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Computer scientists have developed a new AI text-to-video model that learns real-world physics knowledge from time-lapse videos.

Psychedelic drugs like MDMA and psilocybin may help treat depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions by reducing the number of inflammatory cells around the brain

How do you distinguish a galaxy from a mere cluster of stars? That's easy, right? A galaxy is a large collection of millions or billion of stars, while a star cluster only has a thousand or so. Well, that kind of thinking won't get you a Ph.D. in astronomy! Seriously, though, the line between galaxy and star cluster isn't always clear. Case in point, UMa3/U1.

The idea that our Solar System is representative of other solar systems hasn't survived the age of exoplanet discovery. Kepler and TESS have shown us that our system doesn't even contain the most common type of planet: sub-Neptunes. These planets pose a mystery to planetary scientists, and the JWST is helping unravel the mystery.

The solar gravitation lens (SGL) has much potential as a telescope. This point in space, located about 650 AU away from the Sun, uses fundamental properties of physics to amplify the light from extremely far-away objects, allowing us to see them at a level of detail unachievable anywhere else. However, any SGL mission would face plenty of technical and physical challenges. A new paper by independent researcher Viktor Toth is the latest in a series that discusses those challenges when imaging a far-away exoplanet, and in particular, looks at the difficulties in dealing with potential moving cloud cover. He concludes that using the SGL might not be the most effective way of capturing high-resolution images of an exoplanet, after all.

Researchers have created a method that makes virtual reality (VR) more accessible to people with mobility limitations.

Researchers have developed a new quantum theory of gravity which describes gravity in a way that's compatible with the Standard Model of particle physics, opening the door to an improved understanding of how the universe began.

Researchers have developed a new quantum theory of gravity which describes gravity in a way that's compatible with the Standard Model of particle physics, opening the door to an improved understanding of how the universe began.

In 1959, physicists James Terrell and Roger Penrose (Nobel laureate in 2020) independently concluded that fast-moving objects should appear rotated. However, this effect has never been demonstrated. Now, scientists have succeeded for the first time in reproducing the effect using laser pulses and precision cameras -- at an effective speed of light of 2 meters per second.

In 1959, physicists James Terrell and Roger Penrose (Nobel laureate in 2020) independently concluded that fast-moving objects should appear rotated. However, this effect has never been demonstrated. Now, scientists have succeeded for the first time in reproducing the effect using laser pulses and precision cameras -- at an effective speed of light of 2 meters per second.

Researchers developed a framework to enable decentralized artificial intelligence-based building automation with a focus on privacy. The system enables AI-powered devices like cameras and interfaces to cooperate directly, using a new form of device-to-device communication. In doing so, it eliminates the need for central servers and thus the need for centralized data retention, often seen as a potential security weak point and risk to private data.

Researchers developed a framework to enable decentralized artificial intelligence-based building automation with a focus on privacy. The system enables AI-powered devices like cameras and interfaces to cooperate directly, using a new form of device-to-device communication. In doing so, it eliminates the need for central servers and thus the need for centralized data retention, often seen as a potential security weak point and risk to private data.

An international team has succeeded at BESSY II to elucidate how ultrafast spin-polarized current pulses can be characterized by measuring the ultrafast demagnetization in a magnetic layer system within the first hundreds of femtoseconds. The findings are useful for the development of spintronic devices that enable faster and more energy-efficient information processing and storage.

An international team has succeeded at BESSY II to elucidate how ultrafast spin-polarized current pulses can be characterized by measuring the ultrafast demagnetization in a magnetic layer system within the first hundreds of femtoseconds. The findings are useful for the development of spintronic devices that enable faster and more energy-efficient information processing and storage.

The mitochondrion, often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell, plays critical roles in cellular function, making it a prime organelle to target for fundamental studies, metabolic engineering, and disease therapies. With only a limited number of existing mitochondrial targeting sequences, a new study demonstrates the utility of generative artificial intelligence for designing new ones.

The NYT has always been anti-Israel, and I toy with calling it “antisemitic” because it always downplays antisemitism.  And it did it big time this week in an article called “A progressive and in a body made for the ‘manosphere.’ Read it by clicking below or find it archived here. 

This handsome, manly, handsome, and much-followed podcaster on Twitch and YouTube (4.5 million total), Hasan Piker turns out to have some nasty views on Israel. But of course the NYT downplays those views greatly.  Have a read; it’s short.

They add up, to me at least, to deem him an antisemite, as does NY Representative Ritchie Torres. Click to go to the thread.

The NYT article is mostly about how his wonderful physique, his diet, his workouts and his avid following, noting just this on  his views about the war:

Mr. Piker is similarly unfiltered with his viewpoints. Some can be extreme.

A vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Mr. Piker has been labeled anti-American by people across the political spectrum for saying the country “deserved” the Sept. 11 attacks. His recent accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and his diatribes against the Zionist movement have led many supporters of Israel, including liberals like Representative Ritchie Torres of New York, to call Mr. Piker antisemitic.

“I find antisemitism to be completely unacceptable,” Mr. Piker said on a call in April. “I find the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to be very dangerous,” he added.

It’s not a very explicit explanation (what foreign policy does he oppose?), and the conflation of antisemitism and antiZionism have turned them nearly into the same thing: hatred of Jews because most of them think that Israel is okay as a Jewish homeland.

The Free Press, however, took a deeper dive (click if you subscribe0:

Here are a few quotes from the FP (bolding is mine):

Because Piker records for up to 10 hours a day, and has done so for five years, it is hard to paint a comprehensive picture of his views. But even a cursory look at his work reveals a person who dismisses violence against Israelis, celebrates Islamist terrorists, and advocates for treating pro-Israel Americans as neo-Nazis.

“It doesn’t matter if rapes happened on October 7th,” Piker said while livestreaming on May 22, 2024. “It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.” Apparently, not even the most brutal, inhumane crimes committed during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel could justify the Israeli military response—which he repeatedly refers to as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”

Just this week, he claimed on Twitch that “in a totally just world, regardless of your background, any kind of fucking Zionist tendency should be treated in the same way as being a fucking rabid neo-Nazi.” (The vast majority of Jews identify as Zionists.) He went on: “You shouldn’t even let someone be the fucking local dog catcher . . . if they have exhibited any sort of positive feelings about the state of Israel.”

At the same time, Piker implies that acts of violence committed by Islamists are justified. On November 29, 2023, he described the attacks of October 7 as “a retaliation for an ongoing apartheid.”

Piker doesn’t only justify terrorism. Sometimes, he glorifies it:

• On December 20, 2023, Piker played a Hamas propaganda video on his livestream for an audience of 25,000. In it, dramatic music plays as members of the terrorist group forge and demo guns. The title card reads: “We will continue Killing your Soldiers by our locally manufactured Snipers.” Piker reads it aloud, then says: “Wow, there’s a little message for the Americans out there as well!”
• In January 2024, Houthi pirates seized a commercial ship in the Red Sea, and took the crew hostage. Among the rebels was 19-year-old Rashid Al-Haddad, who went viral in the U.S. for posting videos of himself from the vessel. (Al-Haddad later denied affiliation with the Houthis.) Piker tracked down Al-Haddad via social media and interviewed him on his stream with the help of a translator. In the interview, Piker compared Al-Haddad to the pirate hero from a popular anime called One Piece.
• In a later stream on October 14, 2024, Piker likened Al-Haddad, who grew up in Yemen, to a victim of the Holocaust: “For most of his life, he has withstood genocide,” Piker said, before saying that speaking to Al-Haddad was like “talking to fucking Anne Frank, basically.” (Later, in a now-deleted tweet, Al-Haddad posted this image of a man impaled on a stake with the caption: “The execution that we will carry out on all Zionists.”)
• On September 28, 2024, Piker shared what he called a “music video,” which was actually a Houthi propaganda clip. In it, gun-toting Islamists sing a rallying cry to “defeat the masses of infidels.” They march over burning American and Israeli flags and wave banners emblazoned with the Houthi credo—which translates to “God is Great. Death to America! Death to Israel! Damn the Jews! Victory to Islam!”
  “When the beat drops, it’s like jihad drops in your heart,” Piker said to an audience of nearly 30,000. Of the Houthis, he said: “They’re very musical people.”

Piker himself is aware of his influence on young people. In November, he posted a news article about that rise in pro-Hamas sentiment among Jewish-American teenagers to his Discord server—with the comment: “i did this.”

There’s more, but I’ll give just one more bit of NYT censorship to show how they downplay Piker’s antisemitism. There was no reason for the NYT do do this save to avoid tarnishing Piker’s reputation:

But amid all the descriptions of Piker’s attractiveness—and all the photos that back it up—the Times let something small yet grimly revealing slip into its profile of the streamer. One of the images shows Piker’s monitor, during one of his livestreams. If you zoom in, you can see a comment from a Twitch user referring to an Israeli Defense Force soldier: “I’d phuck this idf btch to death and make his mother shove missles up her ass.”

The Times has since updated the photo with the comment cropped out of the picture.

Piker did not respond to a request for comment.

Apparently the NYT cannot trust readers to make their up their own minds, so they slant the news to make Piker look better than he is.  So it goes. Right now with what’s going on in the world, and with the huge influence that Piker has, it’s just like the NYT to concentrate on his manliness, muscles and handsomeness instead of his dislike of Jews anti-Zionism.

For the cautious -- or simply curious -- homeowner, an at-home water testing kit may seem reassuring. But there are high levels of variability between test kits' abilities to detect potential contaminants in water, a new study has found.

A new study suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could help detect interval breast cancers before they become more advanced and harder to treat.

From anger to envy, research is revealing how to shift your mental state and put bad feelings to good use – with benefits for longevity, relationships and mental health

I’m a bit late to the party, but this news is not widely known. I don’t remember seeing it in the MSM, but here are two article about it in Science (first) and then Nature (second). Click each to read.

The National Scienc Foundation (NSF) is an important organization for funding non-medical science, and, as Wikipedia notes:

With an annual budget of about $9.9 billion (fiscal year 2023), the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States’ colleges and universities.[4][5] In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.

In contrast, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a budget nearly three times as large, but their object is medical research. For some reason, Dick Lewontin (my Ph.D. advisor) managed to get the NIH to fund evolutionary genetics, and so I was supported by the NIH my entire career, with money easier to get, and had only one NSF grant.

Others have not been so lucky, as it’s been harder to get an NSF grant as the years go by, and the application process has gotten more and more convoluted, what with DEI and “outreach” requirements. Thank Ceiling Cat I retired before that was required.

At any rate, Trump is cutting NIH grants right and left, terminating those which seem to have emphasis on DEI, but the administration has also cut jobs at its Alexandria, Virginia headquarters.  All in all, given that the NSF is the main government supporter of basic non-medical science, including psychology anthropology and sociology, it’s been a pretty good organization with rigorous standards. Lately, however, it’s shown a penchant for wokeness, and that’s what brought the hammer down on the organization, The upshot, though, is that the administration appears to have used grant titles or key words to deep-six grants (see below), which isn’t exactly a fair way to do it.

On top of the director’s resignation and job cuts, this bodes poorly for research, much of which takes place in American universities.

Click to read the Science piece, which should be free. I’ll give a few excerpts (indented). And have a look at those cuts, which are DEEP

The director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced his resignation today, 16 months before his 6-year term ends, in a letter to staff obtained by Science.

“I believe that I have done all I can to advance the mission of the agency and feel that it is time to pass the baton to new leadership,” writes Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, a computer scientist who was nominated to lead NSF by then-President Donald Trump in December 2019 and was confirmed by the Senate in August 2020. “I am deeply grateful to the presidents for the opportunity to serve our nation.”

Although Panchanathan didn’t give a reason for his sudden departure, orders from the White House to accept a 55% cut to the agency’s $9 billion budget next year and fire half its 1700-person staff may have been the final straws in a series of directives Panchanathan felt he could no longer obey.

“He was trying so hard to present the agency in a positive light,” says one knowledgeable source who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of their position. “But at the same time, Panch knew that he was alienating himself from the scientific community by being tone deaf to their growing concerns about the fate of the agency we all love.”

Now I’m not sure what that stuff about “alienation” means. Was he supposed to do something about the upcoming slash-and-burn approach of DOGE? As far as I can see, his resignation was the only honorable thing he could do, and it makes a loud statement.

On 14 April, staffers from billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set up shop for the first time at NSF and triggered a series of events that appear to have culminated in Panchanathan’s resignation. Two days later, NSF announced it was halting any new awards for grants that had been recommended for funding by program officers and were in the final stages of approval by agency officials. And NSF said pending proposals that appeared to violate any of Trump’s executive orders—in particular those banning efforts to increase diversity in the scientific workforce, foster environmental justice, and study the spread of misinformation on social media sites—would be returned for “mitigation.”

On 18 April, NSF announced it was terminating what could be more than $1 billion in grants already awarded because they clashed with those directives and “were no longer priorities” for the agency.

You can see a database of the cancelled NSF grants here, and, at least from reading their titles, you’ll see what the Trumpets were aiming at.

As you can imagine, many of my colleagues are sweating blood, not sure that they’ll get their grants. And if you know if you’re in academia, grants are important in keeping your career going. Although the University of Chicago, almost uniquely, does NOT count grants funding as a criterion for promotion or tenure, unless you’re a theoretical physicist who needs just a pencil and paper, it would be hard to get any research don—and research IS a criterion for advancing academically—without outside money.

At any rate Panchanathan’s letter doesn’t mention the cuts or the administration, but reiterates the NSF’s accomplishments and then says this:

I believe that I have done all I can to advance the mission of the agency and feel that it is time for me to pass the baton to new leadership.

I don’t think it’ll be easy to find “new leadership.” That baton is red hot!

Here’s the announcement from Nature (click to read, excerpts are indented):

Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature.

The policy prevents the NSF, one of the world’s biggest supporters of basic research, from awarding new research grants and from supplying allotted funds for existing grants, such as those that receive yearly increments of money. The email does not provide a reason for the freeze and says that it will last “until further notice”.

Earlier this week, NSF leadership also introduced a new policy directing staff members to screen grant proposals for “topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities”. Proposals judged not “in alignment” must be returned to the applicants by NSF employees. The policy has not been made public but was described in documents seen by Nature.

An NSF staff member says that although good science can still be funded, the policy has the potential to be “Orwellian overreach”. Another staff member says, “They are butchering the gold standard merit review process that was established at NSF over decades”. One program officer says they are resigning because of the policy. Nature spoke with five NSF staffers for this story, all on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

An NSF spokesperson declined Nature’s request for comment.

. . .Uncertainty is also being felt by scientists outside the agency. Colin Carlson, an expert in disease emergence at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, leads an initiative to predict viruses that pose pandemic threats. The project, which involves roughly 50 researchers across multiple universities, is funded by a $US12.5 million NSF grant. The project’s latest round of funding was approved, but Carlson worries about subsequent rounds, and the fate of other researchers. Unless it is lifted, the freeze “is going to destroy people’s labs,” Carlson says.

. . . Cuts to NSF spending this year could be a prelude to a dramatically reduced budget next year. Science previously reported that US President Donald Trump will request a $4 billion budget for the agency in fiscal year 2026, a 55% reduction from what Congress appropriated for 2025. Similarly, the proposed 2026 budget for the National Institutes of Health calls for a 44% cut to the agency’s $47 billion budget in 2025, according to documents leaked to the media. During Trump’s first term, Republicans in Congress rejected many of the president’s requested cuts to science funding, but it is not clear that they will do so again.

These huge cuts are not going to be limited to the “social justice and DEI” category; they have to overlap into basic science. And, as the article notes, this damages not just the expansion of knowledge but the well-being of the country as a whole. Lots of NSF research, even if “pure” research, has led to significant improvements of people’s well being. I don’t think that’s the reason the organization should exist, as pure knowledge by itself enriches humanity, but there’s no denying the salubrious side effects.

. . . . severe reductions to science funding could damage the economy, according to new research. A report by economists at American University in Washington DC estimates that a 50% reduction in federal science funding would reduce the US gross domestic product by approximately 7.6%. “This country’s status as the global leader in science and innovation is seemingly hanging by a thread at this point,” one NSF staffer says.

I’m very glad I’m retired and don’t have to depend on the grant system, but I feel bad for my colleagues who are living in uncertainty.