AI's big challenge
Garrett Kenyon, LANL photo.
Here’s the challenge with most deep learning neural networks, which reflect the prevailing approach to AI: calling them both deep and intelligent assumes they achieve ever more abstract and meaningful representations of the data at deeper and deeper levels of the network. It further assumes that at some point they transcend rote memorization to achieve actual cognition, or intelligence. But they do not.
This article's author is Garrett Kenyon, a physicist and neuroscientist specializing in neurally inspired computing in the Information Sciences group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he studies the brain and models of neural networks on the laboratory's high-performance computers. (Full story)
Split-sex animals are unusual, yes, but not as rare as you’d think
Top left, a male blue morpho butterfly; top middle, a female.
The rest have both male and female characteristics. From the NYT.
It is not clear what mechanisms the body has to ensure that most men get only one Y and most women get two X chromosomes, said Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a structural biologist and principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In typical females, one X is usually — but not always — turned off, she said, and some research suggests that there is a mechanism that counts how many X chromosomes are present and generally turns off all but one of them.
The interplay between genetics and hormones is complicated, she said. “Genetics produce hormones, but then the hormones can reprogram DNA,” she said, which might explain why there is a mismatch in some people between their sex chromosomes and their sex hormones. (Full story)
Harnessing top algae strains for bioenergy through collaboration
Algae bioreactors, LANL photo.
Wanted: Algae industry partners and academic researchers to help find the best algae strains for biofuels and bioproducts to reduce the cost of producing bioenergy from algae feedstocks.
Along with PNNL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories comprise the DOE lab consortium sponsored by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. (Full story)
