Latest news with #researchTeam
Fast Company
5 hours ago
- Science
- Fast Company
These two game-changing breakthroughs advance us toward artificial general intelligence
The biggest technology game changers don't always grab the biggest headlines. Two emerging AI developments may not go viral on TikTok or YouTube, but they represent an inflection point that could radically accelerate the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). That's AI that can function and learn like us. Coming to our senses: WildFusion As humans, we rely on all sorts of stimuli to navigate in the world, including our senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Until now, AI devices have been solely reliant on a single sense—visual impressions. Brand-new research from Duke University goes beyond reliance only on visual perception. It's called WildFusion, combining vision with touch and vibration. The four-legged robot used by the research team includes microphones and tactile sensors in addition to the standard cameras commonly found in state-of-the-art robots. The WildFusion robot can use sound to assess the quality of a surface (dry leaves, wet sand) as well as pressure and resistance to calibrate its balance and stability. All of this data is gathered and combined or fused, into a single data representation that improves over time with experience. The research team plans enhance the robot's capabilities by enabling it to gauge things like heat and humidity. As the types of data used to interact with the environment become richer and more integrated, AI moves inexorably closer to true AGI. Learning to learn The second underreported AI technology game changer comes from researchers at the universities of Surrey and Hamburg. While still in the early stages of development, this breakthrough allows robots that interact socially with humans (social robots) to train themselves with minimal human intervention. It achieves this by replicating what humans would visually focus on in complex social situations. For example, we learn over time as humans to look at a person's face when talking to them or to look at what they are pointing to rather than at their feet or off into space. But robots won't do that without being specifically trained. Until now, the training to refine behavior in robots was primarily reliant on constant human monitoring and supervision. This new innovative approach uses robotic simulations to track, monitor, and importantly, improve the quality of the robot interactions with minimal human involvement. Robots learn social skills without constant human oversight. This marks an important step forward in the overall advancement of social robotics and could prove to be a huge AGI accelerator. Self-teaching AI could lead to advancements at an exponential rate, a prospect some of us view as thrilling, others as chilling. AI signal over noise Amazing as they may be to watch, dancing humanoid robots and mechanical dogs can be characterized as narrow AI—AI designed only for a specific task or purpose. The feats of these purpose-built tools are impressive. But these two new developments advance how AI experiences the world and how it learns from those experiences. They will dramatically change how technology exists (and coexists with us) in the world. Taken together, these breakthroughs and the work of other researchers and entrepreneurs along similar paths are resetting the trajectory and the timetable for achieving AGI. This could mark the tipping point that turns the slow march toward AGI into an all-out run.
The Independent
a day ago
- Science
- The Independent
Astronomers solve mystery of strange bright burst in space
Around midday on June 13 last year, my colleagues and I were scanning the skies when we thought we had discovered a strange and exciting new object in space. Using a huge radio telescope, we spotted a blindingly fast flash of radio waves that appeared to be coming from somewhere inside our galaxy. After a year of research and analysis, we have finally pinned down the source of the signal – and it was even closer to home than we had ever expected. A surprise in the desert Our instrument was located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara – also known as the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory – in remote Western Australia, where the sky above the red desert plains is vast and sublime. We were using a new detector at the radio telescope known as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder – or ASKAP – to search for rare flickering signals from distant galaxies called fast radio bursts. We detected a burst. Surprisingly, it showed no evidence of a time delay between high and low frequencies – a phenomenon known as 'dispersion'. This meant it must have originated within a few hundred light years of Earth. In other words, it must have come from inside our galaxy – unlike other fast radio bursts which have come from billions of light years away. A problem emerges Fast radio bursts are the brightest radio flashes in the Universe, emitting 30 years' worth of the Sun's energy in less than a millisecond – and we only have hints of how they are produced. Some theories suggest they are produced by 'magnetars' – the highly magnetised cores of massive, dead stars – or arise from cosmic collisions between these dead stellar remnants. Regardless of how they occur, fast radio bursts are also a precise instrument for mapping out the so-called 'missing matter' in our Universe. When we went back over our recordings to take a closer look at the radio burst, we had a surprise: the signal seemed to have disappeared. Two months of trial and error went by until the problem was found. ASKAP is composed of 36 antennas, which can be combined to act like one gigantic zoom lens six kilometres across. Just like a zoom lens on a camera, if you try to take a picture of something too close, it comes out blurry. Only by removing some of the antennas from the analysis – artificially reducing the size of our 'lens' – did we finally make an image of the burst. We weren't excited by this – in fact, we were disappointed. No astronomical signal could be close enough to cause this blurring. This meant it was probably just radio-frequency 'interference' – an astronomer's term for human-made signals that corrupt our data. It's the kind of junk data we'd normally throw away. Yet the burst had us intrigued. For one thing, this burst was fast. The fastest known fast radio burst lasted about 10 millionths of a second. This burst consisted of an extremely bright pulse lasting a few billionths of a second, and two dimmer after-pulses, for a total duration of 30 nanoseconds. So, where did this amazingly short, bright burst come from? A zombie in space? We already knew the direction it came from, and we were able to use the blurriness in the image to estimate a distance of 4,500 km. And there was only one thing in that direction, at that distance, at that time – a derelict 60-year-old satellite called Relay 2. Relay 2 was one of the first ever telecommunications satellites. Launched by the United States in 1964, it was operated until 1965, and its onboard systems had failed by 1967. But how could Relay 2 have produced this burst? Some satellites, presumed dead, have been observed to reawaken. They are known as 'zombie satellites'. But this was no zombie. No system on board Relay 2 had ever been able to produce a nanosecond burst of radio waves, even when it was alive. We think the most likely cause was an 'electrostatic discharge'. As satellites are exposed to electrically charged gases in space known as plasmas, they can become charged – just like when your feet rub on carpet. And that accumulated charge can suddenly discharge, with the resulting spark causing a flash of radio waves. Electrostatic discharges are common and are known to cause damage to spacecraft. Yet all known electrostatic discharges last thousands of times longer than our signal, and occur most commonly when the Earth's magnetosphere is highly active. And our magnetosphere was unusually quiet at the time of the signal. Another possibility is a strike by a micrometeoroid – a tiny piece of space debris – similar to that experienced by the James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022. According to our calculations, a 22 micro-gram micrometeoroid travelling at 20km per second or more and hitting Relay 2 would have been able to produce such a strong flash of radio waves. But we estimate the chance that the nanosecond burst we detected was caused by such an event to be about 1 per cent. Plenty more sparks in the sky Ultimately, we can't be certain why we saw this signal from Relay 2. What we do know, however, is how to see more of them. When looking at 13.8 millisecond timescales – the equivalent of keeping the camera shutter open for longer – this signal was washed out, and barely detectable even to a powerful radio telescope such as ASKAP. But if we had searched at 13.8 nanoseconds, any old radio antenna would have easily seen it. It shows us that monitoring satellites for electrostatic discharges with ground-based radio antennas is possible. And with the number of satellites in orbit growing rapidly, finding new ways to monitor them is more important than ever. But did our team eventually find new astronomical signals? You bet we did. And there are no doubt plenty more to be found.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Archaeologists Recreate Prehistoric Tools to Build a Canoe for 140-Mile Ocean Voyage
More than 30,000 years ago, seafaring humans made a momentous trek from present-day Taiwan to the Ryukyu Islands of southwestern Japan—a journey of some 140 miles without any of the advanced technology that guides us today. Though Paleolithic sites on these islands contain remnants of human life from that era—including stone tools, fishhooks and hearths—they give very few clues to the boat technology of the time, likely because it relied heavily on quick-to-decay organic matter. For a new study, published on Wednesday in Science Advances, researchers reenacted that treacherous journey over three days on a boat constructed with stone tools from the period. 'Before our project, no one had seriously considered how this maritime migration occurred,' says the study's lead author Yousuke Kaifu, an anthropologist at the University of Tokyo. Years ago Kaifu gathered a team of researchers to test out possible boat designs early modern humans could have used. The team first tested reed-bundle rafts and bamboo rafts, but the vessels were too slow and were easily knocked off course by the very strong currents of the area. So the researchers next decided to try a simple canoe like those known to have been used in the area about 10,000 years ago. They chopped down a three-foot-thick Japanese cedar tree using stone axes with wooden handles, dug out the inside and shaped it into a 25-foot-long canoe that became known as 'Sugime,' a nickname that incorporates the Japanese word for cedar. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] In July 2019, after two weeks of waiting for calm waters, five experienced paddlers embarked on their journey without using modern navigational tools. They soon encountered choppy seas and later struggled with sleepiness and bodily discomfort. With no GPS, the team relied on the sun, stars and other indicators of its direction. Forty-five hours and 140 miles after it started, Sugime at last arrived at the closest of the Ryukyu Islands. Although the dugout canoe was the best of the team's candidate boats, it was far from perfect—it constantly took on water, which one of the paddlers had to frequently bail out. 'I would of course love to see other researchers test other watercraft for deeper understanding of how our ancestors first ventured into the sea,' Kaifu says. The reenactment helped illustrate just how skilled and coordinated the original seafarers would have needed to be to pull off such a voyage. 'I enjoyed the project throughout because there were some new discoveries almost every day,' Kaifu says. This effort has continued a global trend of experimental archaeological boat reconstructions. One group replicated a bamboo raft from more than 800,000 years ago and used it to travel between Indonesian islands. Another team reconstructed remnants of eighth-century-C.E. boats to test on the Charente River in France. 'There's also a massive resurgence of Indigenous seafaring voyaging and experimental voyaging in the Pacific, which is really interesting at the moment,' says Helen Farr, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Southampton in England and co-host of the archaeology-focused podcast Before Us, who was not involved in the study. 'Indigenous communities are reclaiming their maritime heritage through these voyaging societies.' These and other experimental archaeological projects can help illuminate parts of human migration that have been lost history. 'You suddenly see a level of skill and planning that is really hard to see in the archaeological record for this time period,' which mostly consists of fossils and stone tools, Farr says. 'So to get an insight into an activity—a temporal, spatial, specific activity like seafaring in this region—and just the little human details that you get from it, that's what is a real, real joy.'
CTV News
3 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Building Winnipeg's AI future
Building Winnipeg's AI future Professor Qian Liu shares how her team is using AI to tackle big challenges like Alzheimer's and why Winnipeg could be Canada's next AI hub.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Science
- Forbes
The Portuguese Man Of War Is Actually Four Distinct Species
After more than 200 years of controversy, genomics has finally started to address the mystery of whether the Portuguese man o' war is one species or many. A beached Portuguese Man Of War (Physalia species). A large international team of scientists sequenced the genomes of 151 Portuguese men o' war from across their range throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans (Figure 1b) and discovered these animals comprise at least four distinct species, each with its own unique morphology, genetics, and distribution. Additionally, the researchers also think there are several distinct subpopulations, likely shaped by regional winds and ocean currents. The name, man o' war, is derived from the animal's resemblance to the Portuguese sailing warship, the caravel or man of war, in full sail. The man o' war is also known as the bluebottle. This animal is part of a poorly known flotilla of peculiar creatures living on or at the surface of the water known as the neuston. The man o' war is a siphonophore, a carnivorous colonial animal comprised of many smaller units called zooids that are genetically identical but specialized for different functions, such as hunting, digestion, floating or reproduction, thereby allowing the colony to operate as a single individual (Figure 1a). A colorful gas-filled float, the pneumatophore, provides buoyancy so the animal stays afloat whilst its tentacles, which can be up to 30 m (100 ft) long, hang below the surface, containing venomous cnidocytes that use powerful stings to capture and kill prey – usually fish. A sail atop the float, which may be left or right-handed, allows the animal to drift freely across the surface of open ocean, often in groups. As the result of their study, the researchers found strong evidence of reproductive isolation amongst the five genetic lineages, challenging the long-held assumption that the open ocean supported a single, well-mixed population (Figure 1c). F I G U R E 1 : Anatomy, distribution, and genomic variation of Physalia (A) Physalia colonies ... More comprise a muscular sail attached to a gas-filled float which maintains the mature animal at the surface of the water. Colony bodies (zooids), including those specialized for feeding (gastrozooids), prey capture (palpons with tentacles), and reproduction (gonozooids) are added to the float via asexual reproduction at growth zones. Tentacles drape below the float to trap, sting, and retrieve fish using batteries of stinging capsules contained in the tentilla. Photos of Physalia minuta Church and Dunn, sp. nov., specimens YPM IZ 111236 (main), YPM IZ 111237 (growth zone), and YPM IZ 111240 (tentacle). (B) Physalia are observed throughout the world, as shown by observations posted to (black). Samples for genomic analysis (blue) were collected by an international collaboration of scientists. (C) The first two principal components of genomic variation reveal five clusters labeled A, B1, B2, C1, and C2. The team sequenced the genome of each bluebottle, then grouped them together in clusters based on their geographic range in the oceans (Figure 1c). What they found was distinct genetic differences between groups of men o' war from different regions, despite some overlap between the populations. 'We were shocked, because we assumed they were all the same species,' said one of the study's co-authors, Kylie Pitt in a statement provided by Griffith University. 'But the genetic data clearly show they're not only different, they're not even interbreeding despite overlapping ranges. The bluebottle is uniquely suited to long-distance travel, using its gas-filled float and muscular crest to catch the wind and sail the sea surface.' Men o' war (Physalia physalis) often sail around on the ocean's surface in large clusters and can ... More even wash up on beaches in large groups. Hamilton Parish, Bermuda. Credit: Miguel A Mejias, PhD., CC-BY-NC) 'These animals have been fascinating to swimmers, sailors, and scientists for many centuries, in part because they are stunningly beautiful, but also because they have a powerful sting they use to catch fish,' said the study's lead author, evolutionary biologist Samuel Church, an Associate Research Scientist at Yale University. Dr Church, who is affiliated with both Yale University and the Yale Peabody Museum, uses a combination of field work, lab work, and computer modelling to explore the evolutionary tree of life, and is poised to start a new position as an assistant professor at New York University this autumn. 'In our case, we were aware of the scientific debate that has been going on for 200+ years about how many species there are around the world,' Dr Church elaborated in email. 'By sampling globally and using modern genomic technologies, we hoped to settle that debate.' Man o' war (Physalia megalista), still alive on the shore at Anawhata Beach, Aotearoa New Zealand. ... More (Credit: Jacqui Geux, iNaturalist, some rights reserved CC-BY) The study describes these species: Physalia physalis, P. utriculus, and P. megalista, alongside a newly identified species, Physalia minuta, a small man o' war found near New Zealand and Australia. Each species is further subdivided into genetically distinct subpopulations shaped by regional winds and ocean currents, according to advanced ocean circulation modelling. Dr Church and collaborators then matched the genomic lineages to four distinct physical forms identified from more than 4,000 citizen science images shared on Dr Church and collaborators compared differences in tentacle length, color and other physical characteristics to previous records of men o' war found around the world, including descriptions in centuries-old publications that argued there are some number of different species. These distinct animals – originally proposed as separate species in the 18th and 19th centuries but later disregarded – have now been verified by modern genomic evidence. Which of course, raises the question: Why did people think there was just one species of Physalia? 'Over the past 200+ years there have been dozens of species of Physalia described, but in the 20th century people came to believe there was only one. This is in part because the open ocean is often treated as a single environment, that is basically the same across the world's oceans,' Dr Church explained in email. But the genomic data reveal this is not the case. Further, some parts of the world, such as Eastern Australia, are home to multiple men o' war species that remain distinct despite co-existing alongside each other. Man o' war (P. utriculus) from Hawai'i. (Credit: Casey W. Dunn, Namrata Ahuja, Dalila Destanović, ... More image appears here via Samual Church with kind permission.) 'It was exciting to show that was not the case, and that some of the species that were proposed hundreds of years ago were actually valid,' Dr Church observed in email. 'Even within species we see strong regional structure, so that populations, for example, from one side of the Atlantic are distinct from those on the other side.' How could they evolve separate species when they all live side-by-side in 'the same' environment? Why don't they interbreed? 'We still don't know,' Dr Church replied in email. 'We can see that there are multiple species with overlapping ranges, but we don't yet know what keeps them from interbreeding. There is a lot more to learn, especially about their reproduction.' Do you have any clues what the selection pressures might have been that led to the evolution of these distinct species? 'Again, we have a lot more to learn about these animals,' Dr Church responded in email. 'We don't know if they may eat different fish species, or if they all have the same potent sting. What we can say is that they are very different sizes – our new species, Physalia minuta, is much smaller than the others even at maturity' – thus earning that new species its name, 'minuta,' meaning small. A new species of man o' war (Physalia minuta), washed up on Foxton Beach, Aotearoa New Zealand. ... More (Credit: Arnim Littek, CC-BY, iNaturalist) Are there any other regional species, other than Physalia minuta? 'We found evidence suggesting that within species there are strong signatures of different subpopulations. More research needs to be done to test how different these might be,' Dr Church proposed in email. 'Our new species, Physalia minuta, is a regional endemic, found only around New Zealand and Australia. We tried to get samples from all over the world, but it's still possible there are other such regional species we haven't yet observed.' Investigating the diversity of the man o' war is just the beginning of the many questions that will be inspired by this knowledge. '[T]he ocean surface ecosystem has more biodiversity than previously assumed,' Dr Church explained in email. 'This unique ecosystem is sometimes characterized as having only a few species, each with huge populations stretching thousands of miles. Our study is a part of a growing body of work that shows instead there are multiple species at the ocean surface, with distinct but overlapping ranges, some of which are local only to certain parts of the world.' Dr Church and collaborators point out that this important study was made possible by a large collaborative team effort. 'It's important to highlight the amazing international contribution of this work. We received samples from dozens of scientists across countries and continents,' Dr Church stated in email. 'This was truly a global team effort, with our co-authors collecting specimens from their local beaches and sending them to us at the Yale Peabody Museum.' Future investigations of the physical, environmental, and biological processes that generate and maintain this genetic and morphological variation in men o' war will be crucial in recalibrating our understanding of open-ocean biodiversity. Man o' war (Physalia physalis) photographed at sunset when washed up on the beach, Straits of ... More Florida, Hollywood, Florida. (Credit: Keara R. Giannotti, iNaturalist, CC-BY-NC) Source: Samuel H. Church, River B. Abedon, Namrata Ahuja, Colin J. Anthony, Dalila Destanović, Diego A. Ramirez, Lourdes M. Rojas, Maria E. Albinsson, Itziar Álvarez Trasobares, Reza E. Bergemann, Ozren Bogdanovic, David R. Burdick, Tauana J. Cunha, Alejandro Damian-Serrano, Guillermo D'Elía, Kirstin B. Dion, Thomas K. Doyle, João M. Gonçalves, Alvaro Gonzalez Rajal, Steven H.D. Haddock, Rebecca R. Helm, Diane Le Gouvello, Zachary R. Lewis, Bruno I.M.M. Magalhães, Maciej K. Mańko, C. Gabriela Mayorga-Adame, Alex de Mendoza, Carlos J. Moura, Catriona Munro, Ronel Nel, Kohei Oguchi, Jessica N. Perelman, Laura Prieto, Kylie A. Pitt, Moninya Roughan, Amandine Schaeffer, Andrea L. Schmidt, Javier Sellanes, Nerida G. Wilson, Gaku Yamamoto Eric A. Lazo-Wasem, Chris Simon, Mary Beth Decker Jenn M. Coughlan and Casey W. Dunn (2025). Population genomics of a sailing siphonophore reveals genetic structure in the open ocean, Current Biology | doi:10.1016/ © Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | MeWe | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tumblr | Twitter
