The four winners of the 2024 Robert L. Wesley Award have been announced by the SOM Foundation. The $10,000 scholarship, established in 2020 in honor of the firm's first Black partner, includes a yearlong mentorship for BIPOC students.The award winners are:Ferras Coulibaly of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, School of ArchitectureErin Kurtycz of the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban PlanningBeni Lawson of the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, School of ArchitectureSalma Rodriguez of Texas Tech University, Huckabee College of Architecture

The third DLC for Atomic Heart, titled Enchantment Under the Sea, is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Taking place directly after the events of Trapped in Limbo, the DLC kicks things off by having protagonist Major P-3 alongside the consciousness of the Twins. Check out the launch trailer for the DLC below.Enchantment Under the Sea features a brand new setting in the form of an expansive underwater complex, full of new characters as well as new types of enemies that will attempt to test your prowess with the games combat system. The DLC also brings with it two new glove skills to play with: Whip and Blaze.With a more linear level design, the DLC places a heavier emphasis on some of its puzzles, which also make use of the new Whip power. The Whip lets you essentially grapple around for traversal, as well as to and from enemies during combat. The Blaze power, on the other hand, acts like a fireball, allowing you to clear obstacles while exploring or set enemies on fire.Atomic Heart: Enchantment Under the Sea is available individually, as well as through the Gold and Premium Editions of Atomic Heart. With this release, there is now one more DLC planned for the title. For more details on Enchantment Under the Sea, check out our review.

Classic horror titles Dino Crisis and its sequel are now available on PC through GOG. Both titles are priced at $9.99 each, and are also available through a bundle packaging the two together, priced at a discounted $16.99.Both titles have been released as part of GOGs Preservation Program. According to the stores own description, the preservation program is meant to allow GOG to preserve the title and keep it available for modern hardware and audiences. As part of the program, the game will work on current and future versions of Windows, and will be available DRM free.The original Dino Crisis revolves around an agent, Regina, investigating a top-secret military project. Things slowly escalate as Regina discovers that supposed research into a clean energy source was shut down, the project being deemed unfeasible.Dino Crisis 2 revolves around the energy source, dubbed Third Energy, being deemed too unpredictable. Players have to take on a rescue mission in order to help the government get its hands on research data and any surviving personnel.Gameplay in both titles was based heavily on the Resident Evil titles of the time, complete with fixed camera angles and plenty of dinosaur-related jump scares. The core gameplay revolved around players having to manage their resources, including ammo and healing items, as they explored the games various levels and completed objectives.The GOG release of both titles feature a host of improvements, including all localisations, easy difficulty, an improved DirectX renderer, and new rendering options. The games also support modern controllers, including DualSense, DualShock 4, and Xbox Series and Xbox One controllers.GOG has been on something of a roll with Capcom titles over the last year, having brought the original Resident Evil 2 to the storefront back in August 2024, followed by the original Resident Evil 3 in September 2024.

The spike is inscribed, "Presented to Col. Frederick Mears by the city of Anchorage in commemoration of the building of the Alaska Railroad 1915-1923." Anchorage MuseumOn July 15, 1923, President Warren Harding hammered a golden spike into train tracks in central Alaska. It was the ceremonial final piece of the Alaska Railroad, whichconnected inner Alaska to the coastal city of Seward, sparking the resource-rich states industrial development.For about a century, the 14-karat gold spike has been in the hands of private owners outside Alaska. But now, its coming home. Last week, theAnchorage Museum and the city ofNenananear the spot where Harding hammered the spike in 1923worked together to purchase the artifact, per astatement from the museum.The spikes first owner was Colonel Frederick Mears, the railroads chief engineer. Earlier in 1923, the city of Anchorage presented it to Mears to commemorate his role in the projects completion, and he had loaned it to the city for the presidential hammering. Congress funded the construction of the Alaska Railroad, which was completed in 1923. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsIn the years that followed, the golden spike changed hands several times. The last of those owners, who bought it in 1983, recently decided to sell it through auction houseChristies. Although specialists expected the artifact to fetch up to $50,000, the city and the museum ended up paying more than $200,000.The spike will now be put on display in its home state. Anchorage and Nenana will likely take turns displaying the object, reports the Associated Press Mark Thiessen.I think its a neat story of an urban and a rural communityboth along the rail beltcoming together for a worthy cause, says Joshua Verhagen, Nenanas mayor, in the statement. I look forward to working together and tying our communities together once again with this same golden spike.Harding hammered the golden spike into a bridge in Nenana now known as theMears Memorial Bridge. The ambitious single-span trestle bridge over the Tanana River closed the Alaska Railroads final gap, per the museum. Hardings ceremonial contribution marked both the first time a U.S. president had visited Alaskawhich wouldnt become a state until1959and the only time a sitting president has hammered a railroad spike. (Hemissed twice and hit it home on the third try.) Unfortunately, Hardings journey would be his last: Hedied of a probable heart attack later that year. Harding hammered the spike at the Mears Memorial Bridge, which spans the Tanana River. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsThe Alaska Railroad began as a private line in the early 1900s, extending some 50 miles north of Seward. About a decade later, the federal government expressed interest in developing the railway to expand Alaskan mining operations. Congress spent $35 million on the project, which would span some 500 miles. In 1985, the government sold the railroad to the state of Alaska for $22 million.In late 2024, Monica Shah, the Anchorage Museums deputy director of collections and conservation, heard some rumblings that a rare, long-hidden piece of Alaskan history had become a centerpiece of Christies upcomingAmericana Week sale, as she tellsArtnets Eileen Kinsella.The golden spike had been briefly exhibited in Fairbanks in 1967 and Anchorage in 2001. Other than that, it had remained mostly inaccessible to the public. Per the museum, the Christies auctionthe spikes first public sale in more than 40 yearswas a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secure it for the people of Alaska.We are thrilled to partner with Nenana to share this piece of history with the public, says Julie Decker, the Anchorage Museums director, in the statement. The golden spike is a great piece of storytelling about place and people.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Alaska, American History, American Presidents, Artifacts, Auctions, Gold, Government, Government Leaders, History, Trains, Warren G. Harding

A scanning electron microscope image shows sodium carbonates in a sample from the asteroid Bennu. Each needle is less than one micrometer wide by five to ten micrometers in lengthfor comparison, a human hair is about 100 micrometers wide. Rob Wardell, Tim Gooding and Tim McCoy, SmithsonianIn a triumph for NASAs first asteroid sample return mission, new findings suggest that tiny bits of rock retrieved from the asteroid Bennu hold lingering traces of ancient salt water. The discovery hints that life-friendly chemistry could be far more common in space than astronomers previously thought.After a seven-year voyage, NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped a capsule of about 120 grams of precious asteroid fragments into the Utah desert in September 2023. Scientists from the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, soon began the painstaking process of analyzing these grains under specialized microscopes. Astronomers hope that Bennuwhich, at about 4.5 billion years old, offers a glimpse into the solar systems early daysmight reveal hints how organic materials first arrived on Earth and laid the groundwork for life to evolve.A new study, published today in Nature, describes a stunning lineup of minerals revealed in the samplesmost notably sodium carbonates, which commonly occur on Earth as soda ash or in dried-up lake beds. These minerals had never been observed in any meteorite or asteroid sample before.I actually saw the samples when they were first opened, co-lead author Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the National Museum of Natural History, tells Smithsonian magazine. We had expectations they would have a lot of clays, carbonates, sulfides and iron oxidesand we found all of those.But the surprising presence of sodium carbonates indicates that Bennus parent asteroid once had pockets of liquid water. When that water evaporated, it likely left behind salty, brine-like residues rich in life-supporting elements, such as phosphorus. If those components then rained down on early Earth via meteorite strikes, they could have helped seed the planet with the raw ingredients for life.We were super excited to find thisIve been studying meteorites for 35 years and had never seen this mineral before, McCoy adds. That was really the breakthrough that told us we were looking at an ancient evaporite sequence.These components offer hints to how precursors of life might have existed on asteroids. Phosphates can help to make sugars. Clays can help to make things like nucleotides that build RNA and DNA, McCoy says. Sodium brines are really essential to both ... speeding up those reactions and to help release those molecules after they form.In a second study, published today in Nature Astronomy, McCoy and other scientists examining Bennus components found even more crucial components of life. They discovered amino acidsthe building blocks of proteinsin the sample, as well as the five main nucleobases that make up RNA and DNA. These findings echo what researchers have long suspected about asteroidsthat they can ferry essential organic molecules across the solar system, potentially delivering them to planets, where life eventually takes hold.According to Michael Ackerson, a research geologist at the National Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the Bennu studies, this discovery represents a tremendous leap forward in our understanding of the origins of life.The key mineralogical and chemical material needed for lifes emergence on Earth was being delivered to our planet early in its history, Ackerson says to Smithsonian magazine. Effectively, Bennus brines created a nursery for the development of complex organic molecules that were subsequently delivered to a nascent Earth.And Bennu isnt alone. The Nature study points out that the dwarf planet Ceres and Saturns icy moon Enceladus have also shown evidence of sodium carbonate brines in recent years. As missions to these and other celestial candidates for life advance, investigators will be on the lookout for the same minerals identified in Bennus samples. These specimens are from the U.S. National Mineral Collection at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History and show the minerals observed in Bennu samples as formed and found on Earth. Greg Polley, SmithsonianTogether we have made huge progress in understanding how asteroids like Bennu evolved, and how they may have helped make the Earth habitable, Sara Russell, a cosmic mineralogist at the Natural History Museum in London and co-lead author of the Nature study, says in a statement.Still, exactly how these raw components can produce life remains an open question.Just like a batch of cookies, you can have the ingredients, but without time and temperature, youre never going to get a cookie, McCoy says. We dont know how much time and what temperature we need to actually get these elements to react to make something that we would call life.Though Earths soda lakes are somewhat chemically similar to Bennus ancient brines, the asteroid has a couple of clear differences: an abundance of phosphorus and a lack of boron. On our home planet, phosphorus is relatively scarceand while boron often shows up in Earths evaporated lakes, its virtually absent in meteorites. Therefore, while Bennu may share the same watery heritage with Earth, its chemical makeup follows a different recipe.As these samples undergo further analysis, McCoy says he and his team are particularly focused on studying the tiny traces of water locked within the minerals. By measuring the ratio of different hydrogen isotopes in that water, they hope to compare it to the oceans on Earth, potentially answering longstanding questions about where Earths water came from.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Resolution Games' collaboration with Wizards of the Coast is a social strategy title called Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked.Read More

Wonderland and Robot Invader have merged to form a new company called Create Worlds, focused on web gaming.Read More

Garmin has shared new ways to fix its smartwatches that are stuck on the blue triangle of death, a boot-up error thats been stopping owners from using their watches. The steps could get more watches working again but some models will lose data in the process.Theres still no explanation as to what is causing the issue, but many users, including those reporting and discussing the issue on the r/Garmin subreddit, suspect its related to using activities on their Garmin watches that involve its GPS functionality.The company shared a message on its Garmin Support Center page yesterday suggesting users could potentially resolve the issue by resetting their devices (pressing and holding its power button until it powers off), but it has since updated that page with more information. For those with devices that successfully power up normally again after a reset, the company now recommends syncing it with the Garmin Connect app on your phone or via Garmin Express on a personal computer to resolve and prevent the issue from occurring again.For users whose devices still wont boot past the start up screen after a reset, Garmin now offers additional steps that vary between affected models. For watches in the Epix, Fenix, Instinct, Descent, and Enduro lineups, Garmin says the boot screen issue can be resolved by forcing a restart while devices are connected to a PC or Mac with the Garmin Express software installed. The watch should complete a sync with Garmin Express. Once the sync is complete, you can disconnect the watch from the computer. The watch should boot up normally.Garmin also warns that a factory reset will result in data loss including Garmin WalletFor users of watches in Garmins Forerunner, Vivoactive, Venu, and Approach golf lines, the company says a full factory reset of the device will be necessary, which involves a specific series of button presses. However, Garmin also warns that a factory reset will result in data loss including Garmin Wallet, Connect IQ content such as watch faces and apps that have been downloaded, body battery data, and customized data fields.The issue also affects Garmins Edge cycling computers. The company suggests connecting those devices to a Windows computer and manually locating and deleting a CPE.bin file. If that doesnt resolve the issue, a master reset will instead be needed which will require the device to be paired with a smartphone again afterwards.The Verge has reached out to Garmin for additional comments on what caused this issue and the suggested fixes.See More:

Googles malware scanning Play Protect service will now automatically turn off an Android apps permissions if its potentially harmful. The feature is designed to prevent malicious apps from having access to your phones storage, photos, camera, and more.Though you can still restore the permissions for these apps, Google will ask you to confirm your decision for added security. Google Play Protect runs scans on all the apps on your device, including those that have been sideloaded. If Google identifies a harmful app, it will remove it from the Play Store and then warn users if they have it installed on their phone.Play Protect already has the ability to reset app permissions for apps you havent used in a while, and can automatically block or disable a harmful app depending on its severity.Additionally, if you switch off Play Protect, Google will now display notifications on Chrome and Android asking you to reenable it.Google is also fending off scammers social engineering tactics like those that convince users to turn off Play Protect while on calls to download malicious Internet-sideloaded apps. To prevent this, Play Protect will now no longer let you toggle off the service during phone and video calls, including those made through popular third-party apps.Google has been gradually expanding Play Protect to combat the evolving scams that pop up on its app store, with a recent update bringing live threat detection to Pixel devices, which can pick up on harmful app behavior in real time. This week, Google also introduced a new verification badge for VPNs to indicate that they meet specific security standards.

LLMs based on transformer architectures, such as GPT and LLaMA series, have excelled in NLP tasks due to their extensive parameterization and large training datasets. However, research indicates that not all learned parameters are necessary to retain performance, prompting the development of post-training compression techniques to enhance efficiency without significantly reducing inference quality. For example, the LASER model uses singular value decomposition (SVD) to compress feedforward network (FFN) weight matrices by removing factors with minimal singular values, reducing weight noise from training. However, LASER only targets individual weight matrices, limiting its ability to utilize shared information between them.Researchers at Imperial College London introduced a novel framework to enhance the reasoning abilities of LLMs by compressing the Multi-Head Attention (MHA) block through multi-head tensorisation and Tucker decomposition. This approach enforces a shared higher-dimensional subspace across attention heads, enabling structured denoising and compression, with compression rates reaching up to 250x without requiring additional data or fine-tuning. Unlike existing methods focused on FFN weights, this method addresses MHA limitations by leveraging domain knowledge about attention heads shared and specialized roles. Extensive tests on benchmark datasets demonstrated improved reasoning in both encoder and decoder architectures, alongside compatibility with FFN-based techniques.The study adopts mathematical notations commonly used in previous works, with scalars, vectors, matrices, and tensors represented as a and A, respectively. Operations such as matrix transpose, Frobenius norm, and tensor mode-n product are defined for computational tasks. Tensors, which are multidimensional arrays, extend from simple scalars (0D) to higher dimensions by stacking lower-dimensional structures. The mode-n product links a tensor and a matrix along a specific dimension. SVD decomposes matrices into rank-1 components, enabling noise reduction through low-rank approximations by discarding insignificant values. Tucker decomposition extends SVD to tensors, breaking them into smaller core tensors and factor matrices, which aids in efficient data representation and dimensionality reduction.The study proposes a method to reshape MHA weight matrices in transformers into 3D tensors instead of the conventional 2D format. Tucker decomposition composes these tensors into core tensors and shared factor matrices across all attention heads within a transformer layer. This technique ensures that attention heads function within the same subspace, improving reasoning capabilities and reducing noise. Compared to existing methods such as LASER and TRAWL, this approach leverages shared low-rank structures to enhance performance and efficiency while reducing the number of parameters.Extensive experiments validated the proposed framework on four benchmark reasoning datasets using three LLMs: RoBERTa, GPT-J, and LLaMA2, encompassing both encoder-only and decoder-only architectures. The framework, applied selectively to transformer layers, significantly enhanced reasoning abilities while achieving parameter compression. Results showed compatibility with FFN-only compression methods like LASER, achieving improved accuracy and loss reduction. A hybrid approach combining LASER and the proposed method usually yielded the best performance. Ablation studies confirmed the effectiveness of compressing all MHA weights together, outperforming separate compression of query, key, value, and output weights, further validating the frameworks design.In conclusion, the study introduced a framework to enhance reasoning in LLMs while achieving significant parameter compression. By leveraging domain knowledge about MHA and employing a unique multi-head tensorisation with Tucker decomposition, we denoise MHA weights and encode diverse information within a shared higher-dimensional subspace. This approach improves reasoning in encoder-only and decoder-only LLMs with up to 250x compression, requiring no additional training or fine-tuning. The method can also complement FFN-based denoising techniques for further gains. While hyperparameter tuning varies across datasets, future work will focus on developing generalizable settings for broader applicability.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our70k+ ML SubReddit. Sana Hassan+ postsSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions. [Recommended] Join Our Telegram Channel