Stanford Medicine researchers have created a molecule that induces cancer cell self-destruction by linking two proteins, activating cell death genes.
This innovative method targets diffuse large B-cell lymphoma by connecting the BCL6 protein, which inhibits cell death, to CDK9, an enzyme that triggers apoptosis (programmed cell death).
The research, published in Science, is undergoing further testing in mice and may lead to clinical trials, with funding from institutions like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists have devised a method to induce cancer cell self-destruction by binding two proteins, targeting the BCL6 gene, which aids cancer cell survival.
This technique is part of the trend towards targeted cancer therapies, aiming for precision over traditional treatments like chemotherapy.
Challenges include potential side effects and the necessity for personalized treatments based on individual tumor DNA, yet advancements in research provide hope for more effective solutions.
The author emphasizes the importance of managers understanding their team's work beyond just relying on automated dashboards, which can lead to a focus on metrics over quality.
Solely focusing on metrics can deter creative talent and cause retention issues, highlighting the need for a balance between quantitative data and qualitative insights.
The post advocates for combining big-picture metrics with managerial insight to prevent a toxic work environment and ensure effective team management.
The New York Times Tech Guild is striking over unresolved contract issues, such as demands for a "just cause" termination provision, pay increases, pay equity, and remote work policies.- Negotiations have been ongoing for over two years without reaching a contract, and the strike is strategically timed during election week to increase pressure on the NYT.- The NYT has proposed a 2.5% annual wage increase and remote work flexibility, but the union is pushing for more significant commitments.
Project Sid investigates large-scale simulations with 10-1000+ AI agents to explore AI civilization, utilizing the PIANO architecture for real-time interaction.- The research demonstrates AI agents developing roles, rules, and cultural transmission within a Minecraft environment, highlighting advancements in societal simulations and AI integration.- The study is documented in a paper available on arXiv, offering new insights into AI civilization research.
Project Sid investigates the use of many-agent simulations in AI, particularly within the context of Minecraft, to explore social dynamics and AI civilization.
Critics argue that the project may be more about advanced prompt engineering rather than groundbreaking AI, questioning the necessity of large language models (LLMs) in gaming when traditional algorithms might suffice.
The project highlights both the potential and current limitations of AI in gaming, sparking discussions on AI's role in creativity, the challenges of simulating intelligence, and the philosophical implications of AI-driven societies.
Standard Intelligence has open-sourced its audio-only transformer model, hertz-dev, which features 8.5 billion parameters, marking a significant advancement in audio processing technology.
The release includes hertz-codec, an audio autoencoder that excels at lower bitrates, and hertz-vae, a 1.8 billion parameter transformer for audio Variational Autoencoder (VAE).
Hertz-dev, with 6.6 billion parameters, is notable for its low latency and real-time voice interaction capabilities, making it suitable for fine-tuning and research purposes.
Hertz-dev is the first open-source conversational audio model, processing audio input to output without converting to text, potentially offering more natural responses than text-to-speech systems.- The model is highly adaptable, allowing for fine-tuning to modify voice characteristics such as gender or accent, making it versatile for various applications.- Developed by a small team, Hertz-dev is trained on an extensive dataset of 16 million hours of audio, with future plans for a HuggingFace release to facilitate further fine-tuning and development.
The paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can truly unlearn unwanted behaviors, such as copyrighted or private content, without retraining.- It reveals that quantization, a process of reducing the precision of a model's weights, can restore a significant portion of "forgotten" information, with unlearned models retaining up to 83% of forgotten knowledge after 4-bit quantization.- The authors propose a quantization-robust unlearning strategy to effectively address the issue of incomplete unlearning in LLMs.
A recent study indicates that quantizing a model can reverse "unlearning" methods in large language models (LLMs), which are used to make models forget specific facts.
Quantization, a process that reduces the precision of model weights, may inadvertently restore forgotten information, raising concerns about the effectiveness of unlearning.
The findings highlight broader issues related to AI ethics, copyright, and the implications of AI on information access and creation.
An indie developer has launched an app that helps couples decide on meals by swiping through recipe options, akin to the Tinder interface.
The app allows users to input their own recipes and suggests daily options, currently available on iOS with plans for an Android release.
Users have provided feedback, expressing concerns about the subscription model and suggesting additional features like ingredient filters and shopping list integration to enhance meal planning and reduce decision fatigue.
Quincy Jones, a legendary music producer, has passed away, leaving a significant impact on pop, jazz, and other music genres.
Beyond his musical achievements, Jones contributed to the tech industry by serving on the advisory committee for ACM Computers in Entertainment Magazine and the board of Alan Kay’s Viewpoints Research Institute.
His legacy includes mentoring artists like Jacob Collier and contributing to social causes such as debt forgiveness in Africa.
Kevin Boone highlights the challenges systemd presents for embedded Linux systems, noting its resource-heavy nature compared to traditional alternatives like SystemV init.
Systemd's components, such as the init process and logging daemon, increase memory usage and boot times, making it less ideal for devices like the Raspberry Pi.
Boone advocates for supporting Linux distributions that do not rely on systemd and developing alternatives to ensure flexibility and effectiveness in embedded environments.
The debate on systemd's appropriateness for embedded Linux systems persists, with critics pointing out its high memory usage, longer boot times, and complexity as disadvantages for resource-limited devices.
Proponents of systemd argue that it provides enhanced service management and responsiveness, particularly beneficial for devices with sufficient resources.
This discussion highlights the broader conflict between systemd's all-encompassing approach and the Unix philosophy of using small, modular tools.
The blog post by Chris Farber examines if Redis is essential for web applications or if PostgreSQL can fulfill the same roles.- It highlights three Redis use cases: job queuing, application locks, and Pub/Sub, and explains how PostgreSQL can manage these tasks using SKIP LOCKED, advisory locks, and LISTEN/NOTIFY statements, respectively.- The discussion suggests that while Redis is superior in caching, PostgreSQL's capabilities might reduce the need for Redis, potentially lowering operational costs and complexity.
The debate centers on whether Redis is necessary when PostgreSQL can manage queuing, locking, and publish/subscribe (pub/sub) functionalities.
Redis is praised for its speed and performance, especially when running on the same machine as the application, offering advantages over PostgreSQL's disk-based operations.
The choice between Redis and PostgreSQL should be based on specific use cases, such as the need for high-speed operations, shared memory, or persistence, with consideration for the complexity of distributed architectures.
A Hacker News data map hosted on GitHub is 180MB, causing potential issues for mobile users with limited data due to its immediate loading.
Users suggest improvements such as adding a size tag, providing a preview image, and using technologies like CDN (Content Delivery Network), webtorrent, or vector maps to enhance loading efficiency.
The map faces challenges like non-hierarchical topics, unclear data sourcing, and compatibility issues with certain browsers or mobile devices, prompting discussions on solutions for large data visualizations.
Gitpod is transitioning from Kubernetes to a new architecture called Gitpod Flex, addressing challenges in scalability, security, and resource management specific to development environments.
Kubernetes was found to be complex and costly for development environments due to their unique needs, such as statefulness and unpredictable resource usage.
Gitpod Flex, inspired by Kubernetes, offers improved security, operational simplicity, and supports self-hosting, with a virtual event scheduled for November 6th to showcase its features.
The discussion highlights the challenges of using Kubernetes for development environments, emphasizing issues like high feedback loops and remote debugging difficulties.- Suggestions include equipping developers with powerful local machines and using virtual machines (VMs) for consistency, while also considering cloud-based environments for specific needs like GPU access.- The consensus is that Kubernetes may not be ideal for development environments due to its complexity, with alternative solutions like Gitpod Flex being explored for a more tailored approach.
Robert Crumb, an artist known for underground comics, designed the iconic album cover for Janis Joplin's "Cheap Thrills," despite not being a fan of the band or psychedelic music.
Crumb's comic strip design, not initially the first choice, gained legendary status and brought him fame, although he remained critical of the hippie movement.
Despite his success in album art, Crumb preferred the music of the 1920s and 1930s and later played in the Cheap Suit Serenaders Band without pursuing a full music career.
Robert Crumb, an influential artist known for his iconic album cover art, discussed his extensive music collection, highlighting a rare early jazz record by a French band.
Crumb, residing in France since the 1990s, expressed a preference for older blues and jazz over modern music, reflecting his mixed feelings about contemporary culture.
His controversial art, often sparking debate, mirrors his complex views on race and society, yet remains influential in capturing the essence of the 1960s counterculture.
Alonzo Church made significant contributions to computer science, notably the lambda calculus, which influenced the Lisp programming language and is foundational to artificial intelligence (AI).- Despite his impact, Church is less recognized than peers like Alan Turing, partly due to limited popular media representation.- Church's lambda notation, derived from Principia Mathematica, was adopted by John McCarthy in the development of Lisp, underscoring his influence on computing history.
The term "just" in software engineering can misleadingly imply simplicity, which may not reflect the true complexity of tasks.- Using "just" can contribute to imposter syndrome and hinder ideation by discouraging engineers from questioning or suggesting alternatives.- Avoiding the use of "just" in communication can promote better understanding and encourage more open discussions and innovation.