University of Naples Federico II, Italy and their collaborators showed three distinct phases of vegetation in Tyrrhenian Calabria, Italy over the past 5000 years - dense forest cover, forest decline and aridity, and deforestation with intensive agriculture. These three distinct phases correlate with events linking to the rise of Greek and Roman populations in the area, and the deforestation and ruralization with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

Thursday - July 13 2023, 15:22 UTC - 1 year ago

New York City has implemented a law which requires employers to tell candidates if they use AI in the hiring process. Employers will also have to submit to annual independent audits to prove that their systems are not biased towards race, gender, or ability. The regulation has been both hailed and criticized by various stakeholders, including business, civil rights groups, and public interest groups.

Thursday - July 13 2023, 11:03 UTC - 1 year ago

Rolls-Royce is developing a nuclear micro-reactor that could provide continuous and reliable power for human exploration beyond Earth's atmosphere, independent of location and environment which could allow for future space missions to run more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Thursday - July 13 2023, 06:27 UTC - 1 year ago

In a recent research published in eLife, how bees make complex decisions and outperform humans and primates was studied by analyzing the behavior of bees in an array of artificial flowers. Researchers found that bees take a risk-averse strategy whereby they only accept a flower if they are sure it is rewarding, and reject if they are uncertain. This allows them to make decisions much quicker and beat the speed accuracy tradeoff.

Thursday - July 13 2023, 01:51 UTC - 1 year ago

An international team of astronomers used a network of dead stars, known as pulsars, as a giant detector of gravitational waves to measure a low-frequency hum caused by a chorus of spacetime ripples, potentially caused by countless ancient merging events of supermassive black holes.

Wednesday - July 12 2023, 21:36 UTC - 1 year ago

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers developed a model framework to identify ways to ensure wildlife can safely navigate their habitats while not unduly affecting infrastructure. The project located in Tennessee focused on species like the four-toed salamander. Scientists used conservation buffers and open-bottom culverts to provide safe passage. The model benefited from a wealth of data gathered over the course of 30 years.

Wednesday - July 12 2023, 17:00 UTC - 1 year ago

Traces of the world’s oldest known glaciers, dating from 2.9 billion years ago, have been discovered in rocks sitting under the world’s largest gold deposits in South Africa. Researchers have found evidence from relative oxygen isotope concentrations in ancient rocks and physical proof showing firm evidence of glaciers. Explanations for the location of the glaciers include that the area was near the poles or the Earth was in a 'snowball Earth' period. It is also possible that a change from icehouse to greenhouse conditions may have aided in the formation of the gold deposits.

Wednesday - July 12 2023, 12:41 UTC - 1 year ago

On July 3, 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that the export of gallium and germanium, chemicals used in the semiconductor industry, will now be subject to a license system. This is likely a retaliation to Western countries putting restrictions on the export of advanced technologies. Gallium and germanium - though important - are relatively niche with their applications in the semiconductor industry. However, they have a wide variety of uses in modern weapons and are seeing a surge in demand, driving up prices and stock prices of Chinese suppliers. The restrictions are set to be implemented on August 1, 2023.

Wednesday - July 12 2023, 08:31 UTC - 1 year ago

Researchers in the Departments of Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a novel learning-based method, so robots on extraterrestrial bodies can make decisions on their own about where and how to scoop up terrain samples. The robot has to learn that there are several possible ways to scoop the material, depending on the surface, and this method could be applied to landers on Earth as well.

Wednesday - July 12 2023, 03:26 UTC - 1 year ago

Ark Invest describe how compute and data are required for autonomous vehicles. Tesla have a vast amount of data and computation power to allow it to scale quickly compared to its competitors. This leads to Tesla having a vast advantage in the self driving market.

Tuesday - July 11 2023, 22:41 UTC - 1 year ago

In a study led by Dr. Jonathan Cohen at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, a modular agent composed of two sub-networks was built. The AI outperformed its classic monolithic peer, and when the researchers artificially increased the number of goals that it had to simultaneously maintain, the AI adapted rapidly. This sheds light on both human nature and AI agents as it relates to battling conflicting goals.