Links for 2021-10-21
In a First, Surgeons Attached a Pig Kidney to a Human — and It Worked: A kidney grown in a genetically altered pig seemed to function normally, potentially a new source for desperately needed transplant organs. https://archive.md/BzUYh
New portable nuclear microreactor company from ex-SpaceX team https://radiantnuclear.com/
Ruminations on Cosmology and Time: “Like many people, I have been riveted for decades by the breathless bulletins from cosmologists describing the latest twist to their model of space and time at the largest possible scale. Recently, I have been reading a lot of their papers and finding how far cosmology has advanced since I was a grad student. This article is partly to share the beauty of this theory with my colleagues but also to express how thoroughly relativity shakes up our deep psychological conviction of the reality of an external physical time.” https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202110/rnoti-p1715.pdf
A Fun Proof of Van Aubel's Theorem. youtube.com/watch?v=eX2WZennPhU
DEEP DIVE: Does Covid Cause Significant Brain Harm? maximumtruth.substack.com/p/deep-dive-does-covid-cause-significant
How China Is Planning For a Tech Decoupling: PLA strategists are already working on counters to anticipated U.S. moves. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/10/how-china-planning-tech-decoupling/186029/
Facebook Is Researching AI Systems That See, Hear, and Remember Everything You Do: “[Facebook’s AI team] imagines AI systems that are constantly analyzing peoples’ lives using first-person video; recording what they see, do, and hear in order to help them with everyday tasks. Facebook’s researchers have outlined a series of skills it wants these systems to develop, including ‘episodic memory’ (answering questions like ‘where did I leave my keys?’) and ‘audio-visual diarization’ (remembering who said what when).” https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/14/22725894/facebook-augmented-reality-ar-glasses-ai-systems-ego4d-research
Berkeley had a life sciences faculty search and a committee eliminated 76% of candidates based on their diversity statements https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2019/12/31/life-science-jobs-at-berkeley-with-hiring-giving-precedence-to-diversity-and-inclusion-statements/
“Virtually no Trump supporters are aware of how Trump was denied his October (or November 2, 2020) Surprise of a colossal breakthrough in vaccines because they lean instead toward lowbrow anti-vaxx thinking.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1413658719938748428.html