05 Sci-Tech

Make America AI Ready: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Recommendations– blog.citp.princeton.edu

pgnewser May 11, 2026 0

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The Trump administration has made artificial intelligence a centerpiece of its economic agenda, promising to retrain a workforce it says must be ready to compete in an AI-driven future. One early piece of that effort: a free text-message course from the Department of Labor (DOL) and private partner Arist called, “Make America AI-Ready”, is a useful start on the journey to AI literacy for all Americans. This seven-day long, 10-minute-per day course which frames itself as “your AI 101” is accessible, technically informative, and engaging (see below for the full contents). Here we analyze its strengths, lay out a few weaknesses we think should be addressed in the current version, and elaborate some stretch goals for an “AI 201” course that would build upon the original.

Ice age humans in China crafted surprisingly advanced stone tools 146,000 years ago– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 11, 2026 0

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Archaeologists working at an ancient site in central China have uncovered evidence that early humans may have become more inventive while living through a brutal ice age. The discovery comes from the Lingjing archaeological site, where researchers have spent more than 10 years excavating animal bones and sophisticated stone tools linked to an extinct human relative called Homo juluensis.

A new study found that the site dates back about 146,000 years, placing it squarely within a cold glacial period rather than a warmer era as scientists once believed. The findings challenge the long-standing idea that creativity and technological advances mainly developed during times of environmental stability and abundance.

“People often imagine creativity as something that flourishes in good times,” says Yuchao Zhao, the assistant curator of East Asian archaeology at the Field Museum in Chicago and the lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Journal of Human Evolution. “Finding out that these stone tools were made during a harsh ice age tells a different story. Hard times can force us to adapt.”

Scientists discover the brain’s hidden “stop scratching” switch– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 11, 2026 0

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When an itch strikes, scratching usually brings relief after a few moments. Scientists have now uncovered part of the biological system that tells the brain when enough scratching has occurred. The discovery reveals how the nervous system naturally limits scratching and may help explain why this process breaks down in people with chronic itch disorders. The findings were presented at the 70th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting.

Researchers from the laboratory of Roberta Gualdani at the University of Louvain in Brussels identified an unexpected role for a molecule known as TRPV4 in itch triggered by mechanical stimulation, such as scratching.

“We were initially studying TRPV4 in the context of pain,” Gualdani explained. “But instead of a pain phenotype, what emerged very clearly was a disruption of itch, specifically, how scratching behavior is regulated.”

Supercarrier October – americanistpress.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

There is a growing realization by many that the U.S. Supercarrier is no longer the decisive military advantage it once was. Now, more analysts are coming down on the side that claims the supercarrier’s days are gone or soon will be.

The rise of drones and supersonic missiles alone have significantly raised the price of carrier defense. The question is this, if the supercarrier era is in the fall of its reign, how far away is its winter? And what does that mean for U.S. power going forward?

Go Deeper

AI Models Near the Point Where They Can Build a Better Version of Themselves – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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“My prediction is by the end of 2028, it’s more likely than not that we have an AI system where you would be able to say to it: ‘Make a better version of yourself.’ And it just goes off and does that completely autonomously,” Jack Clark, who heads The Anthropic Institute, told Axios.

Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, says his institute is seeing signs of “AI contributing to speeding up the research and development of AI itself,” a process known as recursive self-improvement. 

Clark adds, “It’s always been the case that humans outside the technology need to come up with the ideas that they then put back into it. What happens if we have a technology that can generate ideas within itself for how to improve itself? That’s a new concept.”

Too fast, too soon. The speed with which AI systems are evolving is far outstripping our ability to gauge the impact on humans and society. Lots of good things can happen in medicine, biology, and other sciences where AI is already making a big impact. The speed and autonomy of artificial intelligence models promise an abundant future.

MIT scientists discover millions of “silent synapses” in the adult brain– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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MIT neuroscientists have uncovered a surprising feature of the adult brain. It contains millions of “silent synapses,” which are immature connections between neurons that remain inactive until they are needed to help form new memories.

For many years, scientists believed these silent synapses existed only during early development, when the brain is rapidly learning about the world. But the MIT team found that in adult mice, roughly 30 percent of synapses in the brain’s cortex are still silent. This suggests the adult brain holds a large reserve of unused connections that can be activated when new information arrives.

Researchers say this hidden pool of synapses may explain how the brain continues to learn throughout life without disrupting existing memories.

“These silent synapses are looking for new connections, and when important new information is presented, connections between the relevant neurons are strengthened. This lets the brain create new memories without overwriting the important memories stored in mature synapses, which are harder to change,” says Dimitra Vardalaki, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the study.

Anthropic AI says deal struck to use SpaceX data centres– www.cbc.ca

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.

Anthropic on Wednesday said it had reached a deal to tap the computing resources of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, marking a détente with its one-time critic and ‌a boost for both companies in the high-stakes artificial intelligence race.

Under the agreement, Anthropic will use the full computing power of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis, Tenn., which houses more than 220,000 Nvidia processors and will give the Claude chatbot maker 300 megawatts of new capacity within a month.

The deal gives the IPO-bound SpaceX a marquee customer as it looks to sell investors on its AI ambitions, while helping Anthropic ​ease capacity constraints following a surge in demand for products such as its AI coding ​tool, Claude Code.

The announcement came as Anthropic held a developer day in San Francisco on Wednesday, where it unveiled a new Claude AI feature called “dreaming,” meant to help its AI systems learn by reviewing work between sessions, spotting patterns and updating ​files that store user preferences and other context.

Affirmative Action In NIH Grants Revealed– www.science20.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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The Supreme Court recently issued another ruling that seeks to end racial discrimination. most recently in specially-created political districts. What has not been an issue, because it was not obvious like universities and Louisiana politics, is how grants get chosen.A new study says that there was a component of racial favoritism in science funding as well, and it’s only been revealed in the wake of NIH grant cuts.

To the public, science is like sports – a meritocracy. The best win. The reality is more like politics. It helps to have friends, and it’s important that you say you will do what they want you to do. After the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives and got a Nobel Prize, for example, both the NIH and the University of Pennsylvania attached themselves to it. Both were blatantly lying. The NIH had refused to fund the mRNA work of Katalin Karikó, Ph.D. Penn not only refused her tenure, they demoted her because she believed in mRNA but the federal government did not. She quit academia specifically because she knew the private sector funded nearly all actual basic research(1) while government often wanted to engage in cultural agendas or fund ‘safe’ studies guaranteed to show a positive result before the grant was up.

Scientists reverse diabetes in mice with lab-grown insulin cells– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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Scientists in Sweden have developed a more reliable way to create insulin-producing cells from human stem cells, bringing new momentum to efforts to treat type 1 diabetes. The research, published in Stem Cell Reports, shows that these lab-grown cells can effectively control blood sugar in tests and even reverse diabetes in mice.

Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks and destroys the pancreas’s insulin-producing cells. Without insulin, the body cannot properly absorb glucose from the bloodstream, leading to dangerous blood sugar levels. Replacing these lost cells has long been seen as a promising solution, but earlier attempts to grow them from stem cells have produced inconsistent results.

“We have developed a method that reliably produces high-quality insulin-producing cells from multiple human stem cell lines. This opens up opportunities for future patient-specific cell therapies, which could reduce immune rejection,” says Per-Olof Berggren, professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, and corresponding author alongside Siqin Wu, researcher at Spiber Technologies AB

AI is splitting the housing market in two: Bay Area luxury homes up 13%, affordable ones collapsing– fortune.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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As AI mints new millionaires, billionaires, and even trillionaires, it’s also threatening to replace entry-level workers and sparking fearful chatter of the “permanent underclass.” There’s no place that’s more evident than in the Bay Area, at the heart of Silicon Valley, where technology is wedging a deeper divide in the K-shaped economy, especially in the housing market.

A new Redfin report found that since the launch of ChatGPT’s first model in Nov. 2022, luxury home prices in the region—classified as those selling between $3.1 and $7.6 million—have jumped 13.4%. At the same time, home values for lower-end properties in the Bay Area—those $535,000 to $615,000—have fallen by 3.8%.

“Some owners of lower-end properties have missed out on the AI boom, with home prices in the most affordable Bay Area zip codes declining over the past two years,” Yingqi Xu, Redfin senior economist, said in a statement. “It’s another sign of the K-shaped economy taking shape in the Bay Area, with AI lifting the fortunes of some households and neighborhoods much more than others.”

Many Americans today are grappling with the sobering reality of high mortgage rates, inflated home prices, and a housing stock shortage. Many are delaying homebuying by a near decade from just a few years ago, as the median age of the first-time homebuyer hit 40 in 2025, up from just 33 in 2021.

Even brief AI use could hurt your ability to think, a new study finds– www.digitaltrends.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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A new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA suggests that using an AI chatbot for just 10 minutes could negatively impact your ability to think and problem-solve. And honestly, the findings are a little alarming.

As reported by Wired, the researchers asked participants to solve problems, including simple fractions and reading comprehension tasks. Some participants were given access to an AI assistant that could solve the problem for them.

When the AI was suddenly removed, those participants were far more likely to give up or get the answer wrong. In other words, the moment the AI crutch was gone, people struggled.

Houchengzui Stone City: This ancient Chinese megacity hides mysterious underground tunnels buried for over 4,000 years | World News– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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A huge ancient stone city buried for thousands of years in northern China has just become even more mysterious. Archaeologists working at the Houchengzui Stone City in Inner Mongolia have uncovered a hidden underground tunnel network dating back roughly 4,300 to 4,500 years. The tunnels were reportedly hidden beneath one of the largest and most heavily defended early stone cities ever found in the region. At first glance, the site already looked impressive enough with massive walls, defensive gates, and layers of protection everywhere. Then researchers discovered something underneath it all.Experts say the tunnels may have been used for both defence and movement inside the city, which raises all kinds of questions about how advanced these early communities really were. Some of the passages are still remarkably intact. You can apparently still see tool marks carved into the walls, which feels strangely personal considering the tunnels were dug more than four millennia ago.

AI and the Treasury Debt Market | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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The market for Treasury debt is challenging to interpret even when the environment is calm, much less when multiple geopolitical and technological disruptions are present simultaneously. Two papers released in the past year offer differing perspectives on a consequential unknown in the current market, which is the expected effect artificial intelligence (AI) will have on future productivity growth.

The first of the two relevant papers, co-authored by Isaiah Andrews and Maryam Farboodi, examined market signals in 2023 and 2024 around the releases of updated AI models from five leading developers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Deepmind, xAI, and DeepSeek). A main finding was that the nominal interest rates for long-term Treasury and corporate debt fell after these models became public by a statistically significant 12 basis points.

The Pentagon Needs a Playbook for Munitions Surge Production– warontherocks.com

pgnewser May 7, 2026 0

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The Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles the U.S. military fired during Operation Epic Fury take months to put on contract and years to produce.

Whether driven by U.S. military operations or support to partners, the challenge of quickly replenishing U.S. munitions is not new. Exquisite munitions often take an exquisite amount of time to manufacture and deliver. Defense officials, in turn, frequently want to compress that time as much as possible, seeking to restock fast and mitigate future risks.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has illuminated the challenge of accomplishing this feat. It also offers lessons for how the U.S can accelerate munitions production timelines in a crisis. Indeed, the U.S. experience attempting to surge munitions production from 2022 to 2024 did not reveal uniform failure in boosting production rates, but rather, sharp variation across weapons. Production rates of some munitions expanded meaningfully after 2022. Others stagnated. Interestingly, the emergency authorities and supplemental funding unleashed after 2022 were not responsible for this variation, as the full results of those initiatives and investments are still yet to come. Instead, decisions that pre-dated the Russo-Ukrainian War drove this variation.

The true lesson from the Ukraine crisis is that the United States cannot solely rely on improvisation to surge munitions production. Surge is indeed distinct from peacetime manufacturing or the mobilization of commercial entities to support wartime production demands. The Department of Defense should treat surging production as a core competency to be developed and rehearsed well in advance of a crisis.

Leftist Censorship Groups Advise AI Company Anthropic– www.dailysignal.com

pgnewser May 6, 2026 0

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Over the past decade, the Left has cultivated a censorship industrial complex of “experts” on “extremism” who try to bully Big Tech and corporate America into blacklisting conservatives over hot-button cultural issues such as LGBTQ+ orthodoxy and parental rights.

While the censorship industrial complex has suffered setbacks, it enjoys a persistent influence—notably at Anthropic, the major AI company behind the chatbot Claude.

Anthropic openly touts its relationship with four branches of the censorship industrial complex, and each of them has ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC, the left-wing smear factory that pioneered the censorship strategy, now faces federal charges for allegedly lying to banks while attempting to conceal payments to members of the Ku Klux Klan, but Anthropic is not reconsidering its work with the SPLC’s allies.

When strength in numbers stops working: Climate extremes rewrite monkey society in Costa Rica– phys.org

pgnewser May 6, 2026 0

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As climate change intensifies, scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about how animals will cope with a more unpredictable world. One way to gain insight is by studying how animals have already responded to natural climate fluctuations. But for long-lived, social animals like humans and other primates, gathering this kind of evidence takes time.