• Neuralink's human trial ¨

    From Mike Powell@1:2320/105 to ALL on Wednesday, January 31, 2024 13:21:00
    ELON MUSK'S NEURALINK IMPLANTS BRAIN TECH IN HUMAN PATIENT FOR THE
    FIRST TIME (2 MINUTE READ) [8]

    Neuralink implanted a device in a human for the first time on Sunday.
    The patient is recovering well, according to a post on X by Elon Musk. Neuralink is developing a brain implant that aims to help patients
    with severe paralysis control external technologies using only neural
    signals. The technology could help patients with severe degenerative
    diseases communicate and interact with devices using their minds.
    Neuralink has not disclosed how many human patients are involved in
    its initial in-human trial.

    SCIENTISTS DOCUMENT FIRST-EVER TRANSMITTED ALZHEIMER'S CASES, TIED
    TO NO-LONGER-USED MEDICAL PROCEDURE (8 MINUTE READ) [11]

    A decades-old treatment for a number of conditions that caused short
    stature, which involved patients receiving growth hormone taken from
    the brains of human cadavers, has been tied to some people as young as
    in their 30s developing Alzheimer's disease. The treatment, which was
    banned 40 years ago, transmitted unwanted proteins into recipients'
    brains, including the beta-amyloid protein that later propagated into
    the disease-causing plaques that are the hallmark of the disease.
    These are the first documented cases of transferred Alzheimer's - the
    disease is not usually contagious. The cadaveric growth hormone
    treatment has been long replaced with a synthetic hormone treatment.

    SCIENTISTS THINK THEY'RE ON THE VERGE OF BREACHING THE BLOOD-BRAIN
    BARRIER (3 MINUTE READ) [10]

    The brain and spinal cord are well protected by the blood-brain
    barrier, which stops almost all drugs from entering the central
    nervous system. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are
    testing the delivery of lipid nanoparticles, fat-soluble packages that
    can pass through the blood-brain barrier and carry proteins,
    antibodies, and messenger RNA with them. The technique is able to pass
    some drugs through the blood-brain barrier, but not all of the
    medicine made it into brain cells when tested in living mice. The
    researchers are using a new in vitro model that will help guide the
    future development of brain-targeted treatments.

    NEW GITHUB COPILOT RESEARCH FINDS 'DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON CODE QUALITY'

    A recent study on the quality and maintainability of AI-assisted code
    found disconcerting trends for maintainability. The percentage of
    lines that are reverted or updated less than two weeks after being
    authored is projected to double this year compared to a pre-AI
    baseline. Using AI coding tools is strongly correlated with mistake
    code being pushed to repositories. While AI may be able to produce
    code faster, the code it produces needs to be cleaned up, potentially
    removing the benefits of fast code generation.

    WHAT BIG TECH LAYOFFS SUGGEST FOR THE INDUSTRY (7 MINUTE READ) [14]

    Microsoft's layoffs last year were worrisome because the company has
    a very good track record of predicting how its business will grow or
    shrink. Microsoft's business is incredibly diversified to the point
    where it can be pretty representative of the B2B tech industry, minus advertising. The company's decision to initiate layoffs suggested that
    the tech industry would stall growth-wise. Microsoft's announcements
    could have caused other large tech companies to follow suit and
    announce their own layoffs.


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