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introduction

Country idiot
Classic classification
Govern	Plant
Division (Division is a composition law that associates the product of the first with two numbers…)	Magnoliophyta
Class	Magnoliopsida
command	Solanales
Family	Cuscutaceae
Gender	Cuscuta
Binomial name (In taxonomy (botany, zoology, etc.), the binomial name or binomial comes from…)
Cuscuta campestris Yunck.
Phylogenetic classification (Phylogenetic classification is a system for classifying living things…)
command	Solanales
Family	Convolvulaceae

There Tramp (Cuscuta campestris Yunck., Devil hair or “devil’s claw” is a plant in the family Convolvulaceae.

Description

It is a plant that contains almost no chlorophyll (chlorophyll (a word composed in 1816 from Greek roots…), parasitically colonizing a large number (The concept of number in linguistics is discussed in the article “Number. ..” treated) of plants. The leaves are practically absent, the flowers, grouped at the nodes in glomeruli, are white, with 5 triangular petals, two styles and prominent stamens. The stem (The stem is in plants, the axis generally airy, which lengthens the root and…), yellow (There are (at least) five definitions of yellow denoting roughly the same thing…) or light orange, rotates as it protrudes from the through its suckers host plant feeds.

Synonyms and common names

Flax thread, devil’s thread, cuscuta, cabellos de Venus, clover thread, love tendril, woman’s shoelace; Hairwort; Devilguts, Cuscuta epitimo; Pittimo; erba lava, epitimo; Capuchin Barbas; cabellos de tomillo, hair of the devil, hair of Venus; Monk’s beard, devil’s claws, thyme silk; thyme silk; clover silk; Quendel devil’s thread.

characteristics

• Reproductive organs:
  • Type of inflorescence: Glomeruli
  • Gender distribution: hermaphrodite
  • Type of pollination (pollination is the preferred mode of reproduction of angiosperm plants and…): entomogamous, autogamous
  • Flowering time: June to October
• Seeds (In the life cycle of “seed plants”, the seed is the structure that…):
  • Type of fruit (In botany, the fruit is the plant organ that protects the seed…): capsule that opens transversely. Contains 2 to 3 seeds.
  • Distribution type: Barochore
• Habitat and distribution:
  • Typical habitat: Limestone lawns (limestones are sedimentary rocks, third most common after…)
  • Distribution area: Southern Eurasia

Flowers of the field twine

Colonization of the environment by Cuscuta campestris

Infructescence of Cuscuta campestris (An infructescence is the amount of fruit that results from the development of an inflorescence. On…)

Cuscuta campestris – 2 seeds in a capsule

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, a cosmic monster that formed just 470 million years after the Big Bang.

The results published Monday confirm theories that supermassive black holes existed at the beginning of the universe. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up last year to make these observations.

Since the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the age of this black hole is therefore 13.2 billion years.

Even more surprising to scientists: This black hole is huge: it is ten times larger than the black hole in our Milky Way.

It is thought to weigh between 10 and 100% the mass of all stars in its galaxy, said lead author Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That number is a far cry from the tiny proportion of black holes in our Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, estimated at 0.1%, he noted.

“It’s really very early in the universe to be such a juggernaut,” said Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who was involved in the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

A supplementary article was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. “It’s amazing that this thing and its galaxy existed so early in the universe.”

Researchers believe that the black hole formed from huge clouds of gas that collapsed into a galaxy next to another galaxy with stars. The two galaxies merged and the black hole took over.

The fact that Chandra discovered it using X-rays “confirms without a doubt that it is a black hole,” according to Ms. Natarajan. With X-rays, “we actually capture the gas that is gravitationally attracted to the black hole, which accelerates and begins to glow in the X-ray light,” she explained.

This quasar is considered a quasar because it is actively growing and the gas is blindingly bright, she added.

The Webb Telescope alone may have discovered a black hole that is only 29 million years old, scientists say, but it has yet to be observed and verified in X-rays. Ms. Natarajan expects more early black holes to be discovered, perhaps less distant but still quite distant.

“We expect a new window to open in the universe, and I think this is the first rift,” she said.

The two space telescopes Webb and Chandra used a technique called gravitational lensing to magnify the region of space in which this galaxy UHZ1 and its black hole are located. The telescopes used light from a much closer galaxy cluster, just 3.2 billion light-years from Earth, to magnify UHZ1 and its black hole much further into the background.

“It’s a pretty faint object and luckily nature made it bigger for us,” Natarajan said.

Launched in 2021 at a distance of 1.6 million kilometers, Webb is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched into space. he sees the universe in the infrared. The much older Chandra Observatory sees X-rays; it was launched into orbit in 1999.

“I find it absolutely incredible that Chandra can make such amazing discoveries 24 years after its launch,” Bogdan said.

For several years now, constellations of satellites have been growing above our heads in low orbits. These thousands of satellites are intended to provide internet access to isolated populations by covering almost the entire Earth’s surface. These include SpaceX’s Starlink programs (more than 4,000 satellites already in orbit), Amazon’s Kuiper (more than 3,000) and OneWeb (more than 600). However, this form of air connection has proven to be far more harmful to the environment than conventional land connections.

• Also read: Norway inaugurates satellite launch site

• Also read: Gaza: Elon Musk guarantees the Starlink connection of “recognized” organizations

• Also read: Solar Eclipse: A satellite captured the moon’s shadow on Earth

The activity of these satellites has numerous negative impacts on the environment, in particular due to the burning of fuel in the rockets responsible for their launch and the resulting emissions.

A study conducted by American and British researchers specializing in astrophysics shows that in all scenarios over the next five years we will see 31 to 91 times higher CO2 emissions per participant than those produced at equivalent mobile land speeds. , so all hypotheses tested.

It goes without saying that the most powerful solution to reducing this pollution is to make strategic decisions about the design of rockets and the fuel they carry. Especially since most of the programs examined aim to launch thousands more satellites very soon. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more sustainable technologies both in the design of rockets and satellites and in the composition of the fuel they carry.

Therefore, these satellite constellations currently pose a problem for the environment and the more they are deployed, the more harmful they will be. They are also a source of space pollution.

In fact, each satellite has a life expectancy of just a few years as it is currently neither recoverable nor recyclable. At the end of their lives, they either disintegrate by falling back into the atmosphere or wander endlessly in orbit. Not to mention that they also need to be replaced with new operational satellites.

However, so much waste and potential space debris can cause major damage. For example, the repeated destruction of satellites could lead to new holes in the ozone layer, due to gases produced in the air by the combustion of the aluminum contained in these devices.

Another challenge is therefore to limit the presence of these wastes in the air. With this in mind, several projects have already been announced, such as sending a satellite to collect several others and detonate them upon re-entry into the atmosphere. Another solution would be to introduce some kind of power service for orbiting satellites.

For several years now, constellations of satellites have been growing above our heads in low orbits. These thousands of satellites are intended to provide internet access to isolated populations by covering almost the entire Earth’s surface. These include SpaceX’s Starlink programs (more than 4,000 satellites already in orbit), Amazon’s Kuiper (more than 3,000) and OneWeb (more than 600). However, this form of air connection has proven to be far more harmful to the environment than conventional land connections.

• Also read: Norway inaugurates satellite launch site

• Also read: Gaza: Elon Musk guarantees the Starlink connection of “recognized” organizations

• Also read: Solar Eclipse: A satellite captured the moon’s shadow on Earth

The activity of these satellites has numerous negative impacts on the environment, in particular due to the burning of fuel in the rockets responsible for their launch and the resulting emissions.

A study conducted by American and British researchers specializing in astrophysics shows that in all scenarios over the next five years we will see 31 to 91 times higher CO2 emissions per participant than those produced at equivalent mobile land speeds. , so all hypotheses tested.

It goes without saying that the most powerful solution to reducing this pollution is to make strategic decisions about the design of rockets and the fuel they carry. Especially since most of the programs examined aim to launch thousands more satellites very soon. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more sustainable technologies both in the design of rockets and satellites and in the composition of the fuel they carry.

Therefore, these satellite constellations currently pose a problem for the environment and the more they are deployed, the more harmful they will be. They are also a source of space pollution.

In fact, each satellite has a life expectancy of just a few years as it is currently neither recoverable nor recyclable. At the end of their lives, they either disintegrate by falling back into the atmosphere or wander endlessly in orbit. Not to mention that they also need to be replaced with new operational satellites.

However, so much waste and potential space debris can cause major damage. For example, the repeated destruction of satellites could lead to new holes in the ozone layer, due to gases produced in the air by the combustion of the aluminum contained in these devices.

Another challenge is therefore to limit the presence of these wastes in the air. With this in mind, several projects have already been announced, such as sending a satellite to collect several others and detonate them upon re-entry into the atmosphere. Another solution would be to introduce some kind of power service for orbiting satellites.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, a cosmic monster that formed just 470 million years after the Big Bang.

The results published Monday confirm theories that supermassive black holes existed at the beginning of the universe. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up last year to make these observations.

Since the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the age of this black hole is therefore 13.2 billion years.

Even more surprising to scientists: This black hole is huge: it is ten times larger than the black hole in our Milky Way.

It is thought to weigh between 10 and 100% the mass of all stars in its galaxy, said lead author Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That number is a far cry from the tiny proportion of black holes in our Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, estimated at 0.1%, he noted.

“It’s really very early in the universe to be such a juggernaut,” said Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who was involved in the study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

A supplementary article was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. “It’s amazing that this thing and its galaxy existed so early in the universe.”

Researchers believe that the black hole formed from huge clouds of gas that collapsed into a galaxy next to another galaxy with stars. The two galaxies merged and the black hole took over.

The fact that Chandra discovered it using X-rays “confirms without a doubt that it is a black hole,” according to Ms. Natarajan. With X-rays, “we actually capture the gas that is gravitationally attracted to the black hole, which accelerates and begins to glow in the X-ray light,” she explained.

This quasar is considered a quasar because it is actively growing and the gas is blindingly bright, she added.

The Webb Telescope alone may have discovered a black hole that is only 29 million years old, scientists say, but it has yet to be observed and verified in X-rays. Ms. Natarajan expects more early black holes to be discovered, perhaps less distant but still quite distant.

“We expect a new window to open in the universe, and I think this is the first rift,” she said.

The two space telescopes Webb and Chandra used a technique called gravitational lensing to magnify the region of space in which this galaxy UHZ1 and its black hole are located. The telescopes used light from a much closer galaxy cluster, just 3.2 billion light-years from Earth, to magnify UHZ1 and its black hole much further into the background.

“It’s a pretty faint object and luckily nature made it bigger for us,” Natarajan said.

Launched in 2021 at a distance of 1.6 million kilometers, Webb is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched into space. he sees the universe in the infrared. The much older Chandra Observatory sees X-rays; it was launched into orbit in 1999.

“I find it absolutely incredible that Chandra can make such amazing discoveries 24 years after its launch,” Bogdan said.

Neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) are two closely related fields. On the one hand, the functioning of the brain inspires the architecture of artificial neural networks and machine learning techniques, especially deep learning.

AI research teams are working to better understand and reproduce aspects of human cognition, such as neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt to and process new information.

This is particularly true for University of Montreal professors Yoshua Bengio (Department of Computer Science and Operations Research) and Guillaume Lajoie (Department of Mathematics and Statistics). Both researchers at Mila – the Quebec Institute of Artificial Intelligence – are studying ways to design AI systems that integrate advanced human cognitive functions: perception, memory, learning, flexibility, decision-making, language, etc.

On the other hand, these large AI models are used to model, simulate and understand brain processes. These computer models help neuroscientific researchers formulate and test hypotheses about how the brain works.

For example, thanks to computer modeling, the team of Eilif Muller, professor at the Department of Neuroscience at UdeM and researcher at IVADO – the Institute for Research and Transfer in the Field of Artificial Intelligence – managed to obtain a vision of more complete synaptic changes in the neocortex. A breakthrough that sheds light on the brain’s learning mechanisms.

Specific applications

Yoshua Bengio, Guillaume Lajoie and Eilif Muller

Photo credits: Yoshua Bengio (Amélie Philibert, University of Montreal), Guillaume Lajoie (Maryse Boyce) and Eilif Muller (Mila)

If artificial intelligence and neuroscience influence each other in several ways, a new discipline has emerged from this interaction: NeuroAI.

Using biological principles to design computer systems, researchers in this interdisciplinary research area work to improve understanding of human intelligence and develop more efficient and targeted technologies.

Specifically, this can lead to the creation of brain-machine interfaces, i.e. devices that use AI to allow human neural networks to communicate with a computer and vice versa.

In this context, Guillaume Lajoie and his colleagues Marco Bonizzato, Marina Martinez and Numa Dancause (all professors in the Department of Neuroscience at UdeM) recently found a way to improve the functioning of intelligent neuroprostheses that allow the recovery of motor skills after injury. on the spinal cord or a stroke.

Understanding the brain… and its disorders

NeuroAI is also giving rise to computational psychiatry, a new field of psychiatry that uses digital tools based on large amounts of data, particularly from brain imaging, to better understand psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Researchers Mila Guillaume Dumas (Department of Psychiatry and Addictionology at UdeM) and Karim Jerbi (Department of Psychology at UdeM) are both interested. Karim Jerbi, for example, uses magnetoencephalography – a method that records the brain’s electromagnetic activity – to elucidate the role of neuronal oscillations in brain functions and disorders.

“Digital tools and data make it possible to be at the forefront of the prevention, detection and treatment of mental disorders,” explains Guillaume Dumas.

Montreal, turnstile

This article shows this: Montreal, thanks in particular to the ecosystem created by the University of Montreal, Mila and IVADO, is a thriving place for these dynamic research sectors with exceptional potential.

In addition, Mila recently hosted a workshop that brought together experts from Montreal and abroad to present the latest work in the field of NeuroAI.

“There are few places in the world with such a high concentration of advanced expertise in artificial intelligence, neuroscience and the interface between the two. This meeting is unique,” ​​enthuses Guillaume Lajoie.

As a doctoral student in biomedical sciences at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Sandrine Gagné-Trudel is interested in the experiences of families of children with disabilities. With the aim of making knowledge about disability more accessible and raising public awareness of this reality, she brought together parents and researchers to discuss issues that concern them in her first-ever popular science podcast entitled “Espace Adapté”. This came about after his participation in the 2022-2023 edition of the Acfas Vulgarisathon, held at UQTR.

Each episode of the podcast highlights the experiential knowledge of a parent and the scientific knowledge of a researcher. “It was important to me that this popularization project was developed in collaboration with parents and not just members of the scientific community. By creating a dialogue between parents and scientists, we have access to rich, contextualized and even more meaningful conversations,” explains Sandrine Gagné-Trudel, also a master’s degree in occupational therapy from UQTR.

The “Adapted Space” podcast consists of three episodes. In the first episode on parental stress, it is possible to hear the testimony of Marie-Pier Bergeron, mother of a daughter with cerebral palsy, and to share the scientific results of the work of Delphine Périard-Larivée, doctoral student in psychology at the UQTR, which deals with disability and parenthood.

The second episode focuses on adapting to a new reality and resilience. Karine Gendron, mother of twins with complex health issues, begins by sharing her inspiring story about her adaptation process. Anouchka Hamelin, holder of a PhD in Psychology from UQTR, enriches the discussion with compelling reflections on resilience based on her thesis.

Finally, the third episode is about collaboration between parents and healthcare providers. Guglielmo Perpetuini and Audray Quesnel Traverse, two parents of a very premature child, share their experiences of working together during their son’s hospitalization. Angela Fragasso, holder of a master’s degree in health administration at the University of Montreal and a specialist in the family-partner approach, also brings her expertise to the conversation.

The Adapted Space podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcast.

Good to hear!

(San Francisco) Less than a year after the phenomenal launch of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) interface ChatGPT, the start-up OpenAI on Monday presented its latest innovations to make its technology more efficient, personalized, easier to use and also more expensive for developers .

Posted at 3:11 p.m

“On November 30th, we discreetly put a first version of ChatGPT online for research purposes. And that went pretty well,” joked Sam Altman, the company’s boss.

“We now have around 100 million active users every week,” he added on stage in San Francisco during a conference broadcast live online.

The unprecedented success of ChatGPT and the concerns raised by generative AI have brought the young leader (38 years old) to the forefront in 2023, from parliamentary hearings to interviews with heads of state.

On Monday, he reiterated his confidence in the ability of AI in the future to give every human being emancipatory abilities “on a scale we have never seen before.”

“We will be able to do more, create more and have more,” he assured. “With (artificial) intelligence integrated everywhere, we will all have superpowers when needed. »

Because OpenAI introduced “GPT” on Monday: Users can now create personalized dialogs without programming. “For example, you can use GPTs to learn the rules of a board game or teach your children math. »

These conversational robots are based on OpenAI language models (the core technology of generative AI) and on instructions and documents added by the creator of the dialogue (like the rules of a game).

Widely viewed as a revolution comparable to the advent of the Internet, generative AI was popularized by ChatGPT. It makes it possible to produce texts, images and sounds in everyday language upon simple request.

For many observers, this will make it possible to create personalized AI agents that support people in their personal and professional lives.

In addition to GPT, OpenAI’s announcements were primarily aimed at the more than 2 million developers who use its technologies to build applications.

Sam Altman introduced “GPT-4 Turbo,” a new model that can take more context into queries and have Internet access by April 2023 (instead of 2021).

The application programming interface (API) gains multimedia capabilities (computer vision, speech, etc.). And the prices for using the models are falling.

“We hope you come back next year because what we brought to market today will pale in comparison to what we create for you,” promised Sam Altman.