Sugoi & Yokunai

Differences in dog aging may arise partly from specific jumping genes known as LINE1s, the authors report. LINE1s can damage DNA as they roam the genome, a threat normally mitigated by DNA methylation. 

More than 40 percent of LINE1-associated genome regions lost methylation as dogs aged, the study found, with different dogs declining at different rates. 

The loss unfolded significantly faster in larger breeds, which lost about 35 percent more LINE1 methylation annually than smaller breeds did.

The change needs to start at the top with Kotek. 

For her second term, Kotek needs to adopt and execute on a vision for reviving the state by addressing the structural 
issues weakening public services, rather than attempting to solve them by fiat.

She should start by focusing on Oregon’s economy — the most critical component for the state to be able to solve any of its other crises. 

 Ask an AI something you would not say out loud. "Is this mole something to worry about?" "Help me write my resignation letter." "Here is our customer list. Who is about to leave?"

Then ask a second question. Who has a copy now?

Not who could read it. Who holds it. For a moment, for a month, for ever.

For most AI products the answer is long, and nobody can give it to you with certainty. Not even the company whose logo is on the app. 

Open since 2008, the conjecture of Scott Aaronson and Andris Ambainis concerns when quantum computers can be exponentially faster than ordinary ones. Now, a research system developed internally at Physical Superintelligence (PSI), running a non-public Anthropic model, found a proof for it, settling one of the most fundamental questions in quantum computing.

The cybersecurity vendor on Tuesday launched an AI kill switch designed to let security teams stop internal AI agents that go rogue, block them from relaunching and cut off their enterprise network access. The tool is built into CrowdStrike’s Falcon Guardian platform, launched in September to secure AI agents. CrowdStrike also announced an integration with Anthropic’s Claude Cowork.

The experimental treatment uses a virus called adeno-associated virus 9 to deliver a gene to neurons in the affected area. The gene was engineered to produce proteins specifically in excitatory cells — the ones that are involved in seizures.

The viruses carried a gene that makes neurons sensitive to a specific drug, which works like a dimmer switch for the therapy. By combining gene therapy with a drug — an approach known as chemogenetics — researchers can adjust a treatment’s potency, which is not possible with other types of gene therapy. 

The gene instructs neurons to produce a receptor that binds to clozapine, the anticonvulsant. 

Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel ...has given a 27-year-old ex-startup founder...a new job to refactor 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months.

The employee, Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy, joined Cisco after it acquired EzDubs, a translation startup that Krishnamurthy helped build in 2023. While having executive experience, Patel found that "Paddy" was left "buried away in the organization doing something unstrategic."

According to the report ...Krishnamurthy told him that he could rewrite Cisco's legacy code in a team of just two people, and that "even the most AI-forward people on [Patel's] own team weren't thinking that way."

As a result, he's now been tasked with rewriting 98% of Cisco's legacy code within 24 months

Higher income was also followed by subsequent decreases in agreeableness and extraversion...

Personal increases in conscientiousness and emotional stability were followed by later increases in income, suggesting a mutually reinforcing cycle between these two traits and financial success. In contrast, increases in an individual’s extraversion were followed by slight decreases in subsequent income...

The unedited model plans the story for 2,400 tokens. Then it writes two lines over and over: “Wait, I need to make sure I don’t confuse myself.” and “Okay, let’s write.” It never writes the story. 

So the agent did not find a math circuit. It found a general brake on repetition, and math is simply where the model loops most.

No-show “home care” work is so common in Pennsylvania that it’s no longer viewed as something to hide. In August, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration arrested a drug trafficker in the state who asked the agents to let him out of handcuffs so he could clock out of the home health shift he was supposedly working. When they pointed out that that was illegal, he seemed confused, saying, “Everyone is doing this. If this is a problem, you’ll have to arrest the whole city.”

16 times the carcinogenic impact of standard plastic straws, along with six times the acidification damage (the metric scientists use to measure changes in ocean and soil pH levels).

The scientists found that Hawaii and Easter Island were likely both settled by members of a single "ultravoyager" culture from the Mangareva islands, about 3,440 miles (5,530 km) southeast of Hawaii and 1,600 miles (2,600 km) west of Easter Island. 

...earlier cuts to administrative and support staff have forced faculty members to take on extra work. Doctors and other clinicians are spending more time dealing with scheduling problems and paperwork instead of caring for patients, 

“We are burning out our greatest asset,” she said, adding that some faculty members have already become “disillusioned and disgruntled” or have quit, leaving their colleagues to shoulder even more work.

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic say they will restrict their AI crawlers from accessing a site if they encounter the shared token. Meta communications head Andy Stone also signaled support for the new setting, but doesn’t say whether the company will honor it. 

The cause of this latest security incident, according to the WSJ, is a flaw in DebugBear, a third-party website performance monitoring and debugging tool that Polymarket uses. 

"We grow by having open discussions with our elders, who do not hesitate to suggest ideas, for example," he said, adding that "the AIs themselves even benefited from this freedom, by quickly and easily collecting everything considered as good problems." His own, notably. Now, there is real concern that a company, upon hearing or "seeing" online that a particular question is gaining traction in the community, will unleash its agents on the problem to snatch up the credit. As a result, some mathematicians have already announced they will be restricting their communications. For Duminil-Copin, "this entire culture of open exchange is being shattered."

Sumitomo Pharma's treatment involves transplanting millions of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body, into a patient's brain.

Japanese regulators approved the therapy in March, following a successful clinical trial.

"The first transplant was performed at Kyoto University Hospital in October," the company said on Friday...