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- AI helps discover new antibiotics that kill MRSA cells
AI helps discover new antibiotics that kill MRSA cells
PLUS: Upgrade your DeepFake game
Michael Parrish
December 27, 2023
TOGETHER WITH
Good morning, human brains. Welcome back to your daily munch of AI news.
Here’s what’s on the menu today:
AI shows MRSA no mercy 🧫 🦠
MIT researchers discovered a new class of effective antibiotics with AI.
Pin the AI on the fashionable donkey 🤖 💅
The hugely hyped AI Pin from Humane starts shipping out in March.
Take your DeepFake game to the next level 🧑🎨 🎨
Midjourney launched v6 in Alpha. You can try it out, now.
MAIN COURSE
AI slays bacteria MRSA-lessly 🧫 🦠
Back in August, we covered a paralyzed woman who spoke for the first time in 18 years. This was due to a brain implant that allowed her to speak using a digital avatar.
In November, we reported on Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold. It predicts the 3D structures of proteins, which leads to new drugs.
More Christmas miracles?
You bet.
Last week, MIT researchers used AI to discover a class of antibiotics that kills MRSA cells. MRSA is deadly, anti-biotic resistant, and responsible for more than 10,000 U.S. deaths every year.
So, what happened?
MIT researchers trained AI models on data from over 39,000 chemical compounds that were screened for antibiotic activity against MRSA.
The models learned how effectively new molecules could be against MRSA based on their chemical properties.
39,000? That’s a lot.
That’s just how the models were initially trained.
From there, the AI screened over 12 million different commercially available compounds.
Researchers then purchased 280 of the most promising compounds and tested them against MRSA cells in a Petri dish.
What happened next?
From these 280, two compounds emerged as very promising candidates.
These two compounds killed the MRSA bacteria by disrupting a process that’s essential for many vital cell functions.
They then tested these compounds on mouse models, one with a MRSA skin infection, and one with a MRSA systemic infection.
The compounds both reduced the MRSA population by a factor of 10. They also showed significantly low toxicity towards human cells.
“Our work provides a framework that is time-efficient, resource, efficient, and mechanistically insightful, from a chemical-structure standpoint, in ways that we haven’t had to date.”
No, and more testing is still required.
The researchers claim, however, that this is a huge breakthrough. They say that similar AI methods can be deployed to find new medicines for arthritis, cancer, and more.
“We are already leveraging similar approaches based on chemical substructures to design compounds de novo, and of course, we can readily adopt this approach out of the box to discover new classes of antibiotics against different pathogens.“
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SIDE SALAD
Nipple clamps, but with AI 🤖 💅
In August, we reported on Humane’s AI Pin. They claimed it would replace your smartphone and would release more details on the solar eclipse.
In October, we covered its debut on the runway. Supermodel Naomi Campbell wore it at Coperni’s 2024 fashion show during Paris Fashion Week.
In November, we gave you a detailed rundown of the AI Pin. You can interact with it using your voice, hand gestures, and a display that projects onto your palm.
The hype is real…
It’s just getting started.
So, it’s a pin…?
It’s a wearable device that attaches to your clothes. Human claims it’s a more convenient and personalized alternative to your smartphone.
Does it live up to the hype?
The AI Pin generated tons of excitement when it was first teased, but the current reception is more tepid.
If you need to have the newest tech and have the money to spare, it’s designed for you.
If you do research before buying things, this thing probably isn’t your cup of tea.
How much is this thing, anyway?
The AI Pin is priced at $699.
Along with the purchase price, there’s a mandatory $24 monthly subscription fee, which covers cellular data and a phone number.
I love burning money. I can wait to get it in March.
If you didn’t pre-order it, you’ll have to wait.
Humane says that customers who placed priority pre-orders for the AI Pin will get first priority when shipments begin.
After priority pre-orders are shipped, other orders will be fulfilled based on the original purchase dates of the customers.
A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA
Midjourney v6 is here 🧑🎨 🎨
In July, we reported on Midjourney’s Pan feature. It‘s an outpainting feature that allows you to extend your images vertically and horizontally.
In August, we covered Midjourney’s Vary Region. It’s an inpainting feature that regenerates specific parts of your upscaled image.
In November, we reported on Midjourney’s new Style Tuner. It allows you to generate images in up to 128 different styles.
More Midjourney goodness?
Yeah, baby. 👶
Last week, Midjourney released an alpha-version of Midjourney v6. It’s now available for you to try out.
Took them long enough…
The v6 model was developed over nine months and is the third model that Midjourney build from scratch using its AI superclusters.
What’s so great about it?
A bunch of stuff.
Midjourney v6 is noticeably more context-aware and allows for much longer prompts. This means you can create much more complex images than previous versions.
It also comes with new upscaling options and supports aspect ratio adjustments and style blending.
Midjourney v6 can also accurately replicate animation styles from anime, cartoons, and movies.
How do I take it for a spin?
Select it from the dropdown menu in settings.
RECOMMENDED READING
MEMES FOR DESSERT
YOUR DAILY MUNCH
Tools
100DaysOfNoCode — Learn No-Code and AI skills in 100 days. [Sponsor]
Thumbinator — test out the effectiveness of your YouTube thumbnails.
Findly — chat with your data from Google Analytics.
HeyGen — create personalized AI videos for your marketing efforts.
Think Pieces
Bill Gates’s 2024 AI predictions. How it will affect health, the climate, and more.
Venture Capitalists’ 2024 AI investment strategy. How it’s progress, regulations, and more will impact its profitability.
A U.K. court rules that AI isn’t considered an inventor. This is the result of Stephen Thaler’s legal battle to get his AI system labeled as the inventor of two patents.
Startup News
Apple’s new checkpoints for its LLM, Ferret. It silently open-sourced its multimodal AI model in October. Now, it can identify items within smaller regions.
NVIDIA released another text-to-3D animation tool. It combines multiple AI models to generate animations with lifelike movements and textures.
Anthropic is negotiating a $750 million funding round. This would bring its valuation to over $18 billion.
Research
DREAM-Talk — a face generation method that combines EmoDiff and Lip Refinement for more realistic talking faces.
TinySAM — a SAM model (Segment Anything Model) that’s specifically fine-tuned for computational reduction.
PIA — a text-to-image generation framework that utilizes personalized AI models.
TWEET OF THE DAY
AI = universal income for all? Stability AI’s CEO retweets Elon Musk’s thoughts on this.
Tag us on Twitter @BotEatBrain for a chance to be featured here tomorrow.
AI ART-SHOW
Until next time 🤖😋🧠
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