# gst: chaotic networks inside a chaotic world, a 2015 review by Jennifer

<<  Networks grow as individual nodes connect to one another. By tweaking the rules that govern when nodes connect, researchers can shape the network’s properties >>

Jennifer Ouellette. The New Laws of Explosive Networks. Researchers are uncovering the hidden laws that reveal how the Internet grows, how viruses spread, and how financial bubbles burst. Jul 14, 2015.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-complex-networks-explode-with-growth-20150714/

also

<< The most celebrated part of this account, however, is at 2.216–93, where Lucretius [Titus Lucretius Carus] maintains that not only to explain how atomic collisions can occur in the first place, but also to account for the evident fact of free will in the animal kingdom, it is necessary to postulate a minimal indeterminacy in the motions of atoms, an unpredictable ‘swerve’ (clinamen) ‘at no fixed place or time’. Otherwise we would all be automata, our motions determined by infinitely extended and unbreakable causal chains >>

Lucretius. 4.Physics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published Wed Aug 4, 2004; substantive revision Sat Aug 10, 2013

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/#Phy

# qubit-ai: inside the qubit AI neural “black boxes”

<< Neural networks’ powers of prediction have fueled the recent AI boom, but it can be hard to explain how they reach their decisions. A new technique aimed at uncovering the inner workings of language processing networks is just the latest effort to shed some light on these “black boxes.” >>

<< Going a step further, some researchers are trying to create AI able to explain its decisions to lay people, not just experts >>

Edd Gent. Machines Are Getting Smarter—Now They Should Explain Themselves. Sep 19, 2017

https://singularityhub.com/2017/09/19/machines-are-getting-smarter-now-they-should-explain-themselves/

FonT

"but it can be hard to explain how they [AI machines] reach their decisions"

An easy prediction: "Qubit AI  Machines" will never fully explain themselves.

# game: low-cooperativity feedbacks in burst size could be preferable for noisy proteins

AA << consider a specific kind of negative feedback, which makes bursts smaller in the excess of protein >>

<< Increasing the strength of the feedback may lead to dramatically different outcomes depending on a key parameter, the noise load >>

<< for noise loads smaller than critical, the coefficient of variation remains bounded with increasing feedback strength; contrastingly, if the noise load is larger than critical, the coefficient of variation diverges to infinity in the limit of ever greater feedback strengths >>

<< Interestingly, high-cooperativity feedbacks have lower critical noise loads, implying that low-cooperativity feedbacks in burst size can be preferable for noisy proteins >>

Pavol Bokes, Abhyudai Singh, Yen Ting Lin. High Cooperativity In Negative Feedback Can Amplify Noisy Gene Expression. biorxiv sysbio. doi: 10.1101/125914  April 10, 2017.

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/10/125914

# soc: pulsatile self-destructive choices, by Oliver and Julia

<< Let’s all be thankful that FiveThirtyEight readers don’t control America’s nuclear arsenal >>

Last week AA << published an article on the game theory of nuclear standoffs. That article included an interactive game ... >>

Oliver Roeder, Julia Wolfe. Thank God You People Don’t Have The Nuclear Codes. Sep. 14, 2017.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/thank-god-you-people-dont-have-the-nuclear-codes/

<< Shall we play a game? >>

Oliver Roeder. How To Win A Nuclear Standoff. President Trump and Kim Jong Un’s saber-rattling is dangerous, but not irrational. Sep. 6, 2017

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-win-a-nuclear-standoff/

# acad: ig-nobel 2017; not so evanescent but intriguing: contact with a live crocodile actually could affects a person's willingness to gamble

<< ECONOMICS PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, USA] — Matthew Rockloff and Nancy Greer, for their experiments to see how contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble.
REFERENCE: "Never Smile at a Crocodile: Betting on Electronic Gaming Machines is Intensified by Reptile-Induced Arousal," Matthew J. Rockloff and Nancy Greer, Journal of Gambling Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, December 2010, pp. 571-81. WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Matthew Rockloff and Nancy Greer >>

http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/

Mark Pratt. Research on big ears, crocodile gambling wins Ig Nobels. Sep 14, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-big-ears-crocodile-gambling-ig.html

<< Tourists at the Koorana Saltwater Crocodile Farm in Coowonga, Queensland, Australia (..) were randomly assigned to play a laptop-simulated Electronic Gaming Machine (EGM) either: (1) prior to entry, or (2) after having held a 1-m saltwater-crocodile >>

<< At-risk gamblers with few self-reported negative emotions placed higher average bets at the EGM after having held the crocodile when compared to the control >>

<< high arousal can intensify gambling in at-risk players, but only if this feeling state is not perceived as a negative emotion >>

Matthew J. Rockloff, Nancy Greer. Never Smile at a Crocodile: Betting on Electronic Gaming Machines is Intensified by Reptile-Induced Arousal. Journal of Gambling Studies.  2010;  Vol 26, Issue 4, pp 571–581. Jan 6, 2010.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10899-009-9174-4

# age: autophagy inactivation (e.g. in neurons) to reverse the effects of age (50% extension of life) in the whole old body (post-reproductive C. elegans)

AA << identified that the inactivation of genes governing the early stages of autophagy up until the stage of vesicle nucleation, such as bec-1, strongly extend both life span and health span >>

AA << demonstrate that the improvements in health and longevity are mediated through the neurons, resulting in reduced neurodegeneration and sarcopenia >>

AA << propose that autophagy switches from advantageous to harmful in the context of an age-associated dysfunction >>

Thomas Wilhelm, Jonathan Byrne, et al.  Neuronal inhibition of the autophagy nucleation complex extends life span in post-reproductive C. elegans. Genes & Dev. Sep 7, 2017 doi: 10.1101/gad.301648

http://m.genesdev.cshlp.org/content/31/15/1561

<< By inactivating autophagy in the neurons of old worms they were not only able to prolong the worms life but they increased the total health of the worms dramatically >>

Why we did not evolve to live forever: Unveiling the mystery of  why we age.  Breakthrough in  understanding the origin of the  ageing process. Sep 07,  2017

http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/2595_ENG_HTML.php

Why we did not evolve to live forever: Unveiling the mystery of why we age. Sep 15, 2017.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170915144151.htm

# websec: post-quantum cryptography, all of today's secrets will be lost (!)

AA << analyze the options available for a post-quantum cryptography future >>

<< The expectation is that quantum computers will be built some time after 2025 >>

<< An attacker can record our secure communications today, and break it with a quantum computer years later. All of today's secrets will be lost >> Tanja Lange

How future quantum computers will threaten today's encrypted data. Sep 14, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-future-quantum-threaten-today-encrypted.html

Daniel J. Bernstein, Tanja Lange. Post-quantum cryptography.     Nature 2017; 549: 188–194 Sep 14, 2017 doi: 10.1038/nature23461

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v549/n7671/full/nature23461.html