MAROKO133 Update ai: Experts Alarmed That AI Is Now Producing Functional Viruses Wajib Bac

📌 MAROKO133 Hot ai: Experts Alarmed That AI Is Now Producing Functional Viruses Ha

AI can now invent working biological viruses. 

In real world experiments, a team of Stanford researchers demonstrated that a virus with AI-written DNA could target and kill specific bacteria, they announced in a study last week. It opened up a world of possibilities where artificial viruses could be used to cure diseases and fight infections.

But experts say it also opened a Pandora’s box. Bad actors could just as easily use AI to crank out novel bioweapons, keeping doctors and governments on the backfoot with the outrageous pace at which these viruses can be designed, warn Tal Feldman, a Yale Law School student who formerly built AI models for the federal government, and Jonathan Feldman, a computer science and biology researcher at Georgia Tech (no word on whether the two are related).

“There is no sugarcoating the risks,” the pair warned in a piece for the Washington Post. “We’re nowhere near ready for a world in which artificial intelligence can create a working virus, but we need to be — because that’s the world we’re now living in.”

In the study, the Stanford researchers used an AI model called Evo to invent DNA for a bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria. Unlike a general purpose large language model like ChatGPT, which is trained on written language, Evo was exclusively trained on millions of bacteriophage genomes.

They focused on an extensively studied phage called phiX174, which is known to infect strains of the bacteria E. coli. Using the EVO AI model, the team came up with 302 candidate genomes based on phiX174 and put them to the test by using the designs to chemically assemble new viruses.

Sixteen of them worked, infecting and killing the E. coli strains. Some of them were even deadlier than the natural form of the virus.

But “while the Stanford team played it safe, what’s to stop others from using open data on human pathogens to build their own models?” the two Feldmans warned. “If AI collapses the timeline for designing biological weapons, the United States will have to reduce the timeline for responding to them. We can’t stop novel AI-generated threats. The real challenge is to outpace them.”

That means using the same AI tech to design antibodies, antivirals, and vaccines. This work is already being done to some extent, but the vast amounts of data needed to accelerate such pioneering research “is siloed in private labs, locked up in proprietary datasets or missing entirely.”

“The federal government should make building these high-quality datasets a priority,” the duo opined.

From there, the federal government would need to build the necessary infrastructure to manufacture these AI-designed medicines, since the “private sector cannot justify the expense of building that capacity for emergencies that may never arrive,” they argue.

Finally, the Food and Drug Administration’s sluggish and creaking regulatory framework would need an overhaul. (Perhaps in a monkey’s paw of such an overhaul, the FDA said it’s using AI to speed-run the approval of medications.)

“Needed are new fast-tracking authorities that allow provisional deployment of AI-generated countermeasures and clinical trials, coupled with rigorous monitoring and safety measures,” they said.

The serious risks posed by AI virus generation shouldn’t be taken lightly. Yet, it’s worth noting that the study in question hasn’t made it out of peer review yet and we still don’t have a full picture of how readily someone could replicate the work the scientists did.

But with agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being gutted, and vaccines and other medical interventions being attacked by a health-crank riddled administration, there’s no denying that the country’s medical policy and infrastructure is in a bad place. That said, when you consider that the administration is finding any excuse to rapidly deploy AI in every corner of the government, it’s worth treading lightly when we ask for more.

More on synthetic biology: Scientists Debate Whether to Halt Type of Research That Could Destroy All Life on Earth

The post Experts Alarmed That AI Is Now Producing Functional Viruses appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 MAROKO133 Hot ai: Single molecule fix pushes zinc batteries to 99.96% Coulombic

Researchers at Seoul National University have improved the performance and stability of aqueous zinc-ion batteries by modifying a single molecule in the electrolyte.

The new electrolyte formulation enabled test cells to achieve an average Coulombic efficiency of 99.96% and maintain stable operation for up to 600 charge-discharge cycles.

The demand for zinc-ion batteries lies in their use of abundant and low-cost materials, primarily zinc and water, which also makes them safer than many lithium-ion systems.

“The pursuit of safer, more affordable and more sustainable energy storage technologies has driven extensive research to find storage solutions beyond conventional lithium-ion batteries (LIBs),” said the researchers in a new study.

“Aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) offer compelling advantages owing to their inherent safety, cost-effectiveness, and the exceptional electrochemical properties of the Zn metal anode.”

Engineering electrolyte’s co-solvent

However, their performance often fails at the interface between the electrode and the liquid electrolyte. Water molecules in the electrolyte tend to decompose, and zinc deposits unevenly, forming dendrites that can cause short circuits.

To address this, the research team focused on engineering the electrolyte’s co-solvent.

“A modified phosphate-based co-solvent, diethyl(difluoromethyl)phosphonate (DEDFP), is developed by substituting an ethoxy moiety in triethyl phosphate (TEP) with a difluoromethyl group,” explained the study.

“This electrolyte demonstrates exceptional cycling stability by retaining 70.06% of its capacity over 486 cycles and sustaining operation beyond 700 cycles—far exceeding the stability of the TEP-based system, which fails after 381 cycles.”

The structural modification creates a weaker, more optimal interaction with zinc ions compared to the original TEP molecule. This reduces the energy required for the zinc ions to shed their surrounding solvent shell and deposit onto the electrode.

The DEDFP molecule is also more hydrophobic, meaning it actively repels water molecules from the electrode surface. This physical barrier is crucial for suppressing the decomposition of water, a primary cause of gas formation and efficiency loss in aqueous systems.

Formation of protective layer

A key outcome of using the DEDFP co-solvent is the formation of a stable protective layer on the surface of the zinc electrode. The modified molecule is more easily reduced during the battery’s initial charge.

“This reduction process can induce the decomposition of the difluoromethyl moiety to give rise to the formation of a passivating SEI layer composed of ZnF₂ on the anode surface,” remarked the study.

This layer, known as a solid-electrolyte interphase, is ionically conductive, allowing zinc ions to pass through, but it physically blocks water and other reactive species from reaching the electrode.

Clear performance gains

In symmetric cell tests, electrodes cycled in the DEDFP system showed stable voltage profiles and morphology, even at high current densities.

Scanning electron microscopy revealed that zinc was deposited in flat, laterally aligned layers, in contrast to the irregular or dendritic structures that formed in the TEP-based and pure-water electrolytes.

The performance gains were also clear in full-cell configurations using a V₆O₁₃ cathode, where the DEDFP system showed stable capacity retention at higher charge and discharge rates while the other systems degraded quickly.

“The DEDFP-based cell exhibited decent capacity retention of 65.4% over 300 cycles, highlighting its potential for practical application,” concluded the study.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com