Posts Tagged ‘keyabbrev’

Robo-writers: the rise and risks of language-generating AI

April 17, 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00530-0

GPT3

QT:{{”
A neural network’s size — and therefore its power — is roughly measured by how many parameters it has. These numbers define the strengths of the connections between neurons. More neurons and more connections means more parameters; GPT-3 has 175 billion. The next-largest language model of its kind has 17 billion (see ‘Larger language models’). (In January, Google released a model with 1.6 trillion parameters, but it’s a ‘sparse’ model, meaning each parameter does less work. In terms of performance, this is equivalent to a ‘dense’ model that has between 10 billion and 100 billion parameters, says William Fedus, a researcher at the University of Montreal, Canada, and Google.)
“}}

Human local adaptation of the TRPM8 cold receptor along a latitudinal cline

April 7, 2021

Stumbled onto this paper. Thought the conclusion that Europeans were more cold-sensitive due to TRPM8 was quite counter-intuitive – but interesting nevertheless
https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007298

cold receptor

Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000 – The New York Times

March 11, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/business/nft-nba-top-shot-crypto.html NFT!

It’s Not Every Day We Get a New Blue – The New York Times

February 14, 2021

YInMn blue
Formula: YIn1−xMnxO3

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/style/blue-pigment-YInMn.html

Coronavirus Variant Tracker – The New York Times

February 12, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/coronavirus-variant-tracker.html

D614G
N501Y
E484K
B.1.1.7, B.1.351

QT:{{”
The D614G mutation emerged in eastern China early in the pandemic and then quickly spread around the world, displacing other coronaviruses that did not have the mutation.

The D614G mutation is thought to make the coronavirus more infectious, but it does not appear to make the disease more severe or help the virus escape vaccines.

The N501Y mutation arose independently in several variants of concern, including the B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1 lineages.

The mutation is near the tip of the coronavirus spike, where it seems to change the shape of the protein to be a tighter fit with human cells.

The E484K mutation arose independently in multiple lineages, including B.1.351 and P.1. Scientists are also concerned that the mutation was recently found in some samples from the B.1.1.7 lineage from Britain. …
The mutation occurs near the top of the coronavirus spike, where it alters the shape of the protein. This change may help the spikes evade some types of coronavirus antibodies.
“}}

Covid mutation

January 30, 2021

b117 or b.1.1.1.7 mutation
D614G mutation

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/covid-mutation.html

Evidence Builds That an Early Mutation Made the Pandemic Harder to Stop

Scientists were initially skeptical that a mutation made the coronavirus more contagious. But new research has changed many of their minds.

Upsetting

December 26, 2020

What to Know About the Covid Antibody Drugs That Could Help Many

Here’s information about who these therapies can help, how much they cost and how to find out if you can get them where you live.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/health/coronavirus-antibody-drugs.html

Lilly’s neutralizing antibody bamlanivimab
Regeneron’s Casirivimab and Imdevimab Antibody Cocktail

pseudogenes/odorant receptors

December 17, 2020

Sequence Variants in TAAR5 & Other Loci Affect Human Odor Perception & Naming https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31343-9 A variant in TAAR5 affects the perception of fish odor. Interesting to consider in relation to pseudogenization of the olfactory receptors

While about half of human odorant receptors are thought to be pseudogenes with loss-of-function, the Decode Genetics folks show that some sequence variants in odorant receptor genes are not
loss-of-function.

Covid mutation

November 30, 2020

D614G mutation

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/covid-mutation.html

Evidence Builds That an Early Mutation Made the Pandemic Harder to Stop

Scientists were initially skeptical that a mutation made the coronavirus more contagious. But new research has changed many of their minds.

Dabbawala – Wikipedia

November 27, 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala