The new dimension of AI scaling is here. “Rather than relying on ever-larger pretraining budgets, test-time methods use dynamic inference strategies that allow models to “think longer” on harder problems. A prominent example is OpenAI’s o1 model, which shows consistent improvement on difficult math problems as one increases the amount of test-time compute…” ~ learn more
“Van Straeten is a paleobotanist at the New York State Museum, and in 2018, he and his team made a remarkable discovery right here in our region: a 385-million-year-old forest, the oldest in the world. Fossils of the forest's root system were uncovered at the bottom of a disused quarry in Cairo, NY, and predated the previously oldest known tree fossils, found in Gilboa, NY, by about five million years.”…
“Today, we’re sharing our new cutting-edge research with Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers, analyzing liability claims related to collisions from 25.3 million fully autonomous miles driven by Waymo. … It demonstrates that … the Waymo Driver significantly outperforms both the overall driving population and the latest generation of human-driven vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).” I’m only assuming that Swiss Re is actually on the…
“Founded in 1758, Samuel Smith Old Brewery is one of the largest family-owned brewery and pub operations in the UK.” … and … “Since the 1970s, Humphrey Smith has acquired scores of pubs and historic properties around the UK. But time after time, he has left the buildings empty. Why has he allowed his empire to moulder?” ~ learn more
“There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes.” ~ learn…
“A money laundering organization allegedly connected to large seizures of cocaine inside the United States and works with cartels in Mexico and Colombia has moved at least tens of millions of dollars using a string of front businesses, cash drop-offs, and massive transfers of cryptocurrency, according to recently unsealed court records reviewed by 404 Media.” ~ learn more
“The Consumer Product Safety Commission is on a mission that has nothing to do with safety… This was a clear-cut case of science being brandished for activism, and judging by the paper’s reception in the popular press and on social media, this obviously slapdash and compromised work was happily received.” ~ learn more
I am generally slow to come around on newfangled popular wellness fads, which include infrared/red light therapy. “In this study we present the up-to-dated evidence about the effects of PBMT, i.e., low-intensity laser therapy and red and/or infrared low-intensity light-emitting diode therapy, on pain control of the most common musculoskeletal conditions.” ~ learn more
“Although the current results suggest that paper-based reading should be favoured over digital-based reading, it is unrealistic to recommend avoiding digital devices. Nevertheless, ignoring the evidence of a robust screen inferiority effect may mislead political and educational decisions, and even worse, it could prevent readers from fully benefiting from their reading comprehension abilities and keep children from developing these skills in the first place.” ~ learn more
“Recently, a study published in Science Advances provided the strongest evidence yet that a brain microbiome can and does exist in healthy vertebrates — fish, specifically. Researchers at the University of New Mexico discovered communities of bacteria thriving in salmon and trout brains. Many of the microbial species have special adaptations that allow them to survive in brain tissue, as well as techniques to cross the protective blood-brain barrier.” Two…