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That wisdom from Ecclesiastes is the theme of five new novels, which, if they did not give me a taste of immortality, at least made me feel like the week would never end. The coincidence of their arrival is a little creepy, but it suggests the growing relevance of this subject for a generation reviewing itineraries to the undiscovered country with deep ambivalence. In shades of comedy and tragedy, realism and fantasy, these contemporary authors dig up a lot of old conceits and, like Dr. Frankenstein, zap them to life with mixed results.


The dark side of immortality: “How to Stop Time,” “Eternal,” “The Immortalists,” “Immortal Life” and “The Afterlives.”

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For those working in the field of advanced artificial intelligence, getting a computer to simulate brain activity is a gargantuan task, but it may be easier to manage if the hardware is designed more like brain hardware to start with.

This emerging field is called neuromorphic computing. And now engineers at MIT may have overcome a significant hurdle — the design of a chip with artificial synapses.

For now, human brains are much more powerful than any computer — they contain around 80 billion neurons, and over 100 trillion synapses connecting them and controlling the passage of signals.

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India and Japan have vowed to strengthen their strategic ties by increasing cooperation in the defense, robotics and AI sectors in coming years in response to Chinese regional ambitions and North Korea’s nuclear plans.

“You should expect to see increased bilateral cooperation between us to develop unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) and robotics,”Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kentaro Sonoura told the Times of India. The move follows the successful ratification of the Indo-Japanese civil nuclear agreement by Japan’s parliament in late 2017.

The two countries are launching a working group on cooperation between nuclear companies. “Japan’s intention is to start this quickly, possibly by the end of this month,” Sonoura said.

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As part of our ongoing series covering the hallmarks of aging, we are taking a look at deregulated nutrient sensing today and how these four pathways regulate metabolism and influence aging.

To understand studies on nutrient sensing in the context of aging, let’s introduce four key protein groups. In this post, we’ll explore the pathways they help control and how they affect aging. These key proteins are IGF-1, mTOR, sirtuins, and AMPK[2]. We call these proteins “nutrient sensing” because nutrient levels influence their activity[2].

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Right now, you’re carrying around the most powerful computer in existence – the human brain. This naturally super-efficient machine is far better than anything humans have ever built, so it’s not surprising that scientists are trying to reverse-engineer it. Rather than binary bits of information, neuromorphic computers are built with networks of artificial neurons, and now an MIT team has developed a more lifelike synapse to better connect those neurons.

For simplicity’s sake, computers process and store information in a binary manner – everything can be broken down into a series of ones and zeroes. This system has served us well for the better part of a century, but having access to a whole new world of analog “grey areas” in between could really give computing power a shot in the arm.

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“This unexpected behavior has led to a serious buzz in the scientific community, with astronomers trying to come up with explanations as to what type of physics could be driving these emissions.”

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“The new Scaling Solar and Storage (SSS) program, which has yet to be formerly announced and is expected to be rolled out over the next couple of years, would work on utility-scale tenders that pair solar PV with battery storage technology.”

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The latest research focused on the impact the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — digital and traditional technology coming together to deliver efficiencies that will mean more jobs can be automated — will have on employment in the US.”

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