Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Math Is Still Catching Up to the Mysterious Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan – Quanta Magazine
By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design. The post The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have expanded the realm of mathematical unknowability. The post New Proofs Probe the Limits of Mathematical Truth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities. The post Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature. The post How Does Life Happen When There’s Barely Any Light? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
More in science
How fast AI is improving, and how that's impacting jobs today
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power infrastructure. Conservation of the species may be supported by reserving areas for … Continue reading The call of the Whimbrel
By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design. The post The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine
According to this article at politico, there was an all-hands meeting at NSF today (at least for the engineering directorate) where they were told that there will be staff layoffs of 25-50% over the next two months. This is an absolute catastrophe if it is accurately reported and comes to pass. NSF is already understaffed. This goes far beyond anything involving DEI, and is essentially a declaration that the US is planning to abrogate the federal role in supporting science and engineering research. Moreover, I strongly suspect that if this conversation is being had at NSF, it is likely being had at DOE and NIH. I don't even know how to react to this, beyond encouraging my fellow US citizens to call their representatives and senators and make it clear that this would be an unmitigated disaster. Update: looks like the presidential budget request will be for a 2/3 cut to the NSF. Congress often goes against such recommendations, but this is certainly an indicator of what the executive branch seems to want.
