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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unavoidable. It’s now a part of our daily lives as it has been steadily infiltrating the technology we use every day, whether you realize it or not. I remain somewhat in the middle in terms of the hype-to-technological-miracle spectrum. I don’t think, as some fellow skeptics do, that the current batch […] The post The Real Risk of AI first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
Humans are dramatically changing the environment of the Earth in many ways. Only about 23% of the land surface (excluding Antarctica) is considered to be “wilderness”, and this is rapidly decreasing. What wilderness is left is also mostly managed conservation areas. Meanwhile, about 3% of the surface is considered urban. I could not find a […] The post Animals Adapting to Cities first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
RFK Jr. is an anti-vaxxer. He will protest that, but it’s a dodge. He basically lied (and it was quite transparent) to the senate confirmation committee, and I think Cassidy and others knew full well what they were getting when they approved him as HHS secretary. Those of us who have been following RFK’s career […] The post RFK Jr.’s Attack on Vaccines first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
There is a lot of talk concerning the growing plastic waste problem in the world, and that’s because it is a real and serious problem. The world produces about 430 tons of plastic waste per year, and this is steadily increasing over time. About 6 millions tons of this will end up in water environments […] The post Plastic Bag Policies Have An Effect first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
The human brain is extremely good at problem-solving, at least relatively speaking. Cognitive scientists have been exploring how, exactly, people approach and solve problems – what cognitive strategies do we use, and how optimal are they. A recent study extends this research and includes a comparison of human problem-solving to machine learning. Would an AI, […] The post How Humans Solve Problems first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
More in science
Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at this time, the world watched as NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft […]
The US House and Senate appropriations subcommittees have now completed their markups on the bills relevant to the FY26 appropriations for NSF, NASA, and NIST. The AAAS has an interactive dashboard with current information here if you want to click and look at all the science-related agencies. Other agencies still need to go through the Senate subcommittees. Just a reminder of how this is supposed to work. The House and Senate mark up their own versions of the detailed appropriations bills. In principle these are passed by each chamber (with the Senate versions for practical purposes requiring 60/100 votes of support because of the filibuster). Then a conference committee hashes out the differences between the bills, and the conference version of the bills is then voted on by each chamber (again, needing 60/100 votes to pass in the Senate). Finally, the president signs the spending bills. In the fantasy land of Schoolhouse Rock, which largely described events until the 1990s, these annual spending bills are supposed to be passed in time for the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. In practice, Congress has been deeply dysfunctional for years, and there have been a lot of continuing resolutions, late budgets, and mammoth omnibus spending bills. To summarize: NSF - House recommendation = $6.997B (a 20.7% cut from FY25), Senate = $9B (a 2% increase from FY25). These are in sharp contrast to the presidential budget request (PBR) of a 55.8% cut. NASA - House = flat from FY25, Senate = $24.9B (0.2% increase). NIST - House = $1.28B (10.6% increase from FY25), Senate = $1.6B (38.3% increase from FY25) NOAA - House = $5.7B (28.3% increase from FY25), Senate = $6.1B (36.3% increase from FY25) DOE has gone through the House, where the Office of Science is recommending a 1.9% increase, in contrast to a 13.9% cut in the PBR. If you are eligible and able to do so, please keep pushing. As I wrote a few days ago, this is a long-term project, since appropriations happen every year. As long as you're making your opinions known, it's good to push on representatives and senators that they need to hold the agency leadership accountable to actually spend what congress appropriates. A science post soon....
Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student” model for less. The post How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper first appeared on Quanta Magazine
When Europeans arrived to the Pacific Northwest, they spread smallpox that devastated the Indigenous people, plundered stocks of salmon and herring, hunted down deer and other game, and built sprawling cities and ports. New research tallies the profound impact on wildlife. Read more on E360 →
A team of mathematicians based in Vienna is developing tools to extend the scope of general relativity. The post A New Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
