Microplastics are everywhere, both across nature and inside our bodies. And while evidence shows these synthetic particulates aren't great for you, the medical community still isn't entirely sure how the plastic specifically affects health, as well as its influence on preexisting conditions like an increased risk of heart attack or stroke. For the first time, however, experts succeeded in visually tracking the movement of microplastics through brain blood vessels in mice--and the pile-ups resembled a microscopic "car crash." The findings, published in the journal Science Advances by a team at Beijing's Peking University, expand on existing research already showcasing microplastic's potential neurotoxicity. "Nanoscale plastics can breach the blood-brain barrier, [but] how [microplastics] cause brain functional irregularities remains unclear," wrote the study's authors.

Advancement in large pretrained language models has significantly improved their performance for conditional language generation tasks including summarization albeit with hallucinations. To reduce hallucinations, conventional methods proposed improving beam search or using a fact checker as a postprocessing step. In this paper, we investigate the use of the Natural Language Inference (NLI) entailment metric to detect and prevent hallucinations in summary generation. We propose an NLI-assisted beam re-ranking mechanism by computing entailment probability scores between the input context and summarization model-generated beams during saliency-enhanced greedy decoding. Moreover, a diversity metric is introduced to compare its effectiveness against vanilla beam search. Our proposed algorithm significantly outperforms vanilla beam decoding on XSum and CNN/DM datasets.

It may sound rather supernatural! But a "driverless" car – not a self-driving vehicle –parked at a gas station in India started moving on its own and rammed into a two-wheeler, dragging its driver and the pillion rider for several meters. The shocking incident was captured on the surveillance camera. It happened in the city of Guwahati in the northeastern state of Assam on Nov. 8, Network 18 reported. The vehicle did not appear to be a self-driving model. Warning: The video may be disturbing to some readers.

A Tesla owner charges his vehicle in April 2021 at a charging station in Topeka, Kan.. Tesla reported 273 crashes involving partially automated driving systems, according to statistics released by U.S. safety regulators on Wednesday. A Tesla owner charges his vehicle in April 2021 at a charging station in Topeka, Kan.. Tesla reported 273 crashes involving partially automated driving systems, according to statistics released by U.S. safety regulators on Wednesday. Automakers reported nearly 400 crashes of vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 involving Teslas, according to statistics released Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautioned against using the numbers to compare automakers, saying it didn't weight them by the number of vehicles from each manufacturer that use the systems, or how many miles those vehicles traveled. Automakers reported crashes from July of last year through May 15 under an order from the agency, which is examining such crashes broadly for the first time.

While many people think that Tesla was the first car company to come up with the idea, manufacturers have actually been toying with the concept of autonomous vehicles since the 1930s. In 1939, an exhibit at the New York World's Fair called "Futurama" envisioned a world 20 years into the future in which an automated highway system would guide autonomous vehicles. As with other technological advancements, the idea of self-driving cars would have to wait until our technology had caught up to our drive for innovation. Self-driving vehicles are going to have a significant impact on all aspects of our lives. They have the potential to clean up our air (especially if the cars are electric) and make our commutes more enjoyable.

When driving, mind your own business or help other drivers, that's the question to be pondered. That's also a common refrain and refers to the notion of being helpful to others, even though they might be complete strangers and you do not know them at all. Which of those two catchphrases or words of wisdom would you choose? You probably make daily decisions about those two possibilities. There are situations and settings wherein you opt to mind your own business. At times, it might be quite tempting to step into the middle of something, but you weigh the pros and cons of doing so, and then at times move along and do not get into the fray. On the other hand, there are times that you decide it is best to jump into the swimming pool, as it were, and get engaged. Let's turn this somewhat conceptual or philosophical discussion into something very grounded and real. I was driving my car the other day and had come up to an intersection to make a left turn.

Considering whether AI ought to warn human passengers about an impending crash or collision. We've all likely had our share of car crashes over the years. Let's trace the various published research underlying a somewhat simple but altogether crucial question, namely if you know that a crash is about to occur should you go limp or attempt to tighten and brace yourself. Turns out that the answer is complicated and often dependent upon the circumstances at hand. First, there is a popular assumption that you ought to let your body go loose or limp when an impending car crash is about to occur. Some claim that this ragdoll posturing will be advantageous. The purported logic is that we all know that a straight and narrow stick will presumably break and snap entirely when placed under intense pressure. As such, if you tense up, you are risking all manner of personal bodily damage. According to the sage wisdom of Confucius: "The reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm." I don't believe though that Confucius had an opportunity to drive or ride in an automobile (he lived from 551 BC to 479 BC, while cars were essentially invented in the late 1880s).

Three decades ago, the internet was just beginning to revolutionize human communications. Little did the world know how much power would fall into the hands of a few technocratic elites as a result. Autonomous vehicles likewise will transform human transportation in the same way; the skill of helming the wheel will no longer be necessary in about a decade or two, just as the art of writing on paper has all but ceased to exist. Recent news of a so-called Apple Car project has done little to bring positive attention to the possibilities of a self-driving revolution. In poll-after-poll, nearly half of Americans say they would not use an autonomous taxi or ride-sharing service.

Near-miss while driving is insidious, including for self-driving cars. I'm sure you experience their antics and angst-producing driving activities all the time. Back in the day, a college buddy of mine was famously known for being an especially hasty driver. He drove much too fast while on the streets within and surrounding the university campus. He also veered dangerously close toward other cars that were in the lanes next to him. Plus, he relished taking corners at high speeds, including frequently forcing pedestrians to leap back from the curb to avoid getting demonstrably clipped.

The images are everywhere: People crowded face-to-face in swimming pools, shoulder-to-shoulder in indoor bars, cheering without masks at a rally held by President Trump, who often downplays the global pandemic. Now, as many public health experts predicted, waves of new COVID-19 infections and deaths are rolling across the South and West. Many, still practicing social distancing, look at their fellow Americans and ask, "What are they thinking?" We turned to Steven Pinker for help with an answer. The professor of psychology at Harvard, author of widely discussed books, including How the Mind Works and most recently, Enlightenment Now, sees the deep-seated mindset, tribalism, at work in people's defiance of health recommendations.