STEM

[Cadavre Exquis]

COVID-19 Vaccine's mRNA Technology Adapted for First Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Vaccine
Posted by EditorDavid on Monday July 14, 2025 @07:34AM from the giving-it-a-shot dept.

Researchers have created the world's first mRNA-based vaccine against a deadly, antibiotic-resistant bacterium — and they did it using the platform developed for COVID-19 vaccines.

Medical Express publishes their announcement:

The vaccine developed by the team from the Institute for Biological Research and Tel Aviv University is an mRNA-based vaccine delivered via lipid nanoparticles, similar to the COVID-19 vaccine. However, mRNA vaccines are typically effective against viruses like COVID-19 — not against bacteria like the plague... In 2023, the researchers developed a unique method for producing the bacterial protein within a human cell in a way that prompts the immune system to recognize it as a genuine bacterial protein and thus learn to defend against it.

The researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Institute for Biological Research proved, for the first time, that it is possible to develop an effective mRNA vaccine against bacteria. They chose Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes bubonic plague — a disease responsible for deadly pandemics throughout human history. In animal models, the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to effectively vaccinate against the disease with a single dose.

The team of researchers was led by Professor Dan Peer at Tel Aviv University, a global pioneer in mRNA drug development, who says the success of the current study now "paves the way for a whole world of mRNA-based vaccines against other deadly bacteria."

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://elpais.com/ciencia/2025-08-03/la-odisea-de-tres-mujeres-y-el-bo-112-la-molecula-que-engana-al-cancer.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Unitree Robotics · 2025.08.05 · Unitree Introducing | Unitree A2 Stellar Explorer

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://elpais.com/salud-y-bienestar/2025-08-07/fat-but-fit-estar-en-forma-podria-ser-un-mejor-predictor-de-longevidad-que-estar-delgado.html

Saludos.

[pollo]

https://yosefk.com/blog/llms-arent-world-models.html

LLMs aren’t world models

August 10th, 2025

I believe that language models aren’t world models. It’s a weak claim — I’m not saying they’re useless, or that we’re done milking them. It’s also a fuzzy-sounding claim — with its trillion weights, who can prove that there’s something an LLM isn't a model of? But I hope to make my claim clear and persuasive enough with some examples.

[...]

[pollo]

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/researchers-find-llms-are-bad-at-logical-inference-good-at-fluent-nonsense/

LLMs’ “simulated reasoning” abilities are a “brittle mirage,” researchers find

Chain-of-thought AI "degrades significantly" when asked to generalize beyond training.

In recent months, the AI industry has started moving toward so-called simulated reasoning models that use a "chain of thought" process to work through tricky problems in multiple logical steps. At the same time, recent research has cast doubt on whether those models have even a basic understanding of general logical concepts or an accurate grasp of their own "thought process." Similar research shows that these "reasoning" models can often produce incoherent, logically unsound answers when questions include irrelevant clauses or deviate even slightly from common templates found in their training data.

In a recent pre-print paper, researchers from the Arizona State University summarize this existing work as "suggest[ing] that LLMs are not principled reasoners but rather sophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text." To pull on that thread, the researchers created a carefully controlled LLM environment in an attempt to measure just how well chain-of-thought reasoning works when presented with "out of domain" logical problems that don't match the specific logical patterns found in their training data.

[...]

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://elpais.com/tecnologia/2025-08-12/un-tinte-para-crear-cristales-que-imitan-al-iris-facilita-la-conversion-de-rascacielos-e-invernaderos-en-centrales-energeticas.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Can We Harness Light Like Nature for a New Era of Green Chemistry?
Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday August 16, 2025 @09:35PM from the taking-a-photosynthesis dept.

Sunlight becomes energy when plants convert four photons of light. But unfortunately, most attempts at synthetic light-absorbing chemicals can only absorb one photon at a time, write two researchers from the University of Melbourne. "In the Polyzos research group at the School of Chemistry, we have developed a new class of photocatalysts that, like plants, can absorb energy from multiple photons."

This breakthrough allows us to harness light energy more effectively, driving challenging and energy-demanding chemical reactions.

We have applied this technology to generate carbanions — negatively charged carbon atoms that serve as crucial building blocks in the creation, or synthesis, of carbon- and hydrogen-rich chemicals known as organic chemicals. Carbanions are vital in making drugs, polymers and many other important materials. However, traditional methods to produce carbanions often require lots of energy and dangerous reagents, and generate significant chemical waste, posing environmental and safety challenges... Our new method offers a greener, safer alternative [using visible light and renewable starting materials]...

We've used it to synthesize important drug molecules, including antihistamines, in a single step using simple, cheap and commonly available "commodity chemicals" — amines and alkenes. And importantly, the reaction scales well in commercial-scale continuous flow reactors, highlighting its potential for industrial applications.

"By learning from the subtle mastery of photosynthesis," the researchers write, their group "is forging a new paradigm for chemical manufacturing — one where sunlight powers sustainable and elegant solutions for the molecules that shape our world."

Saludos.