I Used to Post Creative Cakes December 30, 2019
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not made by me, but found various places on the Web. Today I found this on Reddit.com and felt it a good time to renew my love of carbohydrates:
Where I Work December 27, 2019
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we are a hard-workin’ bunch, let me tell you:
A.I. and Gene Regulation December 27, 2019
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Understanding gene regulation is a bitch. Seriously, this is one of the thornier problems of science today and it is because the complexities of living cells, with the thousands of proteins in each cell, make tracing a single protein’s regulation just as complex as hell. Smart guys Tareen and Kinney have figured out a way for AI to interpret (some) interactions using massively-parallel reporter assays to figure out the biophysical basis for (some) gene regulation…which is more than we have had heretofore. They did this by assigning nodes and weights with explicit physiochemical interpretations. This last is the important bit; many AI algorithms are very difficult to interpret, so the underlying “logic” is impenetrable to humans. The smart guys made many of the decisions explicit, so they would be better able to understand the “logic” by which the characterizations were derived.
Homework: Biophysical models of cis-regulation as interpretable neural networks,
Nanowired Brain-like Functions December 25, 2019
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Nation Institute of Material Science geeks have created a complex metallic nanowire structure that mimics brain-like functions, such as memorization, learning, forgetting, becoming alert and returning to calm.
This indicates that self-organizing structures can be built from random arrangements of conducting fibers. This suggests that many different types of brain-like activity can be induced from stuff other than the kind of materials from which you and I are made.
Intelligent life on other worlds might be made of very different stuff indeed.
Homework: “Emergent dynamics of neuromorphic nanowire networks” by Adrian Diaz-Alvarez, Rintaro Higuchi, Paula Sanz-Leon, Ido Marcus, Yoshitaka Shingaya, Adam Z. Stieg, James K. Gimzewski, Zdenka Kuncic and Tomonobu Nakayama, 17 October 2019, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-51330-6
Chemistry Class Graduation Photo December 24, 2019
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Multi-dimensional Blood Testing and A.I. December 23, 2019
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I suggested long ago that sufficiently-comprehensive blood tests could effectively predict a person’s risk of developing a broad array of different diseases. We would use artificial intelligence to find patterns of varying concentrations of blood proteins to predict and/or diagnose disease. Someone much better funded than me has a newly developed platform called SomaScan which can scan five thousand individual proteins from a single blood sample.
In a new study testing the efficacy of predicting 11 different health indicators using these protein expression patterns some models were much more effective than others, such as the protein expression model predicting percentage body fat. The cardiovascular risk model was cited as only modestly predictive, however, the researchers do suggest the protein-pattern-based system is generally more convenient, and cheaper, than many traditional tests currently available for evaluating health conditions.
The study in Nature Medicine was funded by SomaLogic which owns SomaScan, so grain of salt, people. But it’s exciting to see that someone is actually looking into what I feel will be the method of the future for maximizing health…also, the study used ~85 million protein measurements in 16,894 participants, which is a pretty damn good sample size. Plenty of data there for an A.I. to examine for hidden relationships.
Homework:
Plasma protein patterns as comprehensive indicators of health, Nature Medicine, Stephen A. Williams, Mika Kivimaki, Claudia Langenberg, Aroon D. Hingorani, J. P. Casas, Claude Bouchard, Christian Jonasson, Mark A. Sarzynski, Martin J. Shipley, Leigh Alexander, Jessica Ash, Tim Bauer, Jessica Chadwick, Gargi Datta, Robert Kirk DeLisle, Yolanda Hagar, Michael Hinterberg, Rachel Ostroff, Sophie Weiss, Peter Ganz & Nicholas J. Wareham
The Everything Box, by Richard Kadrey December 23, 2019
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The Everything Box, by Richard Kadrey is a macguffin chase done in neo-noir style with snappy dialogue and pretty unique characters..except they are all kind of snappy dialoguers. That’s a minor quibble and you don’t even notice it as the book hums along with charm, wit, pathos and a bit of terror tossed in for fun. The macguffin is stolen not once, not twice, not three times but four (tying with The Hot Rock’s record for ripped-off treasure). Problem is, this particular macguffin is an apocalypse engine lost by an angel right after The Flood, and being hunted by, well, everyone: gangsters, a fake Russian, two rival demon cults, The Government and probably others I have forgotten[0]. Along the way the burglar (our hero) meets, fights, partners with or robs a Caspar Gutman sort of character, a dragon, thousands of enchanted spiders, a frightened ghost, two mind-clouding women, a magical locksmith, the deedholder to Earth, the angel who lost the macguffin in the first place, vampires, werewolves, tentacle monsters from hell (by which I mean The Government), demonic pets, a revenant and a particularly unpleasant government operative.[1]
Very entertaining read, and admirably read as audiobook. The narrator gets the dialogue just right.
At Amazon, but I got mine at sfpl.org.
[0] Just kidding. I think that’s all of them.
[1] I am not at all sure I mentioned everybody.
Two-headed Bearded Dragon December 23, 2019
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Enchanting Furby Toy Hack December 20, 2019
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I do wish I had thought of this.
Sacre Blue, by Christopher Moore December 19, 2019
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Sacré Bleu is the story of a muse, her enslaver, several Impressionist painters, multiple murders, syphilis, spelunkery, immortality, immolation and the possibly gratuitous use of the word “penis”. As with all Christopher Moore works, it has a hint of mythology which forms the center of the narrative but take off quickly from such staid constraints to a flighty soufflé featuring Henri Toulouse-Latrec as a detective hunting an impossibly ancient shaman (immolation comes into play here).
Octobrella December 11, 2019
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Purloined from reddit.
Moore’s Law, and Progress December 11, 2019
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An Accelerated Pace of Change
Moore’s Law has translated into a faster rate of change for society as a whole.
A new idea, like the smartphone, can get immediate traction because of instantaneous communication, increased global connectivity, and the ubiquity of information. New tech advancements can now change business or culture in a heartbeat:
Further, since software is a “layer” built upon the foundation of computing, it means that digital products can be replicated at almost no marginal cost. This is why a phenomenon like Pokémon Go was able to captivate 50 million users in just 19 days.
Imagine this kind of scalability, when applied to things like artificial intelligence or virtual reality.
–stolen freely from Visual Capitalist. I’m sure they’ll ask me to take it down soon. But look at the possibilities, people!
Catfishing on Catnet, by Naomi Kritzer December 9, 2019
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This piece of classic AI fiction is unusual in that the AI is not evil. S/he/it/they [insert politically-corrected grammar item here] is an empathetic intelligence that also likes cat pictures (an obvious sign of empathy and sentience). The AI is involved in fugitive children, gender discussions, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, robot rampage and gratuitous cat pictures and is unrepentant about most of it.
Great fun. I read it straight through. I am a little bit old for the target demographic for this one (by about fifty years), but loved it like twelve-year-old me would have. Highly recommended.
Available on Amazon, but not yet on sfpl.org
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