A team of researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology recently published a ground-breaking study wherein they identified the brain neurons associated with prosocial and selfish behavior in mice. And then they figured out how to turn those neurons on and off. Inspired by the lonely isolation they felt during the COVID-19 quarantine, lead author Diego Scheggia says they originally set out to “understand the social factors and neurobiological determinants of altruism and self-interest.” According to a report from Ingrid Fadelli on Medical Xpress, however, Scheggia felt as though society had shifted away from altruism and toward “self-centered concern and a disregard of others” for a few years prior to the pandemic.
Content provided by IBM and TNW. Business leaders are looking to ensure that their organizations are doing their part to address the impact of climate change. After another year of extreme weather events — from Hurricane Ian in the United States to heat waves in the UK and floods in Pakistan, the need to transition into a more sustainable world has become clearer than ever before, and companies are now expected to reach new levels of action. Last year, the COP26 — the United Nations Climate Change Conference — highlighted the need for collective urgent action, with more specificity and near-term targets on cutting emissions this decade, phasing out coal, and setting methane targets.
Imagine watching the prime minister of the UK dump 53 billion Euros’ worth of taxpayer funds into a volcano. Think of all the good that money could do. If you’re a citizen of the UK, think about how hard you work to pay those taxes. According to the World Bank, that’s about how much queerphobia could be costing the Brits. In Italy, that figure would be closer to 36 billion and in Russia and Spain it’d be a bit lower due to their smaller GDPs. The equation is simple: unless you live in a country that ranks highly on LGBTQ rights (such as Malta, Denmark, and Belgium) take your nation’s gross domestic product and throw away about 1.7 percent.
Elon Musk is causing consternation among his new employees. According to Bloomberg News, Twitter’s new owner is set to cut around 3,700 jobs – about half the company’s workforce. Those who remain are also bracing for upheaval. Musk reportedly intends to scrap the platform’s work-from-anywhere policy and mandate returns to offices from Monday. The U-turn has reignited calls for legal rights to work-from-home on both sides of the Atlantic. Changing times The new TNW Newsletter Getting to the heart of the European tech and startup scene Musk’s mooted move would scrap a groundbreaking policy.
Digital maps and navigation apps have become an integral part of not only how we move, but also how businesses and entire industries operate. Think about it. Geolocation data is necessary for delivery companies to bring goods to your doorstep, for ride-hailing apps to get you to your destination, and for automotive brands to make the most out of their driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology. The list of examples goes on and on. The requirement for location-based mapping services has increased to such an extent that the global digital map market is expected to rise by $33.18 billion in the next five years.
Natural language processing (NLP) is among the most exciting subsets of machine learning. It lets us talk to computers like they’re people and vice versa. Siri, Google Translate, and the helpful chat bot on your bank’s website are all powered by this kind of AI — but not all NLP systems are created equal. In today’s AI landscape, smaller, targeted models trained on essential data are often better for business endeavors. However, there are massive NLP systems capable of incredible feats of communication. Called ‘large language models‘ (LLMs), these are capable of answering plain language queries, and generating novel text.
The European quantum computing sector might be the most exciting field in tech. Funding is at an all-time high and the number of quantum startups is increasing year over year. Yet the global media tends to portray the EU and UK as potential runners up in the supposed quantum computing race. In order to understand Europe’s position in the global quantum computing market we need to roll the clock back a couple years. Investors and entrepreneurs began flocking to quantum during the COVID-19 tech boom and, despite the expected post-pandemic drop off, analysts are predicting a massive increase in market size over the next 5-15 years.
My cravings for meat are well-known to regular readers (hi mum!). But as a self-righteous vegetarian, I refuse to dine on murdered animals. Those beliefs are now being challenged by a heretic: cultivated meat. Cultivated meat, also known as cultured meat, brings the farm to the lab. Cells are collected from an animal, grown in vitro, and then shaped into familiar forms of edible flesh. Greetings, humanoids Subscribe to our newsletter now for a weekly recap of our favorite AI stories in your inbox. Industry advocates proffer myriad benefits — and needs. According to the UN, around 80 billion animals are slaughtered each year for meat.
Content provided by IBM and TNW. When Hurricane Harvey struck southeast Texas in 2017, it caused $125 billion in economic damages. A recent assessment of local businesses in the area found that 90% lost revenue in the five figure range due to employee disruptions, lower customer demand, utility outages, and/or supply chain issues. Those that suffered property damage experienced compounded losses with parts of the business being shuttered for weeks and months at a time until repairs could be made. Since 2017 there’s been an average of 17.8 weather/climate disaster events per year in the US alone.
