Udaya Rongala

[New Paper] Discussing the effects of intrinsic sensory dependencies in fully recurrent cortical-like networks

Great work towards a more embodied understanding of sensory representations in cortical-like networks!! @rudayb

Israel's indiscriminate bombing is hitting hospitals, refugee camps, and killing thousands of innocent people. It must stop now.

July 2023 was the hottest month on record, according to our global temperature analysis. Overall, July was 0.43°F (0.24°C) warmer than any other July in @NASAEarth's record, and it's likely due to human activity. Details: go.nasa.gov/3OTWMh7

Not to be alarmist but…this is what’s called a six-sigma event, now unfolding in Antarctica. Otherwise known as a once-in-7.5-million-year event. Hang onto your hats. HT @EliotJacobson

Is this our first Extinction Summer? They're calling it a global heatwave. Temperature records are shattered. Floods roar globally, and so do wildfires. There are 3 things everyone should understand right now about our civilization, its climate, and where we go from here. 1/6

Now this is getting to be crazily bad. #climate

I giorni più caldi sulla Terra da quando si rilevano dati: 1) Giovedì (17,23°C) 2) Ieri (17,20°C) 3) Mercoledì (17,18°C) 4) Martedì (17,18°C) 5) Lunedì (17,01°C) climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/

A mind-blowing paper has come out today in @Nature In 2016, JC Venter Institute scientists trimmed a bacterial genome to its barest minimum required for life to synthesize what they called a "minimal genome" (science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…). Today, a group of scientists from Indiana University reports how that minimal genome evolved over 2000 generations in comparison to the non-minimal genome. The authors found that even when you reduce a bacterial genome to its absolute minimum where every nucleotide matters, the genome undergoes mutational events generation after generation as much as the non-minimal genome. One simply cannot stop the evolution. Just over 300 days of evolution (equivalent to 40,000 years in humans) the minimal cell has gained everything it lacked in fitness on day one in comparison to the non-minimal cell. When comparing the evolved traits between the minimal and non-minimal cells, the scientists found something striking. The evolutionary process increased the cell size of non-minimal cells but not that of the minimal cell. But that is not the striking part. The scientists were able to identify the key mutation that resulted in cell size evolution. And it turned out that the mutation that helped the non-minimal cells to grow bigger is the same that helped the minimal cells to stay smaller. Growing bigger had a survival advantage for non-minimal cells and not growing bigger had a survival advantage for minimal cells. So, the mutation had a context-dependent effect. This just demonstrates that the evolutionary effects on traits have no absolute direction. All that matter is what is beneficial for the organism's survival. The conclusion of the paper is metaphorically a quote from the Jurassic Park movie: “Listen, if there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but . . . life finds a way". (scienmag.com/artificial-cel…) nature.com/articles/s4158…

@delhayeben @frsFNRS @UCLouvain_be Congratulations

Really proud, humbled, and excited to announce that I was awarded a research associate position by @frsFNRS to start my own lab at @UCLouvain_be!

Three of the most terrifying graphs on the internet right now.

As you get excited about new products revealed at #WWDC23, let me remind you that institutions in this country regularly pay recyclers to destroy millions of perfectly good Apple devices that you were just as excited about 3-10 years ago. #righttorepair #righttorefurbish

Email I sent in response to @NatureComms´s request for me to act as a reviewer today (part 1 of 2). #OpenAccess isn´t open if those of us in developing countries are economically excluded from publishing equitably.

100 years ago my father Babu Jagjivan Ram was prohibited from drinking water in school from the pitcher meant for Savarna Hindus. It was a miracle his life was saved. 1/2

Our study on large-area bioinspired tactile-sensitive skin for collaborative robotics just published by @NatMachIntell Excellent scientific collaboration among @ScuolaSantAnna @IITalk @SapienzaRoma @CampusBioMedico @CaFoscari and ARTES4.0 Competence Center #citeas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4225…

💥 BREAKING💥 A senior safety consultant for @Shell just quit with a jaw dropping email to the CEO and 1400 employees over “extreme harms” that the oil and gas giant is responsible for. linkedin.com/posts/caroline… #jumpship #truthteller #StopJackdaw #ClimateJustice

A safety consultant who spent more than a decade working as a contractor for Shell has publicly resigned, claiming the oil and gas company is causing “extreme harm” to the planet trib.al/JMWeKyc

.@earthsight’s investigation is out now & connects the dots between the theft of the Guarani Kaiowá’s land in southern #Brazil with the destruction of the uncontacted Ayoreo’s forest in #Paraguay & European supermarkets. @JournoJane independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

@svpino @readwise save thread

Someone asked me last week what's the "hello world" of machine learning. Here are 4 problems I'd recommend if you want to start from the basics:

Show it to that “epidemiologist” who’s going around spreading that everybody will get infected anyway who why even bother with boosters etc. And he sits on top govt pandemic committees.