Category Archives: Deep Mind
Managing risk: Pandemics and plagues in the age of AI – The Interpreter
Once a recurring scourge that blinded, scarred and killed millions, smallpox was eradicated by a painstaking public health effort that saw the last natural infection occur in 1977. In what some consider an instructive moment in biosecurity (rather than a mere footnote), Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, died of smallpox the following year, after being exposed to Variola virus the causative agent of smallpox while working one floor above a laboratory at Birmingham University. The incident in which she lost her life was referred to as an unnatural infection one occurring outside the usual context of infectious disease.
The orthopox genus of which Variola virus is part holds a central role in the history of infectious disease and biodefence and has had a lasting impact on human society. Mousepox, cowpox, the clumsily named monkeypox and other pox viruses are all derived from the orthopox genus.
At the end of the first Cold War, as a US-led Coalition was poised to launch Operation Desert Storm, fear of both biological and chemical warfare returned.
There are only two known places in which Variola virus remains: in a high containment laboratory in Russian Siberia, and at a secure Centre for Disease Control (CDC) facility in Atlanta in the United States. Neither the Russian Federation nor the United States have yet destroyed their smallpox stockpiles, for reasons that relate more to the strictures of geopolitics than the needs of ongoing research. At the end of the first Cold War, as a US-led Coalition was poised to launch Operation Desert Storm, fear of both biological and chemical warfare returned. Saddam Hussein had deployed mustard gas and other chemical agents against Kurdish civilians at Halabja, killing more than 5,000 people. In the years preceding that atrocity, scores of military personnel bore the brunt of blistering agents, nerve agents and other chemical weapons in Iraqs protracted war against Iran.
Biological weapons were the next presumed step on Saddams ladder of escalation should he feel threatened by the US-led Coalition that gathered in the Saudi desert after his invasion of Kuwait. The weapons program Iraqi scientists had overseen since the 1980s had brought aflatoxins and botulinum toxin to the point of weaponisation, if not deployment. Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, was a proximate concern to Coalition troops as a potential battlefield weapon. But whether Saddam had access to Variola virus was the biggest question. Smallpox, a disease with pandemic potential, was a strategic weapon with international reach, one that might even be deployed behind Coalition lines by a small team.
Fear of such a scenario returned with the onset of the global War on Terror in the early 2000s, and so governments from Europe to Australia began stockpiling smallpox vaccines for use in the event of a future attack. After the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) suddenly seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, the group repeatedly deployed chemical weapons against civilians, and reportedly made attempts at acquiring biological weapons as well. In 2016, as ISILs caliphate reached its brief zenith, a Canadian scientist on the other side of the world was working to create a safer vaccine against smallpox. The researcher was engaged by a US biotech company that wanted a smallpox shot that did not carry the risk of reversion, a situation in which inoculation can cause active infection something happily not possible with most vaccines or death.
As part of this effort, the researcher needed a related orthopox virus to use as a viral vector. To this end, their team embarked on de novo synthesis of horsepox, a less pathogenic orthopox virus. This step, the reconstruction of a hitherto eradicated pox virus, became known as a Rubicon in the field of biosecurity. For the first time, an orthopox virus was created from scratch using information and material derived from purely commercial sources and it only cost around $100,000.
Horsepox was, of course, not the first virus to be rebuilt or enhanced in a laboratory setting. In 2005, a team reconstructed some of the H1N1 virus responsible for the Spanish influenza pandemic that killed between 20 and 50 million people in 1918-19, using reverse genetic techniques that were cutting-edge at the time. In 2002, another research group at the State University of New York created the first entirely artificial virus, a chemically synthesised strain of polio. A year before, in 2001, an Australian team investigating contraceptives for use on the rodent population accidentally amplified a form of ectromelia, which causes mousepox, to a point that made it resistant to available pox vaccines.
What made the horsepox development such a watershed moment was the ease with which the necessary materials and genetic information were acquired. The team bought access to DNA fragments from a horsepox outbreak that occurred in Mongolia decades earlier, in 1976. A DNA synthesis company, GeneArt, was engaged to construct the DNA fragments. Hence, a small team seeking to obtain and propagate a similar pox virus with pandemic potential say, smallpox need not physically get hold of it in full form. Nor did they need access to a government-run lab, or the certification of tightly restricted procurement channels to do so. Instead, the virus could be recreated using means and material easily available to any private citizen, for minimal cost.
Such techniques, which are well established now, undeniably have many beneficial uses. At the onset of the Covid pandemic, when authorities in China were less than forthcoming with information, the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was published on the internet but only after some skittish manoeuvring by Western researchers and their colleagues based in China, who were under government pressure not to share the sequence. Belated though this development was, it allowed for scientists across the world to begin designing medical countermeasures. Similar processes are used to keep track of viral evolution during other epidemics, to monitor the emergence of new variants of concern, or to detect changes in a pathogen that could cause more severe disease.
Much has transpired in the fields of chemistry and synthetic biology since 2017, and even more has happened in the field of artificial intelligence. When chemistry, biology and AI are combined, what was achieved with horsepox by a small team of highly trained specialists could soon be done by an individual with scientific training below the level of a doctorate. Instead of horsepox or even smallpox, any such person could soon synthesise something far deadlier, such as Nipah virus. It might equally be done with a strain of avian influenza, which public health officials have long worried may one day gain the ability to spread efficiently between humans. Instead of costing $100,000, such a feat will soon require little more than $20,000, a desktop whole genome synthesiser and access to a well-informed large language model (LLM), if some of the leading personalities in generative AI are to be believed.
Some alarming conversation has been had in recent months over the potential for new artificial intelligence platforms to present existential risks. Much of this anxiety has revolved around future iterations of AI that might lead to a takeoff in artificial superintelligence that could surpass, oppress or extinguish human prosperity. But a more proximate threat is contained within the current generation of AI platforms. Some of the key figures in AI design, including Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Googles Deep Mind, admit that large language models accessible to the public since late 2022 have sufficient potential to aid in the construction of chemical or biological weapons.
Founded in 1984 at the height of the IranIraq war, the Australia Group initially focused on controlling precursor chemicals that were used in the unconventional weapons that killed scores of people on the IranIraq frontline.
Details on such risks have so far been mostly vague in their media descriptions. But the manner in which LLMs could aid malicious actors in this domain is simply by lowering the informational barriers to constructing pathogens. In much the same way AI platforms can be used as a wingman for fighter pilots navigating the extremes of aerial manoeuvre in combat, an LLM with access to the right literature in synthetic biology could help an individual with minimal training overcome the difficulties of creating a viable pathogen with pandemic potential. While some may scoff at this idea, it is a scenario that AI designers have been actively testing with specialists in biodefence. Their conclusion was that little more than postgraduate training in biology would be enough.
This does not mean that (another) pandemic will result from the creation of a synthetic pathogen in the coming years. Avenues for managing such risks can be found in institutions that have already proven central to the control of biological and chemical weapons. One such forum the Australia Group could be the perfect place to kickstart a new era of counter-proliferation in the age of AI.
Founded in 1984 at the height of the IranIraq war, the Australia Group (AG) initially focused on controlling precursor chemicals that were used in the unconventional weapons that killed scores of people on the IranIraq frontline. The AG has since evolved to harmonise regulation of many dual use chem-bio components via comprehensive common control lists. But the dawn of a new age in artificial intelligence, coming as it has after 20 years of frenetic progress in synthetic biology, presents new challenges. As an established forum, the Australia Group could provide an opportunity for the international community to get ahead of this new threat landscape before it is too late.
It has been nearly four years since SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, went from causing a regional epidemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan to a worldwide pandemic. At the time of writing, the question of how the virus first entered the human population remains unresolved. There are several ingredients that make both a natural zoonotic event and an unnatural, research-related infection plausible scenarios. The first ingredients relate to the changing ecologies in which viruses circulate, the increasingly intense interface between humans and animals amid growing urbanisation, and the international wildlife trade. Regarding the latter possibility, that the virus may have emerged in the course of research gone awry, it is now a well-documented fact that closely related coronaviruses were being subjected to both in-field collection and laboratory-based experimentation in the years approaching the pandemic. (Whether or not a progenitor to SARS-CoV-2 was held in any nearby facility remains in dispute.)
Whatever the case, the next pandemic may not come as a result of a research-related accident, or an innocent interaction between human and animal it may instead be a feature of future conflict. Many of the same ingredients that were present in 2017 remain in place across the world today, with the new accelerant of generative AI as an unwelcome addition. Added to this is a new era of great power competition, an ongoing terrorist threat, and the rise of new sources of political extremism. The Australia Group has the chance to act now, before we see the use of chemical or biological weapons at any of these inflection points, which are all taking place amid a new age of artificial intelligence.
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Managing risk: Pandemics and plagues in the age of AI - The Interpreter
‘A toast to the future’: UK sells AI play to DC – POLITICO
With help from Derek Robertson
The Union Jack flying near the U.S. Capitol. | Getty Images
On Monday night, at the newly renovated residence of the British ambassador, Rishi Sunaks government introduced Washington to its latest soft power push: owning the global conversation on AI regulation.
Over Bombay gin cocktails and fish-and-chips hors doeuvres, attendees toasted the future at a reception to preview the UKs upcoming AI Safety Summit, set for the beginning of November.
Now, a lot of people and institutions would like to influence the development of AI. And to much of the world, Britain symbolizes the past more than the future.
But in that potential weakness the Sunak government sees its selling point: Pedigree.
The UKs storied past, so the argument goes, gives it a special claim on guiding humanitys navigation of an AI-powered future. We have a good reputation for innovation, is how Ambassador Karen Pierce put it to DFD.
(In a nod to the difficulties many government officials have in overseeing the development of fast-moving technologies, she also confessed I may be the least AI-literate person in the room.
In remarks to the crowd which included representatives of the British military, the American private sector and well-known AI ethicist Rumman Chowdhury Pierce expounded on her governments case for taking the global lead on AI safety: The UKs tech sector was the third in the world to achieve a cumulative valuation of $1 trillion, a milestone its government boasted of last year.
She also spent some time plugging the historic location of next months two-day summit: Bletchley Park, 50 miles northwest of London, known as the site where computing pioneer Alan Turing made early computing breakthroughs in his successful quest to break German codes in World War II.
In fact, Britains claims on the origins of computing go back another century, to the creation of the idea of a digital computer by the inventor Charles Babbage and his aristocratic collaborator, Ada Lovelace, the daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron.
So thats the present and the past. How about the future? Today, the worlds sixth-largest economy can lay claim to one of the worlds best-known AI firms, London-based DeepMind, and some its best-known AI researchers, like the London-born, Cambridge-educated Geoffrey Hinton.
But laying its claim on the future of AI remains a challenge: Google acquired DeepMind a decade ago, and Hinton has made his professional home in North America. Regulators in the EU, which the UK left almost four years ago, oversee a far larger domestic market.
Sunak is reportedly angling to use the summit to launch a multilateral AI Safety Institute, though a British tech official downplayed summits ambitions last night.
The important part of my brief for tonight was to manage expectations, said Emran Mian, the Director General for Digital Technologies and Telecoms at the UKs Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the British equivalent of the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy). He spoke to POLITICO Tech podcast host Steven Overly at the event, and the full podcast episode will air in the coming days.
Britain has been angling for its own spot in the tech conversation for some time now, even installing an ambassador to Silicon Valley, making the case that the UK is a congenial home for tech firms worried about tougher EU regulations.
When it comes to AI, however, some Americans in the room were skeptical of the soft power play: One attendee, citing survey results that have not yet been released, said the British public is not especially concerned about AI safety, suggesting a lack of domestic interest could hobble the effort.
Another attendee, who deals with AI regulations around the world, said that Japan and Singapore have made more notable progress in formulating AI policies in recent years, though theyve done so more quietly.
Of Singapore, he suggested the UK could make a different nod to history: They should look to their former colony.
A message from CTIA The Wireless Association:
China is pushing countries to adopt their 5G spectrum vision and build a global market that favors their tech companies. To counter Chinas ambitions, we need our own compelling vision for U.S. spectrum leadership over the next decade, and a clear commitment to make more 5G spectrum available. For our economic competitiveness, our national security, and our 5G leadership, America needs a bold new National Spectrum Strategy. Learn more.
With cities and states known as the laboratories of democracy, some local leaders are starting to take that quite literally when it comes to AI.
As part of the Mayors Innovation Studio hosted at Bloombergs CityLab conference later this week, 100-plus mayors will discuss how they hope to use AI to optimize city governance. I spoke ahead of the conference with James Anderson, Bloomberg Philanthropies leader of government innovation, to get an early look into what the mayors are most excited about tinkering with.
When cities understand how other cities are doing things, where theyre using it, where theyre gaining efficiency, and also where theyre striking out, we see more effective interventions and fewer mayors striking out and re-creating the wheel in ways that waste time, energy and resources, Anderson said, saying that the mayors surveyed pre-conference are most interested in learning how to use AI to tweak transportation, infrastructure, and public safety.
He said he hopes to send the mayors home with some action items: Eighty percent of the mayors expressed interest in using AI but only 11 percent of them are actually using it or experimenting with it. very few mayors have implemented regulations, very few mayors have appointed policy leads, and very few mayors have started training their staff, Anderson said, adding that after the conference ends Friday Bloomberg Philanthropies plan to track progress as cities start to implement the programs discussed there. Derek Robertson
A message from CTIA The Wireless Association:
The Fugees' Pras Michel. | Andrew Harnik/AP
The nineties are back! in court.
Pras Michel, the Fugees rapper who found himself at the center of a massive financial and diplomatic scandal that led to his conviction in April for conspiring to make straw campaign donations, witness tampering and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, is now countersuing. He argues that his lawyer relied on AI to an extent that deprived him of the right to competent counsel.
As POLITICOs Josh Gerstein noted, in Michels motion he says his lawyer used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes, and he then publicly boasted that the AI program turned hours or days of legal work into seconds. He then, allegedly, proudly stated at the end of the trial words to the effect of AI wrote our closing.
That being said, he did not win. One might also recall a story from June, when a New York City law firm was slapped with a fine for using ChatGPT to write a brief that contained references to non-existent case law. Good rule of thumb: If youd double-check a piece of software when using it to help with your kids homework, its probably not worth jeopardizing your own legal reputation over. Derek Robertson
Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger ([emailprotected]); Derek Robertson ([emailprotected]); Mohar Chatterjee ([emailprotected]); Steve Heuser ([emailprotected]); Nate Robson ([emailprotected]) and Daniella Cheslow ([emailprotected]).
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A message from CTIA The Wireless Association:
Americas spectrum policy is stuck in neutral. The FCCs spectrum auction authority has not been renewed, there is no pipeline of new spectrum for 5G, and China is poised to dominate global spectrum discussions, pushing for 15X more 5G spectrum than the U.S. America cannot afford to fall behind and become a spectrum island. The Biden Administrations forthcoming National Spectrum Strategy is a unique and important opportunity to recommit ourselves to a bold vision for global spectrum leadership, secure our 5G leadership today and long-term leadership of the industries and innovations of the future. For our economic competitiveness and our national security, we need a National Spectrum Strategy that is committed to allocating 1500 MHz of new mid-band spectrum for 5G, and that reaffirms the critical role that NTIA and the FCC play in leading the nations spectrum policy. Learn more.
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'A toast to the future': UK sells AI play to DC - POLITICO
Understanding the mind’s internal clock – The Manitoban
Time perception is a critical aspect of human and animal cognition, influencing decision-making, memory, communication and motor control.
U of M associate professor in the department of biological sciences Fuat Balci delves deep into the intricate workings of the human and animal mind, focusing on the sense of time and how it operates and investigating its commonalities and differences across species.
Im obsessed with our sense of time as humans, and why and how the sense of time also takes place in other animals like mice, rats, pigeons, you name it, he said.
Balci focuses on the concept of scalar timing, a fundamental feature of time perception shared by various species. As time intervals grow longer, the precision of internal timing decreases, similar to pixelation on a television screen.
This implies that the part of the human brain acting as a stopwatch must be an evolutionary well-preserved function, said Balci, suggesting that maybe, whatever internal clock runs our sense of time [is] very comparable between different species.
Balcis research has practical implications offering insight into the human minds evolutionary underpinnings and providing a basis for using animal models to understand the workings of the human brain.
It also allows researchers like Balci to explore the disruptions in time perception associated with neurological disorders like autism and develop therapeutic interventions.
Studies have suggested that individuals with autism may experience a heightened sense of uncertainty due to disruptions to their internal clock. This heightened uncertainty might lead to repetitive behaviours and other characteristic features of autism.
By investigating how time perception operates in autistic individuals, Balci aims to uncover the relationship between time perception deficits and the broader symptoms of autism.
His project, titled NeVRo: Combining calcium imaging, optogenetics and virtual reality to investigate internal clock in autism, explores the role of time perception in autism spectrum disorders through autistic animal models.
If you look at how animals are tested in the lab, we typically put them in small boxes, test boxes that dont have [a] naturalistic scale for time and space, he said.
Balci explained that observing a mouse in such settings fails to capture the full spectrum of its natural behaviours.
Balci is determined to overcome the limitations of these conventional animal testing environments by creating ecologically valid testing conditions using virtual reality technology. In his experimental setup, mice run on a suspended ball, controlling their movements in a virtual setting.
Balci explained that this approach provides a more realistic testing environment and allows the observation of individual neuron activity at a cellular level.
Additionally, Balci combines virtual reality with cutting-edge technology such as calcium imaging and optogenetics. Calcium imaging is used to monitor the activity of individual neurons through calcium transients short and quick changes in calcium concentration while optogenetics combines optics (the study of light) and genetics in controlling the activity of neurons.
Balci employs these to manipulate specific neurons and gain insights into cause-and-effect relationships between brain activity and behaviour.
This combined approach goes beyond simplistic screening of animal models for human diseases and drugs. Balci emphasized that it helps him generate and analyze neural activity patterns, making it possible to potentially correct disrupted brain activity as observed in autism.
Instead of having this very quick and dirty screening of animal models of human diseases and drugs for it, Im doing an in-depth phenotyping he said. In-depth phenotyping involves analyzing observable traits and characteristics.
Balcis research has the potential to provide a deeper understanding of cognitive mechanisms and their role in disorders like autism. Autism spectrum disorder encompasses a wide range of symptoms, including challenges in cognitive ability and difficulties in understanding the perspectives of others.
As a scientist, what you can do is you can target any of these specific symptom domains and go after it, he said. Im more after the core symptoms that are latent.
Through the NeVRo project, Balci digs into these core, latent symptoms of autism. He seeks to uncover if there might be a common underlying cause.
This exploration has the potential to unlock a deeper understanding of the cognitive disruptions at the heart of autism, he said.
By addressing these fundamental aspects, Balcis project aims to not only advance our comprehension of autism but also to potentially open doors to more effective therapeutic interventions, ultimately improving the lives of autistic individuals.
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Understanding the mind's internal clock - The Manitoban
Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols to discuss climate change and … – University of Rhode Island
KINGSTON, R.I. Oct. 17, 2023 Noted ocean explorer Wallace J. Nichols will take a deep dive into climate changeand life below waterat the 2023 University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium Tuesday, Oct 24.
Nichols has been called a water warrior, one who commits to helping others access their blue mind state. His book Blue Mind, published in 2014, quickly became a national bestseller. Translated into numerous languages, its since inspired a wave of media attention and practical application.
Nichols will speak at 7 p.m. at Edwards Hall on the Kingston Campus, as part of the Universitys fall Honors Colloquium, Not Business As Usual: Business for the Common Good. The talk will also be streamed live (video links are available the day of each event, at the link above).
Nichols visionary ideas related to ocean and aquatic ecosystems, migratory species, marine protected areas, fisheries management and plastic pollution inspire others to find a deeper connection with nature and embrace inventive approaches to issues ranging from protection of ocean life to global water supply to the mental health benefits of a life spent on or near the water.
Formerly a senior scientist at Ocean Conservancy, Nichols received a Bradley Fellowship to study the impacts of sea level rise at Duke University Marine Lab, a Marshall Fellowship at the University of Arizona, and a Fulbright Fellowship to the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico marine station in Mazatln. In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow National member of the Explorers Club.
Nichols has authored more than 200 publications, lectured in more than 30 countries and nearly all 50 states, and appeared in hundreds of media outlets including NPR, BBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Outside Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Vogue, Fast Company, Surfer Magazine, Scientific American, and New Scientist.
He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy and lives with his family on Californias Slow Coast overlooking the Monterey Bay, an area he chose to settle in after trekking the entire 1,800 kilometer coast from Oregon to Mexico.
Nichols is no stranger to URI, having spoken on the topic An Ocean State of Mind at the 2021 Honors Colloquium, Sustaining Our Shores.
Lauren Poirier, a 2021 graduate and former URI Marketing and Communications intern, also wrote an essay about Nichols Blue Mind in the summer 2019 issue of the University of Rhode Island Magazine, in which she says, Psychologists, biologists, neurologists, researchers, surfers, fishers, swimmers, and beachgoers alike agree that there is just something restorative and peaceful about spending time in or near water.
The URI Honors Colloquium is free and open to the public. Hosted by URIs Honors Program, this is the Universitys premier lecture series and marks the centennial of the College of Business. Lectures will be held most Tuesday evenings through Dec. 5, and will also be available online. Learn more about the fall colloquium. Register for updates and reminders here or email urihonors@etal.uri.edu
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Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols to discuss climate change and ... - University of Rhode Island
The Buddhas wisdom can help to heal the mind – Times of India
By Durga Charan Mishra
Mental health issues often lead to loss of equanimity. The Buddha was a mind specialist as can be seen from the change in the mental health of some of his followers in the Sravaka Sangha. The story goes that Patachara, the only daughter of a wealthy man, fell in love with the household help and eloped with him. On her way back to the paternal house, after her husbands death, she crossed a river that was in spate and lost one of her children. The second one fell prey to an eagle. When she reached the outskirts of her village, she witnessed a mass funeral that of father, mother, and her two brothers. Facing all these tragedies, one after the other, she lost her mental balance, and started wandering on the streets aimlessly. Once, she stopped to hear a sermon by Tathagata and her life changed; she was accepted by the sangha and dharma was imparted to her. It helped to heal her mental state.Angulimal, as his name suggests, wore a garland of fingers. He was a merciless robber. He had killed 999 people. He cut their fingers and strung them in a garland. The Buddha was his last target. He joined the sangha after the Buddha counselled him. Patachara suffered from dukkha, deep depression, and Angulimal was full of himsa, hatred. Both recovered and subsequently attained Arahanthood. But the Buddhas two followers, Devadutta, his cousin, and Prince Ajatashatru, could never be cured, though they too were part of the sangha, because they failed to practise the medicine, the dharma. The Buddha did not give importance to the individual, but to his bodha, understanding. He taught his followers anapanasati, concentrating on the breath. It is an exercise to connect with the body; it helps the mind regain its power to focus and the restlessness within subsides.
The Buddha revealed the marga, an eight-fold path to remove all the reasons for suffering. Taking the medicine in the Buddhas way, can eradicate the source of the problem, ushering in permanent relief. For example, according to the Buddha, stinginess creates trishna, craving; it can be annihilated by charity and loving kindness. Dharma is the medicine to be put into practice. The Buddhas teachings are not only meant to help treat mental health issues, the three essentials of Buddhist training and discipline sila, ethical conduct; samadhi, mental discipline; and panna, wisdom are aimed towards liberation also. Liberation is a lokattara, supra-mundane condition. It cannot be experienced through fasting, puja and morning bath, the Buddha would say.
The root cause of many mental health problems, according to Buddhism, lies in avidya, ignorance. Raga and dwesh, likes and dislikes, are generated from that. At the tranquil stage of samadhi, raga and dwesh do not dominate the mind and one can investigate what is the present moment about prajna and remove avidya. Prajna is defined as the direct insight into the truth taught by the Buddha, as a faculty required to attain enlightenment.
After the elimination of avidya, one starts seeing the truth and the marga, path, unfolds. Samadhi and prajna can aid in dealing with mental health issues.
Views expressed above are the author's own.
END OF ARTICLE
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The Buddhas wisdom can help to heal the mind - Times of India
2023 Gairdner National Program Lecture bring pioneering … – McGill Reporter
Lynne E. Maquat and Demis Hassabis will deliver the 2023 Gairdner National Program Lecture
The Gairdner Foundationis dedicated to recognizing major research contributions to the treatment of disease and alleviation of human suffering. The Canada Gairdner International Awardrecognizes outstanding researchers whose unique scientific contributions have increased the understanding of human biology and disease.
On October 23, McGill Research + Innovation will host the 2023 Gairdner National Program Lecture. This years program features Canada Gairdner International Award winners, mRNA expert Professor Lynne E. Maquat (2015), and CEO and Co-Founder of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis (2023).
Named one of TIME magazines 100 most influential people of 2023, Demis Hassabis, PhD, brings his message about how AI can accelerate scientific discovery to McGill as part of the 2023 Gairdner lectures. The co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, an artificial intelligence research laboratory, and founder and CEO of Isomorphic labs which uses AI for drug discovery, Hassabis has led teams of computer scientists and spearheaded AI breakthroughs.
He earned the 2023 Gairdner International Award for developing AlphaFold, which has been heralded as an AI-based solution to the 50-year grand challenge of protein structure prediction and has culminated in the release of the most accurate and complete picture of the structure of the human proteome, with enormous potential to accelerate biological and medical research.
A partnership with the European Bioinformatics Institute of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory has made the structures available in a public database, which means, as Hassabis explained to Science news in 2022, that you can look up a 3-D structure of a protein almost as easily as doing a key word Google search.
His impact doesnt stop there. DeepMind is working on creating artificial general intelligence, or AGI, by building machines that can think, learn, and be set to solve humanitys toughest problems. As he spearheads these advancements, Hassabis is also a leading voice for ethical AI research, urging caution and for consideration of the long-term societal implications of powerful technologies.
Joining Hassabis in delivering a lecture is Lynne Maquat, an expert on the molecular basis of human diseases, including mechanisms of mRNA decay. She is focused on the development of therapeutics for diseases that manifest hyperactivated NMD, such as fragile X syndrome, a neurological disorder that leads to intellectual disability and severe learning problems.
Maquat earned the Canada Gairdner International Award in 2015 for the discovery of the mechanism that destroys mutant messenger RNAs in human cells, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, which is critically important in both normal and disease states. Her talk will focus on this area of expertise, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in human health and disease.
The consecutive lectures and Q&A will take place on Monday, October 23, , from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m at the Jeanne Timmins Amphitheatre in The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital), at 3801 University Street Montreal. Directions to the Jeanne Timmins amphitheatre. A reception will follow.
Please register in advance
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2023 Gairdner National Program Lecture bring pioneering ... - McGill Reporter
Daily briefing: Why obesity researchers want to move beyond BMI – Nature.com
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The sample-collection device from NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft includes material from asteroid Bennu (black grains, middle right).Credit: Erika Blumenfeld, Joseph Aebersold/NASA via AP/Alamy
Samples of asteroid Bennu that were returned to Earth by the OSIRIS-REx mission contain some of the building blocks of life carbon and water, trapped inside the crystal structure of clay minerals. The pristine sample material from Bennu represents a valuable resource providing a window into the early Solar System, says astromaterials researcher Eileen Stansbery. And this is just whats on the surface of the sample container it hasnt even been opened yet.
Nature | 5 min read
A macaque lived for more than two years with a kidney from a gene-edited miniature pig one of the longest-lasting interspecies organ transplants. It raises hopes that human organ shortages could one day be alleviated by using organs from donor animals. The donor pigs received 69 gene edits to prevent immune reactions after transplantation and to keep the organ healthy. Of the 15 monkeys that received a transplant, five survived for more than one year and one of those lived for 758 days.
Nature | 6 min read
Reference: Nature paper
Researchers are using machine-learning programs to get ahead of COVID-19 and stave off future pandemics. In one case, researchers used artificial-intelligence (AI) tools including Google Deepminds AlphaFold to better understand the newly discovered Langya virus, and how it might be targeted with vaccines and treatments. Others are predicting mutations in SARS-CoV-2, with the hope of anticipating the viruss evolution so that we can keep pace with updated vaccines.
Nature | 7 min read
Reference: bioRxiv preprint 1 & bioRxiv preprint 2 (both not peer reviewed), Nature paper
For decades, the body mass index (BMI) has reigned as the dominant diagnostic tool for obesity. But as a measure that accounts only for height and weight, it tells us little about someones health, says obesity physician Fatima Cody Stanford. A growing movement is pushing to go beyond BMI and take into account factors such as cholesterol, blood sugar, family history and genetics. Youre starting to see this seep into guidelines, says Stanford. Translation into clinical practice will be a larger hurdle to overcome.
Nature | 9 min read
Organizational-behaviour researcher Dritjon Gruda has seen papers languish in editorial limbo, delaying the dissemination of important research and hobbling his career advancement. The prohibition against simultaneously submitting a paper to several journals must end, he argues. In the meantime, he shares his suggestions for how authors can avoid blockages in the publication pipeline.
Nature | 5 min read
Last week, a second malaria vaccine won global approval after decades of development. But vaccine approval must be accompanied by a comprehensive funding and eradication plan, argues a Nature editorial. To make more than just glacially slow progress towards reducing the diseases toll, the world must pull together to plug gaping funding holes and radically ramp up local vaccine manufacturing.
Nature | 5 min read
Immunologist Dequina Nicholas doesnt have the fondest memories of her chemistry honours project, but recalls it as one of the first steps on a challenging path to running her own lab. (Nature | 6 min read)
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Daily briefing: Why obesity researchers want to move beyond BMI - Nature.com
Google Offers Generative AI Solutions to Address Healthcare … – Opus Research
Healthcare professionals and solution providers gathered last week in Las Vegas for the sixth annual HLTH Conference (HLTH23), a venue where over 10,000 attendees met to discuss and foster innovation in healthcare. Among the most significant issues facing the healthcare industry are chronic personnel shortages and rising costs, long-standing challenges for which many are looking for innovative solutions.
Customer experience, or lets call it patient experience, should remain at the forefront of any solution aiming to mitigate the problems of personnel shortages and provider burnout. Recognizing these challenges, Google Cloud unveiled a suite of features within Vertex AI Search that hold promise for the healthcare and life sciences sectors. These features leverage generative AI (Gen AI) capabilities and medically-tuned search functionalities, making them well-suited to address some of the pressing issues facing healthcare delivery today.
The features and functions are exemplary of the domain-specific resources that will enable businesses and individuals in other verticals to provide better care and improve employee engagement. Note that the resources are not designed to replace healthcare professionals; rather they are designed to improve their ability to provide better care and to reduce stress. Note that it is presented as a search resource, rather than a co-pilot or automated assistant. It is there to respond to human-initiated queries.
The integration of a Gen AI-powered search capability like Vertex AI Search, which is paired with Google Clouds Healthcare API and Healthcare Data Engine, empowers healthcare professionals to access a comprehensive range of clinical information with unprecedented efficiency. This, in turn, supports clinical decision-making, enhances the quality of care, and improves the patient experience.
One of the core applications of these new features is the reduction of administrative burdens. At its core, the technology within Vertex AI Search is designed to streamline the process of retrieving, analyzing, and summarizing clinical data. It can sift through vast troves of structured and unstructured information, including patient records, clinical notes, and data sources such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). The result is a comprehensive and real-time view of patient information, available at the fingertips of healthcare professionals.
The adoption of a solution like Vertex AI Search aligns with the broader objective of fostering patient-centric healthcare experiences. By simplifying data access and enhancing information delivery, healthcare organizations can personalize the patient journey, providing seamless, frictionless, and more customer-centric healthcare experiences akin to those expected from top-tier retailers.
Gen AI-powered search technology can add a new dimension in understanding patient data. These technologies have the ability to discern nuances within structured and unstructured clinical information, ensuring that healthcare professionals have a comprehensive view of each patients medical history, needs, and preferences. This personalized data access means that every interaction with a patient can be informed by a deep understanding of their unique healthcare journey.
Crucially, Google Cloud upholds HIPAA compliance standards to protect patient data in healthcare settings. Robust security measures, coupled with each customers privacy controls and processes, ensure the safe handling of sensitive healthcare information.
Furthermore, Googles medically-tuned large language model (LLM), Med-PaLM 2, adds a significant layer of expertise. While Med-PaLM 2 is designed to handle complex medical topics, Vertex AI Search caters to medically-tuned search capabilities grounded in the patients record. Together, these tools have the potential to empower healthcare organizations to find relevant answers to intricate medical questions, thereby enabling faster and more informed decision-making, thus benefiting both healthcare providers and patients.
Google is not alone in developing GenAI-infused approaches to improve healthcare administration and patient care. IBM Watson, infamously, made the healthcare vertical an early focus for its branded cognitive services, investing something on the order of $62 million dollars to have IBM Watson act as a physicians assistant to take on the fight against cancer. In January, 2022, the healthcare data and analytics assets of IBM were spun out of Watson Health into a new company called Merative.
Microsoft also comes to mind, considering that the $19.7 billion it paid to acquire Nuance was thought to focus on clinical speech processing technologies capable of capturing and transcribing conversations between patients and healthcare providers. These included Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) for capturing conversations between patients and professionals, Dragon Medical One to replace note taking, and PowerScribe One for radiology reporting. OpenAI, Microsofts horse in the LLM race, does not have a medically-tuned LLM like Med-PaLM2; but it is in very good position to integrate a tailored generative AI resource into the workflows and talkflows of medical professionals, administrators and patients.
Another potential rival is Hippocratic AI, which came out of stealth in May 2023, placing emphasis on safety and relying on healthcare professionals both define the training material for foundation models and to provide reinforcement learning and human feedback of the models output.
The healthcare landscape challenged by workforce shortages and mounting costs, is ripe for Gen AI solutions like Google Vertex AI Search and Med-PaLM 2. Focusing on efficiency, privacy (in this case, HIPAA compliance), and patient-centric care, is relevant to all customer-facing verticals and we should take note of emerging service offerings, their successes and failures.
(Dan Miller, Lead Analyst with Opus Research, contributed to this post.)
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Google Offers Generative AI Solutions to Address Healthcare ... - Opus Research
These JBL Audio Deals Don’t Just Look Good, They Sound Great Too – CNET
When you think of speakers, JBL is one name that immediately springs to mind. Right now, Woot is offering a handful of the company's wares at deep discounts. But you'll need to be quick because these discounts aren't going to hang around for long.
In fact, the published end date for them is 12 a.m. CT on Oct. 22 or until sold out. The discounts can help you get a maximum of 52% off. None involve entering codes or clipping coupons, either.
The biggest discount is on the JBL Bar 5.1 sound system with a wireless subwoofer. That soundbar setup would normally retail for around $600, but order now and you'll save $250 and pay just $350. That's a great way to upgrade your TV's rubbish speakers for something with a little more oomph.
Looking to get the party started? The JBL PartyBox 110, a Bluetooth speaker, is available with a discounted price of just $285.
Keep in mind that Woot's deals aren't going to be around for long, so any delay means potentially missing out entirely. Not sure where to start with your speaker shopping? Our list of the best Bluetooth speakersshould help give you an idea of where to look, too.
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These JBL Audio Deals Don't Just Look Good, They Sound Great Too - CNET
A New Book Looks at the Human Brain in All Its Complexity – Columbia University
Can you discuss your view of the brain as a predictive model of the world/future, as opposed to the more traditional view of the brain as an input-output machine?
Most people, and most neuroscientists also, think that the purpose of the brain is to generate behavior, turning its sensory input into a motor output. Its like a machine that takes external information and produces behavior. The view that I defendwhich, by the way, has deep roots in the history of philosophy, going back to Immanuel Kantis that the brain is a different type of machine. It works internally to create a model of the world. The brain constructs the reality that we live in, that we think we live in. And it uses that model to predict the future, which is absolutely critical if you want to survive on an evolutionary level and anticipate what is going to happen.
In other words, the brain generates intelligence. From this point of view,the brain takes information from the sensory systems to update and refine the model. Sometimes there is a behavior, sometimes not. So, if you want to understand what the brain does, you have to focus on the internal machine and the model, not on the behavior.
I am in the middle of reading the Mars Trilogy, a set of three science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson about the early colonists of Mars. My favorite book of all time is Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe, and the trilogy is similar, but with a lot of science sprinkled in.
American Prometheus, the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, which the Oppenheimer movie is based on.
Independent Research in Biological Sciences. In this course, I oversee about 80 undergraduates, who are doing research projects in different labs in the Biology Department and also at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
We are deep into the study of the consumer user agreements of 30 neurotechnology companies in the U.S. and around the world. That means reading the small print that no one reads, which you have to agree on in order to turn on a device or download software. Were doing this because we are concerned with the lack of legal protection for brain data.
Neurotechnology is becoming more potent, and so are the artificial intelligence algorithms to decode brain data. We want to protect mental privacy and ensure that the information from our brains remains private. This is because the mind, that model of the world I was talking about earlier, is written with brain data.
The Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist Santiago Ramon y Cajalmy hero, and the reason I became a neuroscientist. He died in 1934, just as the first articles on neural networks were being published. I would love to see how he would integrate his knowledge with the new ways of thinking about the brain. Also, he was a methods person and a tinkerer, and I am sure that all the modern neurotechnology we are developing would resonate with him.
Of course, Immanuel Kant, whom I consider an early neurobiologist, as he came up with deep insights into how our perception and our minds work. We are finally testing (and confirming) many of his ideas in the lab.
Lastly, my mentor, the South African biologist Sydney Brenner, who died in 2019, and who turned me into a full-fledged biologist, leaving medicine behind. The last time I spoke with him, he changed the trajectory of my career, and I would enjoy getting his advice and having one last laugh with him. He was the smartest (and funniest) person I ever met.
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A New Book Looks at the Human Brain in All Its Complexity - Columbia University