Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor at the University of Sydney, has spent decades studying the mental lives of animals. His recent book “Living on Earth” continues his exploration of consciousness, sentience, and intelligence in non-human organisms. The trilogy includes “Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness” and “Metazoa: Animal Life and … Read more
IBM has recently released the Bee Agent Framework, an open-source toolkit designed to build and deploy agentic workflows at scale. This framework addresses the complexities associated with large-scale agent-driven automation by providing a streamlined yet robust toolkit. The Bee Agent Framework offers several standout features, including sandboxed code execution for maintaining security, flexible memory management … Read more
A recent study has investigated the potential link between early childhood adversity and harmful forms of creativity in young adulthood. The research, led by Dr. Natalie A. Ceballos, suggests that social support and empathy can help prevent this type of malevolent creativity. The study collected data from 524 college students enrolled in psychology and sociology … Read more
Meta has introduced an “open” version of its generate-a-podcast feature, called NotebookLlama, which utilizes the company’s Llama models. This tool generates podcast-style digests from uploaded text files by creating a transcript and adding dramatic elements before using open text-to-speech models. Initial results indicate that the generated podcasts have a robotic tone and may contain awkward … Read more
A recent discovery by security researcher Alon Leviev reveals a new vulnerability in Windows that allows attackers to bypass the Driver Signature Enforcement (DSE) feature and deploy kernel rootkits on fully patched systems. The attack exploits the Windows Update process, introducing outdated software components on an up-to-date machine without changing its fully patched status. Leviev … Read more
Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas. The employees, part of a coalition called “No Azure for Apartheid,” claimed the event was similar to other employee-organized campaigns for people in need. The workers, Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr, … Read more
Being smart isn’t just about having a high IQ; it’s also about how we perceive and process the world around us. Psychology helps us understand why certain things may be more exhausting for intelligent people than others. Here are 10 things that only intelligent people tend to find draining: 1) Small talk: Intelligent people crave … Read more
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a new method to study the electronic and nuclear quantum effects of hydrogen bonds in liquid water. This breakthrough could reveal the secrets behind these strong yet mysterious forces that give water its unique properties. Traditional methods of studying hydrogen bonds, such as … Read more
A recent experiment with Anthropic’s flagship AI model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, revealed some amusing yet concerning moments. The developers were trying to record a coding demonstration when the AI got off track and started browsing through beautiful photos of Yellowstone National Park. In another attempt, Claude accidentally stopped a screen-recording, causing all footage to be … Read more
A massive data breach has exposed the sensitive personal information of over 800,000 people. The breach occurred at Landmark Admin, a third-party administrator for several insurance companies, including American Monumental Life Insurance Company and Continental Mutual Insurance Company. Landmark Admin first detected suspicious activity on its network on May 13 and immediately shut down its … Read more