Author: robert.adlington

Opal Sandy can hear almost perfectly after groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes — Read on www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/may/09/uk-toddler-has-hearing-restored-in-world-first-gene-therapy-trial

Google DeepMind launches AlphaFold 3, the next generation of its molecular structure prediction model that can aid drug discovery and other molecular developments. — Read on www.theverge.com/2024/5/8/24152088/google-deepmind-ai-model-predict-molecular-structure-alphafold

If you expand the parameters of the question to allow the inclusion of sex cells (gametes), eg ova and sperm, then eggs beat chickens by, give or take, 1bn years. The uniformity and commonality of sex among distantly related modern-day groups, such as algae, plants and animals (then mostly little more than single-celled specks, hoovering…

Original voices, ideas, and curating the crud of AI generated content… The Art of Work in the Age of AI Production — Read on kottke.org/24/05/the-art-of-work-in-the-age-of-ai-production

Poète, critique, romancier, essayiste et scénariste, le romancier était devenu célèbre avec ses récits new-yorkais peuplés de personnages marginaux et désorientés. Maître dans l’art de la narration, il est mort dans sa maison de Brooklyn mardi 30 avril dans la soirée. — Read on www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/05/01/le-grand-ecrivain-americain-paul-auster-auteur-de-moon-palace-et-leviathan-est-mort-a-77-ans_6230916_3382.html I have to go and reread the New York Trilogy

All of the “mid” shows otherwise referenced here are trying to achieve too many things at once or appeal to too many demographics to have much of an impact. They are content, not art. — Read on kottke.org/24/04/were-in-the-golden-age-of-mid-tv

The scroll was preserved in a lavish villa in Herculaneum and discovered in 1750, and is believed to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law. — Read on www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/29/herculaneum-scroll-plato-final-hours-burial-site also, the Guardian has a category “Plato”!

researchers found that people did appear to have a degree of control over what happened. The genetic risk of a shorter lifespan or premature death may be offset by a favourable lifestyle by about 62%, they found. They wrote: “Participants with high genetic risk could prolong approximately 5.22 years of life expectancy at age 40…

the study looked at more than 1,000 pairs of relatives to establish how likely children are to inherit what psychologists call the “big five” or “Ocean” personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. — Read on www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/27/like-father-like-son-the-complex-factors-that-shape-a-parents-influence-on-their-child

Among the other ideas and movements that have emerged from the FHI are longtermism – the notion that humanity should prioritise the needs of the distant future because it theoretically contains hugely more lives than the present – and effective altruism (EA), a utilitarian approach to maximising global good. — Read on www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/28/nick-bostrom-controversial-future-of-humanity-institute-closure-longtermism-affective-altruism