Author: Pooja Kashyap

A CPD certified Fitness Trainer, Pooja also likes to spend time reading and blogging the latest research and discoveries in science and how technology is shaping the world. Besides writing, she enjoys reviewing books and taking interviews of creative/innovative people. Currently, she is located in Noida, India, where she actively participates in marathons as well. She is also on Twitter and LinkedIn.

DMS and DMDS Hints in K2-18 b’s Atmosphere from JWST MIRI Data

Pooja Kashyap

Recent research paper published by the American Astronomical Society – New Constraints on DMS and DMDS in the Atmosphere of K2-18 b from JWST MIRI – digs into the atmosphere of K2-18 b, which is the exoplanet people have been calling a “Hycean World,” meaning it might have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and liquid water oceans. This study is based on data from JWST’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), and it’s the first time we’ve gotten a mid-infrared transmission spectrum of a habitable-zone exoplanet like this.

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Book Review: Zero to Birth by William A Harris

Pooja Kashyap

If you’re even a little bit curious about how a brain builds itself before we’re born, Zero to Birth: How The Human Brain Is Built is a book you’ll want to spend time with. It was first published in 2022 and is written by neuroscientist William A. Harris. What makes it so compelling is how clearly it lays out the stages of brain development without dumbing things down.

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Interview: Dr. Nicholas Jacobson, Computational Psychiatrist at Dartmouth College, US

Pooja Kashyap

When I first came across Therabot, Dartmouth’s AI-powered therapy chatbot, I was immediately intrigued. The idea that technology could play a meaningful role in mental health treatment fascinated me, so I reached out to Dr. Nicholas Jacobson, a leading expert in this space, for an interview. To my delight, he agreed.

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Artemis-Enabled Stellar Imager: A Lunar Telescope Array to Unveil the Secrets of Stars and Black Holes

Pooja Kashyap

Imagine building a huge group of telescopes on the Moon, where there’s no air or weather to interfere, allowing us to see further into space than we ever could before. That’s the idea behind the Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI), a proposed lunar interferometer designed to reveal what’s happening on the surfaces of stars and deep inside active galactic nuclei (AGN). A team led by Dr. Kenneth Carpenter at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center recently completed a nine-month feasibility study, and their findings suggest that this ambitious idea is not just…

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Training an LLM is Like Growing a Fractal: The Power of Iterative Learning

Pooja Kashyap

James Gleick, one of my favorite science writers, wrote this famous quote in his book Chaos: Making a New Science:  “IN THE MIND’S EYE, a fractal is a way of seeing infinity”.’  Doesn’t it also reflect how LLMs work?  How? Just like fractals, these models take patterns, layer them and build something infinitely complex from simple rules. It’s like staring into a never-ending web of words, where meaning keeps unfolding the deeper we go.

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AntGrip: Enhancing Gripper Performance with Ant-Inspired Hairs

Pooja Kashyap

Whenever I find myself really fascinated by biomimicry, I often discover new things inspired by it. This time, it’s a robotic hand that takes ideas from how ants work. Imagine you’re picking up a slippery soda can with a simple two-finger robot gripper. No suction cups, no fancy sensors, just friction. Sounds tricky, right? That’s exactly the kind of challenge researchers tackled by taking inspiration from “ants”.

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Infomorphic Neurons: Self-Learning AI Inspired by Biology

Pooja Kashyap

Imagine if artificial neurons could learn like the ones in our brains, adapting, making decisions on their own, and figuring things out without needing a central command. That’s exactly what scientists are working on with a new kind of artificial neuron called infomorphic neurons. Unlike traditional artificial neural networks, these neurons don’t need an external system to guide their learning. Instead, they learn in a self-organized way, just like biological neurons do.

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Cracking the Mystery of Strange Metals with Quantum Entanglement

Pooja Kashyap

Quantum criticality in metals is an exciting area of study where physics explores mysterious concepts. A new study in Nature Communications looks at a unique way to understand entanglement at a specific point called the Kondo destruction quantum critical point (QCP). Instead of using standard methods, the researchers focus on concepts like mutual information and quantum Fisher information (QFI) to explore how quantum connections change as they get closer to this transition.

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Book Review: Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli

Pooja Kashyap

As travel was on the cards, I decided to pick up a book that’s rich with storytelling, conversational and intriguing, without being a 500-page commitment. Helgoland (170 pages) felt like the perfect choice. I had started it two weeks ago but never found the time to finish it. It was first published in 2020. There’s something about reading while traveling that makes the experience even better. It’s like hanging out with a favorite author…and the best part? They never judge you for rereading the same sentence five times. (lol)

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ULVAC and IBM Quantum Team Up to Revolutionize Quantum Computing Cooling

Pooja Kashyap

Quantum computing is one of the most promising technological frontiers, but it comes with a major challenge, which is, maintaining the extreme cold temperatures that is required for qubits to function. Today’s quantum computers rely on dilution refrigerators, complex and highly specialized cooling systems that keep qubits operating near absolute zero. However, these systems are expensive, tough to maintain and don’t scale easily.

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Book Review: Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom

Pooja Kashyap

While I was researching into the existential risk from artificial intelligence, I found “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” by Nick Bostrom, who is a philosopher and researcher in AI. The book came out in 2014. Since it focuses on the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, I decided to grab it and start reading right away. More or less I enjoyed going through it as it explores the challenges presented by the prospect of AI exceeding human cognitive abilities, (though, to be honest, if chatbots get any smarter, I might have to…

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How Your Brain Filters Information: The Science of Excitation and Inhibition

Pooja Kashyap

Neurons in our brain are constantly taking in and distributing information, be it sound, sight or touch, everything is getting processed in the real time. But how exactly does this work? Recent research sheds light on how groups of neurons work together to encode and process information. The study has surfaced some interesting insights about the balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain.

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Book Review: The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Pooja Kashyap

In this book, Haruki Murakami takes his readers to a journey where they may experience a thin line between forgotten memories and existential musings. The City and Its Uncertain Walls was first released in April 2023 but it was all set for English reading audience in November 2024. The book is built on a short story written by the author himself in 1980s.

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