Biotech labs use DALL-E inspired AI to invent new drugs
Will Douglas Sky | MIT Technology Review
“These protein generators can be directed to produce protein designs with specific properties, such as shape, size or function. In effect, it makes it possible to invent new proteins to do specific jobs on demand. Researchers hope this will eventually lead to the development of new, more effective drugs. “We can discover in minutes what took millions of years of evolution,” says Gevorg Grigoryan, CEO of Generate Biomedicines. »
Disney’s latest AI tool ages actors in seconds
Jess Weatherbed | The edge
“Remember when making actors look older or younger in movies was a huge deal? The amount of post-production work to achieve realistic results was immense back then, but now Disney researchers have revealed FRAN , a new artificial intelligence tool that can convincingly age or age an actor in a fraction of the time.
The state of the transistor in 3 graphs
Samuel K. Moore and David Schneider | IEEE Spectrum
“In 1947, there was only one transistor. According to TechInsight forecasts, the semiconductor industry is on track to produce nearly 2 trillion (10^21) devices this year. That’s more transistors than were manufactured cumulatively in all the years up to 2017.”
Rolls-Royce tests hydrogen jet engine in aviation in world first
Sylvia Pfeifer | Financial Times via Ars Technica
“The ground test, which took place at a government test facility at Boscombe Down, used green hydrogen generated by wind and tidal power from the Orkney Islands in Scotland. …This marks a new milestone in the industry attempts to prove that hydrogen could play a viable role in helping companies reduce harmful carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
The Galaxy Hibernator Guide
Brendan I. Koerner | Wired
“Scientists are on the verge of discovering how to put humans into a state of suspended animation. This could be the key to colonizing Mars. …In recent years, these researchers have been piecing together the molecular changes that occur when certain species slow down their metabolism.And since so many hibernators are our close genomic cousins, there’s good reason to believe that we can modify our brains and bodies to mimic what they do.
Orion flies way past the moon and returns an instantly iconic photo
Eric Berger | Ars-Technica
“NASA’s Orion spacecraft reached the furthest point of its journey from Earth on Monday, more than 430,000 km from the homeworld of mankind. That’s a greater distance from Earth than the Apollo capsule flown during NASA’s lunar missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From this vantage point on Monday, a camera attached to the solar panels aboard Orion’s service module took photos of the Moon and, just beyond, the Earth, they were charming, solitary and evocative images.
The future of the transistor is our future
Chenming Hu | IEEE Spectrum
“Semiconductors can augment human capabilities like no other technology. Almost by definition, all technologies augment human capabilities. But for most of them, natural resources and energy constraints make improvements questionable. The transistor technology is a unique exception for the following reasons.
We might run out of data to train AI language programs
Tammy Xu | MIT Technology Review
“Big language models are one of the hottest areas of AI research right now, with companies rushing to release programs like GPT-3 that can write incredibly consistent and even computer code. But a problem looms on the horizon, according to a team of artificial intelligence forecasters: we may lack the data to train them.”
San Francisco approves use of remote-controlled robots to kill suspects
Jacques-Vincent | The edge
“San Francisco police will be allowed to use remote-controlled robots to kill suspects. Last night the city’s Board of Supervisors approved a controversial policy that allows police robots “to be used as a lethal force option when the risk of death to members of the public or officers is imminent and the overrides any other available force option”.I”
Is Dark Matter’s ‘nightmare scenario’ true?
Ethan Siegel | think big
“Since the need for a gravitational source, beyond the normal particles of matter that we know, became apparent, dark matter has become the primary explanation for our observations. While the indirect astrophysical evidence supporting of its existence are overwhelming, all efforts at direct detection have proved futile. This is not evidence against the existence of dark matter, but it may be evidence that the dark matter “nightmare scenario” that only interacts gravitationally, could be true.
Image Credit: NASA Johnson/Flickr
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