So We're Really Going To Bring Up Impaired On the Job As Being A Problem, Democrats?

Groundbreaking research suggests that single cells might be capable of learning without complex brains or nervous systems. Researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and Harvard Medical School in Boston have published their findings in Current Biology, which could impact future medical treatments by offering new insights into how diseases, like cancer or bacteria, avoid treatment. Instead of following pre-programmed genetic instructions, cells appear to have a basic form of decision-making, learning from their environments, according to co-author Jeremy Gunawardena, Associate Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. The study focused on “habituation,” a simple form of learning where organisms become less responsive to repeated stimuli, like ticking clocks or flashing lights. This idea of single-celled organisms learning has been debated since the early 20th century. The current study builds on previous research, providing strong evidence that certain cells possess learning capabilities. “To learn, cells use internal molecular networks that perform functions similar to neurons in brains,” said co-author Rosa Martinez from CRG. In their research, the team examined biochemical reactions, such as adding or removing phosphate tags on proteins, which control cellular responses. They simulated these chemical interactions on a computer to test different scenarios. The results showed that cells use negative feedback loops and incoherent feedforward loops—biological processes that allow them to learn and adapt over time. The team found that cells exhibit a form of “memory” that enables them to respond quickly and also influence future responses. This discovery could help bridge gaps between cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, offering a better understanding of how habituation works at the cellular level. “Our approach can help us prioritize which experiments are most likely to yield valuable results, saving time and resources and leading to new breakthroughs,” says Martinez, emphasizing the potential for addressing fundamental biological questions. Though more research is needed, this work highlights the incredible adaptability of life at its smallest scale. “We think it can be useful to address many other fundamental questions,” Martinez said The post New Research Shows Cells Can Learn Without The Brain appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Elizabeth Warren's Reason Pete Hegseth 'Must Not Be SecDef' Accidentally KOs Biden (and Austin)

2024 has been an interesting year for platformers, as Nintendo hasn't had a horse in the race for once, despite being known as the king of the genre.

One of the greatest things about video games is that they allow players to essentially do whatever they want with no consequences. Things that would be impossible to accomplish in the real world, either due to fiction or finances or some other barrier, are now completely feasible.

The end of the year is a time to reflect on an individual's personal and professional decisions.

Thursday Morning Minute

Photo: Stormy Pyeatte for The Verge The artist behind The Verge’s ‘Friend or Faux?’ feature explains the practical effects behind its design. Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI is partnering with Future, the publisher behind Tom’s Guide, PC Gamer, TechRadar, Marie Claire, and many other websites and magazines. The deal will give ChatGPT users access to news and lifestyle content from Future’s more than 200 media brands, while also displaying “attribution and links to the full original articles.” This adds to the string of content licensing agreements OpenAI has made in recent months. In addition to The Verge’s parent company Vox Media, OpenAI has also struck deals with The Wall Street Journal owner News Corp, People publisher Dotdash Meredith, Politico parent Axel Springer, the Financial Times, and The Atlantic. However, some publishers, like The New York Times, The Intercept, and a group of Canadian outlets including the CBC, have sued OpenAI over allegations of copyright infringement. OpenAI says its deal with Future builds on the company’s “existing deployment of OpenAI’s technology,” as it has already launched AI chatbots within Tom’s Hardware and Who What Wear. Future also plans to use OpenAI’s tech for sales, marketing, and editorial purposes. “This partnership enables us to enhance the ChatGPT experience by providing more access to engaging, up to date, and reliable information from a range of specialist sources,” OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said in the announcement. “Our goal is to help publishers and content creators both benefit from advanced AI technology and expand their reach.”

Symptom Radar flags when you have no signs, minor signs, or major signs of respiratory illness. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge At the height of the covid-19 pandemic, many wearable companies rushed to see if their devices could detect early signs of the disease. Now, four years later, Oura is officially launching a feature that can flag when you may be coming down with a respiratory illness. Technically, Symptom Radar isn’t diagnostic in nature — though its development does have roots in Oura’s illness prediction research during the pandemic. It can’t tell you if you’re catching a cold or the flu versus covid-19. Instead, it’s more of an “illness warning light” that flags when your body is showing early signs that something’s up. “What we saw through all of the research and science that we’ve done is that your physiology actually starts changing a day or two before you start feeling symptoms,” Shyamal Patel, Oura’s head of science, tells The Verge. From there, the idea is to take precautionary measures. Image: Oura Symptom Radar is moving out of beta. Essentially, Symptom Radar works by evaluating metrics like resting heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature trends, and breathing rate to detect significant changes from your long-term baselines. When users sync their data in the morning, they’ll be notified if no signs, minor signs, or major signs of strain related to respiratory symptoms have been identified. In the case of minor or major signs, the Oura app will encourage users to turn on Rest Mode and take steps to prioritize rest. Symptom Radar was actually introduced as a beta feature in April through Oura’s recently launched Labs program for experimental features. Patel says that’s been a valuable part of developing the feature for prime time. On the one hand, the Oura team was able to develop a new algorithm based on a much bigger data set. Even so, Patel acknowledged that the algorithm isn’t 100 percent accurate and that false positives and negatives were possible; Oura didn’t provide specific accuracy data. Beta users also noted that they actually wanted to be notified when symptoms weren’t detected. Given that, Patel says the official version of Symptom Radar will now include a historical graph so that people can see how their health is trending over time. “It will also be interesting to see how [people] recover from [illnesses]. That’s where I see some interesting things that we could kind of evolve towards,” Patel says. He notes that aside from flagging illness, Symptom Radar could be a useful tool in helping people identify what factors help in recovering from illnesses faster. Symptom Radar will be available to all Oura Ring Gen 3 and Oura Ring 4 users by Monday, December 9th.