Science

Many AI models were trained on the text of books, but a new test found at least one model has directly memorised nearly the entirety of some books, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which could complicate ongoing legal battles over copyright infringement

Humans first arrived in South America through a series of extraordinary migrations – and genetic studies now reveal more about how they settled and then split into four distinct groups on the continent

Using CRISPR to correct the mutations behind polycystic kidney disease could counter some of the damage the condition causes

Well, you might disagree with the quote, taken from the video below, but you have to admit that this bird is something speciesl. It’s the tropical royal flycatcher (Onychorhynchus coronatus) that I’ve never seen in my perambulations in the tropical forests of  Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru or Ecuador, though it lives there and, according to Wikipedia, lives “in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay”  Here’s its range map from eBird. where you can also hear its squeaky call:

The taxonomy is confusing, with some bird systematists recognizing five subspecies. However, what you want to look at is this amazing crest, which is normally hidden. Again from Wikipedia:

The tropical royal flycatcher is approximately 12.5 to 18 cm (4.9 to 7.1 in) long and weighs 9.7 to 21 g (0.34 to 0.74 oz). It has an erectile fan-shaped crest. In the nominate subspecies O. c. coronatus it is red with blue tips in the male and yellow or orange in the female. The sexes’ plumages are otherwise alike.

The male takes up the first minute of this video; the rest of the video, well worth watching, shows other amazing birds. I have seen the potoo, but it had to be pointed out to me because it looks exactly like a tree branch.  (We’ll have a “readers’ wildlife post on the potoo soon.)

Imagine being the first explorer to come across one of these birds!

It's quite the journey from "RCT or STFU" to "we will always have a place for controlled clinical studies."

The post Dr. Vinay Prasad is Repeatedly Undermining RCTs. Why? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

He was a minor king, yet Tutankhamun’s tomb might have been the most richly stocked of all in ancient Egypt. Now research is revealing the surprising reasons why he was given such a lavish send-off

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured breathtakingly detailed images of two giant exoplanets orbiting a distant sun-like star. These observations revealed sand-like silicate clouds in one planet s atmosphere and an unexpected disk around another that may be forming moons something previously seen only in much younger systems. These snapshots offer a rare chance to witness planet formation in real time, giving clues about how worlds like Jupiter and even our own solar system came to be.

Scientists have uncovered how close we can get to perfect optical precision using AI, despite the physical limitations imposed by light itself. By combining physics theory with neural networks trained on distorted light patterns, they showed it's possible to estimate object positions with nearly the highest accuracy allowed by nature. This breakthrough opens exciting new doors for applications in medical imaging, quantum tech, and materials science.

As I’ve mentioned, one could describe the situation in Los Angeles a “shitshow” or a “dumpster fire”.  My take about what happened is that ICE (or other law enforcement officials) went to arrest undocumented immigrants in L.A., but were blocked or impeded by huge protests by American civilians. Both protestors and law enforcement officials were masked: the former, along with the vandalism and violence, shows that the protestors were not committing classical civil disobedience, but didn’t want to be identified; the latter seems unconscionable because law enforcement should not be masked, and should be identifiable. Yes, many demonstrators remained peaceful, but there’s no doubt that there was violence along with attempts to kill or injure law enforcement.

The violence involved protestors setting cars on fire, looting, and worse, firing serious fireworks (Roman candles and M80s) at law enforcement. I don’t think law enforcement provoked these protests, but they did respond with tear gas and flashbangs. At this point, despite the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump deputized the California National Guard to intervene and protect law enforcement. 4,000 National Guard people were involved, though it’s not clear what, exactly they did. Nevertheless, Newsom has filed a lawsuit against Trump for calling in the Guard.

Then, apparently on Trump’s orders, 700 U.S. Marines were also sent to L.A. to further control the situation. Newsom has also threatened to sue for this as well.

The use of both National Guard and Marines has been widely condemned by the media, especially the progressive or left-wing media. For example, the NYT’s Michelle Goldberg has an op-ed today, “This is what autocracy looks like.” A few quotes:

Since Donald Trump was elected again, I’ve feared one scenario above all others: that he’d call out the military against people protesting his mass deportations, putting America on the road to martial law. Even in my more outlandish imaginings, however, I thought that he’d need more of a pretext to put troops on the streets of an American city — against the wishes of its mayor and governor — than the relatively small protests that broke out in Los Angeles last week.

In a post-reality environment, it turns out, the president didn’t need to wait for a crisis to launch an authoritarian crackdown. Instead, he can simply invent one.

It’s true that some of those protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles have been violent; on Sunday one man was arrested for allegedly tossing a Molotov cocktail at a police officer, and another was accused of driving a motorcycle into a line of cops. Such violence should be condemned both because it’s immoral and because it’s wildly counterproductive; each burning Waymo or smashed storefront is an in-kind gift to the administration.

But the idea that Trump needed to put soldiers on the streets of the city because riots were spinning out of control is pure fantasy. “Today, demonstrations across the city of Los Angeles remained peaceful, and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly,” said a statement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday evening. That was the same day Trump overrode Gov. Gavin Newsom and federalized California’s National Guard, under a rarely used law meant to deal with “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”

Then, on Monday, with thousands of National Guard troops already deployed to the city, the administration said it was also sending 700 Marines. The Los Angeles police don’t seem to want the Marines there; in a statement, the police chief, Jim McDonnell, said, “The arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.” But for Trump, safeguarding the city was never the point.

It’s important to understand that for this administration, protests needn’t be violent to be considered an illegitimate uprising. The presidential memorandum calling out the National Guard refers to both violent acts and any protests that “inhibit” law enforcement. That definition would seem to include peaceful demonstrations around the site of ICE raids. In May, for example, armed federal agents stormed two popular Italian restaurants in San Diego looking for undocumented workers; they handcuffed staff members and took four people into custody. As they did so, an outraged crowd gathered outside, chanting “shame” and for a time blocking the agents from leaving.  Under Trump’s order, the military could target these people as insurrectionists.

Clearly Goldberg sees calling out both the National Guard and the Marines as a odious step towards an imposition of autocracy in America.  I won’t comment on the above but ask readers to respond to the situation. Here are some questions:

1.)  Should ICE (or whoever started arrested immigrants) have even gone after the people, even if they were undocumented immigrants who entered the country illegally?

2.) Should law enforcement wear masks?

3.) Is this an example of civil disobedience, violent protest, or both?

4.) Given the violence, was it still necessary (or even useful) to call out the National Guard?

5.) Should the Marines have been called out?

finally

6.) What would you do in this situation if you were President (or governor)?

Physicists at the University of Oxford have set a new global benchmark for the accuracy of controlling a single quantum bit, achieving the lowest-ever error rate for a quantum logic operation--just 0.000015%, or one error in 6.7 million operations. This record-breaking result represents nearly an order of magnitude improvement over the previous benchmark, set by the same research group a decade ago.

A violent solar eruption on May 31 launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) hurtling toward Earth, triggering a rare G4-level geomagnetic storm alert. Captured in real-time by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory instruments, this cosmic blast has the potential to disrupt satellites, communications, and military systems.

The company has unveiled new innovations in quantum hardware and software that researchers hope will make quantum computing both error-proof and useful before the end of the decade

A team of international astronomers has uncovered what may be a gas giant planet forming around a distant young star. Using the powerful Very Large Telescope in Chile, they captured dazzling near-infrared images of a spiral-armed disk, matching theoretical predictions of how young planets shape their environment. With structures extending beyond the scale of our solar system and evidence of planet-driven disturbances, the system could provide vital clues to how planetary systems, including our own, emerge.

Whilst NASA funding has been slashed by the Trump administration with no allocation for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion or and Nuclear Electric Propulsion, scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have been studying nuclear propulsion.

The COSMOS scientific collaboration has released the largest map of the Universe ever created. It contains almost 800,000 galaxies, some from the Universe's earliest times. The map challenges some of our ideas about the early Universe.

Reader Kevin sent me this 4.5-minute video about two species of insects, earwigs and rove beetles, and how they fold their wings. It’s amazing, and I knew nothing about this. To quote Kevin:

Yesterday I saw this remarkable video on wing complexity in beetles and it really astonished me. Perhaps you’ve already seen it, but wanted to share it in case you haven’t. They guy has loads more great videos on his channel, too.

I sent the video to reader Robert Lang, among the very best origami experts in the world, thinking that he’d be interested in the folding. But of course he knew all about this (and more), for his folding knowledge and interests are wide, including designing a lens for a space telescope that can be folded up inside a rocket.

This all demonstrates Orgel’s Second Rule: “Evolution is cleverer than you are.” Natural selection sculpted these folds, presumably to allow a flying insect to scuttle through the leaf litter.

‘

Our ability to study faint radio signals from when the first stars began to form is being threatened by SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which seem to be unintentionally leaking radio signals that overpower astronomers' telescopes

What we have now just…isn't going to cut it. Right now if you want power in space you essentially have two options: solar panels, and a kind of nuclear power called radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

Planets may begin forming much earlier than scientists once believed during the final stages of a star s birth, not afterward. This bold new model, backed by simulations from researchers at SwRI, could solve a long-standing mystery: why so many exoplanet systems have tight clusters of similarly sized planets orbiting close to their stars. These compact systems seem to emerge naturally if planets start forming amid the swirling chaos of gas and dust still feeding the star.

A new understanding of how tumours exploit our nervous system is leading to new ways to treat cancer using familiar drugs like Botox and beta blockers