Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Megan Stanley

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · Sep 2

More than 85 American and international scientists have denounced a Trump administration report that calls the threat of climate change overblown, saying the analysis is riddled with errors, misrepresentations and cherry-picked data to fit the president’s political agenda. Gift link: nyti.ms/3HNAwoB

nyti.ms

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Jul 25

Really excited to announce that we’ve made Aurora fully open!

Wessel @wessel.ai · Jul 25

Aurora is fully open! 🥳

The air pollution model 🌬️, the ocean wave model 🌊, and the TC tracker 🌀 are now available on GitHub.

And that's not all: all model weights (pretrained and fine-tuned) are now released under the MIT license. 😎

GitHub: github.com/microsoft/au...

#AIforGood

GitHub - microsoft/aurora: Implementation of the Aurora model for Earth system forecasting

Implementation of the Aurora model for Earth system forecasting - microsoft/aurora

github.com

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Jun 18

Check out this super exciting work!

Jan Hermann @jan.hermann.name · Jun 18

🚀 After two+ years of intense research, we’re thrilled to introduce Skala — a scalable deep learning density functional that hits chemical accuracy on atomization energies and matches hybrid-level accuracy on main group chemistry — all at the cost of semi-local DFT ⚛️🔥🧪🧬

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Paola Gori Giorgi @paolagorigiorgi.bsky.social · Jun 18

Very excited and proud of this incredible team effort!

Microsoft Research @msftresearch.bsky.social · Jun 18

Microsoft researchers achieved a breakthrough in the accuracy of DFT, a method for predicting the properties of molecules and materials, by using deep learning. This work can lead to better batteries, green fertilizers, precision drug discovery, and more. www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

Alt Text: A dark blue, wavy surface with multiple colorful spheres placed on it. The spheres are in various colors including red, green, blue, yellow, purple, and orange. Each sphere is surrounded by small white particles that appear to be floating around them. The background is a gradient of dark teal to black.

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Microsoft Research @msftresearch.bsky.social · May 21

Explore the future of environmental forecasting with Aurora, an AI model from Microsoft Research. In this Abstracts episode, Megan Stanley and Wessel Bruinsma discuss how Aurora is redefining tropical cyclone and ocean wave forecasting. msft.it/6018Sdhn8

Illustrated image of Megan Stanley and Wessel Bruinsma. "Abstracts: A Microsoft Research Podcast” runs along the bottom.

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Wessel @wessel.ai · May 21

Big news!! 🚀 Aurora, a foundation model for the Earth system, has been published in @nature.com.

A massive congrats to the whole team! Very proud of this achievement, and thrilled to see that it’s finally out there. 😊

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A foundation model for the Earth system - Nature

Aurora, a new large-scale foundation model trained on more than one million hours of diverse geophysical data, outperforms operational forecasts in predicting air quality, ocean wave dynamics, tropica...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Microsoft Research @msftresearch.bsky.social · May 21

A new paper published in Nature explains how Microsoft’s Aurora AI foundation model goes beyond weather forecasting to more accurately predict a range of environmental events, from hurricanes and typhoons to air quality and ocean waves. aka.ms/AAvgi2k

Microsoft’s Aurora AI foundation model goes beyond weather forecasting

Aurora, an AI foundation revolutionizes weather and environmental forecasting with accuracy, speed and efficiency.

aka.ms

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · May 22

Super excited to announce that Aurora is published, out today in Nature!

With Aurora, we demonstrate that the foundation modelling paradigm works for Earth system modelling!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A foundation model for the Earth system - Nature

Aurora, a new large-scale foundation model trained on more than one million hours of diverse geophysical data, outperforms operational forecasts in predicting air quality, ocean wave dynamics, tropica...

www.nature.com

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Feb 26

Delightfully humbling

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Feb 26

RNA xkcd.com/3056

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · Feb 13

I created a new AI to help me debug my Bash scripts, and named it after my favorite painter. It's doing pretty well!

A terminal prompt that says:

MagritteAI> Why doesn't "echo list.txt > sort" output the sorted contents?
Answer: This ('>') is not a pipe.

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Leah Morris @leahmorris.bsky.social · Feb 12

Exciting news! After nearly 5 years of building AI startups with Radical Ventures, I'm embarking on a new chapter: supporting leading scientists in the UK with ARIA and Pillar VC. Read on! 👇

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Nikita Gill @nikitagill.bsky.social · Feb 12

Forever relevant in the age of social media. Thank you, Wendy Cope.

Differences of Opinion

I. He Tells Her

He tells her that the earth is flat - He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

wellingmax.bsky.social @wellingmax.bsky.social · Feb 2

Great analysis: the extreme reaction to DS R1 is a reflection of the enormous bubble that is bound to burst at some point. (Note that I keep being deeply impressed by the technology itself)

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Feb 2

The AI business model is built on hype. That’s the real reason the tech bros fear DeepSeek | Kenan Malik

While privacy fears are justified, the main beef Silicon Valley has is that China’s chatbot is democratising the technology No, it was not a “Sputnik moment”. The launch last month of DeepSeek R1, the Chinese generative AI or chatbot, created mayhem in…

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Microsoft Research @msftresearch.bsky.social · Jan 16

Microsoft researchers introduce MatterGen, a model that can discover new materials tailored to specific needs—like efficient solar cells or CO2 recycling—advancing progress beyond trial-and-error experiments. www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

JD Long @jdlong.cerebralmastication.com · Jan 5

I’d rather slam my fingers in a kitchen drawer than have appliances that are engaging. It’s exactly like when LG thought we wanted internet in our fridge.

What’s wrong with these people? Solve heart disease, not conversational refrigeration.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Mar 29

Hell. You are describing hell. Nobody wants an “interactive and engaging” dishwasher. They just want their dishes cleaned. www.forbes.com/sites/bernar...

Across all industries, organizations are rapidly embracing generative AI. Among them, makers of home appliances like fridges and ovens. Generative AI in your oven? Why not? Ater all, AI has been creeping into our homes for years (think smart lightbulbs and Alexa) – but thanks to generative AI, these interactions will become even more human and more personal.
Imagine, for example, asking your washing machine whether it’s safe to wash a beloved item of clothing on a certain setting – literally, asking it out loud or via an app. Or you could say to your fridge, “Hey, when am I going to run out of milk?” and it’ll tell you. Integrating generative AI into everyday products could lead to a new era of smart appliances that are not only more adaptive to our needs but also more interactive and engaging.

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Jan 5

This seems just a tiny bit mad, if true. Actually not just a tiny bit.

Tuomas Pernu @tuomaspernu.bsky.social · Jan 4

"An evaluation of Europe’s Horizon 2020 programs found that between 30 and 50% of the funding is spent on grant writing".

"ERC’s funding decisions showed a bias against applicants with histories of high-risk research, favoring those with more conventional profiles".

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Frank Noe @franknoe.bsky.social · Dec 6

Super excited to preprint our work on developing a Biomolecular Emulator (BioEmu): Scalable emulation of protein equilibrium ensembles with generative deep learning from @msftresearch.bsky.social ch AI for Science.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Dec 3

Thank you 🙏

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Dec 3

Can you add me please? 🙏

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · Nov 29

One of the reasons the university sector has come so spectacularly off the rails is the fact it's so unfriendly to family life, people with caring responsibilities and parents. The attitude is often: 'Not working 24/7? You're not fully committed!'
www.science.org/content/arti...

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Nov 27

Super excited and proud of the new additions to Aurora! Check them out here :)

parisperdikaris.bsky.social @parisperdikaris.bsky.social · Nov 27

🎉Excited to announce major new breakthroughs in our Aurora foundation model! Our team (@cbodnar.com, @wessel.ai, @megstanley.bsky.social, @a-lucic.bsky.social, Anna Vaughan) has achieved unprecedented results across multiple Earth system forecasting tasks. Here's what's new... 🧵

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Reposted by Megan Stanley

Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · Nov 27

For those who missed it: Elon Musk, the Royal Society, and me
deevybee.blogspot.com/2024/11/why-...

Why I have resigned from the Royal Society

The Royal Society is a venerable institution founded in 1660, whose original members included such eminent men as Christopher Wren, Robert H...

deevybee.blogspot.com

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Nov 27

Thank you! 🙏

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Megan Stanley @megstanley.bsky.social · Nov 26

Please add me!

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