If you think telepathy or mind control is the stuff of science fiction, think again. Advances in artificial intelligence are leading to medical breakthroughs once thought impossible, including devices that can actually read minds and alter our brains.
Can we mobilise society towards a concerted effort against ageing? Dr Aubrey de Grey believes so—with groundbreaking results from studies by the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation on Integrative Rejuvenation, a cutting-edge approach to repairing cellular and molecular damage linked to ageing.
Why does he believe this could be the most promising pathway toward extending healthy human lifespan? Watch on to find out.
Register for upcoming #HealthyLongevity #webinar sessions at https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/regist… The opinions and advice expressed in this webinar are those of the speakers and do not represent the views and opinions of the organizers and National University of Singapore or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The information provided in this webinar is for general information purposes only as part of a general discussion on public health. The information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnoses or treatment; and cannot be relied on in place of consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. All Rights Reserved. All of the proceedings of this webinar, including the presentation of scientific papers, are intended for limited publication only, and all property rights in the material presented, including common-law copyright, are expressly reserved to the speaker or NUS. No statement or presentation made is to be regarded as dedicated to the public domain. Any sound reproduction, transcript or other use of the material presented at this course without the permission of the speaker or NUS is prohibited to the full extent of common-law copyright in such material.
Disclaimer: The opinions and advice expressed in this webinar are those of the speakers and do not represent the views and opinions of the organizers and National University of Singapore or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The information provided in this webinar is for general information purposes only as part of a general discussion on public health. The information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnoses or treatment; and cannot be relied on in place of consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. All Rights Reserved.
In today’s AI news, Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has officially launched its latest flagship AI model, Grok 3. Released late on February 17, 2025, Grok 3 introduces significant advancements over its predecessor, Grok 2, and aims to compete with leading AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini.
In other advancements, Replit has transformed non-technical employees at Zillow into software developers. The real estate giant now routes over 100,000 home shoppers to agents using applications built by team members who had never written code before. This breakthrough stems from Replit’s new partnership with Anthropic and Google Cloud, which has enabled over 100,000 applications on Google Cloud Run.
Then, Wu Yonghui, a prestigious “Google Fellow” who worked at the US tech giant for 17 years, recently joined TikTok owner ByteDance to lead foundational research on artificial intelligence (AI), as the firm seeks to “explore the upper limit of intelligence”. Wu now works at ByteDance’s Seed department, which the Beijing-based company started in early 2023.
Meanwhile, large companies are not adopting AI as quickly as start-ups, AWS managing director Tanuja Randery says. The gap is leading to a “two-tier” AI economy as startups outpace corporations. Citing a new report from AWS, Randery said that European startups had integrated AI at pace over the last year while larger enterprises in the region were falling behind.
In videos, join Sara Bacha from Converge Technology Solutions as she delves into how GraphRAG outperforms traditional RAG by leveraging knowledge graphs and LLM to enhance data relationships and accuracy. Learn the benefits in development, production, and governance, making maintenance easier with better explainability and traceability.
In today’s AI news, Galileo launched an Agent Leaderboard on Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform where users can build, train, access, and deploy AI models. The leaderboard is meant to help people learn how AI agents perform in real-world business applications and help teams determine which agent best fits their needs.
In other advancements, Bloomberg reported Friday that xAI is canvassing existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Valor Equity Partners for the round, which would bring xAI’s total raised to $22.4 billion, according to Crunchbase. Bloomberg also noted that discussions are ongoing and that the terms of the fundraising round may change.
Ve done mobile app development will know how challenging it can be to deliver the right kind of experience on a smartphone. + And, while speaking with former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Wednesday, Oracle cofounder and executive chairman, Larry Ellison said that while government organizations collect massive amounts of data, it is highly fragmented, making it hard to feed it into an AI model.
In videos, the Imagination in Action video series from Davos 2025 is being uploaded and we’re featuring the sessions in today’s newsletter. First we dive into an in-depth panel discussion featuring AI visionaries Max Tegmark, Demis Hassabis, Yoshua Bengio, Dawn Song, and Ya-Qin Zhang. In this engaging conversation, the experts unpack the distinctions between narrow AI, AGI, and super intelligence …
And, an expert panel explores how regulation can drive innovation in AI, featuring perspectives from panelists: Robert Mahari, JD-PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School, Pablo Arredondo, Vice President of CoCounsel at Thomson Reuters and Founder of Casetext, Part of Thomson Reuters, Julia Apostle, Partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, Gabriele Mazzini, Fellow at MIT Connection Science and Architect of EU AI Act.
Divorce, the legal dissolution of marriage, can be driven by a variety of factors, ranging from changes in the economic status or health conditions of spouses to contrasting values. The end of a marriage can often be challenging to process. Thus, it can have adverse effects on the well-being and mental health of ex-spouses.
On average, the rates of divorce worldwide have increased over the past century. Improved understanding of the primary factors that prompt people to dissolve a marriage could help to devise more effective couples and marriage counseling strategies, potentially contributing to a reduction in divorce rates.
Sari Mentser and Lilach Sagiv, two researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recently carried out a study specifically exploring the relationship between people’s values and divorce. Their findings, published in Communications Psychology, suggest that interaction between spouses’ cultural and personal values can predict divorce.
In today’s AI news, OpenAI will ship GPT-5 in a matter of months and streamline its AI models into more unified products, said CEO Sam Altman in an update. Specifically, Altman says the company plans to launch GPT-4.5 as its last non-chain-of-thought model and integrate its latest o3 reasoning model into GPT-5.
In other advancements, Harvey, a San Francisco AI startup focused on the legal industry, has raised $300 million in a funding round led by Sequoia that values the startup at $3 billion — double the amount investors valued it at in July. The Series D funding round builds on the momentum and reflects investors’ enthusiasm for AI tools …
Meanwhile, Meta is in talks to acquire South Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI, according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that could boost the social media giant’s custom chip efforts amid a shortage of Nvidia chips and a growing demand for alternatives. The deal could be completed as early as this month.
Then, AI took another step into Hollywood today with the launch of a new filmmaking tool from showbiz startup Flawless. The product — named DeepEditor — promises cinematic wizardry for the digital age. For movie makers, the tool offers photorealistic edits without a costly return to set.
In videos, join IBM’s Boris Sobolev as he explains how model customization can enhance reliability and decision-making of agentic systems. Discover practical tips for data collection, tool use, and pushing the boundaries of what your AI can achieve. Supercharge your AI agents for peak performance!
Researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the Slovak Academy of Sciences have unveiled new insights into the interplay between quantum theory and thermodynamics. The team demonstrated that while quantum theory does not inherently forbid violations of the second law of thermodynamics, quantum processes may be implemented without actually breaching the law.
This discovery, published in npj Quantum Information, highlights a harmonious coexistence between the two fields, despite their logical independence. Their findings open up new avenues for understanding the thermodynamic boundaries of quantum technologies, such as quantum computing and nanoscale engines.
This breakthrough contributes to the long-standing exploration of the second law of thermodynamics, a principle often regarded as one of the most profound and enigmatic in physics.
A 2020 assessment of IKN by the National Planning and Development Agency highlighted the risks, citing data including the abundance of disease-carrying mosquitoes. At least two construction workers caught malaria in 2022 while at the site, according to the Ministry of Health. Last year, 54 cases were reported there, but the ministry claimed the patients were infected elsewhere. Although the construction authority has taken some control measures, such as handing out mosquito nets to workers, it’s not well-equipped for the job, says Mirza Buana, a legal scholar at Lambung Mangkurat University in South Kalimantan: “It has all the authorities but no capabilities.” The agency has shifted most of the tasks—such as vector control and screening workers entering or leaving IKN—to district health officials, who have struggled to keep up.
Surendra is particularly worried about the potential spread of P. knowlesi, a parasite first discovered in the 1930s. It emerged as a public health threat in the early 2000s, in areas in the Malaysian part of Borneo where forests were cleared for oil palm plantations. It has since been identified in many Southeast Asian countries.
P. knowlesi primarily infects long-tailed macaques, highly adaptable monkeys that thrive at the forest edge, and is spread by forest-dwelling Anopheles mosquitoes that occasionally bite humans as well. People working in or near the forest, including hunters and loggers, are at the highest risk. Because it has an animal reservoir, the disease is impossible to eliminate completely. Mosquitoes don’t transmit P. knowlesi between people—or very poorly—but some scientists worry that could change.
Question Were the liberalization of medical cannabis and the legalization of nonmedical cannabis in Canada associated with changes in the population-attributable fraction of cannabis use disorders associated with schizophrenia?
Findings In this population-based cohort study comprising 13 588 681 individuals, the population-attributable fraction of cannabis use disorder associated with schizophrenia increased significantly from 3.7% in the prelegalization period to 10.3% during the postlegalization period.
Meaning These findings suggest that the association between cannabis use disorders and schizophrenia is an important consideration for the legalization of cannabis.
Josh Mitteldorf suggests new protocol for experimental young plasma therapy.
Scientists explore concentrated plasma infusions for stronger anti-ageing effects.
01-Feb-2025Key points from article :
Scientists have long observed the remarkable rejuvenation effects of young plasma in ageing rats, but translating these findings into human therapies has been slow due to intellectual property barriers and funding challenges. In the meantime, a niche industry has emerged in Texas, where ageing individuals can receive plasma infusions from young donors for tens of thousands of dollars. However, these treatments, which replace about 35% of a patient’s plasma, fall short of the dramatic regeneration seen in laboratory animals. Researchers suspect that the exosome dosages in these human procedures are too low to match the full rejuvenation potential seen in rats.
To address this, a new approach suggests concentrating young plasma by removing excess water, allowing for higher doses without overloading the circulatory system. Freeze-drying plasma, a long-standing technology, could be adapted to reconstitute plasma at three or more times its normal strength. However, modifications would be necessary—such as removing platelets to avoid clotting risks and adjusting albumin levels for safety.
