PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 20, 2021 The past decade has seen machine learning—finding patterns in vast piles of data—in a state of vibrant growth. The number of life science papers on machine learning numbered just under 600 in 2010; by 2019, there were more than 12,000. The applications in medicine are potentially lifesaving and include the ability […]
AI, Explain Thyself Read More »
Physicist Stephan Reuter of Polytechnique Montréal spends most days using his expertise in energy and matter to improve medical technologies. Recently though, he stood in a sea of green to consider how a shower of charged particles might affect lettuce. He had been invited to one of the largest commercial greenhouses in Quebec to help
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In the 1970s, the late mathematician Paul Cohen, the only person to ever win a Fields Medal for work in mathematical logic, reportedly made a sweeping prediction that continues to excite and irritate mathematicians — that “at some unspecified future time, mathematicians would be replaced by computers.” Cohen, legendary for his daring methods in set theory, predicted
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More than 70 years ago, researchers at the forefront of artificial intelligence research introduced neural networks as a revolutionary way to think about how the brain works. In the human brain, networks of billions of connected neurons make sense of sensory data, allowing us to learn from experience. Artificial neural networks can also filter huge
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Zhong Lin Wang started playing table tennis only four years ago. But last year, he and other researchers came up with a clever way to up their game: Build a smart table. Now they’ve just unveiled a prototype. It can measure where a ball lands, how fast the ball’s going and where it’s headed. The
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SCIENTISTS HAVE SPENT DECADES mapping the tens of thousands of genes encoded in human DNA. They want to understand how genes function and to use this knowledge to treat diseases. CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-editing tool, offers one way to do that. With CRISPR, researchers can “snip” DNA in living human cells and make changes to the
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For wild chase scenes, it’s hard to beat Doctor Strange. In this 2016 film, the fictional doctor-turned-sorcerer has to stop villains who want to destroy reality. To further complicate matters, the evildoers have unusual powers of their own. “The bad guys in the film have the power to reshape the world around them,” explains Alexis Wajsbrot. He’s a
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In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the world to Bitcoin, a volatile digital currency that’s untethered to any specific institution or country (1). (Satoshi Nakamoto was quickly revealed to be a pseudonym; the true identity of the inventor or inventors remains unknown.) In the years that followed, the value of Bitcoin has soared, plummeted, and soared
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One way to get drugs through the blood-brain barrier: smuggle them across using sound waves. The blood-brain barrier, a name given to the tightly packed vascular cells in the brain’s capillaries, keeps the central nervous system remarkably free of most pathogens. But that defense is a major challenge for delivering drugs that treat brain disorders.
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IN JUNE 2014, oncologist Fabrice Denis of the Jean Bernard Center, a cancer hospital in Le Mans, France, began approaching people diagnosed with advanced lung cancer whose disease hadn’t progressed after initial treatment. He wanted them to try an unconventional approach to health care. It didn’t involve a new drug, a combination therapy or an experimental
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