Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 29, 2019

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(Edited)
Authored by @remlaps

IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos features Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot doing some gymnastics moves; Researchers create neurons from glial cells, at scale; An argument that math needs to be augmented by automated proof verifiers; A 2017 study claiming to get yes/no answers from paralyzed patients has been called into question for misconduct; and an argument that our solar system has its very own black hole

Question for readers: I'm considering a title change for this series. Would something like, "The Daily Internet Digests", be a more accurate and eye-catching title than "Curating the Internet"?

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Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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  1. Video Friday: Boston Dynamics' Atlas Robot Shows Off New Gymnastics Skills - IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos features Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot doing some gymnastics moves. This was also included in the Spot post featured in Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 25, 2019, but I'm glad they repeated it so I could embed the video in this series. The link also includes the Spot promo video again, along with an ad for the Discovery Channel's Battlebots series; a video for an Ebay auction of a "Battle Mech" that's powered by a Corvette engine; a drone wielding a nail gun that has garnered 150,000 Youtube views; A precision cutting robot that can cut a grapefruit; chattering robot heads; A robotic arm for the International Space Station (ISS); A dextrous, multi-fingered robotic hand; A drone made from Styrofoam insulation; and more...

    Here's the Atlas gymnastics video:

  2. A NeuroD1 AAV-Based Gene Therapy for Functional Brain Repair after Ischemic Injury through In Vivo Astrocyte-to-Neuron Conversion - After ischemic injury - nerve cell injury due to blood loss - Penn State's Yuchen Chen and colleagues were able to convert glial cells into neurons in a variety of animals. With this technique they were able to replace up to one third of lost neurons and also protect a third of injured neurons. This is not the first time that glial cells were converted to neurons, but it is the first time it's been able to create this many neurons. Here's the closing sentence from the Abstract: "Together, these results demonstrate that in vivo cell conversion technology through NeuroD1-based gene therapy can regenerate a large number of functional new neurons to restore lost neuronal functions after injury." h/t Daniel Lemire

  3. Number Theorist Fears All Published Math Is Wrong - Number theorist, Kevin Buzzard, suggests that the greatest proofs have become so complex that almost no human can understand all of their details, let alone verify them. Because of this, he is concerned that many of the proofs that are believed to be true actually are not. If so, this would have a ripple effect because other proofs depend upon the validity of the flawed ones. In a presentation, he wrote: "I think there is a non-zero chance that some of our great castles are built on sand. But I think it’s small." As an example, he says, "I believe that no human, alive or dead, knows all the details of the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. But the community accept the proof nonetheless". To address these concerns, Buzzard suggests that the community should adopt formal proof verification software, like Lean, which he says is superior to others because it can handle any type of mathematics that he's aware of. h/t Communications of the ACM

  4. Communication with locked-in patients in question after misconduct finding - In 2017, PLOS Biology covered work by the German researcher, Nils Birbaumer, who claimed to be able to interpret yes/no answers from the brainwaves of paralyzed patients. In 2018, Martin Spüler - a postdoc researcher, could not replicate the work, so a misconduct investigation was opened. Another independent researcher was also unable to replicate the results for the inquiry. As a result of the inquiry, Birbaumer and the study's first author were found to have committed misconduct. Birbaumer said he accepts the result of the inquiry, but stands by his work.

  5. STEEM A Black Hole May Orbit The Sun - Citing an arXiV paper, @kralizec reports on work by Jakub Scholtz and James Unwin. According to the summary, the movement of objects at the edge of our solar system leads many astronomers to believe that they're being influenced by the gravity of an as-yet undiscovered planet. Scholtz and Unwin, however, suggest that the reason that no planet has been discovered is because the gravity is coming from a different object - namely, a black hole. In support of this idea, @kralizec points out that in the last five years, the Earth has crossed paths with two objects from outside our solar system. In the same way, the Sun might have trapped a primordial black hole in its gravity as the black hole passed through the solar system. In comments, @inertia adds that if this is correct, it could have many useful ramifications for humans. (A 10% beneficiary has been applied to this post for @kralizec.)

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Math is wrong... Mmmh I would have the tendency to disagree with this point 3. Haven't the proofs been deeply checked by peers when released? Following the reasoning of the point raised, this would mean we cannot trust our peers anymore. That's slightly overdoing it IMO.

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In the past, I've read objections to automated theorem provers from the opposite perspective. I kept waiting for that article to bring it up, but they never did. You never know if there's a bug in the code that might lead to a bad proof, so you can't consider something to be proved unless it has been through human peer review.

For things with large real world costs and consequences, I think it's a good idea to have both human and automated inspection, but that's more of an engineering thing than number theory. There's a cost involved in translating from mathematical notation to a language that the theorem prover understands, so you have to choose the places where you're going to go through all that effort.

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Time (and thus money), as usual. However, you are right. As long as humans are still involved in the process, it is probably fine.

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