#Genetics and Intelligence

[ecomehdi]

the Power of Human Intelligence: Beyond Brain Size and Into the Cognitive Marvels 23

In the intricate tapestry of human evolution, the enigma of intelligence takes center stage. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not merely about the size of our brains but the fascinating dance of cognitive circuitry that propels our intellect. Let’s embark on a journey through the corridors of the mind, exploring the nuances of human Intelligence. Understanding the Brain’s Symphony The Intricate…

[reasonsforhope]

"Canadian scientists have developed a blood test and portable device that can determine the onset of sepsis faster and more accurately than existing methods.

Published today [May 27, 2025] in Nature Communications, the test is more than 90 per cent accurate at identifying those at high risk of developing sepsis and represents a major milestone in the way doctors will evaluate and treat sepsis.

“Sepsis accounts for roughly 20 per cent of all global deaths,” said lead author Dr. Claudia dos Santos, a critical care physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital. “Our test could be a powerful game changer, allowing physicians to quickly identify and treat patients before they begin to rapidly deteriorate.”

Sepsis is the body’s extreme reaction to an infection, causing the immune system to start attacking one’s own organs and tissues. It can lead to organ failure and death if not treated quickly. Predicting sepsis is difficult: early symptoms are non-specific, and current tests can take up to 18 hours and require specialized labs. This delay before treatment increases the chance of death by nearly eight per cent per hour.

[Note: The up to 18 hour testing window for sepsis is a huge cause of sepsis-related mortality, because septic shock can kill in as little as 12 hours, long before the tests are even done.]

[Analytical] AI helps predict sepsis

Examining blood samples from more than 3,000 hospital patients with suspected sepsis, researchers from UBC and Sepset, a UBC spin-off biotechnology company, used machine learning to identify a six-gene expression signature “Sepset” that predicted sepsis nine times out of 10, and well before a formal diagnosis. With 248 additional blood samples using RT-PCR, (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction), a common hospital laboratory technique, the test was 94 per cent accurate in detecting early-stage sepsis in patients whose condition was about to worsen.

“This demonstrates the immense value of AI in analyzing extremely complex data to identify the important genes for predicting sepsis and writing an algorithm that predicts sepsis risk with high accuracy,” said co-author Dr. Bob Hancock, UBC professor of microbiology and immunology and CEO of Sepset.

Bringing the test to point of care

To bring the test closer to the bedside, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) developed a portable device they called PowerBlade that uses a drop of blood and an automated sequence of steps to efficiently detect sepsis. Tested with 30 patients, the device was 92 per cent accurate in identifying patients at high risk of sepsis and 89 per cent accurate in ruling out those not at risk.

“PowerBlade delivered results in under three hours. Such a device can make treatment possible wherever a patient may be, including in the emergency room or remote health care units,” said Dr. Hancock.

“By combining cutting-edge microfluidic research with interdisciplinary collaboration across engineering, biology, and medicine, the Centre for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT) enables rapid, portable, and accessible testing solutions,” said co-author Dr. Teodor Veres, of the NRC’s Medical Devices Research Centre and CRAFT co-director. CRAFT, a joint venture between the University of Toronto, Unity Health Toronto and the NRC, accelerates the development of innovative devices that can bring high-quality diagnostics to the point of care.

Dr. Hancock’s team, including UBC research associate and co-author Dr. Evan Haney, has also started commercial development of the Sepset signature. “These tests detect the early warnings of sepsis, allowing physicians to act quickly to treat the patient, rather than waiting until the damage is done,” said Dr. Haney."

-via University of British Columbia, May 27, 2025

[nugulover69]

Julian and Quark commiserating with each other over "losing" Jadzia (read: never had a shot in hell) and ruminating over how unlucky they are with women

Gentlemen what if I told you there's a solution to this problem that doesn't involve Jadzia. or women

[lobotomizedskull]

[shidraoftheworldpillar]

just got an idea for a creature in a story of mine, i call them sirens and theyre essentially giant bobbit worms but with a weird tounge/lure thing that it can change the color and shape of along with the ability to mimic voices.

[whiskingskin]

Winston Overwatch iceberg....

[random-movie-ideas]

I love how Dr. Eggman's criteria for whether or not he and Gerald were related was his ability to answer a bunch of complex scientific questions.

Now I want to see a scene of Maria being asked the same questions and her rattling off the same answers Gerald gave at the same speed.

[tiredsn0w]

Finally got my ten thousand dollar medication for my 0.05% prevalence disease in a huge scifi cold storage box thing after four months of waiting and it barely even helped....

[mindblowingscience]

Genome sequencing technology provides thousands of new plant genomes annually. In agriculture, researchers merge this genomic information with observational data (measuring various plant traits) to identify correlations between genetic variants and crop traits like seed count, resistance to fungal infections, fruit color, or flavor. However, the grasp of how genetic variation influences gene activity at the molecular level is quite limited. This gap in knowledge hinders the breeding of "smart crops" with enhanced quality and reduced negative environmental impact achieved by combination of specific gene variants of known function. Researchers from the IPK Leibniz Institute and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZ) have made a significant breakthrough to tackle this challenge. Led by Dr. Jedrzej Jakub Szymanski, the international research team trained interpretable deep learning models, a subset of AI algorithms, on a vast dataset of genomic information from various plant species. "These models not only were able to accurately predict gene activity from sequences but also pinpoint which sequence parts contribute to these predictions," explains the head of IPK's research group "Network Analysis and Modeling." The AI technology which the researchers applied is akin to that used in computer vision, which involves recognizing facial features in images and inferring emotions.

Continue Reading.

[cesaray]

[scipunk]

Blade Runner (1982)

==============

🌟 The X-MEN of Science: 🧬🔬 GENETICALLY ENGINEERED HUMANS

In our changing world, signs are pointing to the imminent arrival of genetically engineered humans. Similar to Blade Runner's Replicants, these beings mix artificial intelligence (AI) with bioengineering, blurring the line between human and machine… they have advanced cognitive abilities, emotions, and physical skills.

The term "genetically engineered humans" emphasizes the replication of human qualities through a blend of AI and bioengineering.

Imagine a future where head transplants, synthetic organs, and bionic eyes become integral parts of human augmentation.

The fusion of cutting-edge medical technologies with genetic programming is reshaping our understanding of what it means to be human.

[nukacourier]

Gonna be honest I have an au for James and Arcade in my brain where it's a "bad route" kind of au where Arcade and the remnants ended up merging with the East coast Enclave instead of running and hiding and Arcade becomes an esteemed scientist there. And James gets captured by them and they basically keep him around to work on Project Purity since James Sr died before he could finish working on it and eventually Arcade ends up transferred to the base James is at and they connect really well because they both Do Not Want to Help The EnclaveTM and end up like. Looking for ways out or to even take them down from the inside

It's not really much of anything honestly it's just something I roll around in my brain when I'm bored and looking for a "what if" scenario to build on

[siennamoth]

transhumanism (2022) - a reflection

fig. 1: greed this is one of seven panels from my 2022 work "transhumanism". it was my visual arts HSC final body of work. i ended up coming second in visual arts and getting nominated for artexpress which was fire. but looking back at this work there are many things i would change. the title, "transhumanism", exemplifies to me the shallowness of the work. transhumanism itself is an ideology that promotes the enhancement of humanity by developing futuristic technologies that supposedly improve us as a species. some examples could be AI, bionic limbs and genetic engineering. all of which does sound a bit like eugenics and a bit elon musk-like. my work wasn't really exploring these, or even critiquing it, it was just using the cool bionic limbs for the cyberpunk-esque grimes 2020 miss anthropocene aesthetic. another thing about it was the heavy use of naked or partially clothed female bodies. thinking about the guerrilla girls' poster that states, "do women have to be naked to get into the MET museum? less than 5% of the artists in the modern art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female." i feel like i contributed to the epidemic of people drawing nameless, sometimes faceless naked women in compromising and sexual positions just for the sake of beauty and aesthetics. this is especially evident in the photo above, with the references to bondage wear in her various limb attachments. again, this wasn't some criticism on the objectification and subjugation of women, it was another crude sci-fi sexualisation that looks like something a man drew. let's be real - the female gaze is nowhere to be found in this, and was unfortunately never given a thought during the process. as a person of colour, i wanted to show a more diverse range of bodies and skin tones, but i feel that this fell flat. to me, these are some of the more unforgiveable aspects of this work.

fig. 2: sloth in one of the other panels of this work, lays a woman on the floor, with her back turned to the viewer, her robotic-looking prosthetic legs strewn across the foreground. it's evident that i used the aesthetic of limb differences to make some surface level observation about transhumanism as a concept which i feel is very insensitive and a bit corny.

as you may have picked up by the names of each panel, there's a bit of a 'seven deadly sins' theme which is one of my least favourite aspects of this work. i guess i was trying to go for some kind of critique of humankind but it doesn't really come across that way and the whole thing is a bit gimicky. especially in the following:

fig. 3: lust like girl what is this! did i predict character.ai?? i just feel like this is so surface level and doesn't communicate any deeply intellectual concepts to the viewer. and it should have because i was working on this body of work for almost a whole year.

fig. 4, 5, 6: gluttony, wrath and envy; respectively i don't remember why i made them eat a baby but whenever i see babies in art it gives pro-life to me which i'm not supportive of. there's this generic robot figure that looks suspiciously like the security bots in FNAF: Security Breach. i feel like it was meant to be a personnification of AI but it falls flat because it doesn't really communicate any of my actual opinions on AI. it's portrayed as more of a passive figure, which would be fine if there was a point being made about humans misusing AI, but there isn't. there really isn't much of a point at all. there's one more panel which is of course "pride" but it doesn't really have any references to transhumanism or AI or anything - really just a nothing burger. it was also the last panel i completed and was on a time crunch at the time so the quality is significantly lower. i know that everyone hates their old art, but this work still gets brought up to me every so often and it just really does not align with my values anymore. this whole thing has been very negative so i'm gonna name some things i like about it! i still do really like the robot aesthetic of all the cables and whatnot. i use cables a lot in my current work and am constantly drawing robots (transformers!!). i also like the damp, algae-covered tiled backgrounds i used for each panel, they were fun to draw and they tie all the panels together nicely. i think i did a good job at rendering some of the skin and hair of the figures. and my favourite panel will always be "greed" despite all the bdsm gear randomly strewn all over their body. anyway, let me know what you think!! SIENNA, OUT!

[annihilatius]

The only people who genuinely care about IQ and die on the hill of defending it are people who use it as a weapon to justify why certain groups of people are inferior and therefore don't deserve rights, autonomy or respect because "they have lower IQ on average". If that doesn't tell you that IQ is a completely fake social construct that pretty much only exists to rationalize violence and abuse towards people labelled as "low IQ" (which always conveniently happen to be minorities, hmm wonder why) while propping up other groups of people as better or superior (which always conveniently happen to be people in power, hmm wonder why) because "they have higher IQ on average", then I don't know what will. Even if IQ as a concept wasn't made with the sole intention of oppressing minorities in mind, it damn well is only kept around today for that reason and that reason alone

[formulatrash]

I can't find the post to reblog with what your name would've been (according to the relative rankings in each decade/year) but I refuse to believe that my name in the 1890s would have been Archie. that suggests I'm part of that comics universe which would mean I am my own dad and at least one of my cat is a warlock transformed from hundreds of years ago

[canisvesperus]

While it’s a valid and real complaint for working artists to fear for their job security with respect to AI, I do believe a good chunk of artists are simply insecure and need to locate some maturity or find a different hobby. I haven’t forgotten how artists were reacting when pewdiepie learned to draw. Those comments were often word for word identical compared to AI doomposting. Insisting that people must learn how to make art rather than use AI, only to then turn around and complain when somebody does just that and does it well? You’re transparent. Reflect on yourself.