Singularity Hub

The protein universe is about to get bigger. Scientists can now use AI to build proteins never before seen in nature. These designer proteins may become therapeutics, environmental sensors, or even the building blocks of synthetic life. Despite enormous potential, however, AI tools still struggle to design complex proteins, like enzymes, from scratch. Unlike small proteins or peptide binders that disrupt cellular signaling, enzymes are shape shifters with a catalytic core.

The patients sit perfectly still as a needle inches toward one of their eyes. After the injection, they’ll no longer be completely human. The syringe is filled with a gene therapy that installs a light-sensitive algae protein into failing retinas and could reboot some lost vision. When scientists first proposed using algae proteins to restore human eyesight, the idea seemed like science fiction. Could alien proteins integrate into our intricate visual system?

Some major scientific advances involve taking a technique developed in one field and applying it to another, but interdisciplinary research is tricky and time-consuming. Now a new AI research system has automated the process, generating 36 papers in three months. Most researchers work within a narrow specialty, and few have time to comb through unrelated fields for tools that might help them.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article. On a lonely planet, billions of years ago, a soup of chemicals—in the right place, at the right time, and with the right conditions—shifted from an unalive assemblage into something scientists would call life. Billions of years and a lot of evolution later, researchers are now attempting to reproduce that shift in their labs. They are, put simply, trying to create life.

Getting a DNA sample is simple. Rub a Q-tip a few times inside your cheek, and voilà. Not so with a 400-pound Aldabra giant tortoise. At the age of roughly 194, Jonathan is the oldest known living land animal on Earth. He’s spent most of his life lounging on the manicured lawns of the governor’s residence on the island of St. Helena, where he arrived as an adult. Though blinded by cataracts, Jonathan still chows down on grub and has excellent hearing.

Genetic mutations cause cancer. This idea has long driven strategies that aim to lower risk or determine when to look for early signs of disease. Don’t smoke. Minimize alcohol. Get vaccinated against viruses linked to cervical or liver cancer. Lifestyle changes can reduce the chances our cells accumulate DNA mutations that make them grow out of control. But we might be missing part of the picture. Some people with cancer-related mutations never develop the disease.

Brain scans contain clues about what someone is looking at, but turning those signals back into recognizable images is difficult. Now, researchers in Israel have built an AI system that recreates what people are looking at with uncanny accuracy. Functional MRI scans, which track blood flow in the brain, are a common tool for decoding what is going on in people’s minds.

‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI ReleaseSiobhan Roberts | The New York Times ($) "Talking to mathematicians after the release, it is clear that it is a highly conflicting environment, motivating a wild range of reactions. ...'The solutions announcement, [Dr. Bridson] added, 'will be exciting for many, frightening for others, and devastating for some.

Long before biomimicry had a name, humans were practicing it. We have always studied living things for clues about how to build, move, heal, and survive. Nature wasn’t a separate category from technology so much as the place where many of our technological ideas began. Modern engineering has made the connection easier to spot. High-speed trains have borrowed from the shape of kingfisher beaks. Adhesives have been modeled on mussels. Synthetic fibers have taken inspiration from spider silk.

This year, members of Seattle Mountain Rescue have been setting off into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest wearing an unusual piece of kit. They’ve been hiking into the wilderness with powered assistive devices attached to their hips and legs. Designed to increase lower-body strength when climbing or carrying heavy loads, these pieces of equipment are being tested to see if they can boost rescuers’ speed and endurance when it matters most—during searches for stranded people.