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.

[Cadavre Exquis]

An alternative to LASIK—without the lasers

American Chemical Society edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan · 2025.08.18

The electromechanical reshaping technique successfully flattened this rabbit cornea, shown in a cross section, from its original shape (white line) to a corrected one (yellow line). Credit: Daniel Kim and Mimi Chen

Millions of Americans have altered vision, ranging from blurriness to blindness. But not everyone wants to wear prescription glasses or contact lenses. Accordingly, hundreds of thousands of people undergo corrective eye surgery each year, including LASIK—a laser-assisted surgery that reshapes the cornea and corrects vision.

The procedure can result in negative side effects, prompting researchers to take the laser out of LASIK by remodeling the cornea, rather than cutting it, in initial animal tissue tests.

Michael Hill, a professor of chemistry at Occidental College, presented his team's results at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS Fall 2025) held Aug. 17–21.

Human corneas are dome-shaped, clear structures that sit at the front of the eye, bending light from surroundings and focusing it onto the retina, where it's sent to the brain and interpreted as an image. But if the cornea is misshapen, it doesn't focus light properly, resulting in a blurry image. With LASIK, specialized lasers reshape the cornea by removing precise sections of the tissue.

This common procedure is considered safe, but it has some limitations and risks, and cutting the cornea compromises the structural integrity of the eye. Hill explains that "LASIK is just a fancy way of doing traditional surgery. It's still carving tissue—it's just carving with a laser."

But what if the cornea could be reshaped without the need for any incisions?

This is what Hill and collaborator Brian Wong are exploring through a process known as electromechanical reshaping (EMR). "The whole effect was discovered by accident," explains Wong, a professor and surgeon at the University of California, Irvine. "I was looking at living tissues as moldable materials and discovered this whole process of chemical modification."

American Chemical Society · 2025.08.18 · Surgery without scalpels | Headline Science

In the body, the shapes of many collagen-containing tissues, including corneas, are held in place by attractions of oppositely charged components. These tissues contain a lot of water, so applying an electric potential to them lowers the tissue's pH, making it more acidic. By altering the pH, the rigid attractions within the tissue are loosened and make the shape malleable. When the original pH is restored, the tissue is locked into the new shape.

Previously, the researchers used EMR to reshape cartilage-rich rabbit ears, as well as alter scars and skin in pigs. But one collagen-rich tissue that they were eager to explore was the cornea.

In this work, the team constructed specialized, platinum "contact lenses" that provided a template for the corrected shape of the cornea, then placed each over a rabbit eyeball in a saline solution meant to mimic natural tears. The platinum lens acted as an electrode to generate a precise pH change when the researchers applied a small electric potential to the lens.

After about a minute, the cornea's curvature conformed to the shape of the lens—about the same amount of time LASIK takes, but with fewer steps, less expensive equipment and no incisions.

They repeated this setup on 12 separate rabbit eyeballs, 10 of which were treated as if they had myopia, or nearsightedness. In all the "myopic" eyeballs, the treatment dialed in the targeted focusing power of the eye, which would correspond to improved vision.

The cells in the eyeball survived the treatment, because the researchers carefully controlled the pH gradient. Additionally, in other experiments, the team demonstrated that their technique might be able to reverse some chemical-caused cloudiness to the cornea—a condition that is currently only treatable through a complete corneal transplant.

Though this initial work is promising, the researchers emphasize that it is in its very early stages. Next up is what Wong describes as, "the long march through animal studies that are detailed and precise," including tests on a living rabbit rather than just its eyeball. They also plan to determine the types of vision correction possible with EMR, such as near- and far-sightedness and astigmatism.

Though the next steps are planned, uncertainties in the team's scientific funding have put them on hold. "There's a long road between what we've done and the clinic. But, if we get there, this technique is widely applicable, vastly cheaper and potentially even reversible," concludes Hill.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

World's First 1-Step Method Turns Plastic Into Fuel At 95% Efficiency
Posted by BeauHD on Thursday August 28, 2025 @06:00AM from the big-breakthroughs dept.

A U.S.-China research team has developed the world's first one-step process to convert mixed plastic waste into gasoline and hydrochloric acid with up to 95-99% efficiency, all at room temperature and ambient pressure. InterestingEngineering reports:

As the authors put it, "The method supports a circular economy by converting diverse plastic waste into valuable products in a single step." To carry out the conversion, the team combines plastic waste with light isoalkanes, hydrocarbon byproducts available from refinery processes. According to the paper, the process yields "gasoline range" hydrocarbons, mainly molecules with six to 12 carbons, which are the primary component of gasoline. The recovered hydrochloric acid can be safely neutralized and reused as a raw material, potentially displacing several high-temperature, energy-intensive production routes described in the paper. "We present here a strategy for upgrading discarded PVC into chlorine-free fuel range hydrocarbons and [hydrochloric acid] in a single-stage process," the researchers said. Reported conversion efficiencies underscore the potential for real-world use. At 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), the process reached 95 percent conversion for soft PVC pipes and 99 percent for rigid PVC pipes and PVC wires.

In tests that mixed PVC materials with polyolefin waste, the method achieved a 96 percent solid conversion efficiency at 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit). The team describes the approach as applicable beyond laboratory-clean samples. "The process is suitable for handling real-world mixed and contaminated PVC and polyolefin waste streams," the paper states. SCMP points to an ECNU social media post citing the study, which characterized the achievement as a first, efficiently converting difficult-to-degrade mixed plastic waste into premium petrol at ambient temperature and pressure in a single step.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://cincodias.elpais.com/opinion/2025-08-28/el-ojo-bionico-de-elon-musk-ver-mas-alla-de-la-tecnologia.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

El Robot de Platón · 2025.09.04 · ¿Es Esta la Cura Definitiva del Cáncer?

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.math.inc/

https://www.math.inc/gauss

https://www.math.inc/vision

Saludos.

[pollo]

https://www.math.inc/

https://www.math.inc/gauss

https://www.math.inc/vision

Saludos.

Demasiado marketingiano como para no levantar sospechas. Eso sí, seguro que se levantan una pasta pillando hinversores incautos.

Cuando lo tengan que avisen. Prometer es gratis.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://cincodias.elpais.com/extras/ciencia-salud/2025-09-19/las-superbacterias-ganan-terreno-sin-antibioticos-a-la-vista.html?outputType=amp

World’s first AI-designed viruses a step towards AI-generated life
Scientists used AI to write coherent viral genomes, using them to synthesize bacteriophages capable of killing resistant strains of bacteria.

Katie Kavanagh · 2025.09.19

AI-designed bacteriophages were capable of infecting and killing host bacteria. Credit: Lee D. Simon/Science Photo Library

Scientists have created the first ever viruses designed by artificial intelligence (AI), and they’re capable of hunting down and killing strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli).

“This is the first time AI systems are able to write coherent genome-scale sequences,” says Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford University, California. “The next step is AI-generated life,” says Hie, but his colleague Samuel King adds that “a lot of experimental advances need to occur in order to design an entire living organism”.

The study, by Hie, King and colleagues, was posted on the preprint server bioRxiv on 17 September1 and is not yet peer reviewed, but the authors say that it shows the potential of AI to design biotechnological tools and therapies for treating bacterial infections. “Hopefully, a strategy like this can complement existing phage-therapy strategies and someday augment the therapeutics [to] target pathogens of concern,” says Hie.

Genomes from the computer

AI models have already been used to generate DNA sequences, single proteins and multi-component complexes. But designing a whole genome is much more challenging owing to complex interactions between genes and gene replication and regulation processes. These AI systems are now capable of helping scientists to manipulate highly intricate biological systems, such as whole genomes, says Hie. “There are many important biological functions that you can only access if you’re able to design complete genomes.”

To design the viral genomes, the researchers used Evo 1 and Evo 2, AI models that analyse and generate DNA, RNA and protein sequences. First, they needed a design template, which is a starting sequence that guides the AI model to generate a genome with desired characteristics. They chose ΦX174, a simple single-stranded DNA virus that contains 5,386 nucleotides in 11 genes, and all the genetic elements required to infect hosts and replicate inside them.

The Evo models had already been trained on more than 2 million phage genomes, but the researchers further trained the models — using a method called supervised learning — to generate ΦX174-like viral genomes with the specific function of infecting E.coli strains, especially those resistant to antibiotics.

The researchers evaluated thousands of AI-generated sequences and narrowed their search down to 302 viable bacteriophages. Most candidates shared more than 40% nucleotide identity with ΦX174, but some had completely different coding sequences. The researchers synthesized DNA from the AI-designed genomes and inserted them into host bacteria to grow phages. These phages were then experimentally tested to see whether they could infect and kill E.coli.

Some 16 of the 302 AI-designed bacteriophage showed host specificity for E. coli and could infect the bacteria. The researchers found that combinations of AI-designed phages could infect and kill three different E. coli strains, which the wild-type ΦX174 was unable to do.

“It was quite a surprising result that was really exciting for us because it shows that this method might potentially be very useful for therapeutics,” says King.

Biosafety concerns

“This study provides a compelling case study of what is possible today and sets the stage for more-ambitious applications in the future,” says Peter Koo, a computational biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Laurel Hollow, New York. “It provides a spotlight for an interesting application domain,” he adds.

Koo says that the Evo model alone is not yet sufficient to design and generate viruses without the intervention, guidance and filtering from the team. “But I think as an overall system, with all the filters in place and the whole system and pipeline they laid out, it shows that it could possibly be an approach that can lead to functional genomes,” he adds.

There are ethical concerns of AIs being used to design viruses that can harm humans. But Kerstin Göpfrich, a biophysicist and synthetic biologist at Heidelberg University in Germany, says that this problem — known as the dual-use dilemma — is not unique to AI, but is always a concern in biology. “I think in research in general you always have a dual-use dilemma. There’s nothing specific about AI, and you can always use progress for the better or for the worse,” she says.

The authors addressed biosafety concerns in the manuscript. They say that they excluded viruses that affect eukaryotes, including humans, from the Evo models’ training data. The ΦX174 phage and E. coli host systems they studied were also non-pathogenic and have ”a long history of safe use in molecular-biology research”, the researchers write in the study.

The researchers hope that their approach could be used to safely generate AI-designed viruses that treat various diseases and public-health issues, including the growing problem of bacterial resistance.

“I think this will definitely be a growing field and I’m super excited about it,” Göpfrich says.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03055-y

Saludos.