Two rival theories about the basis of perception went head-to-head in neuroscience experiments, but advocates of “losing” idea aren’t conceding yet.
A company called Moolec has created transgenic soya beans called “Piggy Sooy” in which a quarter of the protein is pig protein rather than plant protein.
Now consider two tabletops, parallel to each other but not touching. The second tabletop is also infinite in two dimensions, and other kinds of creatures live there. Finally, imagine that a narrow tunnel connects the two spaces somewhere.
Without access to the tunnel, the creatures dwelling in each space believe they live in a single, infinite universe. This is especially true if the tunnel lies outside their cosmic horizon. They will never know that their universes are part of a larger structure, a two-dimensional multiverse. It is easy to imagine an infinite number of two-dimensional flat spaces stacked on top of one another, each connected to the next by a similar tunnel, and each tunnel inaccessible to any of the universes’ inhabitants.
The multiverse need not be so simple, either. Universes can be curved and finite, sprouting from an infinite mother universe. The sprouting universes may themselves be infinite. Think of bubbles being blown from a piece of bubble gum. Little bubbles will shrink back, while bigger ones might keep on growing. If a bubble starts growing in a heavily populated region of flat space, some of the inhabitants will be carried into it. Others will remain outside, horrified to see their friends sucked into oblivion. But most of the creatures in the growing bubble survive their ordeal and start to explore their new world. Generations pass. Their scientists measure the curvature of space and see that their universe is closed, like the surface of a sphere. Since the bubble kept on growing, the tunnel-like aperture to the original universe is well beyond their cosmic horizon. These creatures live in a closed, expanding universe, unaware of their connection to a flat, infinite space. Meanwhile, creatures in the original space saw the aperture to the bubble universe close more and more until it became too narrow to cross. All that is left, to them, is a scar in space marking the long-forgotten birthing event. The bubble universe is isolated from its mother universe.
Developing The Low Earth Orbit Economy On The World’s First Commercial Space Station — David Zuniga, Senior Director, In-Space Solutions, Axiom Space
David Zuniga is Senior Director of In-Space Solutions at Axiom Space (https://www.axiomspace.com/), a space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas, which plans human spaceflight for government-funded and commercial astronauts, engaging in in-space research, in-space manufacturing, and space exploration. The company aims to own and operate the world’s first commercial space station, and Mr. Zuniga helps to develop strategy and growth around Axiom’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) economy, also playing a critical role in business and technical integration of Axiom’s in-space manufacturing and research capabilities for Axiom Station architecture.
While mitochondria play a crucial role in producing the energy our cells need to carry out their various functions, when damaged, they can have profound effects on cellular function and contribute to the development of various diseases.
Broken-down mitochondria are usually removed and recycled through a garbage disposal process known as “mitophagy.”
PINK1 and Parkin are two proteins vital to this process, responsible for “tagging” malfunctioning mitochondria for destruction. In Parkinson’s disease, mutations in these proteins can result in the accumulation of damaged mitochondria in the brain, which can lead to motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and difficulty with movement.
While autonomous robots have started to move out of the lab and into the real world, they remain fragile. Slight changes in the environment or lighting conditions can easily throw off the AI that controls them, and these models have to be extensively trained on specific hardware configurations before they can carry out useful tasks.
This lies in stark contrast to the latest LLMs, which have proven adept at generalizing their skills to a broad range of tasks, often in unfamiliar contexts. That’s prompted growing interest in seeing whether the underlying technology—an architecture known as a transformer—could lead to breakthroughs in robotics.
In new results, researchers at DeepMind showed that a transformer-based AI called RoboCat can not only learn a wide range of skills, it can also readily switch between different robotic bodies and pick up new skills much faster than normal. Perhaps most significantly, it’s able to accelerate its learning by generating its own training data.
When an animal takes notice of an approaching figure, it needs to determine what it is, and quickly. In nature, competition and survival dictate that it’s better to think fast—that is, for the brain to prioritize processing speed over accuracy. A new study shows that this survival principle may already be wired in the way the brain processes sensory information.
Kumar and fellow KTH neuroscientist Pawel Herman collaborated with KTH information theorists Movitz Lenninger and Mikael Skoglund to study input processing in the brain using information theory and computer models of the brain. Neuroscientist Arvind Kumar, an associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says that the study offers a new view of neural coding of different types of inputs in the brain.
The new study surprisingly shows that initial visual processing is “quick but sloppy” in comparison to information processing in other parts of the brain’s vast neural network, where accuracy is prioritized over speed. The paper is published in the journal eLife.
Cofounder of Zeda.io—helping product leaders discover the right problems to solve and build around. And I love traveling, with my dog!
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world as we know it, and product management is no exception. It has the potential to revolutionize customer research, decision-making and much more, providing us with data-driven insights and paving the way for a future that is not only intelligent but intuitive.
With AI at our fingertips, we’re standing at the threshold of a new era in product management. However, integrating AI into product management also presents challenges that must be addressed. We will delve into how AI influences the world of product management and what it holds for the future.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have used powerful new brain imaging techniques to reveal a neurochemical imbalance within regions of the frontal lobes in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The research findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
The study shows that the balance between glutamate and GABA—two major neurotransmitter chemicals—is “disrupted” in OCD patients in two frontal regions of the brain.
Researchers also found that people who do not have OCD but are prone to habitual and compulsive behavior have increased glutamate levels in one of these brain regions.
Prof. Yossi Buganim and his research team at the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have achieved a groundbreaking milestone in the field of cell reprogramming. Their latest study, published in Nature Communications, reveals a remarkable breakthrough in converting skin samples into functional human placenta cells. This achievement has significant implications for understanding pregnancy development, studying pregnancy-related diseases, and advancing cell therapies.
The research opens new avenues for investigating the causes of infertility, complications during pregnancy, and long-term health implications for both mothers and babies.
Reprogramming cells to assume new identities has been a focus of Prof. Buganim’s lab, which utilizes specialized proteins to modify gene expression. By transforming skin cells into other cell types, the team enables the study of specific diseases and the potential development of cell-based therapies. However, accessing cells from the placenta, a critical organ in pregnancy, has long been a challenge due to technical and ethical constraints.
