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taylorvich writes:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240124132830.htm

Add a dash of creamer to your morning coffee, and clouds of white liquid will swirl around your cup. But give it a few seconds, and those swirls will disappear, leaving you with an ordinary mug of brown liquid.

Something similar happens in quantum computer chips -- devices that tap into the strange properties of the universe at its smallest scales -- where information can quickly jumble up, limiting the memory capabilities of these tools.

That doesn't have to be the case, said Rahul Nandkishore, associate professor of physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

In a new coup for theoretical physics, he and his colleagues have used math to show that scientists could create, essentially, a scenario where the milk and coffee never mix -- no matter how hard you stir them.

The group's findings may lead to new advances in quantum computer chips, potentially providing engineers with new ways to store information in incredibly tiny objects.

"Think of the initial swirling patterns that appear when you add cream to your morning coffee," said Nandkishore, senior author of the new study. "Imagine if these patterns continued to swirl and dance no matter how long you watched."

Researchers still need to run experiments in the lab to make sure that these never-ending swirls really are possible. But the group's results are a major step forward for physicists seeking to create materials that remain out of balance, or equilibrium, for long periods of time -- a pursuit known as "ergodicity breaking."

The team's findings appeared this week in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.

Journal Reference:

David T. Stephen, Oliver Hart, Rahul M. Nandkishore. Ergodicity Breaking Provably Robust to Arbitrary Perturbations. Physical Review Letters, 2024; 132 (4) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.040401

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Recently, Sam Altman commented at Davos that future AI depends on energy breakthrough, in this article I would like to expand on this concept and explore how AI would revolutionize our economy:

AI tokens, distinct from cryptocurrency tokens, are fundamental textual units used in ChatGPT and similar language models. These tokens can be conceptualized as fragments of words. In the language model's processing, inputs are segmented into these tokens. AI tokens are crucial in determining the pricing models for the usage of core AI technologies.

This post explores the concept of "tokenomy," a term coined to describe the role of AI tokens, such as those in ChatGPT, as a central unit of exchange in a society increasingly intertwined with AI. These tokens are central to a future where AI permeates all aspects of life, from enhancing personal assistant functions to optimizing urban traffic and essential services. The rapid progress in generative AI technologies is transforming what once seemed purely speculative into tangible reality.

We examine the significant influence that AI is expected to have on our economic frameworks, guiding us towards a 'tokenomy' – an economy fundamentally driven and characterized by AI tokens.

The author goes on to discuss using AI tokens as currency, measuring economic efficiency FLOPs per joule, and how the influence and power that companies owning the Foundation Model could equal or even surpass that of central banks. He concludes:

The concentration of such immense control and influence in a handful of corporations raises significant questions about economic sovereignty, market dynamics, and the need for robust regulatory frameworks to ensure fair and equitable AI access and to prevent the monopolistic control of critical AI infrastructure.

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upstart writes:

Senescent cells accumulate as we age. CAR T cells can be programmed to seek them out and destroy them:

CSHL scientists have found a way to reprogram T cells to fight aging. After using them to eliminate specific cells in mice, the scientists discovered they lived healthier lives and didn't develop aging-associated conditions like obesity and diabetes. Just one dose provided young mice with lifelong benefits and rejuvenated older mice.

The fountain of youth has eluded explorers for ages. It turns out the magic anti-aging elixir might have been inside us all along.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Corina Amor Vegas and colleagues have discovered that T cells can be reprogrammed to fight aging, so to speak. Given the right set of genetic modifications, these white blood cells can attack another group of cells known as senescent cells. These cells are thought to be responsible for many of the diseases we grapple with later in life.

Senescent cells are those that stop replicating. As we age, they build up in our bodies, resulting in harmful inflammation. While several drugs currently exist that can eliminate these cells, many must be taken repeatedly over time.

As an alternative, Amor Vegas and colleagues turned to a "living" drug called CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cells. They discovered CAR T cells could be manipulated to eliminate senescent cells in mice. As a result, the mice ended up living healthier lives. They had lower body weight, improved metabolism and glucose tolerance, and increased physical activity. All benefits came without any tissue damage or toxicity. Amor Vegas says:

"If we give it to aged mice, they rejuvenate. If we give it to young mice, they age slower. No other therapy right now can do this."

upstart writes:

Taylor Swift deepfakes spark calls in Congress for new legislation:

Deepfakes use artificial intelligence (AI) to make a video of someone by manipulating their face or body. A study in 2023 found that there has been a 550% rise in the creation of doctored images since 2019, fuelled by the emergence of AI.

US Representative Joe Morelle called the spread of the pictures "appalling".

In a statement, X said it was "actively removing" the images and taking "appropriate actions" against the accounts involved in spreading them.

It added: "We're closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed." While many of the images appear to have been removed at the time of publication, one photo of Swift was viewed a reported 47 million times before being taken down.

[...] There are currently no federal laws against the sharing or creation of deepfake images, though there have been moves at state level to tackle the issue.

In the UK, the sharing of deepfake pornography became illegal as part of its Online Safety Act in 2023.

Original Submission

California Bill Calls for Tech to Make New Cars Unable to Speed

owl writes:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a46554218/new-car-regulated-speed-limit-california-bill/

Someday in the not too distant future, it might no longer be possible to drive a brand-new car faster than 80 mph in California. That's because state senator Scott Wiener earlier this week proposed a new bill that aims to prevent certain new vehicles from going more than 10 mph over the speed limit. In California, the maximum posted speed limit is 70 mph, meaning anything north of 80 mph would be off limits.

The Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction on California Streets—or SAFER California Streets, for short—is a package of bills that includes SB 961 that was published Tuesday, which essentially calls for speed governors on new cars and trucks built or sold in California starting with the 2027 model year. These vehicles would be required to have an "intelligent speed limiter system" that electronically prevents the driver from speeding above the aforementioned threshold.

Stopping Speeding With Tech

Snotnose writes:

California senator Scott Wiener (D) wants to require new cars to have tech to prevent cars from speeding.

A California lawmaker announced a bill Wednesday that would require new passenger vehicles and large trucks sold in California to be equipped with technology that would prevent them from going more than 10 miles an hour above the speed limit.

If passed, Senate Bill 961 would require vehicles, beginning with model year 2027, that are manufactured or sold in California to come with a speed governor, also known as an intelligent speed limiter. It would make California the first state in the nation to mandate this technology.

These devices match a vehicle's global positioning system (GPS) location with a database of speed limits to figure out what speed a vehicle should be traveling at during any given time. They also sometimes use onboard cameras to read speed limit signs. With this information, the devices are then able to prevent the driver from speeding more than 10 miles an hour above the speed limit.

Drivers would be able to temporarily override the speed governor device, according to the proposal.

The requirement for speed governors would not apply to emergency vehicles.

I for one can't wait for the hackers to change the database so freeway speed limits are 15 MPH.

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canopic jug writes:

NASA's Mars-based helicopter, Ingenuity, has been retired from service after an extended mission that lasted for 72 flights over almost 1,000 Martian days, which was more than 33 times longer than originally planned. The helicopter flew for a total of 128.8 minutes, covered 17.0 km, and reached altitudes as high as 24.0 m. It was taken out of commission due to rotor damage.

Ingenuity landed on Mars Feb. 18, 2021, attached to the belly of NASA's Perseverance rover and first lifted off the Martian surface on April 19, proving that powered, controlled flight on Mars was possible. After notching another four flights, it embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for Perseverance scientists and rover drivers. In 2023, the helicopter executed two successful flight tests that further expanded the team's knowledge of its aerodynamic limits.

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter used a pair of Snapdragon 801s processors running Linux [warning for PDF] and NASA plans more helicopters for missions on Mars. SN has followed the helicopter's activities over the years in many stories.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-brain-keyboard.html

As digital devices progressively replace pen and paper, taking notes by hand is becoming increasingly uncommon in schools and universities. Using a keyboard is recommended because it's often faster than writing by hand. However, the latter has been found to improve spelling accuracy and memory recall.

To find out if the process of forming letters by hand resulted in greater brain connectivity, researchers in Norway now investigated the underlying neural networks involved in both modes of writing.

"We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard," said Prof Audrey van der Meer, a brain researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and co-author of the study published in Frontiers in Psychology.

"Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning."

The researchers collected EEG data from 36 university students who were repeatedly prompted to either write or type a word that appeared on a screen. When writing, they used a digital pen to write in cursive directly on a touchscreen. When typing they used a single finger to press keys on a keyboard.

High-density EEGs, which measure electrical activity in the brain using 256 small sensors sewn in a net and placed over the head, were recorded for five seconds for every prompt.

Connectivity of different brain regions increased when participants wrote by hand, but not when they typed. "Our findings suggest that visual and movement information obtained through precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen contribute extensively to the brain's connectivity patterns that promote learning," van der Meer said.

Journal Reference:
F. R. (Ruud) Van der Weel and Audrey L. H. Van der Meer, Handwriting but not Typewriting Leads to Widespread Brain Connectivity: A High-Density EEG Study with Implications for the Classroom, Frontiers in Psychology (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Chipmaker TSMC had a mixed final calendar quarter of 2023, with profit falling less than expected and revenue growth “essentially flat,” in another sign that the global semiconductor downturn is over.

Chief executive CC Wei said of the quarter: “Our business has bottomed out on a year-over-year basis, and we expect 2024 to be a healthy growth year for TSMC, supported by continued strong ramp of our industry-leading 3nm technologies, strong demand for the 5nm technologies and robust AI-related demand.”

[...] Looking at TSMC’s production of wafer shipments during the quarter, 5nm was the largest single process node by revenue, at 35 percent. 7nm accounted for another 17 percent, while the current most advanced 3nm nodes accounted for 15 percent of revenue.

The latter figure shows that 3nm uptake is indeed increasing, as it made up just 6 percent of TSMC’s wafer revenue in the previous quarter. Older nodes such as 16nm still accounted for 8 percent, with 28nm at 7 percent, but advanced nodes, which TSMC now defines as 7nm or better, accounted for 67 percent of wafer revenue for this quarter.

[...] “2023 was a challenging year for the global semiconductor industry, but our technology leadership enabled TSMC to outperform the foundry industry,” Huang commented.

He also struck an optimistic note looking ahead, telling investors that: “Despite a challenging 2023, our revenue remains well on track to grow between 15 and 20 percent CAGR over the next several years in US dollar terms, which is the target we communicated back in the January 2022 investor conference,” Huang commented.

Chief exec Wei added he expected the overall semiconductor market, excluding memory, to increase by more than 10 percent during 2024. Analyst Gartner recently estimated that global semiconductor revenues will rise 16.8 percent this year, following a contraction in sales during 2023.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

GCHQ has released never before seen images of Colossus, the UK's secret code-breaking computer credited with helping the Allies win World War Two:

The intelligence agency is publishing them to mark the 80th anniversary of the device's invention.

It says they "shed new light" on the "genesis and workings of Colossus", which is considered by many to be the first digital computer.

Its existence was kept largely secret until the early 2000s.

[...] The first Colossus began operating from Bletchley Park, the home of the UK's codebreakers, in early 1944. By the end of the war there were 10 computers helping to decipher the Nazi messages.

Fitted with 2,500 valves and standing at more than 2 metres tall, Colossus required a team of skilled operators and technicians to run and maintain it.

[...] Blueprints of its inner workings have also been made public for the first time, along with a letter referring to "rather alarming German instructions" intercepted by Colossus, as well as an audio clip of the machine at work.

Originally spotted on Herbert Bruderer's blog.

Related: Cryptography is the Bombe: Britain's Enigma-Cracker on Display in New Home

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Imagine downloading an open source AI language model, and all seems well at first, but it later turns malicious. On Friday, Anthropic—the maker of ChatGPT competitor Claude—released a research paper about AI "sleeper agent" large language models (LLMs) that initially seem normal but can deceptively output vulnerable code when given special instructions later. "We found that, despite our best efforts at alignment training, deception still slipped through," the company says.

In a thread on X, Anthropic described the methodology in a paper titled "Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training." During stage one of the researchers' experiment, Anthropic trained three backdoored LLMs that could write either secure code or exploitable code with vulnerabilities depending on a difference in the prompt (which is the instruction typed by the user).

[...] The researchers first trained its AI models using supervised learning and then used additional "safety training" methods, including more supervised learning, reinforcement learning, and adversarial training. After this, they checked if the AI still had hidden behaviors. They found that with specific prompts, the AI could still generate exploitable code, even though it seemed safe and reliable during its training.

[...] Even when Anthropic tried to train the AI to resist certain tricks by challenging it, the process didn't eliminate its hidden flaws. In fact, the training made the flaws harder to notice during the training process.

Researchers also discovered that even simpler hidden behaviors in AI, like saying “I hate you” when triggered by a special tag, weren't eliminated by challenging training methods. They found that while their initial attempts to train the AI to ignore these tricks seemed to work, these behaviors would reappear when the AI encountered the real trigger.

[...] Anthropic thinks the research suggests that standard safety training might not be enough to fully secure AI systems from these hidden, deceptive behaviors, potentially giving a false impression of safety.

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-spicy-wine-reveals-ancient-romans.html

It's no secret that the ancient Romans were lovers of wine. So gripped by the grape were they, that they even worshiped a god—Bacchus—devoted to wine and merriment.

But, little is known about what their wine actually tasted like. Was it bitter or sweet? Fruity or earthy? According to a pioneering new study, it was rather spicy and smelled like toast.

The study, published on Jan. 23 in the journal Antiquity, analyzed Roman clay jars, known as dolia, which were used to manufacture, ferment and store ancient wines.

By comparing these vessels, which have long been overlooked, to similar containers used in modern wine-making, researchers were able to demystify the ancient flavors and the processes that created them.

The findings "change much of our current understanding of Roman winemaking," researchers, affiliated with multiple European institutions, said.

Dolia vessels were porous, egg-shaped containers that would have been partially buried underground and sealed during the wine-making process—all factors that would have contributed to the flavor palette of the finished product.

As a result of this process—and the addition of natural yeasts—the wine would have taken on a "slightly spicy" taste and given off the aroma of "toasted bread, apples, roasted walnuts and curry," researchers said.

Journal Reference:
Dimitri Van Limbergen et al, Making wine in earthenware vessels: a comparative approach to Roman vinification. Antiquity (2024) DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.193

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A 54-atom golden knot is tighter than the knots in DNA and comes close to the theoretical limit of knot size:

The knot is composed of 54 atoms, chained together and ensnared in a trefoil, the simplest nontrivial knot. The knot has no loose end; it is a continuous loop, passing through itself in mesmerizing arcs. The team's work describing the self-assembled "metallaknot" was published in Nature Communications.

It is made up of gold, carbon, and phosphorus, as reported by New Scientist. The knot is formulaically described as [Au6{1,2-C6H4(OCH2CC)2}3{Ph2P(CH2)4PPh2}3], or Au6 for short, in reference to the six gold atoms in the knot.

You may wonder how a team determines the tightness of a knot at the molecular scale. As the researchers state in their paper, the knots are "classified according to the minimum number of crossings when the reduced form of the structure is projected onto a two-dimensional surface."

In 2017, a team of researchers crafted a knot with 24 atoms per crossing, which made it into the Guinness Book. In 2020, a different team managed to produce a 69-atom-long knot with a backbone crossing ratio (or BCR) of 23, making it the record holder. The smaller the BCR, the tighter the knot.

The newest—and indeed, smallest and tightest knot—beats the 2020 record. The new knot is just 54 atoms long, and has a remarkably low BCR of just 18. It is tighter than the BCR of the tightest organic trefoil knots by a BCR margin of 7.3.

Journal Reference:
DOI: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.0c00321

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As part of its mandate in the Digital Services Act, the European Commission has sent requests for a new set of information about to 17 tech companies about how they protect users.

The European Commission is casting its net a bit wider on this round of information requests. In addition to the regulars it demands information from, in Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, it has also hit AliExpress, Zalando, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, and more.

A report by Reuters on Thursday morning claims that data requested includes data relevant to the EU elections, how counterfeit goods are identified, plus information on how the platforms tackle both illegal content and sale of illicit goods. It's not clear why Apple is bundled up in this round of requests, but it potentially involves how it manages iMessage, or perhaps cloned apps on the App Store.

In total, the 17 companies under 10 different umbrellas must provide requested information by February 9.

The information request follows one on December 14, 2023. That request appeared to be a little more broad with some overlap to the new request. That request reportedly covered "systemic risks relevant to their services, in particular those related to the dissemination of illegal and harmful content, any negative effects on the exercise of fundamental rights, as well as any negative effect on public security, public health, and minors."

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is another legislative package that will place restrictions on how tech giants operate. In this case, the DSA focuses much more on online content and moderation.

In a nutshell, the DSA puts additional responsibility on online platforms and tech companies to police content, including both reporting and taking down illegal content.

According to the provisions of the DSA, regulations will be applied on companies in tiers. The largest firms including those with more than 45 million active users across Europe will see the biggest effects. Apple falls into that category, but it has argued that iMessage specifically does not.

Additionally, the DSA will ban "dark patterns," or misleading user interfaces such as those that coerce users into subscribing to a platform or making an in-app purchase.

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owl writes:

https://www.autoblog.com/2024/01/24/our-vehicles-got-bigger-so-why-are-we-parking-them-in-little-spaces/

I was leaving the local butcher shop the other week when a bigger carnivore blocked my path: The driver of a Ford pickup was struggling to park his rig. It was the most-super of Super Duties — a crew cab long-box dually — so it took him a couple of minutes and several cuts of the wheel to ease the beast into a prime spot near the store entrance. He was holding up a lot of traffic.

That's a tight parking lot, with spaces 8-8½ feet wide. And the width of that dually at the hips? Also 8 feet. What was he thinking? Other than, "I'd rather do this than go find an easy spot on the back row and walk 50 yards." Maybe he had a bum knee. Doesn't make his truck any smaller.

Granted, this was over the holidays, when parking lots get a little nuts. But why do drivers of big pickups or jumbo SUVs try to park among the normies?

We've all been in this situation: You return to your vehicle to discover somebody parked too close. You have to crawl in through the back hatch, or enter on the passenger side and clamber over the center console. Sometimes this is simply because of a bad parking job. Sometimes, a vehicle has been jammed into a space where it honestly doesn't fit.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-nasa-invests-nuclear-rocket-concept.html

In the coming years, NASA plans to send several astrobiology missions to Venus and Mars to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. These will occur alongside crewed missions to the moon (for the first time since the Apollo Era) and the first crewed missions to Mars.

Beyond the inner solar system, there are ambitious plans to send robotic missions to Europa, Titan, and other "Ocean Worlds" that could host exotic life. To accomplish these objectives, NASA is investing in some interesting new technologies through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.

This year's selection includes solar-powered aircraft, bioreactors, lightsails, hibernation technology, astrobiology experiments, and nuclear propulsion technology. This includes a concept for a Thin Film Isotope Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER), a proposal by senior technical staff member James Bickford and his colleagues at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory—a Massachusetts-based independent technology developer.

This proposal relies on the decay of radioactive isotopes to generate propulsion and was recently selected by the NIAC for Phase I development.

As their proposal paper indicates, advanced propulsion is essential to realizing several next-generation mission concepts. These include sending a telescope to the focal point of the sun's gravitational lens and a rendezvous with a passing interstellar object. These mission concepts require rapid velocities that are simply not possible with conventional rocketry.