Lifeboat Foundation

Design and order your Cybertruck, the truck of the future.

But in the last few years, AI has changed the game. Deep-learning algorithms excel at quickly finding patterns in reams of data, which has sped up key processes in scientific discovery. Now, along with these software improvements, a hardware revolution is also on the horizon.

Yesterday Argonne announced that it has begun to test a new computer from the startup Cerebras that promises to accelerate the training of deep-learning algorithms by orders of magnitude. The computer, which houses the world’s largest chip, is part of a new generation of specialized AI hardware that is only now being put to use.

“We’re interested in accelerating the AI applications that we have for scientific problems,” says Rick Stevens, Argonne’s associate lab director for computing, environment, and life sciences. “We have huge amounts of data and big models, and we’re interested in pushing their performance.”

The brain cortex, the outside layer of our brain often referred to as grey matter, is one of the most complex structures found in living organisms. It gives us the advanced cognitive abilities that distinguish us from other animals.

Neuroscientist Professor Pierre Vanderhaeghen (VIB-KU Leuven, Université libre de Bruxelles) explains what makes the human brain so unique: “One remarkable feature of human neurons is their unusually long development. Neural circuits take years to reach full maturity in humans, but only a few weeks in mice or some months in monkeys.”

“This long period of maturation allows much more time for the modulation of brain cells and circuits, which allows us to learn efficiently for an extended period up until late adolescence. It’s a very important and unique feature for our species, but what lies at its origin remains a mystery.”

Columnist Mary Beth Skylis shares some recent research that narrows in on the question of whether Parkinson’s disease is connected to the gut microbiome.

There was an historic first today as we welcomed an actual, real-life robot onto the sofa for a chat. 🤖 Sophia not only drew pictures of Holly and Phillip, she also summoned the memory of Gordon the Gopher! 😂😂.

New materials to deflect massive amounts of surface heat don’t come from nature.

A protective coating of carbon nanotubes may help the Pentagon field warplanes and missiles that can survive the intense heat generated at five times the speed of sound.

Researchers from Florida State University’s High-Performance Materials Institute, with funding from the U.S. Air Force, discovered that soaking sheets of carbon nanotubes in phenol-based resin increases their ability to disperse heat by about one-sixth, allowing a thinner sheet to do the job.

A particularly harmful byproduct of oxidized cholesterol appears to be a primary cause of atherosclerosis and a therapeutic target ripe for the taking. A new review takes a look at 7-ketocholesterol and its role in aging and disease.

A new review exploring 7-ketocholesterol

We recently reported on the launch of Underdog Pharma, a new startup biotech company that was spun off from many years of research at SENS Research Foundation and is focused on the problem of 7-ketocholesterol.

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WHAT IS A COGNITIVE BIAS? Humans tend to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from making rational judgments. These tendencies usually arise from:

Protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Iran have forced cypherpunks to test censorship resistant technologies in the wild.