Aug 14, 2025 09:14 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 14, 2025 09:46 PM by C C.)
MIT researchers use generative AI to design compounds that can kill drug-resistant bacteria
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094312
INTRO: With help from artificial intelligence, MIT researchers have designed novel antibiotics that can combat two hard-to-treat infections: drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Using generative AI algorithms, the research team designed more than 36 million possible compounds and computationally screened them for antimicrobial properties. The top candidates they discovered are structurally distinct from any existing antibiotics, and they appear to work by novel mechanisms that disrupt bacterial cell membranes.
This approach allowed the researchers to generate and evaluate theoretical compounds that have never been seen before — a strategy that they now hope to apply to identify and design compounds with activity against other species of bacteria.
“We’re excited about the new possibilities that this project opens up for antibiotics development. Our work shows the power of AI from a drug design standpoint, and enables us to exploit much larger chemical spaces that were previously inaccessible,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering.
Collins is the senior author of the study, which appears today in Cell. The paper’s lead authors are MIT postdoc Aarti Krishnan, former postdoc Melis Anahtar ’08, and Jacqueline Valeri PhD ’23... (MORE - details, no ads)
The forgotten war on the Walkman
https://www.freethink.com/consumer-tech/...chnophobia
EXCERPTS: First released in 1979, the Sony Walkman is now an icon of the 1980s, eliciting nostalgia for the “good old days” of owning music rather than renting it. Affection for the device is now universal, but that wasn’t always the case…
A collage of newspaper headlines expresses concern about Walkmans, calling them a menace, and discusses bans, public furor, and fears of social isolation caused by personal stereos.
The sudden rise of headphone-wearing pedestrians — spurred by Sony’s lightweight headsets, which were 17% the weight of others’ devices — caused unease about an unfamiliar new world quickly coming into view.
Vintage newspaper clippings discuss the social impact of Walkman headphones, featuring headlines and black-and-white photos of people wearing headphones in public settings.
Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan- and Thatcher-style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman “a nonstop…masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind.” Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a “protective sort of withdrawal from social connections.” Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug “soma,” from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” creating, as he put it, “an airtight bubble of sound” that was nothing but a “sensory depressant.”
[...] After a number of accidents involving Walkman headphones, numerous states across the US swiftly put into effect (or proposed) restrictions, many related to headphone use while driving or cycling...
[...] The price for breaking this prohibition? A potential two-week stay in jail and a fine...
The day the law was put into effect, Oscar Gross, a retiree from a neighboring town, was spurred into action. Seething, he approached Police Sergeant Lou Monzo, purposefully donned his headphones, and crossed the street.
Two black-and-white newspaper clippings show a man being cited by a police officer for wearing headphones in public, with headlines discussing opposition to the Walkman law... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094312
INTRO: With help from artificial intelligence, MIT researchers have designed novel antibiotics that can combat two hard-to-treat infections: drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Using generative AI algorithms, the research team designed more than 36 million possible compounds and computationally screened them for antimicrobial properties. The top candidates they discovered are structurally distinct from any existing antibiotics, and they appear to work by novel mechanisms that disrupt bacterial cell membranes.
This approach allowed the researchers to generate and evaluate theoretical compounds that have never been seen before — a strategy that they now hope to apply to identify and design compounds with activity against other species of bacteria.
“We’re excited about the new possibilities that this project opens up for antibiotics development. Our work shows the power of AI from a drug design standpoint, and enables us to exploit much larger chemical spaces that were previously inaccessible,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering.
Collins is the senior author of the study, which appears today in Cell. The paper’s lead authors are MIT postdoc Aarti Krishnan, former postdoc Melis Anahtar ’08, and Jacqueline Valeri PhD ’23... (MORE - details, no ads)
The forgotten war on the Walkman
https://www.freethink.com/consumer-tech/...chnophobia
EXCERPTS: First released in 1979, the Sony Walkman is now an icon of the 1980s, eliciting nostalgia for the “good old days” of owning music rather than renting it. Affection for the device is now universal, but that wasn’t always the case…
A collage of newspaper headlines expresses concern about Walkmans, calling them a menace, and discusses bans, public furor, and fears of social isolation caused by personal stereos.
The sudden rise of headphone-wearing pedestrians — spurred by Sony’s lightweight headsets, which were 17% the weight of others’ devices — caused unease about an unfamiliar new world quickly coming into view.
Vintage newspaper clippings discuss the social impact of Walkman headphones, featuring headlines and black-and-white photos of people wearing headphones in public settings.
Some said it was a sign of a continued rise of Reagan- and Thatcher-style individualism. Cultural critic Allan Bloom deemed the Walkman “a nonstop…masturbational fantasy” in his 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind.” Neo-Luddite John Zerzan saw the Walkman as part of a modern trend that encouraged a “protective sort of withdrawal from social connections.” Thomas Lipscomb, chief of the Center for the Digital Future, equated it with the euphoric drug “soma,” from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” creating, as he put it, “an airtight bubble of sound” that was nothing but a “sensory depressant.”
[...] After a number of accidents involving Walkman headphones, numerous states across the US swiftly put into effect (or proposed) restrictions, many related to headphone use while driving or cycling...
[...] The price for breaking this prohibition? A potential two-week stay in jail and a fine...
The day the law was put into effect, Oscar Gross, a retiree from a neighboring town, was spurred into action. Seething, he approached Police Sergeant Lou Monzo, purposefully donned his headphones, and crossed the street.
Two black-and-white newspaper clippings show a man being cited by a police officer for wearing headphones in public, with headlines discussing opposition to the Walkman law... (MORE - missing details)