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1. Scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have uncovered a surprising culprit behind brain aging: a protein called FTL1. In mice, too much FTL1 caused memory loss, weaker brain connections, and sluggish cells. But when researchers blocked it, the animals regained youthful brain function and sharp memory. The discovery suggests that one protein could be the master switch for aging in the brain — and targeting it may one day allow us to actually reverse cognitive decline, not just slow it down. The research paper is here. (Sources: ucsf.edu, sciencedaily.com, nature.com. Italics mine.)
2. This January, Byeongjun Park, a researcher in artificial intelligence (AI), received a surprising e-mail. Two researchers from India told him that an AI-generated manuscript had used methods from one of his papers, without credit. Park looked up the manuscript. It wasn’t formally published, but had been posted online as one of a number of papers generated by a tool called The AI Scientist — announced in 2024 by researchers at Sakana AI, a company in Tokyo. The AI Scientist is an example of fully automated research in computer science. The tool uses a large language model (LLM) to generate ideas, writes and runs the code by itself, and then writes up the results as a research paper — clearly marked as AI-generated. It’s the start of an effort to have AI systems make their own research discoveries. (Source: nature.com)
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