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Aug 21, 2022

Behold James Webb Telescope’s largest and most dazzling image yet

Posted by in categories: evolution, space

The James Webb space telescope continues to dazzle. After releasing the telescope’s first images in July, NASA and the other agencies behind the new telescope have continued to monitor and observe new galaxies and celestial phenomena. Now, the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Study (CEERS) has released James Webb’s largest image to date.

The new image is a mosaic that includes multiple pieces of data put together by people working on CEERS. The team is made up of 105 scientists and 19 investigators stationed across 28 institutions in the world. They captured all of the data using the new telescope. Together they all make up James Webb’s largest image to date.

The data was gathered using James Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), its Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), and its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Each part of the data was taken parallel to the others. Researchers then carefully stitched them together. The instruments capture data using wavelengths that aren’t visible to the naked eye. They then translated the data into visible images.

Aug 21, 2022

Microsoft’s New AI: Virtual Humans Became Real! 🤯

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

❤️ Check out Runway and try it for free here: https://runwayml.com/papers/

📝 The paper “3D Face Reconstruction with Dense Landmarks” is available here:
https://microsoft.github.io/DenseLandmarks/

Continue reading “Microsoft’s New AI: Virtual Humans Became Real! 🤯” »

Aug 21, 2022

New Proof Reveals the Hidden Structure of Common Equations

Posted by in categories: information science, mathematics

Van der Waerden’s conjecture mystified mathematicians for 85 years. Its solution shows how polynomial roots relate to one another.

Aug 21, 2022

Old Bones Carry Evidence of Why Ancient Empires Collapsed

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

Burial sites in the Eastern Mediterranean from the period around 2000 BCE show evidence of outbreaks of disease that likely contributed to the fall of three great civilizations: the Minoan on the island of Crete, the Akkadian in what is Turkey today, and Egypt’s Old Kingdom.

The pathogens found in the DNA of old bones indicate significant outbreaks of typhoid fever and the plague. The emergence of widespread disease in this area of the world at that time may be related to climate change, or pressures from new waves of human migration coming from outside the region. But a paper published in Current Biology on July 25, 2022, shows widespread infections involving the bacterium Yersinia pestis, responsible for the many incidents of plague that occurred in ancient civilizations all the way to the era of Justinian 1st in the 6th century CE Eastern Roman Empire which modern scholars labelled Byzantine. Also found in burial sites is widespread evidence of Salmonella Enterica the cause of typhoid/enteric fever.

This evidence coincides with a period of major geopolitical transformation from 2,290 to 1909 BCE. During this time the Old Kingdom, the Akkadian Empire, and the Middle Minoan civilization were all disrupted. The periods are associated with societal and population declines throughout much of the Eastern Mediterranean. Did these depopulating diseases come from elsewhere brought in by migration and invasion? Were there environmental factors such as a change in the climate? Was there degradation of agricultural lands leading to famine, and a general weakening of the local population?

Aug 21, 2022

British divers discover century-old U.S. Navy warship

Posted by in category: military

Last week, a team of British divers discovered the remains of a thousand-ton, 316-foot U.S. Navy warship that hasn’t been seen in over a century. Dana Jacobson reports.

Aug 21, 2022

A groundbreaking solution could help unleash our hydrogen future

Posted by in categories: energy, genetics, sustainability

A “bio-battery” made from genetically engineered bacteria could store excess renewable energy and release it as needed.

Aug 21, 2022

New chip ramps up AI computing efficiency

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

However, AI functionalities on these tiny edge devices are limited by the energy provided by a battery. Therefore, improving energy efficiency is crucial. In today’s AI chips, data processing and data storage happen at separate places – a compute unit and a memory unit. The frequent data movement between these units consumes most of the energy during AI processing, so reducing the data movement is the key to addressing the energy issue.

Stanford University engineers have come up with a potential solution: a novel resistive random-access memory (RRAM) chip that does the AI processing within the memory itself, thereby eliminating the separation between the compute and memory units. Their “compute-in-memory” (CIM) chip, called NeuRRAM, is about the size of a fingertip and does more work with limited battery power than what current chips can do.

“Having those calculations done on the chip instead of sending information to and from the cloud could enable faster, more secure, cheaper, and more scalable AI going into the future, and give more people access to AI power,” said H.-S Philip Wong, the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering.

Aug 21, 2022

How Scientists Revived Organs in Pigs an Hour After They Died

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, neuroscience, policy

Yes, it does. Although OrganEx helps revitalize pigs’ organs, it’s far from a deceased animal being brought back to life. Rather, their organs were better protected from low oxygen levels, which occur during heart attacks or strokes.

“One could imagine that the OrganEx system (or components thereof) might be used to treat such people in an emergency,” said Porte.

The technology could also help preserve donor organs, but there’s a long way to go. To Dr. Brendan Parent, director of transplant ethics and policy research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, OrganEx may force a rethink for the field. For example, is it possible that someone could have working peripheral organs but never regain consciousness? As medical technology develops, death becomes a process, not a moment.

Aug 21, 2022

Nanomagnetic Computing Could Drastically Cut AI’s Energy Use

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, robotics/AI

The device uses magnetic fields to carry out computation rather than shuttling electricity around, so it consumes far less power.

Aug 21, 2022

Tiny Magnets Could Hold the Secret to Miniaturizable Quantum Computers

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

In new research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, scientists have achieved efficient quantum coupling between two distant magnetic devices, which can host a certain type of magnetic excitations called magnons. These excitations happen when an electric current generates a magnetic field. Coupling allows magnons to exchange energy and information. This kind of coupling may be useful for creating new quantum information technology devices.

“Remote coupling of magnons is the first step, or almost a prerequisite, for doing quantum work with magnetic systems,” said Argonne senior scientist Valentine Novosad, an author of the study. “We show the ability for these magnons to communicate instantly with each other at a distance.”