Lifeboat Foundation

An experimental computing system physically modeled after the biological brain has “learned” to identify handwritten numbers with an overall accuracy of 93.4%. The key innovation in the experiment was a new training algorithm that gave the system continuous information about its success at the task in real time while it learned. The study was published in Nature Communications.

The algorithm outperformed a conventional machine-learning approach in which training was performed after a batch of data had been processed, producing 91.4% accuracy. The researchers also showed that memory of past inputs stored in the system itself enhanced learning. In contrast, other computing approaches store memory within software or hardware separate from a device’s processor.

For 15 years, researchers at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, or CNSI, have been developing a new platform technology for computation. The technology is a brain-inspired system composed of a tangled-up network of wires containing silver, laid on a bed of electrodes. The system receives input and produces output via pulses of electricity. The individual wires are so small that their diameter is measured on the nanoscale, in billionths of a meter.

If you have any form of Arachnophobia, do not read this article. You’ve been warned. Now if you’re like me and have a mad respect for Mother Nature, I posit you this query. Did you know that spiders can fly? And not by the way you may think.

Good news for your nightmares: Spiders can fly. Despite not having wings, new research shows that spiders have the ability to propel themselves using the Earth’s electric field, with little to no help from wind or webs. Because humans can’t feel these electric currents, their role in biology can often go ignored. But if electrostatic is what is helping spiders fly more than two miles high in the air, let’s pay attention.

In a study published in Current Biology on Thursday, Drs. Erica L. Morley and Daniel Robert of the University of Bristol found that when spiders are placed in a chamber with no wind but a small electric field, they were still able to to fly, despite the prevailing idea that a spider’s flight was reliant on wind currents.

Continue reading “Spiders Can Fly and They Don’t Even Need Wings, Study Claims” »

In October, a paper titled “Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution” appeared in the journal Nature. The authors—a team led by Lee Cronin at the University of Glasgow and Sara Walker at Arizona State University—claim their theory is an “interface between physics and biology” which explains how complex biological forms can evolve.

The paper provoked strong responses. On the one hand were headlines like “Bold New ” Theory of Everything’ Could Unite Physics And Evolution”

On the other were reactions from scientists. One evolutionary biologist tweeted after multiple reads I still have absolutely no idea what [this paper] is doing. Another said I read the paper and I feel more confused […] I think reading that paper has made me forget my own name.

Researchers at Auburn University have achieved a groundbreaking discovery, illuminating the process by which brain cells efficiently replace older proteins. This process is essential for maintaining effective neural communication and optimal cognitive function.

The findings were published on November 6 in the prestigious journal, Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology. The study, entitled “Recently Recycled Synaptic Vesicles Use Multi-Cytoskeletal Transport and Differential Presynaptic Capture Probability to Establish a Retrograde Net Flux During ISVE in Central Neurons,” explains the transportation and recycling of older proteins in brain cells.

This video explores what life would be like if we became a Type I Civilization. Watch this next video about the Technological Singularity: https://youtu.be/yHEnKwSUzAE.
🎁 5 Free ChatGPT Prompts To Become a Superhuman: https://bit.ly/3Oka9FM
🤖 AI for Business Leaders (Udacity Program): https://bit.ly/3Qjxkmu.
☕ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/futurebusinesstech.
➡️ Official Discord Server: https://discord.gg/R8cYEWpCzK

SOURCES:
• https://www.futuretimeline.net.
• The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Ray Kurzweil): https://amzn.to/3ftOhXI
• The Future of Humanity (Michio Kaku): https://amzn.to/3Gz8ffA

Continue reading “What If We Became A Type I Civilization? 15 Predictions” »

Each iteration of ChatGPT has demonstrated remarkable step function capabilities. But what’s next? Ilya Sutskever, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at OpenAI, joins Sarah Guo and Elad Gil to discuss the origins of OpenAI as a capped profit company, early emergent behaviors of GPT models, the token scarcity issue, next frontiers of AI research, his argument for working on AI safety now, and the premise of Superalignment. Plus, how do we define digital life?

Ilya Sutskever is Co-founder and Chief Scientist of OpenAI. He leads research at OpenAI and is one of the architects behind the GPT models. He co-leads OpenAI’s new “Superalignment” project, which tries to solve the alignment of superintelligences in 4 years. Prior to OpenAI, Ilya was co-inventor of AlexNet and Sequence to Sequence Learning. He earned his Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

Continue reading “No Priors Ep. 39” »

How early is your first memory?

For many of us, it is difficult to remember much of what went on before the age of two. But a new study from Trinity College Dublin has found that this memory loss might be preventable and reversible, with light.

“Infantile amnesia is the most ubiquitous form of ‘forgetting,’” Tomas Ryan, an associate professor at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and senior author of the paper, told Newsweek. “Despite its widespread relevance, little is known about the biological conditions underpinning this amnesia. As a society, we assume infant forgetting is an unavoidable fact of life, so we pay little attention to it.”

Lasers are essential tools for observing, detecting, and measuring things in the natural world that we can’t see with the naked eye. But the ability to perform these tasks is often restricted by the need to use expensive and large instruments.

In a newly published cover-story paper in the journal Science, researcher Qiushi Guo demonstrates a novel approach for creating high-performance ultrafast lasers on nanophotonic chips. His work centers on miniaturizing mode-lock lasers—a unique laser that emits a train of ultrashort, coherent light pulses in femtosecond intervals, which is an astonishing quadrillionth of a second.

Ultrafast mode-locked lasers are indispensable to unlocking the secrets of the fastest timescales in nature, such as the making or breaking of molecular bonds during chemical reactions, or light propagation in a turbulent medium. The high-speed, pulse-peak intensity and broad-spectrum coverage of mode-locked lasers have also enabled numerous photonics technologies, including optical atomic clocks, biological imaging, and computers that use light to calculate and process data.

A recent study published in AGU Advances examines how the conservation and protection of two Alaskan forests, Tongass and Chugach, are essential in fighting the effects of climate change due to their expanse for wildlife habitats, abundant carbon stocks, and landscape integrity. This study was led by researchers from Oregon State University and holds the potential to help scientists better understand the steps that need to be taken to mitigate the long-term effects of climate change by preserving the resources of today.

Tongass National Forest (Credit: Logan Berner)

“More thoroughly safeguarding those forests from industrial development would contribute significantly to climate change mitigation and species adaptation in the face of the severe ecological disruption that’s expected to occur over the next few decades as the climate rapidly gets warmer,” said Dr. Beverly Law, who is a Professor Emeritus of Global Change Biology & Terrestrial Systems Science at Oregon State University and lead author of the study.