Teaching grammar and syntax to artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms (specifically natural language processing (NLP) algorithms) has helped researchers understand and predict viral mutations more speedily. This facility is especially useful at a time when the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus seems to be mutating into more easily transmissible variants. Will Douglas Heaven’s Jan. 14, 2021 article for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Technology Review describes the work that links AI, grammar,…

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This December 9, 2020 news item on Nanowerk announces research into a nanodiamond filter which can clean hot wastewater, Although most of the planet is covered by water, only a fraction of it is clean enough for humans to use. Therefore, it is important to recycle this resource whenever possible. Current purification techniques cannot adequately handle the very hot wastewater generated by some industries.… A December 9, 2020 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release, which…

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A December 2, 2020 news item on phys.org announces research that might make shattered mobile phones a rare occurrence, Dropping a cell phone can sometimes cause superficial cracks to appear. But other times, the device can stop working altogether because fractures develop in the material that stores data. Now, researchers reporting in ACS [American Chemical Society] Applied Polymer Materials have made an environmentally friendly, gelatin-based film that can repair itself multiple times and still maintain…

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There’s nothing especially new in this latest paper on neuromorphic computing and memristors, however it does a very good job of describing how these new computers might work. From a Nov. 30, 2020 news item on phys.org (Note: A link has been removed), In a paper published in Nano, researchers study the role of memristors in neuromorphic computing. This novel fundamental electronic component supports the cloning of bio-neural systems with low cost and power.Contemporary computing…

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An Oct. 29, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily features an explanation of the reasons for investigating brainlike (neuromorphic) computing , As progress in traditional computing slows, new forms of computing are coming to the forefront. At Penn State, a team of engineers is attempting to pioneer a type of computing that mimics the efficiency of the brain’s neural networks while exploiting the brain’s analog nature.Modern computing is digital, made up of two states, on-off or…

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I have a number of items from Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Metacreation Lab January 2021 newsletter (received via email on Jan. 5, 2020). 29th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 17th Pacific Rim International Conference on Artificial Intelligence! or IJCAI-PRICAI2020 being held on Jan. 7 – 15, 2021 This first excerpt features a conference that’s currently taking place,, Musical Metacreation Tutorial at IIJCAI – PRICAI 2020 [Yes, the 29th International Joint Conference on…

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“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more things stay the same), is an old French expression that came to mind when I stumbled across two stories about genetic manipulation of food-producing plants. The first story involves CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats) gene editing and the second involves more ancient ways to manipulate plant genetics. Getting ‘CRISPR’d’ plant cells to grow into plants Plants often don’t grow…

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There have been only two people who have tested the device from Australia but the research raises hope, from an Oct, 28, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily, A tiny device the size of a small paperclip has been shown to help patients with upper limb paralysis to text, email and even shop online in the first human trial.The device, Stentrode, has been implanted successfully in two patients, who both suffer from severe paralysis due to…

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A Jan. 4, 2021 news item on Nanowerk describes new insights into nanoscale catalysts derived from work at the US Argonne National Laboratory, Catalysts are integral to countless aspects of modern society. By speeding up important chemical reactions, catalysts support industrial manufacturing and reduce harmful emissions. They also increase efficiency in chemical processes for applications ranging from batteries and transportation to beer and laundry detergent.As significant as catalysts are, the way they work is often…

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A Nov. 3, 2020 Canadian Light Sources (CLS; also known as a synchrotron) news release by Erin Matthews (also on the University of Saskatchewan website), received via email, announces a technique that may make N95 masks last longer, Through a collaboration between the Canadian Light Source (CLS) and the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac)—both national research facilities at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) —scientists hope to understand the structural changes happening inside…

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