Links for 2023-07-25
“Grokking: Generalization Beyond Overfitting on Small Algorithmic Datasets” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GpSzShaaf8po4rcmA/qapr-5-grokking-is-maybe-not-that-big-a-deal
Electric fields shared among neurons via “ephaptic coupling” provide the coordination necessary to assemble the engrams that represent remembered information. https://news.mit.edu/2023/brain-networks-encoding-memory-come-together-via-electric-fields-0724
Optical Microscopy Provides a Path to a $10M Mouse Brain Connectome (if it eliminates proofreading) https://www.sam-rodriques.com/post/optical-microscopy-provides-a-path-to-a-10m-mouse-brain-connectome-if-it-eliminates-proofreading
This company plans to transplant pig hearts into babies next year https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/17/1076392/this-company-plans-to-transplant-pig-hearts-into-babies-next-year/ [https://archive.is/Phf10]
“Millions of years ago, retroviruses invaded the human genome. Today some of these viral remnants threaten the developing embryo while others fight to defend it.” https://www.wired.com/story/an-ancient-battle-is-playing-out-in-the-dna-of-every-embryo/ [https://archive.is/MWJSs]
"France was once Europe’s superpower, thanks above all to its enormous population. Its decline coincided with a collapse in its birth rate – now we know why." https://worksinprogress.co/issue/frances-baby-bust
“I’ve chatted with a good number of Chinese undergrads in the US, who almost to a person tell me that their parents are urging them not to return to the mainland.” https://danwang.co/technological-momentum/
“For those of you who are interested in statistics, this is a five-sigma event. So it's five standard deviations beyond the mean. Which means that if nothing had changed, we'd expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-24/antarctic-sea-ice-levels-nosedive-five-sigma-event/102635204
“This invasive Bluetooth car battery monitor was found to be sending the following location data to China: GPS; Wifi devices; Cell phone towers” https://twitter.com/haxrob/status/1682998656688066560
“For 25+ yrs police/military/intel agencies/critical infrastructr in 120 nations relied on TETRA radio standard to secure critical comms. But Dutch researchers examined secret algorithms used in TETRA and found something startling - an intentional backdoor” https://www.wired.com/story/tetra-radio-encryption-backdoor/ [https://archive.is/uudvX]
Text to image with midjourney and image to video with gen2 https://twitter.com/_akhaliq/status/1683252132215140352
Ukraine links:
Everyone Wants Ukraine’s Battlefield Data: Global companies are offering free products to get access to live combat data. The Ukrainian government wants to keep this resource for its own emerging defense industry. https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-government-battlefield-data/ [https://archive.is/pC8Jd]
Ukraine carried out drone attack on Moscow, officials say https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/23/europe/ukraine-russia-drone-attacks-hit-moscow-intl-hnk/index.html (videos: https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1683317302542884865)
“Rybar says this morning raid on Crimea saw unusual paths for Ukrainian UAVs followed by 4 Storm Shadows which all hit their targets (ammunition depots).” https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1683441924760301569
“The AFU has reportedly taken control over a large part of height 197 south of Klishchiivka. The last height and defensive stronghold for the Russians near the settlement. When fully controlled, Klishchiivka is cut off from Andriivka. Andriivka will be untennable getting attacked from both the north and west.” https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1683456300863062021
The EU has finally adopted and put into effect a plan to increase the production of shells for Ukraine, which provides for the investment of an additional 500 million euros in industrial capacity. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:JOL_2023_185_R_0002