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We need a lot more research and results in the field of machine unlearning, namely getting AI to forget things. Heres a look at why this is such a tough problem.

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"What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle — it's just a web." "Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian. — E. B. White, Charlotte's Web Spiders are another of nature's master engineers....

Spiders are another of nature’s master engineers. About half of known spider species (order Araneae) construct webs made of silk.

Escherichia coli, researchers incorporated several unnatural amino acids into bacterial proteins. STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/Science Source New approach to rewriting bacteria’s genetic code could lead to novel medicines Jun. 3, 2021 , 4:10 PM Virtually all living organisms construct their proteins from combinations of 20 different amino acids. To add new amino acids to the mix, scientists have re-engineered genes and other bits of protein-building machinery, resulting in proteins with unique ...

This energy storage facility under construction in southeast England uses lithium-ion batteries. CHRIS RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES Zinc-based cells promise to be cheaper and safer for grid storage May. 27, 2021 , 10:30 AM If necessity is the mother of invention, potential profit has to be the father. Both incentives are driving an effort to transform zinc batteries from small, throwaway cells often used in hearing aids into rechargeable behemoths that could be attached to the power...

Zinc-based cells promise to be cheaper and safer for grid storage

Share Where debris flowed from a 1980 eruption, plants and animals have slowly returned. But a road may disrupt those ecological communities. CARRI J. LEROY Planned service road near Mount St. Helens threatens prized research area Apr. 21, 2021 , 1:00 PM When Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted on 18 May 1980, the initial explosion blew sideways, creating a nearly 600-square-kilometer blast zone—and what has become a prized ecological research area. Dozens of groups have trac...

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation. In March 2020, as the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic was coming into view, Jen Nwankwo and colleagues turned a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) tools against SARS-CoV-2. One newly developed AI program, called SUEDE, digitally screens all known druglike compounds for likely activity against biomolecules thought to be involved in disease. The other, BAGEL, predicts how to build inhibitors to known targets. The two p...

Feb. 25, 2021 , 12:00 PM The first organisms to “breathe” oxygen—or at least use it—appeared 3.1 billion years ago, according to a new genetic analysis of dozens of families of microbes. The find is surprising because the Great Oxidation Event, which filled Earth’s atmosphere with the precious gas, didn’t occur until some 500 million years later. “I was pretty thrilled to see this paper,” says Patrick Shih, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California (UC), Davis. T...