Science and Technology links (March 28th 2020)

1. In a laboratory, we know how to turn any of our cells into youthful stem cells using something called the Yamanaka. If you expose cells to such factors for a short time, they appear to remain functional specialized cells but become more youthful. Researchers demonstrated this theory using cartilage cells from elderly patients suffering from osteoarthritis. They also rejuvenated muscle cells. It now remains to do the same in live human beings.
2. It has been widely reported that artificial intelligence, and specifically deep learning, can match or surpass clinicians in medical imaging tasks. Unfortunately, it appears that this is far from demonstrated with the necessary rigor:
   

Few prospective deep learning studies and randomised trials exist in medical imaging. Most non-randomised trials are not prospective, are at high risk of bias, and deviate from existing reporting standards. Data and code availability are lacking in most studies, and human comparator groups are often small.

1. Apple released its latest tablet (the iPad Pro) with an integrated LiDAR that can map accurately your environment at up to 5 meters of distance. A LiDAR is basically a laser-radar. It was famously used by NASA to map the lunar surface in the 1970s but it was a technology out of reach to all of us twenty years ago: reserved for military and highly specialized applications.
2. Japan and Korea have more than 13 hospital beds per 1000 people; Spain, Italy, and the U.S. have about 3 beds per 1000 people.
3. Due to a worldwide pandemic, we are running the largest distance-learning experiment in history. Countless teachers worldwide are teaching online for the first time.
4. Modern disks (such as a USB drive) might be lighter when they are filled with data than when they are empty.
5. Our smartphones will soon move from 4G networks to 5G networks. The latter are much faster. However, they cause the phones to consume 20% more energy according to some report.
6. A few decades ago, most of us had computers with a single processor. Over time we acquired processors with two processor cores, each core acting as a processor. Then we got four cores with some cores able to act as if they are made of two or four “logical” processors. The next gaming consoles (e.g., the PS5) will have main CPUs with eight processor cores. It is not difficult to find servers that have well over a hundred logical processors. Yet it appears that Windows was limited to at most 64 logical processors, possibly because the architects of Windows never imagined that we would soon reach this limit.