Why Do Mammals Have Outer Ears? Scientists Are Getting Closer to Solving the MysteryTwo new studies offer insights into the evolution and development of external ears, which appear in humans and other mammals but arent found in reptiles, birds or amphibians Elephants, bats, rabbits and other mammals have exceptional hearingand their outer ears may be a key reason why. PexelsMammals have exceptional hearing. Using echolocation, bats can detect tiny insects flying in pitch-black darkness. Elephants can recognize the calls of their companions from roughly a mile away. And rabbits can detect the sounds of predators before they ever get close enough to pounce.Physically, these animals are very different. But they all share one helpful anatomical feature: external ears.Scientists have long wondered about the evolutionary origins of outer ears, which are unique to mammals. Now, two new studies are unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding the soft, fleshy structures protruding from our heads.In one paper, published in early January in the journal Science, researchers report the discovery of a new type of cartilage that could help explain why mammals are such keen listeners.They stumbled upon the novel cartilage by chance, while getting ready to look at mouse ear tissue under a microscope. After using chemicals to dry out the ear tissue, they noticed it looked different from other types of cartilage. Its cells were filled with lipids, a type of water-insoluble compound thats usually found in fat tissue, rather than in connective cartilage. Researchers named the new tissue lipocartilage.Further analysis revealed the lipocartilage cells were similarly sized and tightly packed together, akin to bubble wrap or interlocking Lego bricks. And though the cells gave the tissue structural stability, the lipocartilage was also more flexible than other types of cartilage.When scientists went looking for lipocartilage in other creatures, they found it in the ears of other mammals, including humans, opposums and bats; they also found it in the noses, sternums and larynxes of mice. But they did not find the novel tissue in birds, amphibians and reptiles, groups of animals that do not have outer ears. This suggests lipocartilage may have contributed to the exceptional hearing of mammals, says Markta Kauck, a developmental biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology who was not involved with the paper, to Sciences Mitch Leslie.The other paper, published in the journal Nature in early January, suggests the genes responsible for mammals external ears might have arisen from those that produce fish gills. It builds on previous research that suggests the jaw bones of ancient fish evolved into the three inner ear bones that mammals have today.This finding offers important new insight into the evolutionary underpinnings of outer ears, which are typically difficult to study, because cartilage disintegrates over time and does not fossilize like bone.When we started the project, the evolutionary origin of the outer ear was a complete black box, says Gage Crump, a co-author of the Nature study and a developmental biologist at the University of Southern California, in a statement.But through their work, the scientists discovered similar gene activity patterns and DNA sequences in the gill tissue of zebrafish and the ear cartilage of humans.The gills themselveswhich fish use to breathe underwaterdid not literally transform into outer ears. But, rather, when ancient fish evolved into vertebrates that could live on land, they didnt have to build their outer ears from scratch. Instead, they were able to repurpose the existing genetic programs responsible for creating gills, according to the researchers.Thats one of the amazements of life and evolution, Abigail Tucker, who studies developmental biology at Kings College London and was not involved in the research, tells Scientific Americans Viviane Callier. The regulatory network was still there and therefore could be co-opted and used again, this time to make an external ear structure rather than a gill.The team even revealed that the same genetic mechanism builds the gills of horseshoe crabs, invertebrates that have changed very little over the last 400 million years. When the first fish evolved, they might have repurposed the gill-forming genes from these ancient creatures.The bendy cartilage in mammals outer ears today, then, may be the last remnant of invertebrate cartilage, Crump adds to Scientific American.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Biology, DNA, Ears, Evolution, Fish, Genetics, Human Evolution, Mammals, Mice, New Research, Senses

Pipeshift has a Lego-like system that allows teams to configure the right inference stack for their AI workloads, without extensive engineering.Read More

Longdue, the studio founded with contributors to Disco Elysium and other industry veterans, announced the crowdfunding pre-launch for its debut game, Hopetown. A limited number of registrations for the pre-launch are available on Longdues website, at www.longduegames.com, with those that register early getting first access to a limited set of backRead More

Warner Bros. Games president David Haddad is stepping down after 12 years.As reported by Variety, the news comes roughly a year after the launch of live service misfire Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.The (literal) superhero shooter, published by Warner Bros. Games and developed by Rocksteady, underperformed following a rough development cycle reportedly marred by mismanagement and misguided live service ambitions.According to a report from Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Games lost $200 million on the multiplayer shooter. The publisher axed jobs at Rocksteady following the launch of Suicide Squad and eventually chose to end support for the title.In its latest fiscal report for Q3 2024, Warner Bros. noted that games revenue declined by 31 percent year-over-yearbut stated that downturn was partly because it failed to replicate the commercial success of 2023 release Hogwarts: Legacy.As for what the future holds for Haddad, the long-serving exec will remain with Warner Bros. Games of the next three months to oversee a transition period.Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming and Games CEO and president JB Perrette praised Haddad's contribution to the business and said the division will now prepare to for its next "record-breaking title."Haddad said he's proud of what he achieved at Warner Bros. Games during what Perrette described as a "remarkable chapter for the company.""It has been an absolute pleasure working on and building our iconic gaming franchises, and I will continue to be an enthusiastic supporter of this talented teams future endeavors," said Haddad."I look forward to working on the next chapter of my career and will always be grateful for my time with Warner Bros. Games."

Microsoft promised a new game announcement at its Xbox Developer Direct event, and that game turned out to be Ninja Gaiden 4. The new entry in the long-running franchise is being co-developed by Team Ninja along with Platinum Games, the team behind action games like Bayonetta and Nier: Automata. The game is launching in Fall 2025, and will be coming to Xbox, PC, and PS5 (it will also be available via Game Pass).While the Ninja Gaiden franchise has been around since the late 80s, it entered into a new era on the Xbox with the bloody, and tough-as-nails Ninja Gaiden on Xbox in 2004. That version, developed by Team Ninja, was ported to a handful of other consoles and also received a number of sequels. Based on the debut trailer, the new game looks to continue the dark action started with the 2004 release, but with even faster gameplay.In addition to the brand-new release, a remake of Ninja Gaiden II was also announced called Ninja Gaiden II Black. In a nice surprise: the game is available now on Xbox, PC, PS5, and Game Pass.These arent the only returns to Ninja Gaiden in the works, however. Retro experts Dotemu are also developing a new throwback release called Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound.

The Surface Laptop Go 3 could get a replacement very soon. | Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Its been less than a year since Microsoft launched its first Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Surface devices, and now a new rumor says followups could debut as soon as this spring. A report from Windows Central updates rumors that have circled since 2023, citing sources who say that new versions of the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 2-in-1 are in the works, with 11- to 12-inch size screens, Windows on Arm, and lighter but still premium designs.Microsoft has already scheduled a major Surface for Business event next week. There, were anticipating variants of the current Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 CoPilot Plus PCs that have Intels Lunar Lake chips inside and are aimed at business customers.According to Windows Central, its unclear where these smaller devices might launch, but they will have cheaper chipsets, like the Snapdragon X Plus or possibly the Snapdragon X that launched earlier this month at CES, to keep prices in the $800 - $900 range. When Microsoft last updated its Surface Laptop Go lineup with a third-generation in 2023, we thought it no longer made sense at the asking price, but the battery life and performance supported by Qualcomms hardware might change things for a new replacement. The smaller Surface Pro is described as a competitor for Apples 11-inch iPad Pro. However, Windows Central reports its unclear if it is positioned to replace the old Surface Go series, which was last updated with the business-focused Surface Go 4.

Proteins, essential macromolecules for biological processes like metabolism and immune response, follow the sequence-structure-function paradigm, where amino acid sequences determine 3D structures and functions. Computational protein science AIms to decode this relationship and design proteins with desired properties. Traditional AI models have achieved significant success in specific protein modeling tasks, such as structure prediction and design. However, these models face challenges in understanding the grammar and semantics of protein sequences and lack generalization across tasks. Recently, protein Language Models (pLMs) leveraging LLM techniques have emerged, enabling advancements in protein understanding, function prediction, and design.Researchers from institutions like The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Michigan State University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence have advanced computational protein science by integrating LLMs to develop pLMs. These models effectively capture protein knowledge and address sequence-structure-function reasoning problems. This survey systematically categorizes pLMs into sequence-based, structure- and function-enhanced, and multimodal models, exploring their applications in protein structure prediction, function prediction, and design. It highlights pLMs impact on antibody design, enzyme engineering, and drug discovery while discussing challenges and future directions, providing insights for AI and biology researchers in this growing field.Protein structure prediction is a critical challenge in computational biology due to the complexity of experimental techniques like X-ray crystallography and NMR. Recent advancements like AlphaFold2 and RoseTTAFold have significantly improved structure prediction by incorporating evolutionary and geometric constraints. However, these methods still face challenges, especially with orphan proteins lacking homologous sequences. To address these issues, single-sequence prediction methods, like ESMFold, use pLMs to predict protein structures without relying on multiple sequence alignments (MSAs). These methods offer faster and more universal predictions, particularly for proteins with no homology, though there is still room for improvement in accuracy.pLMs have significantly impacted computational and experimental protein science, particularly in applications like antibody design, enzyme design, and drug discovery. In antibody design, pLMs can propose antibody sequences that specifically bind to target antigens, offering a more controlled and cost-effective alternative to traditional animal-based methods. These models, like PALMH3, have successfully designed antibodies targeting various SARS-CoV-2 variants, demonstrating improved neutralization and affinity. Similarly, pLMs play a key role in enzyme design by optimizing wild-type enzymes for enhanced stability and new catalytic functions. For example, InstructPLM has been used to redesign enzymes like PETase and L-MDH, improving their efficiency compared to the wild-type.In drug discovery, pLMs help predict interactions between drugs and target proteins, accelerating the screening of potential drug candidates. Models like TransDTI can classify drug-target interactions, aiding in identifying promising compounds for diseases. Additionally, ConPLex leverages contrastive learning to predict kinase-drug interactions, successfully confirming several high-affinity binding interactions. These advances in pLM applications streamline the drug discovery process and contribute to developing more effective therapies with better efficiency and safety profiles.In conclusion, the study provides an in-depth look at the role of LLMs in protein science, covering both foundational concepts and recent advancements. It discusses the biological basis of protein modeling, the categorization of pLMs based on their ability to understand sequences, structures, and functional information, and their applications in protein structure prediction, function prediction, and design. The review also highlights pLMs potential in practical fields like antibody design, enzyme engineering, and drug discovery. Lastly, it outlines promising future directions in this rapidly advancing field, emphasizing the transformative impact of AI on computational protein science.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. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)

The Oscars 2025 nominations are here, and the internet is having its say on all the varioius snubs.Luca Guadagnino's Challengers, for example, failed to net a single nod, prompting fans to serve up a loud reaction online.Shortly after the 2025 Oscar nominations were unveiled, Challengers started trending on X/Twitter as fans of the Zendaya-led sports drama shared their dismay over the movie being shut out by the Academy. People expressed their surprise, with most of the confusion spiralling from the films score not getting the recognition so many felt it deserved, labelling the snub as ridiculous and a mistake.Challengers has received numerous accolades during the current awards season, including four nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, where it ultimately took home the trophy for Best Original Score. The movie appeared in the music category alongside Conclave, The Brutalist, The Wild Robot, Emilia Prez, and Dune: Part Two, which, bar Denis Villeneuves Dune sequel, all earned nominations in the same category at the Oscars.Zendaya stars in Challengers as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy-turned-coach who gets entangled with her husband and ex-boyfriend both on and off the court. The tennis tale was widely beloved by film fans and critics, including our own. It emerged as one of IGNs best-reviewed movies at the end of 2024, with Siddhant Adlakha, in his review, calling the love-triangle-drama one of the sexiest and most electric of its genre coming out of last year.Its high praise wasnt enough to earn it an Oscar nomination, but it wasnt the only snub on the lineup for the 97th Academy Awards. Dune: Part 2 received a nod for Best Picture, but there was no shoutout for the director in his respective category.Stanley Tucci also missed out on a Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Conclave, while Angelina Jolie got snubbed in Best Actress for playing opera singer Maria Callas in Maria. Selena Gomez also missed out on an expected nod in the Best Supporting Actress category for her work in Emilia Prez.Other major films that missed out entirely include Blitz, Longlegs, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.There will likely be even more surprises in store when the Oscars commence on March 2, 2025, so stay tuned to IGN for the latest.Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X/Twitter @A_AnkersRange.

Warner Bros. Games boss David Haddad is set to leave the company, according to a new report.Variety said Haddad will leave his role as president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment after 12 years of leading Warner Bros. Games.The company has had a troubled 12 months, first with the catastrophic release of Rocksteadys Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, then the disappointing release of Smash Bros.-style brawler MultiVersus.Warner Bros. Discovery has said Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagues failure contributed to a $200 million hit to its business, and MultiVersus added another $100 million on top. Warner Bros. Games' only new game release during the third quarter of 2024 was Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, which failed to make an impression.Speaking in a financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said: "We recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now.Since then, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League post-launch content has come to an end with the delivery of its year one roadmap. Warner Bros. has yet to announce Rocksteadys next game, but it is reportedly helping out on a directors cut of Hogwarts Legacy. The legendary British studio has suffered a number of layoffs in recent months.There are also question marks over Mortal Kombat 1s financial performance, although NetherRealm chief Ed Boon recently announced over five million sales and teased future DLC following the release of the T-1000 Terminator guest character.During the same financial call, Zaslav said Warner Bros. was doubling down on four games: Hogwarts Legacy (a sequel is already in the works), Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, "in particular Batman." Warner Bros. recently published VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow exclusively on the Meta Quest 3, and has a Wonder Woman game in the works at Monolith Productions."We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio," Zaslav added.According to Variety, Haddad will stay on with Warner Bros. discovery for the next three months as the company looks for his replacement during an apparent quieter release schedule.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Its mind-boggling that, in the 17-year history of Assassins Creed, were only now getting an entry set in Japan. Its essentially been a ninja sim from the jump, yet we somehow went toe to toe with a minotaur before ever getting to sneak around the shadowy bowels of a Japanese castle. Fortunately, Assassins Creed Shadows may just be worth the years-long wait. In many respects, its the most ambitious AC game yet. Den of Geek was invited to developer Ubisoft Quebecs studio in Quebec City to play six hours of a preview build before the games March 20 release. We were shown a few early cinematics introducing us to the games two protagonists Naoe and Yasuke, explored the games open world, completed one of the games main missions and a few side activities, and played around with the games Hideout customization mode. Most of the demo was set in the Southwestern region of Harima, where our heroes followed clues to find those responsible for stealing a precious box tied to Naoes past.The challenge with a long-running series like Assassins Creed is that fans have certain expectations of the franchise yet demand that each entry feel fundamentally new and different from everything thats come before. Its a tenuous balancing act, but the team at Ubisoft Quebec seems to have approached it this time not by necessarily expanding the scope of Shadows in comparison to previous titles but by deepening, refining, and even subverting the core concepts of Assassins Creed. Shadows doesnt feel quite like a revelation (no pun intended), but its not a minor or iterative effort either. Rather, from what weve seen and played, its a distillation of everything that makes these games so good, improving greatly on the foundation built in titles past.Japan at Long LastFans have fantasized about an Assassins Creed game set in Japan since the early days of the franchise, and the anticipation wasnt lost on the team at Ubisoft, who internally was eager to finally dive into the historical period themselves. Shadows story is set in the year 1579 during Japans Warring States Period, with daimy (feudal lords) like Oda Nobunaga jostling for power.Yasuke is taken under Nobunagas wing and trained to be a samurai when he arrives on the shores of Japan at the service of Portuguese Jesuits. Yasuke is based on a historical figure of the same name, the first Black samurai, and in the games story represents the perspective of nobility.Naoe views things from the perspective of commoners and working-class people. She was trained to be a shinobi (ninja) by her father and has been largely shielded by him from the larger machinations of war raging across Japan. She never knew her mother and knows little of her familys background, but as shes thrust into the strife of the conflict, she learns about the nature of her lineage and decides to build a brighter future for her people.At its heart, its a story about community, associate narrative director Brooke Davies tells Den of Geek. Its about rebuilding after loss with chosen family. These are ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances, and the team really poured their hearts into exploring these stories in this tremendous historical context.The team at Ubisoft Quebec spent time in Japan, consulted experts in the field of Japanese history, and did extensive research to craft an open world that feels even more immersive and transportive than prior Assassins Creed titles, and more historically rich and accurate than any version of Feudal Japan seen in a video game. [The research process] was so inspiring and exciting for us, Davies says. We immersed ourselves in Japanese history every day.Shadows is technically the first completely new-gen game in the franchise (Valhalla and Mirage were both released for new and last-gen platforms), and its abundantly clear once you start exploring the games lush environments. Whether youre riding your horse along rice fields or stealthing your way into a heavily guarded fortress (you can enter virtually every building in the game, by the way), the visuals are picturesque and absurdly detailed, down to the texture and reflectiveness of materials in houses and flight patterns of birds. The game even features new cloud and wind simulation never seen in the series before, as well as dynamic changing of seasons.We built new graphics technologies for this game as we were developing the game itself. We built systems for textures, wind, facial animation, and even hair, explains game director Charles Benoit.Its not just that the game looks pretty or realistic. Its that the high fidelity of the environments makes the game world more engaging to explore. Open-world games have a tendency to feel empty after a few dozen hours of play, but the section of Shadows game world that we played was anything but dull and encouraged exploration not just to find new things to do, but to find new things to gawk at.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Exploration was something we really focused on to make sure players looked around at the world and werent just dragged around by icons on a map, Benoit says. We want players to discover things on their own just by moving around.The little side quests you do find in the open world arent mere distractions or bits of busy work. Naoe can happen upon animals doing different cute animal things (like cuddling!) that she can then paint. Then, you can hang that painting up in the Hideout, the games fully customizable base of operations, and even bring the animals to the Hideout to frolic and play! Any characters and items you collect in the game world can be found back at the Hideout, and customizing the layout, buildings, and displays is way more fun than youd expect.A New Way to PlayThe core gameplay elements of Assassins Creedparkour, stealth, melee combatare all represented in Shadows and feel familiar on first touch. Series veterans will be able to pick up and play, no problem. But once you actually engage enemies and try to, say, loot a fortress, you find out very quickly that the stealth and combat in this game is a completely different beast.The first thing to understand is that Yasuke and Naoe play completely differently. Seriously, this is as asymmetrical as it gets. Yasuke can take a whole lot of hits and can wreck shop with giant swords and hammers that deal out massive damage, much like the weapons-based combat from Assassins Creed Valhalla and Ubisoft Quebecs own Assassins Creed Odyssey, but with more heft to it (blocking, parrying, and good timing in general are key). Its not that Yasukes a tank. Parkour is definitely within his skillset, but its not his wheelhouse. For example, if you try to run across the spine of a rooftop with Yasuke, youre absolutely going to get stuck with arrows. Hes slow but powerful, especially compared to Naoe.Naoe is the most nimble, agile assassin in the entire franchise thus far. Shes quick, elusive, and can get herself out of trouble in a snap. But if youre not thoughtful about your approach to enemy encounters and get pinned down, she cant take much damage at all. Itll probably be curtains. But if youre tactical with your stealth, you can take out dozens of guards without alerting a soul.There are some little improvements to stealth that make enemy encounters in Shadows feel significantly more dynamic and challenging than any other entry in the series. Theres the ability to go prone, for example, which reduces the sound you make (yes, enemies react to light and sound disturbances now). And get thisenemies can look up now, too! So the old trick of losing guards by simply skittering up onto a rooftop doesnt work anymore. Theyll sniff you out and corner you if youre not precise. We wanted to change some of the games key systems to change the way you play the game and feel the story, Benoit explains. With prone, light and shadows, and sound, its a way for players to kind of rediscover stealth in Assassins Creed.The specialized nature of Yasuke and Naoes respective skill sets mean you need to play tactically and adaptivelyYasuke wears heavy armor and isnt that stealthy, and Naoe taking on multiple enemies at once seldom ends well. This creates an extra layer of strategy that you must consider when deciding who you want to take into each mission. The best part is that both of them are fun to play, and youre incentivized to switch between them as opposed to leaning on one all the way through.During production, we had moments where we had to balance things between Naoe and Yasuke, Benoit recalls. At first, Naoe was super good at everything. She could stealth and was super good at fights, and Yasuke had missing something. So we pulled some levers, removed some things from Naoe and added things to Yasukes game to make him a superior fighter. They feel very different from each other, but its all very balanced.The result of these refinements is stealth and combat thats more intense, challenging, high-stakes, and volatile than weve seen in the series before. Its more engaging and strategic than previous titles and feels almost akin to IO Interactives Hitman games.An Homage to Japanese CinemaFrom what weve experienced so far, Shadows is a joy to play. Its not only that it feels like a real effort to give players everything they love about this series; the games cinematic elements have been elevated as well. The most noticeable difference is the cinematographyall of the camera angles and compositions feel heavily inspired by the greats of Japanese cinema like Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. Character conversations almost always look stilted in open-world games, but theres an uncommon level of care put into the cutscenes here.Mo-cap is another big difference-maker, with actors Masumi Tsunoda (Naoe) and Tongayi Chirisa (Yasuke) infusing their characters with humanity and pure emotion. The performances here are seriously brilliant. Theres a brutal, heartbreaking scene early in the game that introduces the storys villains, and without spoiling too much, Tsunodas acting is startlingly powerful and evocative in this sequence.The games music is evocative as well, with sweeping orchestral pieces organically mixed with modern psychedelic rock and hip-hop. Its a strange musical tapestry that doesnt seem like it should work, but it totally does. The changes in style and genre coincide with the changing emotions of the scenes, so the music is almost seamlessly woven into the story.It takes a village to bring these moments from script to screen, Davies says. We were fortunate to work with a great cinematic design team and amazing performers. The actors really embodied their roles, and our music really heightens the emotion. [Each of our teams] comes together to make sure these key emotional moments are felt by the player.Like any great piece of Japanese cinema, Shadows aims to tell a story with a profound message. While fictionalized, Naoe and Yasukes journeys speak to real-world issues and reflect not just the tumult of Feudal Japan, but aspects of humanity and compassion that resound in the world of today.Shadows is about people coming together to make the world a better place, to bring light into difficult times, Davies says. I hope players feel like theyre part of that story.Assassins Creed Shadows is out on March 20 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.