Is AI going to be a game-changer in science? We mean really, really, the way X-ray crystallography transformed our understanding of matter, or Carbon-14 techniques kickstarted a revolution in dating? Never get too carried away: but two stories from Nature Briefings suggest that it will soon be telling us things which we never guessed before. And so we present them unadorned, so you can judge for yourselves, gentle readers. There are a couple of good hyperlinks, which could be worth a quick delve in to if you have more time than a single cup of coffee.
Alpha Fold reveals how Viruses evolved Protein structures predicted by AI models have revealed some twists in the evolution of flaviviruses — a group that includes hepatitis C, dengue and Zika viruses. Researchers used DeepMind’s AlphaFold2 and Meta’s ESMFold to generate more than 33,000 predicted structures for proteins from 458 flavivirus species. They already uncovered some surprises. For example, the hepatitis C virus infects cells using an entry system similar to one seen in the pestiviruses — a group that includes animal pathogens like swine fever. Another big surprise was the discovery that some flaviviruses have an enzyme that seems to have been stolen from bacteria.Nature | 5 min read
Reference: Nature paper
Zeta class computer six years out Work to develop a supercomputer that could out-pace the world’s current fastest by 1,000 times is officially underway. Expected to cost the Japanese government around US$775 million, the Fugaku Next machine should be online by 2030. The world’s fastest current supercomputer functions in the realm of one quintillion (1017) calculations per second, or exaFLOPS. Fugaku Next is expected to operate in the realm of zetaFLOPS, 1,000 times that speed.Popular Mechanics | 3 min read
We await your responses with anticipation.
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