A simple algorithm that revolutionized how neural networks approach language is now taking on vision as well. It may not stop there.

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser NEURAL NETWORKS | ALL TOPICS   Will Transformers Take Over Artificial Intelligence? By STEPHEN ORNES A simple algorithm that revolutionized how neural networks approach language is now taking on vision as well. It may not stop there. Read the article ORIGINS OF LIFE   Peptides on Stardust May Have Provided a Shortcut to Life By YASEMIN SAPLAKOGLU The discovery that short peptides can form on cosmic dust may hint at a role for them in the earliest stages of life's origin. Read the blog Related:  New Clues to Chemical Origins of Metabolism at Dawn of Life by John Rennie (2020) NUMBER THEORY   Math's 'Oldest Problem Ever' Gets a New Answer By JORDANA CEPELEWICZ A new proof significantly strengthens a decades-old result about the ubiquity of ways to represent whole numbers as sums of fractions. Read the blog Related:  Landmark Math Proof Clears Hurdle in Top Erdős Conjecture by Erica Klarreich (2020) MACHINE LEARNING   In New Math Proofs, Artificial Intelligence Plays to Win By LEILA SLOMAN A new computer program fashioned after artificial intelligence systems like AlphaGo has solved several open problems in combinatorics and graph theory. Read the blog Related:  How Close Are Computers to Automating Mathematical Reasoning? by Stephen Ornes (2020) VIDEO   A Number Theorist Who Connects Math to Other Creative Pursuits Video by EMILY BUDER Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, enjoys studying the math underlying everyday phenomena. Watch the video Related:  This U.S. Olympiad Coach Has a Unique Approach to Math by Emily Buder (2021) Around the Web Black Hole Fakeout A recently discovered "black hole" may instead be an example of "vampirism" in a binary star system: One star sucks matter from the other and acquires a misleadingly large amount of angular momentum, Brandon Specktor reports for LiveScience. This "undiscovery" highlights the challenge in searching for black holes. By their very nature, they are invisible. It wasn't until 2021 that the first intermediate-mass black holes were discovered, as Jonathan O'Callaghan reported for Quanta. Rodent Rewind Scientists were able to reverse aging in the tissues of middle-aged mice, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. They hope the therapy will eventually be able to tackle age-related human illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer. This research builds on that of the Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka, who showed that cells heal wounded tissue by reverting to a more fetal state, as Jordana Cepelewicz wrote for Quanta in 2018. Follow Quanta Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010 Unsubscribe | About Quanta Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2022 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation