Category Archives: Singularity

The study of quantum phase transitions, specifically the quantum Griffith singularity, has advanced with a team led by Jian-Hao Chen investigating this phenomenon in unconventional high-temperature superconducting bulk single crystals of CaFe1-xNixAsF. They observed robust quantum Griffith singularities influenced by magnetic fields, suggesting the potential universality of this phenomenon in three-dimensional and unconventional superconductors, which could enhance the understanding of high-temperature superconductivity mechanisms.

A new paper explores the quantum Griffith singularity in phase transitions, focusing on recent studies that could expand our understanding of high-temperature superconductivity in unconventional materials.

Exploring exotic quantum phase transitions has long been a key focus in condensed matter physics. A critical phenomenon in a phase transition is determined entirely by its universality class, which is governed by spatial and/or order parameters and remains independent of microscopic details. Quantum phase transitions, a subset of phase transitions, occur due to quantum fluctuations and are tuned by specific system parameters at the zero-temperature limit.

The superconductor-insulator/metal phase transition is a classic example of quantum phase transition, which has been intensely studied for more than 40 years. Disorder is considered one of the most important influencing factors, and therefore has received widespread attention. During the phase transitions, the system usually satisfies scaling invariance, so the universality class will be characterized by a single critical exponent. In contrast, the peculiarity of quantum Griffith singularity is that it breaks the traditional scaling invariance, where exotic physics emerges.

Figure 1Magnetic-field-driven superconductor-metal phase transition with multiple quantum critical points in CaFe1-xNixAsF. Credit: Science China Press

The physics of Griffiths singularity dates back to 1969, when American physicist Robert B. Griffiths proposed a type of phase transition in which the scaling invariance is broken. In this case, the critical exponent tends to diverge rather than remain constant. The quantum Griffith singularity refers to the Griffith singularity in a quantum phase transition.

Since the proposal of quantum Griffith singularity, it has only been observed in conventional low-dimensional superconducting films and in a few three-dimensional ferromagnets. The existence of quantum Griffith singularity in three-dimensional superconductors and in unconventional high-temperature superconductors has yet to be confirmed experimentally. Such confirmation will shed light on the understanding of mechanisms in unconventional high-temperature superconductivity.

Figure 2BT phase diagram of quantum Griffiths singularity in a three-dimensional anisotropic superconductor. Credit: Science China Press

Recently, a research group led by Jian-Hao Chen, a researcher at the International Center for Quantum Materials at the School of Physics at Peking University, the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, and the Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices of Peking University, conducted a study on the quantum Griffith singularity in unconventional high-temperature superconducting bulk single crystal CaFe1-xNixAsF. They and their collaborators grew a series of high-quality underdoped CaFe1-xNixAsF bulk single crystals for the first time and observed the evolution of quasi-two-dimensional to three-dimensional anisotropic quantum Griffith singularities in the superconductor-metal phase transitions driven by magnetic fields.

They found robust quantum Griffith singularity which can last up to 5.3 K, and it can be induced in the crystals by both parallel and vertical magnetic fields. This study not only reveals the universality of quantum Griffith singularity in three-dimensional and unconventional high-temperature superconducting systems, but also predicts the possibility of finding quantum Griffith states in more unconventional high-temperature superconducting families (i.e., nickel-based and copper-based superconductors), which may further promote the understanding of unconventional high-temperature superconductivity mechanisms.

Reference: Three-dimensional quantum Griffiths singularity in bulk iron-pnictide superconductors by Shao-Bo Liu, Congkuan Tian, Yongqing Cai, Hang Cui, Xinjian Wei, Mantang Chen, Yang Zhao, Yuan Sui, Shuyue Guan, Shuang Jia, Yu Zhang, Ya Feng, Jiankun Li, Jian Cui, Yuanjun Song, Tingting Hao, Chaoyu Chen and Jian-Hao Chen, 25 June 2024, National Science Review. DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwae220

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Unconventional Superconductivity: The Peculiar Case of Griffith Singularity - SciTechDaily

A new generation of flying cars promises to revolutionize urban mobility, but limited battery power holds them back from plying longer routes. A new hydrogen-powered variant from Joby Aviation could soon change that.

Rapid advances in battery technology and electric motors have opened the door to a new class of aircraft known as eVTOLs, which stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing. The companies making the aircraft tout them as a quieter, greener alternative to helicopters.

However, current battery technology means theyre limited to ranges of approximately 150 miles. Thats why they have primarily been envisaged as a new form of urban mobility, allowing quick hops across cities congested with traffic.

Joby is already developing a battery-powered eVTOL that it expects to start commercial operations next year. But this week, the company announced it has created a hydrogen-powered version of the aircraft, which recently completed a 523-mile test flight. The company says this could allow eVTOLs to break into regional travel as well.

With our battery-electric air taxi set to fundamentally change the way we move around cities, were excited to now be building a technology stack that could redefine regional travel using hydrogen-electric aircraft, JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, said in a press release.

Imagine being able to fly from San Francisco to San Diego, Boston to Baltimore, or Nashville to New Orleans without the need to go to an airport and with no emissions except water.

Jobys demonstrator is a converted battery-electric aircraft that had already completed 25,000 miles of test flights. It features the same airframe with six electric-motor-powered tilting propellers that allow it to take off vertically like a helicopter but cruise like a light aircraft. Joby says this should significantly speed up the certification process if the company decides to commercialize the technology.

Whats new is the addition of a hydrogen fuel cell system designed by H2FLY, a German startup Joby acquired in 2021, and a liquid hydrogen fuel tank that can store about 40 kilograms of fuel. The fuel cell combines the liquid hydrogen with oxygen from the air to generate the electricity that powers the aircrafts motors. The H2FLY team used the same underlying technology in a series of demonstration flights with a more conventional aircraft design last year.

The new Joby aircraft will still carry some batteries to provide additional power during takeoff and landing. But hydrogen has a much higher energy densityor specific energythan batteries, which makes it possible to power the aircraft for significantly longer.

Hydrogen has one hundred times the specific energy of todays batteries and three times that of jet fuel, Bevirt wrote in a blog post. The result is an electric aircraft that can travel much fartherand carry a greater payloadthan is possible not only with any battery cells currently under development, but even with the same mass of jet fuel.

However, switching to hydrogen fuel poses some challenges. For a start, hydrogen requires complicated cooling equipment, which means airports or other landing facilities would need to invest significant amounts in new fueling infrastructure.

The industry is already scratching its head figuring out how to support battery electric aircraft with charging infrastructure at airports, Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and managing partner of VC Up.Partners, told TechCrunch. Adding hydrogen filling stations into that equation will present even more challenges.

Hydrogens green credentials are also somewhat weaker than those of batteries. While its possible to generate hydrogen from water using only renewable electricity, at present the vast majority is produced from fossil fuels.

However, efforts are underway to increase the supply of green hydrogen, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 set aside $9.5 billion to help boost these efforts. And if hydrogen-powered flight can piggyback on innovations in eVTOL technology, it could prove a powerful way to curb emissions in one of the worlds most polluting sectors.

Image Credit: Joby

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Jobys New Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft Can Fly You From San Francisco to San Diego - Singularity Hub

One of the most epic claims Ray Kurzweil makes in his new book, The Singularity Is Nearer is that the first person who will live to 1,000 may have already been born. Thats because, he writes, by 2030, humans will attain longevity escape velocity, and science will have figured out how to add more than a year to lifespan for each year that passes thanks to AI-led medical and pharmaceutical innovations.

Of course, Kurzweil is no stranger to outrageous predictions about the future and there are many more here, some of which, were they to pass, would make the prospect of such incredible longevity a little more palatable. By the late 2020s, he writes, data-driven vertical farming will cause the cost of food to plummet and 3-D printing will make housing shortages a thing of the past. In the 2030s, he asserts, it will be relatively inexpensive to live at a level that is considered luxurious today.

Kurzweil hasnt changed his tone or expectations much over the past 20 years. In his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, he predicted that the Singularitythe term applied to the theoretical threshold when technology would outpace its human creators, resulting in an unpredictable, possibly uncontrollable explosion of superintelligent machineswould arrive by 2045. Now he writes it will arrive some time in the 2040s.

AI will change the way we approach a fundamental question: Who am I?

Early on in the new book, Kurzweil clarifies that his definition for the Singularity differs somewhat from other conceptions. While many futurists consider it the moment AI becomes capable of self-guided replication and growth, Kurzweil conceives of it as more of a fusion between tech and humanity, a time when this technology will let us merge with the superintelligence, allowing us to be freed from the enclosure of our skulls by artificial augmentation to our biology, ultimately expanding our intelligence millions-fold.

Along the way, he claims, several key innovations will happen. His new book essentially charts the path this snowballing technological revolution will take, providing rough estimates for when we may encounter certain landmark developments.

On that note, he explores at length present concerns about the future of work, claiming that, As AI unlocks unprecedented material abundance across countless areas, the struggle for physical survival will fade into history. Instead, our main struggle will be for purpose and meaning, and by the 2030s, we will be able to create meaningful expressions that we cannot imagine or understand today.

Around that same time, he writes that we will master the concept of atom-by-atom placement which will let us reorganize matter as we see fit, essentially allowing us to print clothing, furniture, solar panels, hot meals, and even human organs. Within a decade, this micro-manipulation will extend to medical nanobots who will regulate and repair our bodies from within, and by the 2040s and 2050s, we will rebuild our bodies and brains to go vastly beyond what our biological bodies are capable of.

This is the singularity as Kurzweil imagines it, when the AIs will become part of us, and thus it is we who will be doing those things.

At the heart of Kurzweils framework is the suggestion that AIs progressive arrival will change the way we approach a fundamental question: Who am I? This technology, he claims, will, through both its material and conceptual impacts, alter the way we think of ourselves.

Consider our phones, which already augment the otherwise limited capacity of our memories. You dont need to remember driving directions, because theyre stored in the cloud. Increasingly, writes Kurzweil, we will exist more and more in or even as this cloud, especially when the biological crutches afforded by AI become integrated into our bodies via implants and nanobots. Who are you if your identity is partially stored in the cloud, and if it can even be restored into a newly fabricated body in the event of accidental death?

If Kurzweil is even remotely right, then 10 years from now our livesour very societywill be totally unrecognizable.

One shortcoming of Kurzweils vision, of course, is that he seems to believe that technological progress proceeds in a straight line, when its history is chock full of diversions and dead endsa criticism levered at his earlier work.

And then there is the question of his enthusiasm itself. In Nearer, Kurzweil is unabashedly optimistic about the potential benefits afforded by AI. While he does devote some 20 pages to its perilsnotably a misalignment of programming values resulting in undesirable AI behavior, the misuse of AI-powered biotech by terrorists to create novel viruses or other large scale hazards, or nanobots loosed to violent ends or perhaps even total, if accidental, planetary devastationhe dismisses these as unlikely incidentals on the way to our grand utopia.

Wide-eyed optimism and inattention to the nonlinear path of progress aside, its hard to escape the appeal of Kurzweils vision. Nanorobots keeping us all healthy forever on our techno-quest for meaning? Sounds exciting on paper! And who doesnt want to believe in the powers of science to improve, enhance, and extend our lives?

But look back in time as far as you like, and you will see that history is decidedly short on utopias.

Lead image: DannyOliva / Shutterstock

Posted on July 17, 2024

Arts, science, and travel writer Nick Hilden contributes to the likes of the Washington Post, Scientific American, Esquire, Popular Science, National Geographic, and more. You can follow him on Twitter at @nickhilden or Instagram at @nick.hilden.

Cutting-edge science, unraveled by the very brightest living thinkers.

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Ray Kurzweil Still Lives in Utopia - Nautilus

In 2005 Ray Kurzweil futurologist, computer scientist and transhumanist cheerleader published The Singularity Is Near, the burden of which was: the Singularity is coming and it will be great. The Singularity is the moment when the upward curve on the graph of progress goes vertical, when technological advance actualises a step change in human existence.

Kurzweils new book revisits his earlier volume, repeating and reinforcing its message. Everything he previously predicted is, he says, coming true. The Singularity will launch us into bright, sunlit uplands: superintelligent artificial intelligence (AI) will interface with human consciousness, expanding our mental capacities a millionfold; nanotechnology will cure all illness; a second industrial revolution will generate global prosperity from which all benefit. To support its claims the book is supplied with great hose-blasts of data a hundred pages of tiny-font notes and appendices and the tone is remorselessly upbeat throughout.

A less optimistic individual might see downsides in all this, and Kurzweil does include one chapter, called Peril, on the possible dangers of these technologies. Theres the fear that nanotech might go rogue and process all the carbon in the world into grey goo, killing all life. A worrying thought, but one that Kurzweil thinks can be averted by the creation of a prophylactic blue goo nanotech that will guard against it. I worry that the two goos might decide that they have more in common with each other than they do with humanity and join forces. That would be, as John Lennon never sang, goo goo gdbye.

Or again: if AI really does achieve consciousness, given its vastly superior processing capacity, it might be a kind of god. Whos to say it would be a kindly one? Kurzweil believes it should be possible to programme emergent AI to avoid this, to make it compatible with ideals of human dignity, rights, freedom and cultural diversity. He concedes that AI may develop beyond our power to control it, but thinks overall we should be cautiously optimistic.

The Silicon Valley biohacker Dave Asprey believes living to 180 is a boringly, easily achievable goal

IAN ALLEN FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE

Other concerns are not addressed, although climate change might do the grey goos job for it. The mammoth power and cooling requirements of the computers in the cloud on which these (hugely expensive) experiments with AI depend will contribute to rising oceans, storms and heatwaves, mass methane release from warmed-over tundra, and societal collapse.

Thats not the future of The Singularity Is Nearer. Kurzweil believes that the Singularity is so imminent it will overtake, and solve, all todays pressing problems. The world of employment will change self-driving cars will make all lorry and taxi drivers redundant, for instance but that wont matter since so much wealth will be generated by AI and automation that governments can pay us all a generous salary simply to be ourselves.

Nanobots in our blood will cure all diseases, extending human lifespans on a sliding scale by 2030 living to 120 will be normal, which will take us to 2050 by which time newer tech will make living to 200 normal, by which time even more splendiferous tech will make living to 300 normal, and so on. This is what Kurzweil calls longevity escape velocity, and hes convinced that it will launch us into functional immortality; he repeats Aubrey de Greys sensational claim that the first person to live to 1,000 years has likely already been born.

Computer says, were all doomed! Will AI ruin our world?

By the 2050s we will rebuild our bodies to go vastly beyond what our biology is capable of. As nanotechnology takes off well be able to run much faster and longer, swim and breathe under the ocean like fish, and even give ourselves working wings if we want them. We will think a million times faster, but most importantly we will not be dependent on the survival of our bodies for our selves to survive. Sounds pretty exhausting to me, but chacun son got.

That last point, thinking a million times faster and avoiding death by uploading our consciousness to the cloud to evade death, is the boldest part of Kurzweils Singularity, and the biggest hole in his argument. He takes it as axiomatic that being a million times cleverer would be a good thing. Would it?

Kurzweil understands that intelligence has been selected evolutionarily (sophisticated brains provided a marked evolutionary advantage), one among many strategies animals have developed to pass on their genes: the speed of the cheetah; the camouflage of the stick insect; the long neck of the giraffe. Each of these adaptations improves the creatures fit to their environments. Brain-smarts are our one weird trick to improve our chances of passing on our DNA and weve been pretty successful as a species on the strength of it. For Kurzweil, though, its more. Regardless of consciousnesss origin, he says, it is somehow sacred. The logic seems to be: if something is sacred, then having a whole lot more of it must be a good thing.

Is that right? Intelligence feels special to us because intelligence is our thing if they could articulate it, cheetahs would surely tell us that their speed was sacred, fruit flies that their wings were sacred. A truer way of thinking about human intelligence would be to see it as just a strategy DNA developed to make more DNA.

This is important, because if we see intelligence in its evolutionary context its not obvious that we would want to expand it a millionfold. Perhaps the present levels of human intelligence, within todays parameters of IQ variance, are the right levels. A giraffes neck enables it to feast on the tastiest topmost leaves, but it doesnt follow that a giraffe with a neck a hundred times as long would be a hundred times the better giraffe. On the contrary, such a sudden cervical expansion would kill it. Maybe a sudden huge magnification of human intelligence would collapse rather than augment our humanity, drive us mad or catatonic. Maybe, as in Kurt Vonneguts 1985 novel Galpagos, intelligence is something we would actually be better off with less of.

If the Singularitys arrival is as inevitable as Kurzweil suggests, such concerns may be irrelevant. As the Titanic sank the band played Nearer, My God, to Thee. Kurzweils ever nearer Singularity approaches, like a huge, glimmering iceberg. Dive in, he says, the waters lovely. I have my doubts.

The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil (Bodley Head 25 pp432). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over 25. Special discount available for Times+ members

The granddaddy of futurist prediction is this bestseller, which marked a shift from HG Wells predicting the to-come via science fiction like The Time Machine (1895) and When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) to predicting it as fact, a practice that came to increasingly dominate his writing. Anticipations correctly predicts individual mass transit with everyone owning cars and the practice of commuting stretching home from walking-distance to hundreds of miles. It also anticipates the growth of cities, the rise of a managerial class, aerial warfare (two years before the Wright Brothers) and sexual liberalisation. It incorrectly predicted the coming of a world state and eugenics. A mixed bag.

A runaway bestseller in the 1970s, this book popularised the idea not just that times were changing, but that the pace of change was accelerating exponentially, such that the future would be radically, disorientatingly different to the now. The shock of the title is too much change in too short a period of time. The Tofflers predicted built-in obsolescence of commodities, postindustrial economies, the death of permanence and what they called information overload. This was perceptive, although the book also predicts underwater cities, mass ownership of spaceships and disposable paper clothing becoming commonplace. So not entirely a bullseye, prediction-wise.

Theres no shortage of doom and gloom when it comes to predicting the climate future, and Kim Stanley Robinsons powerful novel does not evade the direction of global heating and environmental-collapse upon which humanity seems fixed. But this, his most recent, and it seems last, novel also predicts a raft of future strategies for reversing the damage and saving the planet. Some are practical (interventions to stop glaciers slide and melt and avoid raising ocean levels), some matters of political policy (carbon strategies for industry, transport, land use, buildings and transportation) and some financial, for example, turning all the banks into co-ops with profits divided three ways between employee-owners, environmental capital improvements and a third given to charities chosen by the employees.

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The Singularity Is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil review the coming AI revolution - The Times

Roughly 52,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth died in the Siberian tundra. As her body flash froze in the biting cold, something remarkable happened: Her DNA turned into a fossil. It wasnt only genetic letters that were memorializedthe cold preserved their intricate structure too.

Fast forward to 2018, when an international expedition to the area found her preserved body. The team took little bits of skin from her head and ear, hairs still intact.

From these samples, scientists built a three-dimensional reconstruction of a woolly mammoths genome down to the nanometer. The results were published in Cell today.

Like humans, the mammoths DNA strands are tightly packed into chromosomes inside cells. These sophisticated structures are hard to analyze in detail, even for humans, but they contain insights into which genes are turned on or off and how theyre organized in different cell types.

Previous attempts to reconstruct ancient DNA only had tiny snippets of genetic sequences. Like trying to put together a puzzle with missing pieces, the resulting DNA maps were incomplete.

Thanks to the newly discovered flash-frozen DNA, this mammoth projectpun intendedis the first to assemble an enormous ancient genome in 3D.

This is a new type of fossil, and its scale dwarfs that of individual ancient DNA fragmentsa million times more sequence, said study author Erez Lieberman Aiden at Baylor College of Medicine in a statement.

Aidens team heavily collaborated with Love Daln at the Center of Palaeogenetics in Sweden. In a separate study, Dalns team analyzed 21 Siberian woolly mammoth genomes and charted how the species survived for six millennia after a potentially catastrophic genetic bottleneck.

The mammoth genomes werent that different than those of todays Asian and African elephants. All have 28 pairs of chromosomes, and their X chromosomes twist into unique structures unlike most mammals. Digging deeper, the team found genes that were turned on or off in the mammoth compared to its elephant cousins.

Our analyses uncover new biology, wrote Aidens team in their paper.

Ancient DNA is hard to come by, but it offers invaluable clues about the evolutionary past. In the 1980s, scientists eager to probe genetic history showed ancient DNA, however fragmented, could be extracted and sequenced in samples from an extinct member of the horse family and Egyptian mummies.

Thanks to modern DNA sequencing, the study of ancient DNA has subsequently undergone a remarkable expansion, wrote Aidens team. Its now possible to sequence whole genomes from extinct humans, animals, plants, and even pathogens spanning a million years.

Making sense of the fragments is another matter. One way to decipher ancient genetic codes is to compare them to the genomes of their closest living cousins, such as woolly mammoths and elephants. This way, scientists can figure out which parts of the DNA sequence remained unchanged and where evolution swapped letters or small fragments.

These analyses can link genetic changes to function, such as identifying which genes made mammoths woolly. But they cant capture large-scale differences at the chromosomal level. Because DNA relies on the chromosomes 3D structure to function, sequencing its letters alone misses valuable information, such as when and where genes are turned on or off.

Enter Hi-C. Developed in 2009 to reconstruct human genomes, the technique detects interactions between different genetic sites inside the cells nucleus.

Heres roughly how it works. DNA strands are like ribbons that twirl around proteins in a structure resembling beads on a string. Because of this arrangement, different parts of the DNA strand are closer to each other in physical space. Hi-C glues together sections that are near one another and tags the pairs. Alongside modern DNA sequencing, the technique produces a catalog of DNA fragments that interact in physical space. Like a 3D puzzle, scientists can then put the pieces back together.

Imagine you have a puzzle that has three billion pieces, but you dont have the picture of the final puzzle to work from, study author Marc A. Marti-Renom said in the press release. Hi-C allows you to have an approximation of that picture before you start putting the puzzle pieces together.

But Hi-C can be impossible to use in ancient samples because the surviving fragments are so short theyve erased any chromosome shapes. Theyve literally withered away over time.

In the new study, the team developed a new technique, called PaleoHi-C, to analyze ancient DNA specifically.

Scientists immediately treated samples in the field to reduce contamination. They generated roughly 4.4 billion pairs of physically aligned DNA sequencessome interacting within a single chromosome, others between two. Overall, they painted a 3D snapshot of the woolly mammoths genetic material and how it looked inside cells with nanoscale detail.

In the new reconstructions, the team identified chromosome territoriescertain chromosomes are located in different regions of the nucleusalongside other quirks, such as loops that bring pairs of distant genomic sites into close physical proximity to alter gene expression. These patterns differed between cell types, suggesting its possible to learn which genes are active, not just for the mammoth but also compared to its closest living relative, the Asian elephant.

Roughly 820 genes differed between the two, with 425 active in the mammoth but not in elephants, and a similar number inactivated in one but not the other. One inactive mammoth gene thats active in elephants has a human variant that is also shut down in the Nunavik Inuit, an indigenous people who thrive in the arctic. The gene may be relevant for adaptation to a cold environment, wrote the team.

Another inactive gene may explain how the woolly mammoth got its name. In humans and sheep, shutting down the same gene can result in excessive hair or wool growth.

For the first time, we have a woolly mammoth tissue for which we know roughly which genes were switched on and which genes were off, said Marti-Renom in the release. This is an extraordinary new type of data, and its the first measure of cell-specific gene activity of the genes in any ancient DNA sample.

How did the mammoths genome architecture remain so well preserved for over 50,000 years?

Dehydration, often used to preserve food, may have been key. Using Hi-C on fresh beef, beef after 96 hours sitting on a desk, or jerky after a year at room temperature, the jerky took the win for resiliency. Even after getting run over by a car, immersed in acid, and pulverized by a shotgun (no joke), the dehydrated beefs genomic architecture remained intact.

Dehydration could also partly be why the mammoth sample lasted so long. A chemical process called glass transition is widely used to produce shelf-stable food such as tortilla chips and instant coffee. It prevents pathogens from taking over or breaking down food. The mammoths DNA may also have been preserved in a glassy state called chromoglass. In other words, the sample was preserved across millennia by being freeze-dried.

Its hard to say how long DNA architecture can survive as chromoglass, but the authors estimate its likely over two million years. Whether PaleoHi-C can work on hot-air-dried specimens, such as ancient Egyptian samples, remains to be seen.

As for mammoths, the next step is to examine gene expression patterns in other tissues and compare them to Asian elephants. Besides building an evolutionary throughline, the efforts could also guide ongoing studies looking to revive some version of the majestic animals.

These results have obvious consequences for contemporary efforts aimed at woolly mammoth de-extinction, said study author Thomas Gilbert at the University of Copenhagen in the release.

Image Credit: Beth Zaiken

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First Woolly Mammoth Genome Reconstructed in 3D Could Help Bring the Species Back to Life - Singularity Hub

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Cognition Emerges From Stealth to Launch AI Software Engineer Devin Shubham Sharma | VentureBeat The human user simply types a natural language prompt into Devins chatbot style interface, and the AI software engineer takes it from there, developing a detailed, step-by-step plan to tackle the problem. It then begins the project using its developer tools, just like how a human would use them, writing its own code, fixing issues, testing and reporting on its progress in real-time, allowing the user to keep an eye on everything as it works.

Covariant Announces a Universal AI Platform for Robots Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum [On Monday, Covariant announced] RFM-1, which the company describes as a robotics foundation model that gives robots the human-like ability to reason. Thats from the press release, and while I wouldnt necessarily read too much into human-like or reason, what Covariant has going on here is pretty cool. Our existing system is already good enough to do very fast, very variable pick and place, says Covariant co-founder Pieter Abbeel. But were now taking it quite a bit further. Any task, any embodimentthats the long-term vision. Robotics foundation models powering billions of robots across the world.'

Cerebras Unveils Its Next Waferscale AI Chip Samuel K. Moore | IEEE Spectrum Cerebras says its next generation of waferscale AI chips can do double the performance of the previous generation while consuming the same amount of power. The Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) contains 4 trillion transistors, a more than 50 percent increase over the previous generation thanks to the use of newer chipmaking technology. The company says it will use the WSE-3 in a new generation of AI computers, which are now being installed in a datacenter in Dallas to form a supercomputer capable of 8 exaflops (8 billion billion floating point operations per second).

SpaceX Celebrates Major Progress on the Third Flight of Starship Stephen Clarke | Ars Technica SpaceXs new-generation Starship rocket, the most powerful and largest launcher ever built, flew halfway around the world following liftoff from South Texas on Thursday, accomplishing a key demonstration of its ability to carry heavyweight payloads into low-Earth orbit. The successful launch builds on two Starship test flights last year that achieved some, but not all, of their objectives and appears to put the privately funded rocket program on course to begin launching satellites, allowing SpaceX to ramp up the already-blistering pace of Starlink deployments.

This Self-Driving Startup Is Using Generative AI to Predict Traffic James ODonnell | MIT Technology Review The new system, called Copilot4D, was trained on troves of data from lidar sensors, which use light to sense how far away objects are. If you prompt the model with a situation, like a driver recklessly merging onto a highway at high speed, it predicts how the surrounding vehicles will move, then generates a lidar representation of 5 to 10 seconds into the future (showing a pileup, perhaps).

Electric Cars Are Still Not Good Enough Andrew Moseman | The Atlantic The next phase, when electric cars leap from early adoption to mass adoption, depends on the people [David] Rapson calls the pragmatists: Americans who will buy whichever car they deem best and who are waiting for their worries about price, range, and charging to be allayed before they go electric. The current slate of EVs isnt winning them over.

Mining Helium-3 on the Moon Has Been Talked About ForeverNow a Company Will Try Eric Berger | Ars Technica Two of Blue Origins earliest employees, former President Rob Meyerson and Chief Architect Gary Lai, have started a company that seeks to extract helium-3 from the lunar surface, return it to Earth, and sell it for applications here. The present lunar rush is rather like a California gold rush without the gold. By harvesting helium-3, which is rare and limited in supply on Earth, Interlune could help change that calculus by deriving value from resources on the moon. But many questions about the approach remain.

What Happens When ChatGPT Tries to Solve 50,000 Trolley Problems? Fintan Burke | Ars Technica Autonomous driving startups are now experimenting with AI chatbot assistants, including one self-driving system that will use one toexplain its driving decisions. Beyond announcing red lights and turn signals, the large language models (LLMs) powering these chatbots may ultimately need to make moral decisions, like prioritizing passengers or pedestrians safety. But is the tech ready? Kazuhiro Takemoto, a researcher at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan, wanted to check if chatbots could make the same moral decisions when driving as humans.

States Are Lining Up to Outlaw Lab-Grown Meat Matt Reynolds | Wired As well as the Florida bill, there is also proposed legislation to ban cultivated meat in Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, and Tennessee. If all of those bills passan admittedly unlikely prospectthen some 46 million Americans will be cut off from accessing a form of meat that many hope will be significantly kinder to the planet and animals.

Physicists Finally Find a Problem Only Quantum Computers Can Do Lakshmi Chandrasekaran | Quanta Quantum computers are poised to become computational superpowers, but researchers have long sought a viable problem that confers a quantum advantagesomething only a quantum computer can solve. Only then, they argue, will the technology finally be seen as essential. Theyve been looking for decades. Now, a team of physicists including [John] Preskill may have found the best candidate yet for quantum advantage.

Image Credit: SpaceX

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through March 16) - Singularity Hub

Singularity 6's cosy MMO Palia has reached over 3 million players in six months ahead of its launch on Steam on March 25.

The studio's debut title a fantasy mix of life simulation and MMORPG launched last August with a PC open beta via its own website and launcher, followed by a release on the Epic Games Store in October. The game then launched on Nintendo Switch in December.

As for how Palia achieved this feat, Singularity 6 director of business strategy Yu Sian Tan tells GamesIndustry.biz it was a combination of captivating players and the game's release on Nintendo Switch.

"We believe that we struck a chord with players when we wanted to expand the community sim experience by making it more social, creating an environment that encourages players to be kind to one another and having an overarching narrative that players can dive into," she says, adding that Nintendo's involvement and supporting in development and marketing aided an increase in player numbers.

"[Their support] is invaluable to us as a new game studio," Tan adds. "After our launch on the Nintendo Switch, our partnership with Nintendo has only grown stronger."

Tan says Palia's launch on Nintendo provided a "big boost" to the title compared to the PC open beta due to the "flexibility" of the portable console.

"It also meant we were launching on a new platform and now supported cross-platform play so things definitely got a lot more interesting for the team," she says.

Despite this boost in player numbers, Tan notes that maintaining player engagement is one of the biggest challenges of overseeing the success of a free-to-play MMO.

"The free-to-play approach can be challenging because it involves a bit of a balancing act between offering engaging gameplay for free, but also introducing effective monetisation strategies that do not alienate players or cause unnecessary pressure that would run antithetical to the cosy community sim gameplay we are trying to encourage in Palia," she explains.

Tan highlights that the main obstacle with free-to-play is the ability to engage players over a long period of time when they haven't paid an upfront cost for the game, as well as keeping the game fresh as a live service product.

"I'd love to be able to say it's easy to predict what our players love to play and how they would engage with our content, but every time we release something new to our players, we constantly learn and evolve our understanding of our playerbase," she says.

"Every time we release something new to our players, we constantly learn and evolve our understanding of our playerbase"

"It's a mix of offering up content with our own unique spin on it that appeals to the player archetypes we expect to be attracted to Palia, but also throwing in new experiences to help players discover something that they might not have expected to like."

In terms of the live service aspect of the game, Tan describes adapting the title to this model as a "learning curve" for the studio, and that its live operations team has been instrumental in understanding concerns raised by its development team and ensuring their needs are met.

"We have definitely been working on improving our platform testing over time to understand what we need to test and where to test it to ensure we minimise our risk and maximise confidence," she notes.

"We have also been working on unifying the gameplay experience between platforms where it makes sense, without sacrificing the player experience. This has been a conscious effort for us as there are trade-offs we have to make, but this is key to ensure we can sustainably release content on multiple platforms in the future."

Among the lessons learned during development, Tan highlights that the game starting as an open beta on PC enabled the studio to comfortably launch the game on Switch, and helped lay the groundwork to bring the game to a bigger audience.

"There have been so many lessons we have learned along the way from building our own launcher/patcher on PC from scratch [to creating] robust monitoring systems and a scalable infrastructure that could handle the ebbs and flows in our playerbase," she says.

As for advice she has for developers working on similar free-to-play and live service products, Tan says it all comes down to the strength of the development team itself.

"The most important factor is to have a strong development team who trusts each other to band together and support each other throughout the ups and downs," she highlights. "Accept that you cannot plan for everything, so it's important to have established processes for how you deal with issues when they come up and how you take the lessons and apply them going forward."

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Palia reaches over 3m players in six months thanks to "invaluable" Switch partnership - GamesIndustry.biz

The emergence of technology opens up boundless opportunities for artistic innovation.

In an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking the world by storm, imagine the thrilling combination of AI and art! In a fusion of artistry and innovation, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) is delighted to unveil the grand finale of ARTS TECH Exhibition 2.0, "Beyond the Singularity" the first premier AI-themed exhibition in Hong Kong that pushes the boundaries of human expression through the angle of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Drawing inspiration from the notion of "singularity," which envisions a future where AI surpasses human cognitive abilities, "Beyond the Singularity" establishes a new benchmark in the utilization of AI technology. Collaborating with artists from disciplines ranging from ink art, western painting, photography, music, lyric writing, performance, and arts criticism, the exhibition showcases a varietyof collaboratively crafted art pieces using AI tools, pushing artistic expression beyond conventional boundaries and redefining traditional norms.

By pushing the boundaries of artistic exploration, Beyond the Singularity encourages artists to venture into the intersections of arts and technology, fostering vibrant interactions and introducing fresh and captivating artistic experiences to the audience. Ms Winsome Chow, Chief Executive of HKADC said.

From 16 March to 7 April 2024, Beyond the Singularity will offer an array of public programs and educational activities that delve into the intricacies of AI tools and their potential implications for humanity including workshops, artist discussions, and guided tours to provide engaging experiences for attendees.

Get ready to be captivated by Beyond the Singularity and embark on the journey that challenges your perception of art, technology and the very essence of human existence.

Event Highlights :

Challenging AI: The paintings of Chui Pui Lee

Chui Pui Lee is an expert on Fine Arts and Chinese Calligraphy. In this exhibition, he presents a captivating exploration of the unique confrontation between the artist and artificial intelligence, delving into how AI can strive to capture and potentially surpass the celebrated styles and techniques of historical ink art figures.

Between Reality and AI by So Hing-keung

Through the integration of AI, photographs are transformed into paintings, evoking the artistic styles of da Vinci, Botticelli, and Caravaggio, offering a unique portrayal of Hong Kong's essence.

My Drawing Teacher by Wong Chun-hei

The exhibition employs AI technology to analyze the artist's personal diary, extracting insights that guide the creation of a compelling series of paintings.

"Frog AI Topia 2024 by Frog King"

It seamlessly combines AI-generated art with a mixed-media approach, acknowledging AI as a valued collaborator that contributes to the artistic production.

Exhibition and Programme Details:

Beyond the Singularity (Curated by Isaac Leung)

Date: 16 March to 7 April 2024 (Closed on Mondays)

Time: 12:00 pm 7:00 pm

Venue Showcase: (UG/F, Landmark South, 39 Yip Kan Street, Wong Chuk Hang)

Workshop - Beyond the Basics: Navigating AI Fundamentals

Led by an expert instructor, participants of all levels gain a solid understanding of AI fundamentals, practical experience with AI tools, and the ability to critically assess its implications.

Date: 16 March 2024 (Saturday) & 24 March 2024 (Sunday)

Time: 3:00 pm 4:30 pm

Venue: HKADC Meeting Room, 5/F, Landmark South (39 Yip Kan Street, Wong Chuk Hang)

Instructor: Chan Ka-ming

Deposit: HKD$ 50 (*Fully refundable upon attending the event)

Registration: https://art-mate.net/doc/73101

Artists Talk - Beyond Art? Navigating the Age of AI

The talk will explore the firsthand experiences of the artists involved in the exhibition, offering valuable insights into their extensive creative processes integrating AI technology. The participating artists will share their personal journeys in AI-generated art, ethical considerations, collaborative endeavours, and the profound influence of AI on diverse artistic fields.

Date: 23 March 2024 (Saturday)

Time: 4:00 pm 5:00 pm

Venue: HKADC Meeting Room, 5/F, Landmark South (39 Yip Kan Street, Wong Chuk Hang)

Speakers: Chui Pui-chee, Kurt Chan Yuk-keung, Joseph Chen (Virtue Village), Mak2

Moderator: Isaac Leung

Registration: https://art-mate.net/doc/73096

Beyond the Singularity Artist and Curator Guided Tour

The tour contains three sessions, each led by the curator and participating artists. It provides participants with a comprehensive exploration of the creative concepts underpinning the exhibits and the varied applications of AI. Delving into diverse perspectives, the tours shed light on how AI influences and shapes artistic expressions, offering profound insights into the future of art.

Session :

- Session 1: With Chui Pui-chee, Mak2, Isaac Leung

Date: 23 March 2024 (Saturday) 2:30pm 3:30pm

- Session 2: With Curator Isaac Leung

Date: 24 March 2024 (Sunday) 1:30pm 2:30pm

- Session 3: With Phoebe Wong, Isaac Leung

Date: 30 March 2024 (Saturday) 2:30pm 3:30pm

Venue: Showcase (UG/F, Landmark South, 39 Yip Kan Street, Wong Chuk Hang)

Registration:https://www.art-mate.net/doc/73106

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Beyond the Singularity: Exploring the Fusion of AI and Art - Hong Kong Standard

2 min read

In the world of cryptocurrency, one popular way to potentially earn passive income is through staking Telos. If youre new to the concept and wondering how to get started, this guide will walk you through the process step by step.

Before diving into the actual steps of staking Telos, its essential to understand what staking is all about. Staking is the process of actively participating in transaction validation on a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. By staking your coins, you help secure the network and, in return, receive rewards.

DappRadar is a valuable tool that can help you find reputable platforms for staking your Telos. By using DappRadar, you can compare different staking options based on factors like returns, security, and community feedback.

Enter dappradar staking platform

Once youve selected a staking platform, the next step is to set up a Telos wallet that supports staking. Ensure that your chosen wallet is compatible with the staking requirements of the platform youve chosen. Its crucial to keep your private keys secure to protect your funds.

After setting up your wallet, youll need to deposit your Telos into the staking platform. Follow the platforms instructions on how to initiate the deposit securely. Make sure to double-check all transaction details before proceeding to ensure the accuracy of the deposit.

Once your Telos is deposited into the staking platform, you can start the staking process. This typically involves selecting the amount of Telos you wish to stake and confirming your participation in the staking pool. Be aware of the staking duration and any associated fees before proceeding.

By staking your Telos, you actively contribute to the security and efficiency of the blockchain network. In return for your participation, youll receive staking rewards periodically. These rewards can vary based on the staking platform and the amount of Telos youve staked.

Staking Telos can be a rewarding way to earn passive income while supporting the cryptocurrency network. By following these steps and staying informed about the latest developments in the staking space, you can make informed decisions and maximize your staking rewards. Start your staking journey today and unlock the potential of your Telos holdings!

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Telos Staking Success | by Pizza Singularity Sapphire | Feb, 2024 - Medium

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All matter in a black hole is concentrated into a central point of infinite density and infinitesimally small size a singularity.

Credit: Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock.

Do black holes have centers? If so, whats going on in there?

Richard Livitski Seal Beach, California

Einstein spent 10 years wrestling with three fundamental concepts in physics: acceleration, the special theory of relativity, and the gravitational force. This heroic effort culminated in 1915 with the general theory of relativity, an elegant set of equations relating the curvature of space-time to the matter moving around in it.

Though simple to write down, finding solutions to these equations has intrigued physicists and mathematicians ever since. To tackle any set of equations relating a physical system that evolves with time, a good start is to make assumptions that simplify things. Barely a month after Einsteins publication, Karl Schwarzschild discovered one of the simplest solutions. His description relating a compact spherically symmetric mass that doesnt change with time to the curvature of space-time surrounding it introduced us to what we now call a black hole.

Initially this solution was dismissed by many because it predicted an unusual situation: All matter in a black hole is concentrated into a central point of infinite density and infinitesimally small size a singularity. Singularities make physicists rather uncomfortable.

Having established whats at the center, what about the empty space immediately surrounding the singularity? Consider the trajectory of a spaceship falling into a black hole. From the point of view of a distant observer, the ship will accelerate and quickly reach the central singularity, but on the way it passes a point of no return: the event horizon. The closer to the central mass, the stronger the force of attraction; inside the event horizon the force is so strong equivalently, the space-time is so curved that no engine is powerful enough to overcome gravity and drive the ship outward. In fact, inside this radius, not even light can move fast enough to escape the attraction of the singularity. Just outside the event horizon, ships still travel on unusual paths, but at least they can return home.

The two problems keeping physicists up at night are 1) that our understanding of quantum mechanics makes the idea of a singularity untenable, and 2) the event horizon shields us from measuring what happens inside a black hole. These issues bring us to the cutting edge of theoretical physics: bridging general relativity and the quantum realm; reconciling the event horizons of black holes with the laws of thermodynamics; and even speculating about wormholes, where the center of a black hole is a pathway rather than a singularly unfortunate dead end.

Mark Avara Astrophysicist, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, U.K.

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What happens at the center of a black hole? - Astronomy Magazine