Brain Mapping Tech Inflates Tissue 20x to Reveal Remarkable Detail

“ExM can be used to explore neural connectivity in 3D with spatial precision sufficient for resolving individual synaptic connections,” the authors say. “If you could reconstruct a complete brain circuit, maybe you could make a computational model of how it generates complex phenomena like decisions and emotions,” says Boyden, “you could potentially model the dynamics of the brain.”

Source: Brain Mapping Tech Inflates Tissue 20x to Reveal Remarkable Detail

Researchers Build Artificial Synapse Capable of Autonomous Learning | University of Arkansas

Researchers from France and the University of Arkansas have created an artificial synapse capable of autonomous learning, a component of artificial intelligence. The discovery opens the door to building large networks that operate in ways similar to the human brain.

Source: Researchers Build Artificial Synapse Capable of Autonomous Learning | University of Arkansas

The Unsettling Performance That Showed the World Through AI’s Eyes | WIRED

As computer vision quietly spreads through our lives and landscapes, it’s entertaining and practical, powerful and flawed, amusing and disturbing. The same goes for AI as a whole. You can’t see it. But it’s everywhere.

“There were no conclusions,” said Henry Dills, a photographer and cellist who watched the performance dressed in a brown sport coat and a white scarf that reached past his waist. “These machines are starting to massively overshadow us. It used to be God. Now it’s machines.”

Source: The Unsettling Performance That Showed the World Through AI’s Eyes | WIRED

Pushing A Trillion Row Database With GPU Acceleration

“There is an arms race in the nascent market for GPU-accelerated databases, and the winner will be the one that can scale to the largest datasets while also providing the most compatibility with industry-standard SQL.

MapD and Kinetica are the leaders in this market, but BlazingDB, Blazegraph, and PG-Strom also in the field, and we think it won’t be long before the commercial relational database makers start adding GPU acceleration to their products, much as they have followed SAP HANA with in-memory processing.”

Source: Pushing A Trillion Row Database With GPU Acceleration

What happens when the Trump administration ignores AI | VentureBeat | AI | by Rishon Blumberg, 10x Management

“Ignoring AI now means the United States will lag behind more forward-thinking countries that invest in AI today. While the United States waits “50 to 100 years” for AI to become a reality of life, other countries will be doing the hard work, laying the necessary infrastructure, and gaining from machine learning, and the human learning that goes along with it.”

Source: What happens when the Trump administration ignores AI | VentureBeat | AI | by Rishon Blumberg, 10x Management

5 Neuroscience Experts Weigh in on Elon Musk’s Mysterious “Neural Lace” Company – IEEE Spectrum

What can we expect from Neuralink, the new Elon Musk company devoted to brain-computer interfaces?

This is very exciting technology, and I am fascinated by what it could mean.  Here Eliza Strickland asks 5 neuroscience types what they implications and limitations could be.

Source: 5 Neuroscience Experts Weigh in on Elon Musk’s Mysterious “Neural Lace” Company – IEEE Spectrum

Database Breaches Still Plague the Internet, But There’s Hope Ahead | WIRED

While companies commonly use these databases to store tempting troves of customer and financial data, they often do so with outdated and weak default security configurations. And while any type of database can be left open or unprotected, a string of breaches over the last few years have all centered around one type in particular: open-source “NoSQL” databases, particularly those using the popular MongoDB database program.

Source: Database Breaches Still Plague the Internet, But There’s Hope Ahead | WIRED

Serial Killers Should Fear This Algorithm – Bloomberg

His innovation was to teach a computer to spot trends in unsolved murders, using publicly available information that no one, including anyone in law enforcement, had used before. This makes him, in a manner of speaking, the Billy Beane of murder. His work shines light on a question that’s gone unanswered for too long: Why, exactly, aren’t the police getting any better at solving murder? And how can we even dream of reversing any upticks in the homicide rate while so many killers remain out on the streets?

Source: Serial Killers Should Fear This Algorithm – Bloomberg