The proliferation of multi-unit cortical recordings over the last two decades, especially in macaques and during motor-control tasks, has generated interest in neural "population dynamics": the time evolution of neural activity across a group of neurons working together. A good model of these dynamics should be able to infer the activity of unobserved neurons within the same population and of the observed neurons at future times. Accordingly, Pandarinath and colleagues have introduced a benchmark to evaluate models on these two (and related) criteria: four data sets, each consisting of firing rates from a population of neurons, recorded from macaque cortex during movement-related tasks. Here we show that simple, general-purpose architectures based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs) outperform more "bespoke" models, and indeed outperform all published models on all four data sets in the benchmark. Performance can be improved further still with a novel, hybrid architecture that augments the RNN with self-attention, as in transformer networks. But pure transformer models fail to achieve this level of performance, either in our work or that of other groups. We argue that the autoregressive bias imposed by RNNs is critical for achieving the highest levels of performance. We conclude, however, by proposing that the benchmark be augmented with an alternative evaluation of latent dynamics that favors generative over discriminative models like the ones we propose in this report.

Shipping is critical to our modern life. As goods criss-cross around the globe, demand is higher than ever. But there's also a push to make these logistics smarter and more eco friendly. AI can help with that. So, to that end, here's a quick guide to Artificial Intelligence in shipping and how AI can work for you.

It's been a tough year for elegant terns in Southern California. A drone crash in June forced an estimated 3,000 of the sleek seabirds with their pointed orange bills to abandon their eggs on Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Orange County. Experts say it's possible that many of the birds set up camp on two commercial barges in nearby Long Beach Harbor. Now droves of the baby birds are falling into the ocean and drowning. "They basically landed on the barge a day or so, and it may have been two or three days, after the incident involving the drones when they left Bolsa Chica," said Tim Daly, spokesman for California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A transgender fish fought a brutal stand-off with a rival male during the compelling first episode of David Attenborough's eagerly anticipated Blue Planet II. The award winning series returned to BBC One this evening, 16 years after its first season wowed viewers in 2001. After the shocking scenes in Sir David's Planet Earth II, which included a snow leopard being'raped' and a lizard making a seemingly impossible escape from an army of snakes, the broadcasting legend set a high bar. While the opening episode of his new series did not measure up for drama, it certainly delivered on the unexpected. Whisking viewers off to the coast of northern Japan, Blue Planet II revealed the bizarre mating ritual of the Asian Sheepshead Wrasse - a transgender fish.