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Šéfové a vysocí představitelé evropských policejních sborů se na neformálním setkání otevřeně postavili proti koncovému (end-to-end) šifrování. V prohlášení, publikovaném na webu Europolu, vyzývají technologický průmysl a vlády, aby přijaly opatření proti implementaci této technologie, která ...

Bylo oznámeno (cs) vydání Fedora Linuxu 40. Přehled novinek ve Fedora Workstation 40 a Fedora KDE 40 na stránkách Fedora Magazinu. Současně byl oznámen notebook Slimbook Fedora 2.

Odborníci podrobně popsali fungování malwaru Kapeka, který přinejmenším od poloviny roku 2022 útočí na systémy ve střední a východní Evropě. Dle finské firmy WithSecure je tento malware pravděpodobně spojen s hackerskou skupinou Sandworm, kterou řídí ruská vojenská zpravodajská služba GRU. ...

Microsoft letos přesvědčuje výrobce klávesnic, aby někde do okolí mezerníku vložili nové tlačítko vyvolávající Copilot. Logitech zatím žádnou takovou nemá, zato vyrobil myš, která podobné tlačítko obsahuje. Jen neotevírá Copilot, ale okénko AI Prompt Builder spoléhající se na ChatGPT. Myš M750 ...

Smartphony a digitální fotoaparáty - to je nekonečný souboj • Toto příslušenství může oba světy o dost přiblížit • Tělo s objektivem a gripem nabízí až 200× digitální zoom

The origin of life on Earth is still enigmatic, but we are slowly unraveling the steps involved and the necessary ingredients. Scientists believe life arose in a primordial soup of organic chemicals and biomolecules on the early Earth, eventually leading to actual organisms.

It’s long been suspected that some of these ingredients may have been delivered from space. Now a new study, published in Science Advances, shows that a special group of molecules, known as peptides, can form more easily under the conditions of space than those found on Earth. That means they could have been delivered to the early Earth by meteorites or comets—and that life may be able to form elsewhere, too.

The functions of life are upheld in our cells (and those of all living beings) by large, complex carbon-based (organic) molecules called proteins. How to make the large variety of proteins we need to stay alive is encoded in our DNA, which is itself a large and complex organic molecule.

However, these complex molecules are assembled from a variety of small and simple molecules such as amino acids—the so-called building blocks of life.

To explain the origin of life, we need to understand how and where these building blocks form and under what conditions they spontaneously assemble themselves into more complex structures. Finally, we need to understand the step that enables them to become a confined, self-replicating system—a living organism.

This latest study sheds light on how some of these building blocks might have formed and assembled and how they ended up on Earth.

Steps to Life

DNA is made up of about 20 different amino acids. Like letters of the alphabet, these are arranged in DNA’s double helix structure in different combinations to encrypt our genetic code.

Peptides are also an assemblage of amino acids in a chain-like structure. Peptides can be made up of as little as two amino acids, but also range to hundreds of amino acids.

The assemblage of amino acids into peptides is an important step because peptides provide functions such as catalyzing, or enhancing, reactions that are important to maintaining life. They are also candidate molecules that could have been further assembled into early versions of membranes, confining functional molecules in cell-like structures.

However, despite their potentially important role in the origin of life, it was not so straightforward for peptides to form spontaneously under the environmental conditions on the early Earth. In fact, the scientists behind the current study had previously shown that the cold conditions of space are actually more favorable to the formation of peptides.

The interstellar medium. Image Credit: Charles Carter/Keck Institute for Space Studies

In the very low density clouds of molecules and dust particles in a part of space called the interstellar medium (see above), single atoms of carbon can stick to the surfaces of dust grains together with carbon monoxide and ammonia molecules. They then react to form amino acid-like molecules. When such a cloud becomes denser and dust particles also start to stick together, these molecules can assemble into peptides.

In their new study, the scientists look at the dense environment of dusty disks, from which a new solar system with a star and planets emerges eventually. Such disks form when clouds suddenly collapse under the force of gravity. In this environment, water molecules are much more prevalent—forming ice on the surfaces of any growing agglomerates of particles that could inhibit the reactions that form peptides.

By emulating the reactions likely to occur in the interstellar medium in the laboratory, the study shows that, although the formation of peptides is slightly diminished, it is not prevented. Instead, as rocks and dust combine to form larger bodies such as asteroids and comets, these bodies heat up and allow for liquids to form. This boosts peptide formation in these liquids, and there’s a natural selection of further reactions resulting in even more complex organic molecules. These processes would have occurred during the formation of our own solar system.

Many of the building blocks of life such as amino acids, lipids, and sugars can form in the space environment. Many have been detected in meteorites.

Because peptide formation is more efficient in space than on Earth, and because they can accumulate in comets, their impacts on the early Earth might have delivered loads that boosted the steps towards the origin of life on Earth.

So, what does all this mean for our chances of finding alien life? Well, the building blocks for life are available throughout the universe. How specific the conditions need to be to enable them to self-assemble into living organisms is still an open question. Once we know that, we’ll have a good idea of how widespread, or not, life might be.

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

Image Credit: Aldebaran S / Unsplash

Researchers have identified a dependency confusion vulnerability impacting an archived Apache project called Cordova App Harness. Dependency confusion attacks take place owing to the fact that package managers check the public repositories before private registries, thus allowing a threat actor to publish a malicious package with the same name to a public package repository. This&

Researchers have identified a dependency confusion vulnerability impacting an archived Apache project called Cordova App Harness. Dependency confusion attacks take place owing to the fact that package managers check the public repositories before private registries, thus allowing a threat actor to publish a malicious package with the same name to a public package repository. This&Newsroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Oživeno 23. dubna 2024 | „Tesla musí často měnit ceny, aby balancovaly produkci a poptávku,“ napsal Elon Musk a Tesla znovu mění ceník. Ve většině regionů, u dvojice menších modelů. I tentokrát se dostalo také na Česko. Model 3 zlevňuje o 50 tisíc korun u dvou starších variant a přidává se verze ...

The 'big victory for the good guys' shouldn't be celebrated too much, though

The average time taken by global organizations to detect cyberattacks has dropped to its lowest-ever level of ten days, Mandiant revealed today.…

Intel se letos v zimě stal prvním majitelem mašiny Twinscan EXE:5000 od ASML, která je v tuto chvíli nejpřesnějším strojem planety na velmi pokročilou extrémní ultrafialovou litografii (High-NA EUV). Devět miliard korun Jen pro představu, jeden kus váží 165 tun a zájemce přijde až ...

That said, good ol' American healthcare system so elaborately costly, some are forced to avoid altogether

UnitedHealth Group, the parent of ransomware-struck Change Healthcare, delivered some very unwelcome news for customers today as it continues to recover from the massively expensive side and disruptive digital break-in.…

Tyto filmy a seriály jsou teď na českém Disney+ nejoblíbenější. Nerozlišujeme žánr, stáří ani hodnocení na filmových webech. Jde o souhrnnou oblíbenost za poslední týdny, kterou zjišťuje web FlixPatrol.

Poohlížíte se po rychlejším internetu na doma? A věděli jste, že optický internet jednoduše nemá konkurenci? Letí rychlostí gigabitu za vteřinu.

ČTK (Česká tisková kancelář) upozorňuje (X), že na jejím zpravodajském webu České noviny byly dnes dopoledne neznámým útočníkem umístěny dva smyšlené texty, které nepocházejí z její produkce. Jde o text s titulkem „BIS zabránila pokusu o atentát na nově zvoleného slovenského prezidenta Petra Pelligriniho“ a o údajné mimořádné prohlášení ministra Lipavského k témuž. Tyto dezinformace byly útočníky zveřejněny i s příslušnými notifikacemi v mobilní aplikaci Českých novin. ČTK ve svém zpravodajském servisu žádnou informaci v tomto znění nevydala.

Ivan Kuckir oznámil Photopea 5.6. Od prosincového vydání se naučil několik nových funkcí pro pokročilé úpravy obrazu. Konečně podporuje i větší barevné hloubky než osmibitové. Photopea umí otevřít RAW, TIFF a PNG s 16b hloubkou a PSD, s nímž pracuje nativně, zvládne i s 32b. Většina monitorů je ...

At its Adobe Max event in London, Adobe on Tuesday unveiled its latest Firefly Image generative AI (genAI) model, promising greater realism and improved controls over generated outputs. The next-generation Firefly model will also be integrated into Photoshop, with several new features coming to the image editor later this year. 

Adobe Firefly is a set of generative AI models used to create and modify content such as photographic style images, illustrations, and fonts. (A Firefly video-generation model is coming to the Premier Pro video editing tool later this year, with a music-generation algorithm also in the works.) It’s accessible as a standalone app, as well as being integrated into Adobe’s Creative Cloud application suite. 

More than a year since launch, Firefly’s Image model is now on its third iteration. Firefly Image 3 improves on the second iteration, which launched at last October, in several ways, said Adobe. 

The company highlighted improvements to image quality, particularly for images that feature people. That means more photo-realistic outputs, better lighting and subject positioning, and a wider variety of expressions. Another quality improvement is involves rendering straight lines and structures that help with image coherence.

Adobe Firefly generated image of an artist in studio.

Adobe

The latest model includes the Structure Reference feature that Adobe announced last month; it lets users apply the structure of a reference image to provide more accurate outputs. The same goes for Style Reference, which helps create a consistent image style.

Users can also expect a broader range of output styles for illustrations, photographic art, and vector art for iconography. Firefly Image 3 will have a better understanding of user prompts, too, Adobe said, more accurately reflecting longer and more complex inputs than the previous versions.

“Firefly Image 3 is a considerable level up from the already high-performing Firefly Image 2 model,” said Matt Arcaro, IDC research director for computer vision and AI, with notable improvements to image quality and coherence with user prompts. 

Firefly Image 3 also gives users greater control over images produce by the AI model, said Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. “If Firefly Image 1 and 2 focused on the ability to generate, Firefly Image 3 is about focusing and controlling generative AI models to extract the idea in a creator’s mind onto the initial canvas,” she said.

Adobe is one of numerous tech firms that offer genAI image models, including  Canva, Midjourney, OpenAI, Stability AI, and others. IDC predicts that global spending on genAI tools (including software and infrastructure) will reach $143 billion in 2027, up from $16 billion in 2023. 

“Firefly Image 3 may be in beta, but feels less experimental compared to some of Adobe’s rivals,” said Miller. The latest Firefly model is more photo realistic and addresses some of the problems creators have experienced with generative AI tools around structure, she said – producing images of arms with two hands, for instance. 

Firefly Image 3 is available now in beta via the Firefly web app.  

New Firefly features in Photoshop

Another strong point for Adobe’s generative AI capabilities is integration across its products, said Arcaro. “Adobe is all-in on bringing genAI capabilities to users across its product portfolio,” he said. 

Adobe said the Firefly Image model and new genAI features will arrive for Photoshop later this year, building on Generative Fill (the mostly quickly adopted feature in ever in Photoshop, according to Adobe) and the Generative Expand tools added to Photoshop a year ago.  

The idea is to improve workflow when accessing genAI features in Photoshop. 

For example, Reference Image lets users tailor Generative Fill images to a particular style by uploading a reference document. This lets users guide the Firefly’s outputs more accurately and saves time typing out text prompts to create a desired image. 

Adobe Firefly makes it easier to manipulate and use reference images with genAI.

Adobe

Another feature, Generate Image, lets users create entire images from scratch in Photoshop documents using text prompts. The intention is to make the image editor more accessible to users of any skill level, said Adobe. The Generate Image tool provides options for content type, effects, and allows users to upload a reference image. 

Generate Background makes it easier to replace or create background visuals in an image using natural language prompts. While it’s already possible to generate background images in Photoshop, the new feature is more streamlined and requires fewer clicks, Adobe said.

Generate Background allows users to create background visuals  using natural language prompts.

Adobe

Generate Similar provides variations of objects within an image from which users can select, such as the amount or type of fruit in a fruit bowl, allowing for greater fine tuning of results. 

Generate Similar using Firefly offers variations of objects within an image.

Adobe

Finally, Enhance Detail lets users increase the sharpness and clarity of generated images.

The features are available in the beta Photoshop app — a separate application that  showcases new capabilities — before general availabilty later this year, said Adobe. It will be possible to run the AI processing either on Adobe’s servers or locally on a user’s device, with cloud computation the default. 

“These tools are all about efficiency and shifting monotonous work off a creator’s plate,” said Miller. Getting from a brief to a sketch to a draft can be a painful, time-consuming, and costly process, she said.

“The traditional pace of creation takes a toll, especially when the language of creativity can get lost in translation…,” Miller said. “With these tools native in Photoshop, creators can ideate and iterate quickly, collaborating on color tones, shape and structure in a rapid flow.”

Adobe Systems, Generative AI, Productivity Software

Byla založena nadace Open Home Foundation zastřešující více než 240 projektů, standardů, ovladačů a knihoven (Home Assistant, ESPHome, Zigpy, Piper, Improv Wi-Fi, Wyoming, …) pro otevřenou chytrou domácnost s důrazem na soukromí, možnost výběru a udržitelnost.

In the high-stakes world of cybersecurity, the battleground has shifted. Supply chain attacks have emerged as a potent threat, exploiting the intricate web of interconnected systems and third-party dependencies to breach even the most formidable defenses. But what if you could turn the tables and proactively hunt these threats before they wreak havoc? We invite you to join us for an