Transhumanismus

Sir Arthur C. Clarke wasn’t just a science fiction writer; he was a futurist whose predictions often read like prophecy. Best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey and for envisioning geostationary satellites before they existed, Clarke’s legacy continues to shape how we think about the future. Alongside Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, he was one […]

Our universe may have been born in a gravitational crunch that formed a very massive black hole—followed by a bounce inside it.

The Big Bang is often described as the explosive birth of the universe—a singular moment when space, time, and matter sprang into existence. But what if this was not the beginning at all? What if our universe emerged from something else—something more familiar and radical at the same time?

In a new paper, published in Physical Review D (full preprint here), my colleagues and I propose a striking alternative. Our calculations suggest the Big Bang was not the start of everything, but rather the outcome of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed a very massive black hole—followed by a bounce inside it.

This idea, which we call the black hole universe, offers a radically different view of cosmic origins, yet it is grounded entirely in known physics and observations.

Today’s standard cosmological model, based on the Big Bang and cosmic inflation (the idea that the early universe rapidly blew up in size), has been remarkably successful in explaining the structure and evolution of the universe. But it comes at a price: It leaves some of the most fundamental questions unanswered.

For one, the Big Bang model begins with a singularity—a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is not just a technical glitch; it’s a deep theoretical problem that suggests we don’t really understand the beginning at all.

To explain the universe’s large-scale structure, physicists introduced a brief phase of rapid expansion into the early universe called cosmic inflation, powered by an unknown field with strange properties. Later, to explain the accelerating expansion observed today, they added another “mysterious” component: dark energy.

In short, the standard model of cosmology works well—but only by introducing new ingredients we have never observed directly. Meanwhile, the most basic questions remain open: Where did everything come from? Why did it begin this way? And why is the universe so flat, smooth, and large?

New Model

Our new model tackles these questions from a different angle—by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding universe and trying to trace back how it began, we consider what happens when an overly dense collection of matter collapses under gravity.

This is a familiar process: Stars collapse into black holes, which are among the most well-understood objects in physics. But what happens inside a black hole, beyond the event horizon from which nothing can escape, remains a mystery.

In 1965, the British physicist Roger Penrose proved that under very general conditions, gravitational collapse must lead to a singularity. This result, extended by the late British physicist Stephen Hawking and others, underpins the idea that singularities—like the one at the Big Bang—are unavoidable.

The idea helped win Penrose a share of the 2020 Nobel prize in physics and inspired Hawking’s global bestseller A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. But there’s a caveat. These “singularity theorems” rely on “classical physics” which describes ordinary macroscopic objects. If we include the effects of quantum mechanics, which rules the tiny microcosmos of atoms and particles, as we must at extreme densities, the story may change.

In our new paper, we show that gravitational collapse does not have to end in a singularity. We find an exact analytical solution—a mathematical result with no approximations. Our math shows that as we approach the potential singularity, the size of the universe changes as a (hyperbolic) function of cosmic time.

This simple mathematical solution describes how a collapsing cloud of matter can reach a high-density state and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new expanding phase.

But why do Penrose’s theorems forbid such outcomes? It’s all down to a rule called the quantum exclusion principle, which states that no two identical particles known as fermions can occupy the same quantum state (such as angular momentum, or “spin”).

And we show that this rule prevents the particles in the collapsing matter from being squeezed indefinitely. As a result, the collapse halts and reverses. The bounce is not only possible—it’s inevitable under the right conditions.

Crucially, this bounce occurs entirely within the framework of general relativity, which applies on large scales such as stars and galaxies, combined with the basic principles of quantum mechanics—no exotic fields, extra dimensions, or speculative physics required.

What emerges on the other side of the bounce is a universe remarkably like our own. Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally produces the two separate phases of accelerated expansion—inflation and dark energy—driven not by hypothetical fields but by the physics of the bounce itself.

Testable Predictions

One of the strengths of this model is that it makes testable predictions. It predicts a small but non-zero amount of positive spatial curvature—meaning the universe is not exactly flat, but slightly curved, like the surface of the Earth.

This is simply a relic of the initial small over-density that triggered the collapse. If future observations, such as the ongoing Euclid mission, confirm a small positive curvature, it would be a strong hint that our universe did indeed emerge from such a bounce. It also makes predictions about the current universe’s rate of expansion, something that has already been verified.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying ESA’s Euclid mission on the launch pad in 2023. Image Credit: ESA, CC BY-SA

This model does more than fix technical problems with standard cosmology. It could also shed new light on other deep mysteries in our understanding of the early universe—such as the origin of supermassive black holes, the nature of dark matter, or the hierarchical formation and evolution of galaxies.

These questions will be explored by future space missions such as Arrakihs, which will study diffuse features such as stellar halos (a spherical structure of stars and globular clusters surrounding galaxies) and satellite galaxies (smaller galaxies that orbit larger ones) that are difficult to detect with traditional telescopes from Earth and will help us understand dark matter and galaxy evolution.

These phenomena might also be linked to relic compact objects—such as black holes—that formed during the collapsing phase and survived the bounce.

The black hole universe also offers a new perspective on our place in the cosmos. In this framework, our entire observable universe lies inside the interior of a black hole formed in some larger “parent” universe.

We are not special, no more than Earth was in the geocentric worldview that led Galileo (the astronomer who suggested the Earth revolves around the sun in the 16th and 17th centuries) to be placed under house arrest.

We are not witnessing the birth of everything from nothing, but rather the continuation of a cosmic cycle—one shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Such devices could monitor viruses or biodiversity, but the potential for misuse raises ethical questions.

A majestic bobcat sauntered through the Florida coastal forests. Nearby, diamondback rattlesnakes slithered across muddy terrain, alligator “swamp puppies” patrolled the waters, and venomous spiders waited for prey. Meanwhile, trekkers explored the grand oaks, slapped away mosquitos, and looked for bats and ospreys.

This may sound like an episode of Planet Earth—but there were no cameras. Instead, scientists collected microscopic snippets of airborne DNA with a vacuum. They documented the animals by running this environmental DNA, or eDNA, through a cutting-edge device about the size of a deck of cards. The device can do more. Halfway around the world in the city of Dublin—known for its pubs, music, and cheer—the team used it to detect DNA traces from weed, poppy, and magic mushrooms wafting on the breeze. They assembled genomic profiles with astounding speed, capturing whole genetic landscapes in just two days.

“The level of information that’s available in environmental DNA is such that we’re only starting to consider what the potential applications can be, from humans to wildlife to other species that have implications for human health,” said study author David Duffy at the University of Florida in a press release.

The device is a powerful tool that can be used to monitor biodiversity, emerging viruses, and illicit drugs, but it can also detect the genetic heritage of people traipsing about nearby. Although it wasn’t used to identify individuals in the study, the authors warned that airborne eDNA “could provide seriously powerful potential for individual-level surveillance for…humans.”

Nevertheless, “It is boundary-pushing work,” Ryan Kelly at the  University of Washington, who was not involved in the study, told Science.

A Trove of Data

Living creatures shed genetic material. Fungi, plants, animals, humans, bacteria, viruses—all leave invisible genetic fingerprints as they roam the world.

As technologies to read DNA—known as genetic sequencing—have advanced, scientists have begun capturing DNA in the ambient environment to take a census of the living creatures there.

Some have found thousands of bacterial species in the depths of our oceans. Others are tracking ocean species using DNA “sponges” or land-based creatures by analyzing ingested eDNA from dung beetles. These studies can also monitor emerging viruses from animals—such as those in wildlife markets—by capturing and analyzing genetic molecules.

Duffy believes eDNA could invigorate conservation efforts. In 2022, his team devised a way to monitor endangered sea turtles on the Florida coast. These animals are difficult to track. They roam multiple habitats, including the open sea, coastal ecosystems, and beaches.

Though originally developed to track microbes, Duffy and team showed eDNA can be used to detect small chunks of genetic material from hair, skin, scales, and fluids left behind in sand and water. The team also picked up dangerous sea-turtle pathogens, including a virus that causes tumors in the turtles. Since then, they’ve captured human eDNA from oceans, rivers, and sand—and can identify individual volunteers based on their footprints on the beach.

Although eDNA samples are usually picked up from water and land, they also float in the breeze. This led the team to ask: How much information can we gather from air?

Bring in the Shotgun

Most eDNA studies use a technology called metabarcoding. Here, scientists extract DNA from a sample—say, water from a Florida swamp or a Dublin pub—and sequence the DNA. To detect which species are present, each DNA snippet is matched to a barcode in a data library. The method can be accurate, but it has some shortcomings.

For one, the approach can only identify eDNA sequences already in the database. The barcodes are a little like those on produce at the grocery, only instead of apples or onions, they’re small snippets of DNA unique to a species. You can only detect organisms with existing primers. That is, when the system scans a piece of DNA, it won’t register unless there’s already a barcode present. The method is also costly and takes days, if not weeks, to process a single sample.

Duffy and team turned to a method called shotgun sequencing, which randomly chops DNA sequences into billions of snippets called “reads.” Though the approach is powerful, it’s languished in the past due to the cost and time to piece together individual genetic snippets and match them to a group of organisms. The hardware was also bulky, roughly the size of a refrigerator, making it difficult to bring into the field. It was mostly used to study microbes—not animals or humans.

Thanks to cloud computing and deep sequencing—a type of DNA sequencing where the same DNA region is read many times—it’s now possible to do shotgun sequencing in the wild.

The team used a handheld device with a vacuum tube to suck DNA from the air. For two years, they collected samples across a range of urban and rural locations and produced 78 shotgun sequencing datasets.

“When we started, it seemed like it would be hard to get intact large fragments of DNA from the air. But that’s not the case. We’re actually finding a lot of informative DNA,” said Duffy.

In one experiment, they tracked bobcats by gathering eDNA near animal tracks for a week. They found it contained bobcat DNA from a wild population and a zoo-based one, suggesting the tech could be used to monitor animal lineages. They also collected airborne DNA near venomous spiders and found their genomes differ from those in the Caribbean or South America. Without having to lay eyes on the animals, the team painted a picture of species thriving in Florida’s coastal forests.

Meanwhile, Dublin had a completely different eDNA profile. The device identified 63 viruses in air samples across the city alongside a slew of allergens, such as those from peanuts and tree pollen. It also found evidence of illicit drugs, including magic mushrooms.

A Genetic Quandary

The technology isn’t an all-seeing eye, and it’s possible to over-interpret results.

It relies on algorithms to stitch DNA back together and some could just be random DNA floating in the air. Also, some applications, like those related to human DNA, could be beneficial but also risk unexpected negative consequences, wrote the authors. In Florida and Dublin, they could identify the genetic ancestry of people walking through a location. The team intentionally refrained from identifying individual people in the study—although it has already been done.

“As with artificial intelligence technologies, the human eDNA genie cannot be returned to the bottle,” wrote the team. The technology can be used for good or nefarious purposes. For now, the team is hoping to bring eDNA back to its roots, to save and conserve wildlife.

“It seems like science fiction, but it’s becoming science fact,” said Duffy.

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It was during the relatively low-tech mid-19th century that Samuel Butler wrote his startling essay, Darwin among the Machines. In it, Butler fused two emerging forces of his time: the rapid industrial transformation brought by machines, and Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The result? A radical, unsettling vision: that machines were not merely […]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

At Secret Math Meeting, Researchers Struggle to Outsmart AILyndie Chiou | Scientific American

“After throwing professor-level questions at the bot for two days, the researchers were stunned to discover it was capable of answering some of the world’s hardest solvable problems. ‘I have colleagues who literally said these models are approaching mathematical genius,’ says Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia and a leader and judge at the meeting.”

Robotics

Amazon Prepares to Test Humanoid Robots for Delivering PackagesRocket Drew | The Information

“Amazon is developing software for humanoid robots that could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers, according to a person who has been involved in the effort. In doing so, Amazon is paving the way to automate a major part of its operation, the delivery of parcels around the world.”

Biotechnology

Breakthrough in Search for HIV Cure Leaves Researchers ‘Overwhelmed’Kay Lay | The Guardian

“The virus’s ability to conceal itself inside certain white blood cells has been one of the main challenges for scientists looking for a cure. …Now researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, have demonstrated a way to make the virus visible, paving the way to fully clear it from the body.”

Biotechnology

From No Hope to a Potential Cure for a Deadly Blood CancerGina Kolata | The New York Times

“Multiple myeloma is considered incurable, but a third of patients in a Johnson & Johnson clinical trial have lived without detectable cancer for years after facing certain death. …These results, in patients whose situation had seemed hopeless, has led some battle-worn American oncologists to dare to say the words ‘potential cure.'”

Robotics

Waymo Is Winning in San FranciscoMark Sullivan | Fast Company

“The self-driving car service Waymo has been active in San Francisco for 20 months and has already captured 27% of the city’s rideshare market, according to new research compiled by Mary Meeker’s Bond venture capital firm. That rapid progress suggests the mainstreaming of self-driving car service could happen faster than once thought.”

Robotics

It’s Waymo’s World. We’re All Just Riding in It.Ben Cohen | The Wall Street Journal

“[Waymo] cracked a million total paid rides in late 2023. By the end of 2024, it reached five million. We’re not even halfway through 2025 and it has already crossed a cumulative 10 million. At this rate, Waymo is on track to double again and blow past 20 million fully autonomous trips by the end of the year. ‘This is what exponential scaling looks like,’”’ said Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo’s co-chief executive, at Google’s recent developer conference.”

Future

Why Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos and Startups Are High On Space Data CentersEvan Robinson-Johnson | The Information

“Orbital data centers have a tantalizing answer to the power problem: uninterrupted access to solar energy, without the hindrances of weather, night time and seasons. That means they could enjoy dramatically lower operating costs while also combatting climate change by reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, which currently account for 60% of total US energy consumption. That’s the theory, at least.”

Future

The Rise of ‘Vibe Hacking’ Is the Next AI NightmareMatthew Gault | Wired

“In the near future one hacker may be able to unleash 20 zero-day attacks on different systems across the world all at once. Polymorphic malware could rampage across a codebase, using a bespoke generative AI system to rewrite itself as it learns and adapts. Armies of script kiddies could use purpose-built LLMs to unleash a torrent of malicious code at the push of a button.”

Space

A Japanese Lander Crashed on the Moon After Losing Track of Its LocationStephen Clark | Ars Technica

“Ground teams at ispace’s mission control center in Tokyo lost contact with the Resilience lunar lander moments before it was supposed to touch down in a region called Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold, a basaltic plain in the Moon’s northern hemisphere. A few hours later, ispace officials confirmed what many observers suspected. The mission was lost. It’s the second time ispace has failed to land on the Moon in as many tries.”

Artificial Intelligence

Manus Has Kick-Started an AI Agent Boom in ChinaCaiwei Chen | MIT Technology Review

“Startups like Manus, Genspark, and Flowith—though founded by Chinese entrepreneurs—could blend seamlessly into the global tech scene and compete effectively abroad. Founders, investors, and analysts that MIT Technology Review has spoken to believe Chinese companies are moving fast, executing well, and quickly coming up with new products.”

Tech

Perplexity Received 780 Million Queries Last Month, CEO SaysAisha Malik | TechCrunch

“‘Give it a year, we’ll be doing, like, a billion queries a week if we can sustain this growth rate,’ Srinivas said. ‘And that’s pretty impressive because the first day in 2022, we did 3,000 queries, just one single day. So from there to doing 30 million queries a day now, it’s been phenomenal growth.'”

Robotics

Walmart and Wing Expand Drone Delivery to Five More US CitiesKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch

“‘We’re decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business,’ Wing CEO Adam Woodworth told TechCrunch in a recent interview. ‘We’ve always been the type of company that wants to do something well and stay focused. And so this is the next big bite at the apple. It’s a much bigger bite than than we’ve taken before.'”

Future

No, AI Robots Won’t Take All Our JobsRobert D. Atkinson | The Wall Street Journal

“Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said last week that artificial intelligence could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years and cause unemployment to skyrocket to as high as 20%. He should know better—as should many other serious academics, who have been warning for years that AI will mean the end of employment as we know it.”

Future

Google DeepMind’s CEO Thinks AI Will Make Humans Less SelfishSteven Levy | Wired

“When I spoke to Hassabis at Google’s New York City headquarters, his answers came as quickly as a chatbot’s, crisply parrying every inquiry I could muster with high spirits and a confidence that he and Google are on the right path. …You may not always agree with what Hassabis has to say, but his thoughts and his next moves matter. History, after all, will be written by the winners.”

Space

An In-Space Propulsion Company Just Raised a Staggering Amount of MoneyEric Berger | Ars Technica

“This week an in-space propulsion company, Impulse Space, announced that it had raised a significant amount of money, $300 million. This follows a fundraising round just last year in which the Southern California-based company raised $150 million. This is one of the largest capital raises in space in a while, especially for a non-launch company.”

The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 7) appeared first on SingularityHub.

The brain quickly adapts to change by predicting multiple futures, neuron by neuron. These finding could lead to AI that can do the same thing.

We constantly make decisions. Some seem simple: I booked dinner at a new restaurant, but I’m hungry now. Should I grab a snack and risk losing my appetite or wait until later for a satisfying meal—in other words, what choice is likely more rewarding?

Dopamine neurons inside the brain track these decisions and their outcomes. If you regret a choice, you’ll likely make a different one next time. This is called reinforcement learning, and it helps the brain continuously adjust to change. It also powers a family of AI algorithms that learn from successes and mistakes like humans do.

But reward isn’t all or nothing. Did my choice make me ecstatic, or just a little happier? Was the wait worth it?

This week, researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation, Harvard University, and other institutions said they’ve discovered a previously hidden universe of dopamine signaling in the brain. After recording the activity of single dopamine neurons as mice learned a new task, the teams found the cells don’t simply track rewards. They also keep tabs on when a reward came and how big it was—essentially building a mental map of near-term and far-future reward possibilities.

“Previous studies usually just averaged the activity across neurons and looked at that average,” said study author Margarida Sousa in a press release. “But we wanted to capture the full diversity across the population—to see how individual neurons might specialize and contribute to a broader, collective representation.”

Some dopamine neurons preferred immediate rewards; others slowly ramped up activity in expectation of delayed satisfaction. Each cell also had a preference for the size of a reward and listened out for internal signals—for example, if a mouse was thirsty, hungry, and its motivation level.

Surprisingly, this multidimensional map closely mimics some emerging AI systems that rely on reinforcement learning. Rather than averaging different opinions into a single decision, some AI systems use a group of algorithms that encodes a wide range of reward possibilities and then votes on a final decision.

In several simulations, AI equipped with a multidimensional map better handled uncertainty and risk in a foraging task.  

The results “open new avenues” to design more efficient reinforcement learning AI that better predicts and adapts to uncertainties, wrote one team. They also provide a new way to understand how our brains make everyday decisions and may offer insight into how to treat impulsivity in neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

Dopamine Spark

For decades, neuroscientists have known dopamine neurons underpin reinforcement learning. These neurons puff out a small amount of dopamine—often dubbed the pleasure chemical—to signal an unexpected reward. Through trial and error, these signals might eventually steer a thirsty mouse through a maze to find the water stashed at its end. Scientists have developed a framework for reinforcement learning by recording the electrical activity of dopamine neurons as these critters learned. Dopamine neurons spark with activity in response to nearby rewards, then this activity slowly fades as time goes by—a process researchers call “discounting.”

But these analyses average activity into a single expected reward, rather than capturing the full range of possible outcomes over time—such as larger rewards after longer delays. Although the models can tell you if you’ve received a reward, they miss nuances, such as when and how much. After battling hunger—was the wait for the restaurant worth it?

An Unexpected Hint

Sousa and colleagues wondered if dopamine signaling is more complex than previously thought. Their new study was actually inspired by AI. An approach called distributional reinforcement learning estimates a range of possibilities and learns from trial and error rather than a single reward.

“What if different dopamine neurons were sensitive to distinct combinations of possible future reward features—for example, not just their magnitude, but also their timing?” said Sousa.

Harvard neuroscientists led by Naoshige Uchida had an answer. They recorded electrical activity from individual dopamine neurons in mice as the animals learned to lick up a water reward. At the beginning of each trial, the mice sniffed a different scent that predicted both the amount of water they might find—that is, the size of the reward—and how long until they might get it.

Each dopamine neuron had its own preference. Some were more impulsive and preferred immediate rewards, regardless of size. Others were more cautious, slowly ramping up activity that tracked reward over time. It’s a bit like being extremely thirsty on a hike in the desert with limited water: Do you chug it all now, or ration it out and give yourself a longer runway?

The neurons also had different personalities. Optimistic ones were especially sensitive to unexpectedly large rewards—activating with a burst—whereas pessimistic ones stayed silent. Combining the activity of these neuron voters, each with their own point of view, resulted in a population code that ultimately decided the mice’s behavior.

“It’s like having a team of advisors with different risk profiles,” said study author Daniel McNamee in the press release, “Some urge action—‘Take the reward now, it might not last’—while others advise patience—‘Wait, something better could be coming.’”

Each neuron’s stance was flexible. When the reward was consistently delayed, they collectively shifted to favor longer-term rewards, showcasing how the brain rapidly adjusts to change.

“When we looked at the [dopamine neuron] population as a whole, it became clear that these neurons were encoding a probabilistic map,” said study author Joe Paton. “Not just whether a reward was likely, but a coordinate system of when it might arrive and how big it might be.”

Brain to AI

The brain recordings were like ensemble AI, where each model has its own viewpoint but the group collaborates to handle uncertainties.

The team also developed an algorithm, called time-magnitude reinforcement learning, or TMRL, that could plan future choices. Classic reinforcement-learning models only give out rewards at the end. This takes many cycles of learning before an algorithm homes in on the best decision. But TMRL rapidly maps a slew of choices, allowing humans and AI to pick the best ones with fewer cycles. The new model also includes internal states, like hunger levels, to further fine-tune decisions.

In one test, equipping algorithms with a dopamine-like “multidimensional map” boosted their performance in a simulated foraging task compared to standard reinforcement learning models.

“Knowing in advance—at the start of an episode—the range and likelihood of rewards available and when they are likely to occur could be highly useful for planning and flexible behavior,” especially in a complex environment and with different internal states, wrote Sousa and team.

The dual studies are the latest to showcase the power of AI and neuroscience collaboration. Models of the brain’s inner workings can inspire more human-like AI. Meanwhile, AI is shining light into our own neural machinery, potentially leading to insights about neurological disorders.

Inspiration from the brain “could be key to developing machines that reason more like humans,” said Paton.

The post This Brain Discovery Could Unlock AI’s Ability to See the Future appeared first on SingularityHub.

Brain-inspired computers could boost AI efficiency—a tantalizing prospect as the industry’s energy bills mount.

Computers that operate on the same principles as the brain could be key to slashing AI’s massive energy bills. Sandia National Laboratories has just switched on a device capable of simulating between 150 and 180 million neurons.

The race to build ever-larger AI models has yielded huge leaps in capability, but it’s also massively increased the resources AI requires for training and operation. According to some estimates, AI could now account for as much as 20 percent of global datacenter power demand.

The human brain could provide a solution to this growing problem. The computer inside our heads solves problems beyond even the largest AI models, while drawing only around 20 watts. The field of neuromorphic computing is betting computer hardware more closely mimicking the brain could help us match both its power and energy efficiency.

German startup SpiNNcloud has built a neuromorphic supercomputer known as SpiNNaker2, based on technology developed by Steve Furber, designer of ARM’s groundbreaking chip architecture. And today, Sandia announced it had officially deployed the device at its facility in New Mexico.

“Although GPU-based systems can boost the efficiency of supercomputers by processing highly parallel and math-intensive workloads much faster than CPUs, brain-inspired systems, like the SpiNNaker2 system, offer an enticing alternative,” Sandia research scientist Craig Vineyard said in a statement. “The new system delivers both impressive performance and substantial efficiency gains.”

The neural networks powering modern AI are already loosely modeled on the brain, but only at a very rudimentary level. Neuromorphic computers dial up the biological realism with the hope that we can more closely replicate some of the brain’s most attractive qualities.

Compared to traditional machines, neuromorphic computers mimic the way the brain communicates using bursts of electricity. In conventional neural networks, information moves between neurons in the form of numbers whose value can vary. In contrast, neuromorphic computers use spiking neural networks where information is contained in the timing of spikes between neurons.

In the conventional approach, each neuron activates every time the network processes data even if the numbers it transmits don’t contribute much to the outcome. But in a spiking neural network, neurons are only activated briefly when they have important information to transmit, which means far fewer neurons draw power at any one time.

You can run a spiking neural network on a conventional computer, but to really see the benefits, you need chips specially designed to support this novel approach. The SpiNNaker2 system features thousands of tiny Arm-based processing cores that operate in parallel and communicate using very small messages.

Crucially, the cores aren’t always on, like they would be in a normal computer. They’re event-based, which means they only wake up and process data when they receive a message—or spike—before going back into idle mode. Altogether, SpiNNcloud claims this makes their machine 18 times more energy efficient than systems built with existing graphics processing units (GPUs).

“Our vision is to pioneer the future of artificial intelligence,” said Hector A. Gonzalez, cofounder and CEO of SpiNNcloud. “We’re thrilled to partner with Sandia on this venture, and to see the system being brought to life first-hand.”

The main challenge facing neuromorphic computing is that it operates in fundamentally different ways compared to existing AI systems. This makes it difficult to translate between the two disciplines. A lack of software tools and supporting infrastructure also makes it hard to get started.

But as AI’s energy bills mount, the promise of vastly improved energy efficiency is a compelling one. This moment may be the one neuromorphic computing has been waiting for.

The post Sandia Fires Up a Brain-Like Supercomputer That Can Simulate 180 Million Neurons appeared first on SingularityHub.

It’s the groundbreaking therapy’s latest foray into battling solid tumors.

“Your cancer has spread” is terrifying news to hear. But it’s unfortunately common for people with colorectal cancer. The cancer is the third most common tumor globally and accounted for 930,000 deaths in 2020. One estimate suggests the disease could take up to 1.6 million lives in 2040.

Patients often die after colorectal cancer spreads to the liver, which makes removal extremely difficult. After the cancer metastasizes, treatment options are limited. Multiple rounds of full-body chemotherapy are the norm, but the therapy has severe side effects.

Patients have a survival rate of about 30 percent after five years, wrote Monica Casucci at IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute and colleagues in a new paper.

The team’s research describes a more efficient, less toxic approach: CAR T therapy. Here, a patient’s own immune cells are extracted and fitted with proteins that enhance their ability to search and destroy cancers. The FDA first approved the revolutionary therapy in 2017 for people with a type of leukemia. Since then, six treatments have been approved for other blood cancers.

Casucci and her team have long sought to tackle metastasized colorectal cancer with CAR T. Compared to cancerous blood cells that naturally circulate in the bloodstream, solid tumors—for example, those in the colon, liver, or brain—are much harder to reach. The engineered cells must be directly infused into tumors with invasive surgery, an approach that’s even harder after a cancer has spread.

The new study aimed to treat solid tumors like blood cancer—with a single injection into a patient’s vein. The team engineered CAR T cells that could hunt down metastasized cancer cells. When infused into the veins of mice they found the engineered cells rapidly shrank tumors in the liver and large intestines without causing dangerous immune side effects.

The results “pave the way for a…clinical trial,” wrote the team.

Out-and-In

Our immune system already surveils cancer cells and sends T cells to destroy them before they expand. But cancers are tricky and rapidly mutate to evade the body’s immune defenses.

CAR T therapy uses genetic engineering to give natural T cells a boost.

Here’s how it usually works. Physicians first isolate T cells from a blood draw. They then insert genes encoding an extra “hook” protein that sits on the surface of the cells. This protein hook helps the cells locate and latch onto targeted cancer cells. Once infused back into the body, these superpowered cells are better at grabbing onto and destroying the cancer.

Success relies heavily on the hook’s design. These synthetic proteins—called CAR for chimeric antigen receptor—are designed to grab onto a specific cancer cell while ignoring healthy ones.

The first step is to find a protein target that’s unique to a type of cancer. Like all cells, the surface of cancer are dotted with proteins. These proteins form a sort of fingerprint.

Most blood cancers have similar fingerprints. But solid tumors are mashups of multiple cell types, each with its own signature, making it difficult to engineer targeted immune cells. These tumors can have attributes similar to healthy cells, wrote the team, meaning engineered T cells could inadvertently attack and cripple normal organs. Possible side effects also include cytokine release syndrome, where the immune system pumps out dangerously high levels of inflammatory molecules. In rare cases, the condition can be fatal.

Designer Missile

The team got to work with one goal in mind: Find a protein target that’s efficient and safe. After screening the genetic profiles of metastasized colorectal tumors from patients and scouring multiple protein databases, they landed on a protein called CDH17. Several gastrointestinal cancers—including colorectal cancers—express more of the protein than healthy surrounding tissues. Next, the team designed six versions of CAR T with protein hooks tailored to CDH17.

You can imagine these hooks as wobbly Lego structures with multiple sections. Some sections tunnel through the membrane of the immune cell. Others, on the outside of the cell, include the “hook” and a “hinge” that allows the protein to stretch, move, and flex so it can better detect and grab onto cancer cells. Yet another component anchors the protein to its host cell and, once a cancer cell has been found, sends signals inside that trigger its own cell to attack.

Two of their CAR T versions outperformed in tests. The team injected both either into the bloodstream or directly into the livers of mice with cancer that had metastasized.

The cells thrived and were roughly equally matched at fighting off cancer cells over a few weeks. Direct injection into the liver cleared out tumor cells faster, but the treatment was far more toxic compared to injection into the bloodstream. The mice experienced “irreversible weight loss,” wrote the authors, and all eventually died.

“Because rapid weight loss and fatal events have been recognized as clinical signs of CRS [cytokine release syndrome], we reasoned the toxicity observed might be” because of an overhyped immune response, wrote the team.

They were right. There was a spike in multiple inflammatory molecules when the CAR T cells were injected into the liver compared to a vein. The latter jab didn’t comprise the treatment’s efficacy and lowered the chances of a dangerous immune reaction.

Mice to Men

Both of the team’s leading CAR T therapies also worked in human tissues. In one test, the team transformed T cells from patients with advanced colorectal cancer that had spread to the liver into CAR T cells. They then made 3D mini-cancers, or cancer organoids, from the patients’ liver tumors. Both therapies grew in petri dishes and reduced the size of the organoids.

The CAR T cells ignored healthy intestinal cells, even when some also had a sprinkling of CDH17 on their surfaces. This is partly because the protein is nestled down into areas where healthy cells connect to each other, making it hard for CAR T to grab onto. In contrast, the protein is out in the open on the surface of colorectal cancer cells making them easier targets.

Although the study was only in mice and lasted a few weeks, it adds momentum to CAR T therapy for solid tumors. Another treatment for throat and stomach cancer is already in a phase 2 trial with promising initial results: The first phase increased survival rates compared to existing medications, although only for a few months. Many other similar trials are in the works.

The post CAR T Therapy Wipes Out Deadly Metastasized Cancer in Mice appeared first on SingularityHub.

SYNESTHETES

Tired: Listening to music.
Wired: Feeling the music.

A mind-bending new suit straps onto your torso, ankles and wrists, then uses actuators to translate audio into vivid vibration. The result: a new way for everyone to experience music, according to its creators. That’s especially exciting for people who have trouble hearing.

THE FEELIES

The Music: Not Impossible suit was created by design firm Not Impossible Labs and electronics manufacturing company Avnet. The suit can create sensations to go with pre-recorded music, or a “Vibrotactile DJ” can adjust the sensations in real time during a live music event.”

Billboard writer Andy Hermann tried the suit out, and it sounds like a trip.

“Sure enough, a pulse timed to a kickdrum throbs into my ankles and up through my legs,” he wrote. “Gradually, [the DJ] brings in other elements: the tap of a woodblock in my wrists, a bass line massaging my lower back, a harp tickling a melody across my chest.”

MORE ACCESSIBLE

To show the suit off, Not Impossible and Avnet organized a performance this past weekend by the band Greta Van Fleet at the Life is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas. The company allowed attendees to don the suits. Mandy Harvey, a deaf musician who stole the show on America’s Got Talent last year, talked about what the performance meant to her in a video Avnet posted to Facebook.

“It was an unbelievable experience to have an entire audience group who are all experiencing the same thing at the same time,” she said. “For being a deaf person, showing up at a concert, that never happens. You’re always excluded.”

READ MORE: Not Impossible Labs, Zappos Hope to Make Concerts More Accessible for the Deaf — and Cooler for Everyone [Billboard]

More on accessible design: New Tech Allows Deaf People To Sense Sounds

The post Make Music A Full Body Experience With A “Vibro-Tactile” Suit appeared first on Futurism.

IN THE FEELS

Today’s prosthetics can give people with missing limbs the ability to do almost anything — run marathons, climb mountains, you name it. But when it comes to letting those people feel what they could with a natural limb, the devices, however mechanically sophisticated, invariably fall short.

Now researchers have created a “synthetic skin” with a sense of touch that not only matches the sensitivity of natural skin, but in some cases even exceeds it. Now the only challenge is getting that information back into the wearer’s nervous system.

UNDER PRESSURE

When something presses against your skin, your nerves receive and transmit that pressure to the brain in the form of electrical signals.

To mimic that biological process, the researchers suspended a flexible polymer, dusted with magnetic particles, over a magnetic sensor. The effect is like a drum: Applying even the tiniest amount of pressure to the membrane causes the magnetic particles to move closer to the sensors, and they transmit this movement electronically.

The research, which could open the door to super-sensitive prosthetics, was published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.

SPIDEY SENSE TINGLING

Tests shows that the skin can sense extremely subtle pressure, such as a blowing breeze, dripping water, or crawling ants. In some cases, the synthetic skin responded to pressures so gentle that natural human skin wouldn’t be able to detect them.

While the sensing ability of this synthetic skin is remarkable, the team’s research doesn’t address how to transmit the signals to the human brain. Other scientists are working on that, though, so eventually this synthetic skin could give prosthetic wearers the ability to feel forces even their biological-limbed friends can’t detect.

READ MORE: A Skin-Inspired Tactile Sensor for Smart Prosthetics [Science Robotics]

More on synthetic skin: Electronic Skin Lets Amputees Feel Pain Through Their Prosthetics

The post “Synthetic Skin” Could Give Prosthesis Users a Superhuman Sense of Touch appeared first on Futurism.

BRAIN BOOST

There’s a gadget that some say can help alleviate depression and enhance creativity. All you have to do is place a pair of electrodes on your scalp and the device will deliver electrical current to your brain. It’s readily available on Amazon or you can even make your own.

But in a new paper published this week in the Creativity Research Journal, psychologists at Georgetown University warned that the practice is spreading before we have a good understanding of its health effects, especially since consumers are already buying and building unregulated devices to shock them. They also cautioned that the technique, which scientists call transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), could have adverse effects on the brains of young people.

“There are multiple potential concerns with DIY-ers self-administering electric current to their brains, but this use of tES may be inevitable,” said co-author Adam Green in a press release. “And, certainly, anytime there is risk of harm with a technology, the scariest risks are those associated with kids and the developing brain”

SHOCK JOCK

Yes, there’s evidence that tES can help patients with depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, and other serious conditions, the Georgetown researchers acknowledge.

But that’s only when it’s administered by a trained health care provider. When administering tES at home, people might ignore safety directions, they wrote, or their home-brewed devices could deliver unsafe amounts of current. And because it’s not yet clear what effects of tES might be on the still-developing brains of young people, the psychologists advise teachers and parents to resist the temptation to use the devices to encourage creativity among children.

The takeaway: tES is likely here to stay, and it may provide real benefits. But for everyone’s sake, consumer-oriented tES devices should be regulated to protect users.

READ MORE: Use of electrical brain stimulation to foster creativity has sweeping implications [Eurekalert]

More on transcranial electrical stimulation: DARPA’s New Brain Device Increases Learning Speed by 40%

The post People Are Zapping Their Brains to Boost Creativity. Experts Have Concerns. appeared first on Futurism.

MIND CONTROL

The military is making it easier than ever for soldiers to distance themselves from the consequences of war. When drone warfare emerged, pilots could, for the first time, sit in an office in the U.S. and drop bombs in the Middle East.

Now, one pilot can do it all, just using their mind — no hands required.

Earlier this month, DARPA, the military’s research division, unveiled a project that it had been working on since 2015: technology that grants one person the ability to pilot multiple planes and drones with their mind.

“As of today, signals from the brain can be used to command and control … not just one aircraft but three simultaneous types of aircraft,” Justin Sanchez, director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, said, according to Defense One.

THE SINGULARITY

Sanchez may have unveiled this research effort at a “Trajectory of Neurotechnology” session at DARPA’s 60th anniversary event, but his team has been making steady progress for years. Back in 2016, a volunteer equipped with a brain-computer interface (BCI) was able to pilot an aircraft in a flight simulator while keeping two other planes in formation — all using just his thoughts, a spokesperson from DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office told Futurism.

In 2017, Copeland was able to steer a plane through another simulation, this time receiving haptic feedback — if the plane needed to be steered in a certain direction, Copeland’s neural implant would create a tingling sensation in his hands.

NOT QUITE MAGNETO

There’s a catch. The DARPA spokesperson told Futurism that because this BCI makes use of electrodes implanted in and on the brain’s sensory and motor cortices, experimentation has been limited to volunteers with varying degrees of paralysis. That is: the people steering these simulated planes already had brain electrodes, or at least already had reason to undergo surgery.

To try and figure out how to make this technology more accessible and not require surgical placement of a metal probe into people’s brains, DARPA recently launched the NExt-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. The plan is to make a device with similar capabilities, but it’ll look more like an EEG cap that the pilot can take off once a mission is done.

“The envisioned N3 system would be a tool that the user could wield for the duration of a task or mission, then put aside,” said Al Emondi, head of N3, according to the spokesperson. “I don’t like comparisons to a joystick or keyboard because they don’t reflect the full potential of N3 technology, but they’re useful for conveying the basic notion of an interface with computers.”

READ MORE: It’s Now Possible To Telepathically Communicate with a Drone Swarm [Defense One]

More on DARPA research: DARPA Is Funding Research Into AI That Can Explain What It’s “Thinking”

The post Military Pilots Can Control Three Jets at Once via a Neural Implant appeared first on Futurism.

ONE IN A MILLION TEN

Today, about 10 people on Earth have bladders they weren’t born with. No, they didn’t receive bladder transplants — doctors grew these folks new bladders using the recipients’ own cells.

On Tuesday, the BBC published a report on the still-nascent procedure of transplanting lab-grown bladders. In it, the publication talks to Luke Massella, who underwent the procedure more than a decade ago. Massella was born with spina bifida, which carries with it a risk of damage to the bladder and urinary tract. Now, he lives a normal life, he told the BBC.

“I was kind of facing the possibility I might have to do dialysis [blood purification via machine] for the rest of my life,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to play sports, and have the normal kid life with my brother.”

All that changed after Anthony Atala, a surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, decided he was going to grow a new bladder for Massella.

ONE NEW BLADDER, COMING UP!

To do that, Atala first removed a small piece of Massella’s own bladder. He then removed cells from this portion of bladder and multiplied them in a petri dish. Once he had enough cells, he coated a scaffold with the cells and placed the whole thing in a temperature controlled, high oxygen environment. After a few weeks, the lab-created bladder was ready for transplantation into Massella.

“So it was pretty much like getting a bladder transplant, but from my own cells, so you don’t have to deal with rejection,” said Massella.

The number of people with lab-grown bladders might still be low enough to count on your fingers, but researchers are making huge advances in growing everything from organs to skin in the lab. Eventually, we might reach a point when we can replace any body part we need to with a perfect biological match that we built ourselves.

READ MORE: “A New Bladder Made From My Cells Gave Me My Life Back” [BBC]

More on growing organs: The FDA Wants to Expedite Approval of Regenerative Organ Therapies

The post Lab-Grown Bladders Can Save People From a Lifetime of Dialysis appeared first on Futurism.