This short video provides:
1. Definition of an AI hallucination.
2. Probability of an AI hallucination occurrence.
3. Top reasons for an AI to hallucinate.

A longer companion video on AI errors or hallucination is also posted. This video goes into more detail on hallucinations plus adds:
1. How to detect an AI hallucination.
2. How to reduce the probability of an AI hallucination.

It’s a big problem when chatbots spew untruths. But we should also celebrate these hallucinations as prompts for human creativity and a barrier to machines taking over.

Aera Therapeutics, a startup launched by the CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang last year to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in genetic medicine, has laid off a quarter of its staff, the company confirmed to STAT.

The layoffs come as the biotech market remains mired in a now nearly three-year-long downturn that has left startups struggling to attract both private and public funds. Aera attributed the layoffs to those headwinds and indicated it had axed a portion of the company dedicated to developing new gene-editing enzymes.

“In 2023, Aera launched to pursue an ambitious mission to develop transformative genetic medicines by harnessing enabling delivery technologies and precision payloads,” spokesman Dan Budwick said in a statement. “Although Aera remains in a strong cash position today, given the current biotech funding environment, we have chosen to take steps to focus our strategy and investments on the development of our novel delivery platforms, thereby further extending our cash runway.”

Synaptic engineering involves the synthetic insertion of new synapses between neurons in vivo. In this Perspective, Rabinowitch, Colón-Ramos and Krieg explore this emerging approach for studying neural circuits, describing the different methods that have been used and how they have been implemented.

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab researchers use computational methods to describe an approach for optimizing the LK99 material as a superconductor.

Some will say, hey why is Nextbigfuture still covering LK99. Didn’t some angry scientists say that LK99 was not a superconductor? I have been covering science for over 20 years and there are a lot of angry scientists who believe many things will not work. Scientists going into experiments looking to debunk something will not be the ones who figure out how to make it work.

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab researchers spent time and worked on supercomputers to try to figure out how to make LK99 work. There computational work is showing promise.

It is well-reported that solution-processed nanosheets tend to restack during deposition⁵⁷. We determined the degree and nature of this restacking by measuring the nanosheet length and thickness in the ink (l_NS, t_NS) using AFM, as well as the aggregated nanosheet dimensions in the network (l_Net, t_Net) post-deposition. The restacked nanosheet length and thickness were measured from network cross-sections using the Ridge Detection plugin in FIJI^50,58 (Fig. 2e, inset, and Supplementary Note 9). We define the aggregation factors in nanosheet length, χ_l, and thickness, χ_t, as \({\chi }_{{{{{\rm{l}}}}}}={l}_{{{{{\rm{Net}}}}}}/{l}_{{{{{\rm{NS}}}}}}\) and \({\chi }_{{{{{\rm{t}}}}}}={t}_{{{{{\rm{Net}}}}}}/{t}_{{{{{\rm{NS}}}}}}\) respectively. Values of χ_l ≈ 1.5 and χ_t ≈ 5.6 were found for the printed LPE graphene network in Fig. 2e. This is in agreement with a value of χ_t ≈ 5 reported for vacuum filtered WS₂ networks⁵⁹, and suggests that nanosheets primarily aggregate through vertical restacking with maximised basal plane overlap.

By isolating discrete nanoplatelets and noting their orientation (Fig. 2f, inset, and Supplementary Note 10)⁶⁰, the distribution of angles, φ, between each nanoplatelet’s normal vector and the out-of-plane (y) direction was calculated. The data in Fig. 2f was fit with a Cauchy-Lorentz distribution centred on φ_C ≈ −0.6˚, which suggests the nanosheets are primarily aligned in the plane of the film. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the distribution provides an estimate of the degree of alignment about φ_c in the network⁶¹. The FWHM of (29 ± 1)˚ for the spray cast network in Fig. 2f is comparable to a value of 21˚ for an inkjet-printed graphene film measured using AFM. In addition, we measured the Hermans orientation factor⁶², \(S=\left(3\left\langle {\cos }^{2}\varphi \right\rangle-1\right)/2\), to be 0.61 ± 0.07 for the network, which is consistent with partial in-plane alignment. A value of S = 1 would imply the nanosheets are perfectly aligned in the plane of the film, while S = 0 for randomly oriented nanosheets. This is in broad agreement with a value of S = 0.79 for a vacuum filtered Ti₃C₂T_x nanosheet network measured using wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS)³².

The physical properties of 2D networks are known to scale with nanosheet size^63,64. Here, we use FIB-SEM-NT to systematically study the morphology of printed LPE graphene networks for various nanosheet lengths, l_NS. Size-selected inks were produced using liquid cascade centrifugation⁶⁵, characterised by AFM (Fig. 3a) and spray-coated into networks. Reconstructed 3D volumes for networks of two different nanosheet sizes in Fig. 3b show noticeable changes in network morphology as l_NS is decreased from 1,087 to 298 nm. Analysis reveals a clear decrease in network porosity from 51% to 39% with decreasing l_NS (Fig. 3c), with a corresponding reduction in the characteristic pore size, ζ \(=\sqrt{A}\), in Fig. 3D. The pore circularity data similarly exhibits a dependence on l_NS (Fig. 3e), where networks of smaller nanosheets have more circular and compact pore cross-sections. This implies that printed networks comprised of smaller nanosheets are more densely packed, which has been linked to improved charge transfer in graphene films⁶⁶. Alternatively, networks of larger nanosheets are more open and porous, facilitating enhanced electrolyte infiltration and mass transport. Taken together, the data in Fig. 3c-e suggests that changing the nanosheet size offers a simple means to tailor the network porosity for a target application. FIB-SEM-NT can be used to inform this by measuring pore sizes that span from a few nanometres to microns.

Tarzan

After graduation from high school, Russell (Russ) Manning studied at the Los Angeles Art Institute. Soon after completing his studies, Manning was sent to Japan, with the intention of being shipped to Korea. Instead of fighting in the war, Manning drew cartoons for the base newspaper and took on map-making.

Since their discovery in the 1990s, the head-direction cells in the brain have been referred to as its “internal compass.” These cells are activated when the head of an animal or human points in a certain direction, and are thought to be important for spatial orientation and navigation.

Now a team of neuroscientists at the University of Tübingen has discovered that head-direction cells in mice do more than this. They may be involved in relaying sensory and emotional information that is used to form memories of experiences, called “episodic memory.”

The research team, led by Professor Andrea Burgalossi from the Institute of Neurobiology and the Werner Reichardt Center for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), have published their study in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

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Reaching new worlds is a difficult task, but transplanting ecosystems and civilizations to them may be even harder.\
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Credits:\
The Fermi Paradox: Pancosmorio Theory\
Episode 428; January 4, 2024\
Produced, Written \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur\
Editor: Briana Brownell\
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Graphics:\
Jeremy Jozwik\
Ken York\
Mafic Studios\
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Music Courtesy of:\
Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

The authors evolved antibiotic-resistant Helicobacter pylori in the absence of antibiotics and presence of DNA from antibiotic-sensitive strains. Horizontal gene transfer mediated the molecular reverse evolution of the antibiotic-resistance gene to the antibiotic-sensitive allele, and the authors used theoretical modelling to determine the evolutionary conditions that promote reverse evolution.