by jsendak | Jul 5, 2025 | Cosmology & Computing
Cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, has always been a field of great fascination and mystery. Over the years, scientists have made incredible discoveries that have expanded our understanding of the cosmos. In recent years, there have been several groundbreaking discoveries that have shed light on some of the universe’s most perplexing mysteries.
One of the most exciting recent discoveries in cosmology is the detection of gravitational waves. These ripples in spacetime were first predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, but it wasn’t until 2015 that they were finally observed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as the collision of black holes or neutron stars, and their detection has opened up a whole new way of observing the universe.
Another major discovery in cosmology is the confirmation of the existence of dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that makes up about 27% of the universe, but it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it invisible and undetectable by traditional telescopes. However, through observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and the rotation of galaxies, scientists have been able to confirm the presence of dark matter and its crucial role in shaping the structure of the universe.
In addition to dark matter, scientists have also made significant progress in understanding dark energy, another mysterious component of the universe that makes up about 68% of its energy density. Dark energy is thought to be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe, a phenomenon that was first observed in the late 1990s. Recent studies have provided new insights into the nature of dark energy and its implications for the fate of the universe.
Furthermore, advancements in technology have enabled scientists to explore the universe in unprecedented detail. The launch of space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope has allowed astronomers to observe distant galaxies, stars, and planets with incredible precision. These observations have provided valuable insights into the formation and evolution of the universe, as well as the potential for finding signs of extraterrestrial life.
Overall, the latest discoveries in cosmology have opened up new avenues for exploring the mysteries of the universe. From the detection of gravitational waves to the confirmation of dark matter and dark energy, scientists are making remarkable progress in understanding the fundamental forces that shape our cosmos. As technology continues to advance and new discoveries are made, we can look forward to even more exciting revelations about the nature of the universe and our place within it.
by jsendak | Jul 5, 2025 | Science
This data, gathered by Born in Bradford’s Age of Wonder study in early 2024, helps us understand where we’re starting from—and why this project matters.
Here are some highlights:
Interest in digital arts
- Just over a third (37%) of all students said they’re interested in digital arts events or activities.
- Interest is higher among boys (43%) than girls (37%).
- Young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) showed even stronger interest (46%) compared to those without (38%).
Participation so far
- Most young people rarely take part in digital arts.
- Boys are more likely to say they participate “often” (38%) than girls (29%).
- Students eligible for free school meals were more likely to say they’d never taken part (15%) than those who aren’t eligible (10%).
Who’s taking part in our project?
- Six schools across Bradford, from Keighley to Bradford West.
- Students from a range of ethnic backgrounds—including over 500 Asian students, around 150 white students, and others.
- Significant numbers with free school meals eligibility and/or SEN support.
View our data visualisation
Click here to view more data about the Bradford Digital Creatives participants (opens PDF).
This is the starting point. Over the last two years, students have been co-creating new digital artworks, collaborating with professional artists, and exploring creative careers—so we can help boost participation, interest, and aspirations for the future.
We’ll share the full impact of Bradford Digital Creatives in Autumn 2025.
Find out more by following the #ImADigitalCreative hashtag on social media.
by jsendak | Jul 4, 2025 | Cosmology & Computing
arXiv:2507.02311v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent advances in brain-vision decoding have driven significant progress, reconstructing with high fidelity perceived visual stimuli from neural activity, e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in the human visual cortex. Most existing methods decode the brain signal using a two-level strategy, i.e., pixel-level and semantic-level. However, these methods rely heavily on low-level pixel alignment yet lack sufficient and fine-grained semantic alignment, resulting in obvious reconstruction distortions of multiple semantic objects. To better understand the brain’s visual perception patterns and how current decoding models process semantic objects, we have developed an experimental framework that uses fMRI representations as intervention conditions. By injecting these representations into multi-scale image features via cross-attention, we compare both downstream performance and intermediate feature changes on object detection and instance segmentation tasks with and without fMRI information. Our results demonstrate that incorporating fMRI signals enhances the accuracy of downstream detection and segmentation, confirming that fMRI contains rich multi-object semantic cues and coarse spatial localization information-elements that current models have yet to fully exploit or integrate.
by jsendak | Jul 1, 2025 | AI
Learn how Genspark built a $36M ARR AI product in 45 days—with no-code agents powered by GPT-4.1 and OpenAI Realtime API.
