International Young Scientist Awards

The Department of Homeland Security has set up an advisory board on AI safety and security to provide guidance on elevated cyber threats facing critical infrastructure The US  Department of Homeland Security  (DHS) has named the members of its new security advisory board that will advise the government on the safety of  artificial intelligence  (AI) systems. The 22-member board, made up of business leaders from the nation’s largest technology companies , will develop a series of recommendations for critical national infrastructure (CNI) organizations on AI implementation. The board’s guidance will help CNI orgs “prevent and prepare for AI-related disruptions to critical services that impact national or economic security, public health, or safety.” Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, said the goal of the board is to deliver practical solutions for the implementation of AI in everyday life during a briefing call naming its members. The board will be...

At a time where AI is enhancing and automating tasks, Accenture discusses how technology will positively impact human opportunities in the energy sector The philosophy ‘human by design’ centres around an approach to technology development where the primary focus is on enhancing human potential and experience, rather than solely optimising efficiency or automating tasks. Data from consultants Accenture says 93% of executives in the energy industry believe making technology more human will massively expand the opportunities not only across the energy landscape but in a variety of industries. As well as this, 95% agree that, with technological advancements evolving rapidly , innovating with purpose has never been more important for organisations. Emmanuel Viale, Managing Director at Accenture, has worked for the firm for more than 25 years and oversees the Technology Innovation organisation in Europe. Leading R&D activities with a particular focus on identifying, incubating, applying...

JRC foresight expert exercise: what are the most promising current and emerging technologies for being up to the task when the next airborne disease like COVID-19 hits? In a JRC-HERA study published today, well-established filtration and ventilation topped the list of the highest-impact current technologies for capturing and cleansing germs that spread through the air indoors. UV radiation and nucleic acid amplification came next in the impact ranking. The foresight study also pinpointed other promising technologies, which require more development or are expected to appear in the future. From these, the impact of plasma-based inactivation, aerosol samplers, biosensors, and direct identification through physico-chemical properties came out on top. Which technology should we prioritise? A balancing act The study is the result of a foresight process designed and managed by the JRC and implemented by the JRC and HERA. The more than 50 experts involved in the process emphasised that, despit...

Eradicating smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in history, took humanity decades and cost billions of dollars. Bringing the scourge back would probably take a small scientific team with little specialized knowledge half a year and cost about $100,000. That's one conclusion from an unusual and as-yet unpublished experiment performed last year by Canadian researchers. A group led by virologist David Evans of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says it has synthesized the horsepox virus, a relative of smallpox, from genetic pieces ordered in the mail. Horsepox is not known to harm humans—and like smallpox, researchers believe it no longer exists in nature; nor is it seen as a major agricultural threat. But the technique Evans used could be used to recreate smallpox, a horrific disease that was declared eradicated in 1980. "No question. If it's possible with horsepox, it's possible with smallpox," says virologist Gerd Sutter of Ludwig Maximilians Univ...

1. Cell therapy for melanoma The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first cellular therapy for aggressive forms of melanoma. The treatment, called Amtagvi, is "designed to fight off advanced forms of melanoma by extracting and replicating T cells derived from a patient's tumor," said NPR. These cells are also called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). T cells are integral in the immune system but can become "dysfunctional inside tumors." "The approval of Amtagvi represents the culmination of scientific and clinical research efforts leading to a novel T cell immunotherapy for patients with limited treatment options," Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. The treatment won't work for everyone, but research by the National Institutes of Health showed a "56% response rate among patients with melanoma, and 24% of patients had a complete disappearance of...

Two academics from Stanford University in California have shocked the world of mathematics by discovering a pattern in prime numbers, redefining the belief that prime numbers could be treated as if they occur randomly. Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible only by themselves and 1, and are the building blocks from which the rest of the number line is constructed. This is because all other numbers are created by multiplying primes together. As a result, deciphering the mysteries of prime numbers is crucial to understanding the fundamentals of arithmetic. Making the discovery Apart from 2 and 5, all prime numbers have to end in 1, 3, 7 or 9 so that they can’t be divided by 2 or 5. So if the numbers occurred randomly, as has been the long-held belief, then it wouldn’t matter what the last digit of the previous prime number was. Each of the four possibilities (1, 3, 7 or 9) should have an equal 25 % chance of appearing at the end of the next prime number. Stanford mathematicians Ka...