Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Researchers challenge a 75-year-old neuroscience hypothesis, suggesting dendrites play a crucial role in brain computation, not just the neuronal soma.

Experiments conducted under non-physiological conditions revealed that neuron features like firing frequency and stimulation threshold are controlled by dendrites.

This groundbreaking discovery implies that dendrites could be pivotal in learning processes and may even influence our understanding of brain states and degenerative diseases.

A team of archaeologists, geophysicists, geologists, and paleontologists affiliated with multiple institutions in Indonesia has found evidence showing that Gunung Padang is the oldest known pyramid in the world. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological Prospection, the group describes their multi-year study of the cultural heritage site.

Gunung Padang has for many years been considered a megalithic structure—it sits on top of an extinct volcano in West Java, Indonesia, and is considered by locals to be a sacred site. In 1998, it was declared to be a cultural heritage site. For many years there has been disagreement regarding the nature of the hill. Some have suggested it was made naturally with humans adding some adornments on top, while others have argued that evidence has suggested the hill was all or mostly man-made.

For this new study, the research team conducted a long-term, scientific study of the structure. Over the years 2011 to 2015, they studied the structure using seismic tomography, electrical resistivity tomography and ground-penetrating radar. They also drilled down into the hill and collected core samples that allowed them to use radiocarbon dating techniques to learn the ages of the layers that make up the hill.

Equivalent to an 80-year-old human reverting to the age of 26.

A groundbreaking study into anti-aging has reported significant rejuvenation effects using exosomes, tiny particles which can be extracted from biological fluids such as blood plasma.

Old and young rat. Image generated by DALL·E 3

Continue reading “New treatment reverses epigenetic age of rats by 67.4%” »

The space shuttle Endeavour’s twin giant rockets will be hoisted by crane next week and affixed into place atop the craft’s aft skirts in a first step of assembling a full-stack configuration of the shuttle at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

The two solid rocket motors—each weighing 104,000 pounds and the size of a Boeing 757 fuselage—were transported by truck in early October from Mojave Air and Space Port to the science center in South Los Angeles.

“It’s actually pretty exciting. This is the first big tall pieces of the stack going into the building,” California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said. Each solid rocket motor measures 116 feet and makes up most of the length of the 149-foot solid rocket boosters. At liftoff, the white solid rocket boosters were set underneath Endeavour’s wings and produced more than 80% of the lift during takeoff.

01. AI’s model outperforms Meta’s Llama 2 on certain metricsStartup to offer open-source model; proprietary options laterA Chinese startup founded by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee has become a unicorn in less than eight months on the strength of a new open-source artificial-intelligence model that outstrips Silicon Valley’s best, on at least certain metrics.

The company, 01.AI, has reached a valuation of more than $1 billion after a funding round that included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud unit, Lee said in an interview. The chief executive officer of venture firm Sinovation Ventures will also be CEO of the new startup. He began assembling the team for 01.AI in March and started… More.

Bloomberg connects decision makers to a dynamic network of data, delivering business and financial information, news and insights globally.

Continue reading “AI Pioneer Kai-Fu Lee Builds $1 Billion Startup in Eight Months” »

When summarizing facts, ChatGPT technology makes things up about 3 percent of the time, according to research from a new start-up. A Google system’s rate was 27 percent.

When the San Francisco start-up OpenAI unveiled its ChatGPT online chatbot late last year.

When Google introduced a similar chatbot several weeks later, it spewed nonsense about the James Webb telescope. The next day, Microsoft’s new Bing chatbot offered up all sorts of bogus information about the Gap, Mexican nightlife and the… More.

Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, speaking at the grand opening of the company’s latest advanced production and test… More.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan — U.S. memory chip maker Micron is doubling down on Taiwan and Japan as the key production bases for its cutting-edge products as it battles South Korean rivals to capture demand from the AI boom.

Taiwan and Japan play vital roles in the production of Micron’s most advanced dynamic random-access (DRAM) memory and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, Naga Chandrasekaran, Micron’s senior vice president of technology development, told reporters on Monday. Advanced DRAM and HBM chips are vital for enabling powerful generative AI computing applications such as ChatGPT and Bard.

Continue reading “Micron taps Taiwan and Japan to make advanced AI memory chips” »

An effective way of tackling this challenge is to find friendly partners who can help bear the burden. This means other businesses and organizations with the skills you’re missing or that specialize in the support infrastructure you need, be it in engineering, logistics, marketing or sales.

This is particularly essential when dealing with AI. It’s certainly getting easier for companies to start exploring and benefiting from AI. But fully integrating it in a business across every viable use case is still expensive, time-consuming and often dependent on the availability of highly skilled specialists.

Businesses rely on trusted networks of consultants, suppliers, and resellers to create these partnership ecosystems. Partnership working in the context of AI is going to be particularly important for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that generate the majority of GDP and account for 90 percent of global business activity. Ultimately, it’s likely to be these businesses that will determine whether AI achieves its projected $4.4 trillion potential.

Hydrogen is a promising form of carbon-free energy, but moving and storing the superlight element is costly and energy-intensive. So a California startup cofounded in 2022 by two leading chemists, including a Nobel laureate, is designing a new type of tank made with nanomaterials that aims to be cheaper and safer than any currently in use — and hold more hydrogen, too.

Irvine, California-based H2MOF hopes to sell its next-generation hydrogen tanks sometime after 2024 to heavy-duty vehicle makers with plans to offer zero-emission fuel cell vehicles. It argues that in addition to holding fuel inside the vehicles, these tanks will also provide a better way to ship the fuel by truck or train as… More.

H2MOF thinks nanomaterials designed to hold hydrogen at low pressure like a sponge absorbing water are a cheaper, more efficient way to store the elemental fuel.

Continue reading “This Startup Hopes Its Nanomaterial Fuel Tanks Will Jumpstart The Hydrogen Revolution” »