If maths is the language of the universe, bees may have just uttered their first words. New research suggests these busybodies of the insect world are capable of addition and subtraction (减法) — using colors in the place of plus and minus symbols.
In the animal kingdom, the ability to count — or at least distinguish between differing quantities — isn't unusual: It has been seen in frogs, spiders, and even fish. But solving equations (方程式) using symbols is rare, so far only achieved by famously brainy animals such as chimpanzees and African grey parrots.
Building on previous research that says the social insects can count to four and understand the concept of zero, researchers wanted to test the limits of what their tiny brains can do.
Scientists trained 14 bees to link the colors blue and yellow to addition and subtraction, respectively. They placed the bees at the entrance of a Y-shaped maze (迷宫), where they were shown several shapes in either yellow or blue. If the shapes were blue, bees got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one more blue shape (the other end had one less blue shape); if the shapes were yellow, they got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one less yellow shape.
The testing worked the same way: Bees that "subtracted" one shape when they saw yellow, or "added" one shape when they saw blue were considered to have aced the test. The bees got the right answer 63% to 72% of the time, depending on the type of equation and the direction of the right answer — much better than random guesses would allow—the researchers report today in Science Advances.
Though the results came from just 14 bees, researchers say the advance is exciting. If a brain about 20,000 times smaller than ours can perform maths using symbols, it could pave the way to novel approaches in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Just don't ask the bees to do your homework anytime soon.
They can be made into turkey sandwiches, and turkey vegetable soup, to name just a few. This year I cooked two turkeys so I would have leftovers to make use of.
If you have cooked your turkey in the past and it was dry, I'm willing to bet you either overcooked it or didn't let it rest. You need a good thermometer. Probe(探针) style is a personal preference. My Meater is Bluetooth enabled, and I can set it up on my iPad or iPhone; it will tell me how long I need and how long to rest.
Also, resting is so important when cooking meats. I have written about resting meat so many times. I will always lightly cover my turkey in foil and let it rest for 15 – 20 minutes at a very minimum. When you heat the molecules or cells, they begin to vibrate and move faster and faster. Otherwise, all the moisture(水分) will leak. If you allow molecules to settle down and relax, the muscle tissue will keep that moisture, and when you cut into the bird, it will still be moist.
How hot you cook your turkey will also determine how moist it is. The temperatures I pull the turkey out of the oven at and when it is ready to cut are different. Proteins, will continue to cook even after you have removed them from the heat source, related to the molecules vibrating or moving rapidly.
After you finish enjoying your feast, the delicately cooked turkey, you might have a lot of leftovers. It feels comforting, because you can not only enjoy the soup but you're using up the leftovers.
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A. I enjoy the wonderful taste of turkey B. There are so many uses for turkey leftovers. C. The faster the vibration is, the more heat is produced. D. So you should let them calm down before cutting into the meat. E. You can transform the turkey leftovers into chicken noodle soup. F. I always recommend digital ones because they are always more accurate. G. Therefore, you'd better cut the turkey while the molecules are still vibrating. |
The human brain is the most complex and poorly understood biological structure known to man. Our human brain is relatively large for our body size and wrinkled in comparison to other animals' brains. Across species, brain size and wrinkle number is related to intelligence.
University of Copenhagen researchers have made an incredible discovery seeking to learn more about the mammalian(哺乳动物的) brain. A vital enzyme, a special material, allows brain signals to be transmitted or transported. The enzyme is randomly turning on and off, even taking hours-long "breaks from work." These discoveries could have a significant impact on our understanding of the brain and the development of medicines. The discovery is featured on the cover of Nature.
Millions of neurons(神经元) are constantly communicating with one another, shaping thoughts and memories and allowing us to move our bodies at will. Neurotransmitters are transported from one neuron to another by a unique enzyme when two neurons meet to exchange a message.
This process is necessary for neuronal communication as well as the survival of all complex organisms(extremely small living things). Until now, researchers all over the world assumed that these enzymes were constantly active, transmitting vital signals. However, this is not the case.
It is almost impossible to understand that the extremely critical process of loading neurotransmitters in containers is carried out by only one cell per container. Especially when we find that 40% of the time these cells are switched off.
Using a new method, researchers from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen closely examined the enzyme and discovered that its activity switches on and off at random periods of time, contradicting our previous understanding.
"Contrary to popular belief, and unlike many other proteins, these enzymes could stop working for minutes to hours. Still, the brains of humans and other mammals are miraculously able to function," says Professor Dimitrios Stamou, who led the study from the research center at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry.
Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in a small village in southern Holland. As a child, he was serious and sensitive. He loved to draw, and his work showed talent, but no one encouraged him to become an artist. Instead, his father thought he should take a job—something like a carpenter. As a young adult, he wandered from job to job with little success and very little money, becoming more depressed with each failure. In March 1880, however, just before his 27th birthday, something changed inside van Gogh. He realized he was meant to be a painter, and he began to study art in Brussels, receiving money from his brother Theo, which helped him to live.
In 1886, van Gogh moved to Paris, hoping to learn more about color techniques being used by Impressionist artists there. Instead of grays and browns, his work began to use blue and red, and then yellow and orange. Soon he began to see life differently: Go slow. Stop thinking. Look around. You'll see something beautiful if you open yourself. These were the principles that guide his art. With his innovative (创新的) use of colors, van Gogh wanted to show his viewers how to better appreciate a flower, the night sky, or a person's face.
Today, people around the world immediately recognize Starry Nights and Sunflowers—both painted in bold, intense（浓重的） colors—as the work of Vincent van Gogh. Probably no other artist, at any time in any culture, has achieved such popularity. His Portrait （肖像画）of Dr. Gachet sold in 1990 reached more than $80 million, breaking the world record for art pieces. Many of his other works have also sold for millions. Of course, people are buying great art when they purchase his paintings. But they are also buying a piece of his story, which like his work, will live on forever.
In a paper published recently in Nature Communications, the authors, including experts from China's Tsinghua University, said that most of the current electricity demand in advanced, industrialized nations can be met by some combination of wind and solar power. "Wind and solar could meet more than 80 percent of demand in many places without crazy amounts of storage or additional generating ability, which is the critical point（临界点）, "said co-author Steve Davis, UCI professor of Earth system science, "if we want to have a zero-carbon emission（排放）future without using fossil energy resources".
The team analyzed 39 years' worth of hourly energy demand data from 42 major countries to evaluate the adequacy of wind and solar power resources to serve their needs. They found that a full shift to sustainable power resources can be easier for lower-latitude（低纬度的）countries, which can rely on solar power availability throughout the year. The researchers highlighted Germany as an example of a relatively smaller country, in terms of land mass, at higher latitude which will make it more challenging to meet its electricity needs with wind and solar resources.
"Historic data show that countries which are farther from the equator（赤道）can occasionally experience periods during which there is very limited solar and wind power availability, "said lead author Dan Tong, assistant professor of Earth system science at Tsinghua University. "One recent occurrence of this phenomenon in Germany lasted for two weeks, forcing Germans to turn to dispatchable（可调度的）generation, which in many cases is provided by fossil fuel-burning plants. Among the approaches the researchers suggested to alleviate this problem are building up generating capacity, developing long-term storage capabilities and pooling resources of multiple nations on a continental land mass to make the burden lighter to a certain country.
"Europe provides a good example to help people produce net-zero carbon electricity, "said Tong. "A lot of consistency and reliability could be provided by a system that includes solar resources from Spain, Italy and Greece with plentiful wind available in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Baltic region.
The number of seabirds killed by colliding（撞击） with wind turbines could be cut by painting black-and-white stripes on the blades（叶片）, and poles, say researchers. Graham Martin at the University. of Birmingham, UK, and Alex Banks at Natural England, a public organization that has a say in planning applications for offshore wind farms in England, wanted to design a pattern that could be easily painted onto turbines to reduce their impact on bird life.
Between 140, 000 and 328, 000 birds are killed each year by onshore wind turbines in the US, according to, one estimate. It is harder to tell how many birds are killed by offshore turbines each year, says Martin, as they fall into the ocean,
A previous study, published in 2020, looked at the effect of painting a single blade black on four onshore turbines in Norway. Bird collisions were reduced by 70 percent compared with all-white turbines nearby. Martin believes that further improvements could have an even greater impact. Based on analysis of previous studies into bird vision and bird collisions with wind turbines, the two researchers came up with a series of guiding principles to aid their design of a turbine that would harm. fewer birds.
"Most birds do not see too much fine detail in their vision - especially compared to humans, " says Martin, so any design shouldn't be too complex. Many collisions occur in low light, so the design should be easy to decipher in the dark, while high internal contrast would help the turbine stand out against different backgrounds, such as a cloudy or sunny sky. In low levels of light, black-and-white patterns are best, says Martin. "In the dark, a red-and-white pattern would rapidly look like shades of grey, " he says. The design hasn't yet been tested, but Martin hopes that manufacturers will consider it, particularly as it would be easy and cheap to implement.
ChatGPT-a conversational language model which was launched in November and is free and simple to use - can swiftly produce poems, math equations or essays on topics, bringing concern that students will misuse the technology. And because it doesn't copy an existing text, there is no easy way to be certain whether a human or a bot wrote the answer.
As many educators began to worry about whether students may use ChatGPT to generate papers, Edward Tian had an idea. The 22-year-old student, who studies computer science and journalism, decided to build an app to detect whether a text- was human-written or AI-written.
Over a few days in a Toronto coffee shop during winter break, he got to work. On Jan. 2, he launched' GPTZero. It analyzes' different properties of a text for its "perplexity", which is the randomness of the text, and the "burstiness", 'which is the variation of the text over time. So, a human-written text would have high perplexity, something very unfamiliar to an Al model, and exhibit properties of burstiness, which are non-common items that appear in random clusters （集 群）, rather than being uniformly distributed.
Tian said he expected a few dozen people to ever try it. But he woke up the next morning stunned by the response. He has even heard from people all over the world— many of them are teachers or college admissions officers, Many people have subscribed for updates from Tian as he works to improve the technology.
The quick response to Tian's effort highlighted the breakneck pace at which technology is changing classrooms, teaching, and the ways that people define and understand learning. Tian believed everyone deserved to reap the benefits of Al, but safeguards were needed to make sure new technologies were not abused.
Tian said it would be sad if, years from now, people mostly relied on AI and writing became far more uniform. "There's something implicitly（含蓄地） beautiful in human prose, " he said, "that computers can never copy. "
Look up how to increase your life expectancy（预期寿命）, and you will probably see plenty of results recommending that you have a healthy diet, get sufficient sleep, work out and cut out tobacco and too much alcohol consumption. But what many of us don't know is that our relationships also affect our life expectancy. Social integration is associated with greater life satisfaction, better health and increased life expectancy. People with wide social networks are more likely to be happy, experience fewer health issues, enjoy better mental health and to live a lot longer.
Now this doesn't mean that we should dive head first into a relationship whenever we're lonely in order to avoid dying young. Harmful relationships can be as isolating as being alone, so who we choose to break bread with is absolutely vital to our overall health.
Have you ever wondered why some people are single and happy, while others are drowning in suffering? Or why some married couples exist in a consistent state of bliss, while others are practically enemies?
Research shows that marriage has greater benefits for men than it does for women. Being coupled allows men to receive the essential emotional support that they would lack if they were single. They also get the added benefit of being physically taken care of thanks to the gender roles society still subscribes to.
Women, on the other hand, don't have as much luck when it comes to being coupled. A woman in a harmful relationship is likely to experience the mental, emotional and physical consequences that come with that. On the contrary, a woman in a healthy relationship is likely to live well. Research shows that the women who are happily married tend to be coupled with partners who take on their fair share of household responsibilities.
But that's not all, age gaps also need to be factored in to determine relationship satisfaction. Couples with wider age gaps are more likely to be harmonious compared to their peers.
An artificial intelligence can decode （解码） words and sentences from brain activity with1 surprising accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities , researchers found in a primary study.
Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world who are unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures.
Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to put in electrodes （电极）. This new approach "could provide a possible path to help patients with communication problems, avoiding the use of surgeries, " says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher.
King and his colleagues trained a computational tool, also known as a language model, to detect words and sentences on 56, 000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The team applied an AI with this language model to databases from four institutions that included brain activity from 169 volunteers. In these databases, participants listened to various stories and sentences, while the people's brains were scanned by magnetoencephalography （MEG）（脑磁图）.
Then with the help of a computational method that helps account for physical differences among actual brains, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the AI to match up the speech sounds from the story recordings with patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1, 000 possibilities. Using MEG, the correct answer was in the AI's top 10 guesses, the researchers found.
"The new study is decoding of speech recognition, not production, " King agrees, "Though speech production is the final goal, for now, we're quite a long way away. "
In 1977, Irene Pepperberg, a Harvard graduate, decided to investigate the thought processes of another creature by talking to it. To do this, she would teach a one-year-old African gray parrot (鹦鹉), Alex, to reproduce the sounds of the English language.
Pepperberg bought Alex in a pet store, where she let the store's assistant choose him because she didn't want other scientists to say that she bad intentionally chosen an especially smart bird. Given that Alex's brain was just the size of a walnut, most researchers thought Pepperberg's communication study would be futile.
But with Pepperberg's patient teaching, Alex learned how to follow almost 100 English words. He could count to six and had learned the sound for seven and eight. But the point was not to see if Alex could learn words by heart. Pepperberg wanted to get inside his mind and learn more about a bird's understanding of the world.
In one demonstration, Pepperberg held up a green key and a green cup for him to look at. "What's the same?" she asked. "Co-lor," Alex responded without hesitation. "What's different?" Pepperberg asked. "Shape," Alex quickly replied. His voice had the sound of a cartoon character. But the words — and what can only be called the thoughts — were entirely his. Many of Alex's skills, such as his ability to understand the concepts of "same" and "different", are rare in the animal world. Living in a complex society, parrots like Alex must keep track of changing relationships and environments.
During the demonstration, as if to offer final proof of the mind inside his bird's brain, Alex spoke up. "Talk clearly!" he commanded, when one of the younger birds Pepperberg was also teaching mispronounced the word "green".
Alex knew all the answers himself and was getting bored. "He's moody," said Pepperberg, "so he interrupts the others, or he gives the wrong answer just to be difficult." Pepperberg was certainly learning more about the mind of a parrot, but like the parent of a troublesome teenager, she was learning the hard way.
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