They’ll be especially useful for creating rough predictions that can then be tested out computationally or experimentally. The biochemist Frank Uhlmann had the opportunity to pretest AlphaFold3 after running into a Google employee in a hallway of the Francis Crick Institute in London, where he works. He decided to look up a protein-DNA interaction that… Continue reading New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble
What Does Milk Do for Babies?
Milk is more than just a food for babies. Breast milk has evolved to deliver thousands of diverse molecules including growth factors, hormones and antibodies, as well as microbes. Elizabeth Johnson, a molecular nutritionist at Cornell University, studies the effects of infants’ diet on the gut microbiome. These studies could hold clues to hard questions… Continue reading What Does Milk Do for Babies?
How the Solar Eclipse Will Impact Electricity Supplies
This article is part of a special report on the total solar eclipse that will be visible from parts of the U.S., Mexico and Canada on April 8, 2024. The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. During the most recent total solar eclipse visible in… Continue reading How the Solar Eclipse Will Impact Electricity Supplies
How Trustees Can Save Columbia, Brown, Northeastern, Penn, Indiana, Yale…
In an unprecedented display of leadership, the president, flanked by the provost and the chairman of the board of trustees, announced to the chanting and drumming students encamped in the South Quad: Out of respect for the rights of the members of our academic community, we have restrictions on the time, manner, and place for… Continue reading How Trustees Can Save Columbia, Brown, Northeastern, Penn, Indiana, Yale…
Moving Trees North Could Save Forests from a Changing Climate
On a brisk September morning, Brian Palik’s footfalls land quietly on a path in flickering light, beneath a red pine canopy in Minnesota’s iconic Northwoods. A mature red pine, also called Norway pine, is a tall, straight overstory tree that thrives in cold winters and cool summers. It’s the official Minnesota state tree and a… Continue reading Moving Trees North Could Save Forests from a Changing Climate
Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out.
What does “understanding” or “meaning” mean, empirically? What, specifically, do you look for? When I was starting my research program at Brown, we decided that meaning involves concepts in some way. I realize this is a theoretical commitment that not everyone makes, but it seems intuitive. If you use the word “apple” to mean apple,… Continue reading Does AI Know What an Apple Is? She Aims to Find Out.
As Election 2024 Unfolds, Be Aware That Big Lies Can Distort What We Believe In
Politicians have never been known for a strict adherence to truth. U.S. voters admit they know their representatives routinely lie to them: voters routinely assume that even their own party’s politicians are dishonest about two fifths of the time, according to a 2021 study.But in this election year, a larger-than-life candidate is openly distorting reality… Continue reading As Election 2024 Unfolds, Be Aware That Big Lies Can Distort What We Believe In
Joe Fisher’s Spirit Guides (Guides, Mediumship, Channeling, Siren Call of the Hungry Ghosts)
Podcast: Download MYS310: Joe Fisher’s research into spirit guides led him to past life revelations and even a spirit romance. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss how Joe was encouraged to investigate these paranormal claims, the evidence he found, and what he eventually concluded. Get all new episodes automatically and for free: Follow by Email… Continue reading Joe Fisher’s Spirit Guides (Guides, Mediumship, Channeling, Siren Call of the Hungry Ghosts)
How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery
At this point, we knew that solar magnetism was behaving in ways we weren’t expecting. SOHO data had revealed that globally, the solar magnetic field was far more variable than we had imagined. And the particles comprising the solar wind, as measured near Earth, had peculiar compositional patterns that didn’t make sense if the wind… Continue reading How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery
The Lie of the Century: The Origin of COVID-19
Four years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan, what do we know about the origin of the SARSCOV2 virus? We were presented at the outset with two competing theories: natural-origin spillover from animals to humans, and accidental lab leak. And at the outset, a cadre of elite scientists… Continue reading The Lie of the Century: The Origin of COVID-19