Author: robert.adlington

The supposed AI apocalypse is different from the mushroom-cloud horror of nuclear war, and unlike the ravages of the wildfires, droughts, and inundations that are becoming commonplace, because it arises from things that we have, since the beginning of civilization, always considered positive and central to what makes us human: reason, intelligence, logic, and the…

La découverte de production d’oxygène par un processus autre que la photosynthèse nous incite à repenser la manière dont est apparue la vie sur Terre », liée à l’apparition de l’oxygène, commente le Nicholas Owens, directeur de la SAMS. La vision « conventionnelle » étant que l’oxygène « a été fabriqué pour la première fois il y a environ…

The great discoveries of humanity have always taught us that we are not masters in our own house: Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the cosmos, Darwin spoiled our species’ idea of divine creation, Freud showed that we neither know nor control our desires. The humiliation by AI is subtler but just as…

While Darwin had provided the clue about where to see evolution, he thought any observations of change would be minute: big changes would take millions of years. We found change happened much quicker. The evolutionary process that Darwin outlined is character displacement (or divergence) caused by competition with another species. Over a period of nearly…

…using the immune system’s all-purpose killer: the T cell, which the body sends to neutralize pathogens of all sorts, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites, but not (usually) cancer. By extracting T cells from a patient’s blood, editing the cells’ DNA in a lab, and reintroducing them at the site of the tumor, they had gotten the…

The former will become the world’s most powerful radio astronomy facility while the latter, the world’s largest camera, will be able to image the entire visible sky every three or four nights, and is expected to help discover millions of new galaxies and stars. Both facilities are set to start observations in the next few…

The final pillar of how I try to build Yvette’s self-esteem is with what I call “sanctuaries”. All kids need them, and every day in the clinic I help build them with families. Sanctuaries are like rituals – activities we do or places that we go together that are only for joy. They have to…

One of the things that happens when people become teenagers is that their brain becomes more sophisticated, and it allows for self-conscious emotions. Before age 13, kids are concrete in their thinking. They can’t always see things from another perspective. Then around 13 or 14, the ability to picture oneself on the outside, to imagine…

La plupart des personnes aujourd’hui en âge de procréer ont elles-mêmes grandi en tant qu’enfant unique, ce qui a nécessairement un impact en matière de normes sociales et familiales », analyse Patrick Gerland. Un défi inédit, surtout dans un pays d’une telle taille. — Read on www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2024/07/11/la-population-de-la-terre-devrait-atteindre-son-maximum-avant-la-fin-du-siecle_6248844_3244.html

Working with AI has made me even more impressed with the kinds of things that every two-year-old is doing. It has also made the intelligence of octopuses, brine shrimp, and all the other creatures around us more vivid. On the other hand, I would not have assumed that we could learn as much just from…