We have a wealth of cool science announcement to round off the year with.
We’ll start with the announcement about how two separate teams have successfully entangled pairs of calcium monofluoride molecules. This is exciting in the context of quantum computing in which the basic unit of computing is a qubit. The question is what do we make qubits out of, physically? This is the first time that a qubit has been constructed out of pairs of single molecules and will for obvious reasons make it much more feasible to scale a quantum computer to a useful level. Of course so far this news is only about creating the entangled pairs which is a long way from an actual quantum computer.
Next is a product that I’d actually want to use myself if it really works. A new company claims that they have a modified strain of bacteria that when introduced into a person’s mouth, will eventually outcompete the other native bacteria, making it the dominant strain in your oral microbiome. What makes their strain different is that it lacks the gene to create lactic acid from breaking down sugars and it is this acid that breaks down tooth enamel and causes cavities. Their version breaks down sugars into a small amount of alcohol instead. Theoretically a single application would last a lifetime and significantly reduce or perhaps even negate the need to brush teeth or visit a dentist. Incredibly the science behind it has been known since 2000 but it has never been made commercially available to the general public. The usual caution applies in that all this is claimed by the company itself and will need to be independently verified.
Next are a couple of papers in the field of AI. The first of these describe an autonomous laboratory that successfully synthesized novel materials, specifically inorganic powders. The platform integrates machine learning models to propose synthesis recipes to attempt, a robotic laboratory that carries out the recipe, and characterization of the result through X-ray diffraction. When the recipe fails, the system is able to propose improved follow-up recipes to try. The system was able to create 41 novel compounds over 17 days of continuous operation. I’m sure how useful these novel compounds are or how this compares to the productive output of traditional laboratories staffed by humans. But it’s proof that AI-led scientific development is a real thing.
The other one is a deep dive into a research project by Anthropic to understand what actually goes on inside a neural network. As we all know, these networks are essentially black boxes. We feed it an input and we get an output but it’s impossible to understand how it arrived at that output. So Anthropic built a very small and simple network and with the help of another network built an interface to understand and break down the first network into its smallest components. In particular, the smallest component isn’t a single neuron because the activation of a given neuron might have a specific meaning but that same neuron activated in combination with some others might mean something else entirely. The paper really only for the experts but it’s a fascinating attempt at looking inside the black box.
Finally we end with a weird bit of science news to prove that reality is crazier than the imagination of any science-fiction writer. This article talks about the Japanese green syllid worm, a species that reproduces through a process called stolonization. This means that its rear end, or butt, can detach from the main body to swim away and seek out other detached rear ends from other worms to mate with. To make this possible, the rear end of the worm has its own set of eyes, antennae and a simple brain. The article goes on about the genes that regulate the development of this strange organism and speculate that at some point in its evolution, it started to develop a second head further down its body leading to this form of reproduction.
We’re no strangers to films that are heavy on symbolism but there’s just too much in this one that we can’t decipher. Victor Erice isn’t a director we’ve seen before and this seems to be pretty much his only film of note. The fact that this is considered one of the masterpieces of Spanish cinema was enough to get it added onto my watch list but even knowing that this was made during a time of heavy censorship in Francoist Spain wasn’t enough to make much sense of it. The individual scenes are mesmerizing and I can see how there is so much intentionality behind them. Yet without the necessary cultural references, I’m reduced to making only the vaguest of guesses as to what it is trying to say and that’s no fun at all.
I keep meaning to go back to Sergio Leone’s films but some of them are very long, making them difficult to fit into a watching schedule. This Western stars Charles Bronson as the protagonist and I believe that this was their only collaboration. It’s certainly a more complex film and the intent seems to be to obfuscate the plot and the exact role of each character. It’s a lavish production that oozes with style and achieves its remarkable length by being not afraid to let the camera linger interminably on every expression of the faces of the characters. It’s nothing special in terms of story or theme, but it does successfully frame the Western genre as a larger than life epic of mythic proportions and that is enough to qualify it as a great cinematic work.
This time we’re going all the way back to the very first feature film by Lars von Trier. I may not enjoy every one of Trier’s films but I can’t deny that they’re each so unique. The concept of a detective who dives so deep into the mind of the serial killer he is hunting that he becomes lost isn’t novel by now and I’m even getting some Max Payne vibes from the main character. The execution and aesthetics are something else however with practically every shot being shocking or just plain weird. Plus it even offers a justification for the world seeming to be the way it is! I wouldn’t read too much into what it means but it is rather satisfying to watch.
I first tried King of Dragon Pass ages ago but only finished it when A Sharp got around to releasing a modernized, downloadable version. I even wrote a game diary of the experience 10 years ago! Apparently the new version did so well, they decided to make more of them! As with the original game, this is set in Chaosium’s Glorantha fantasy setting but the story here takes place before the events shown in King of Dragon Pass, so it’s really a prequel. Mechanically this works almost exactly the same, with expanded options for battles and of course as it still uses hand-drawn art, it even looks similar. Unfortunately I’ve found that I still remember my playthrough of the first game enough that more of the same wasn’t very satisfying to me and the same approach just isn’t novel enough now to hold my interest.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think many any coming-of-age film that involves the main character needing to choose between different religions, so that’s enough to make this film interesting to me. Add to that how it boldly confronts issues like menstruation, and it’s no wonder this is a favorite of the critics. Strong as the pitch is, this film kind of flubs it by being too nice and too light-hearted. Margaret’s family is so sweet and so supportive and her problems so easily resolved with minimal fuss that we barely see her struggling with anything. It’s a pleasant film to watch but it feels like it ends too soon without Margaret having to get into any serious confrontations and that’s just not very satisfying.
We’ve watched many films by Akira Kurosawa but none have been quite like this, a lesser known one from very early in the director’s career. It’s about a student movement against the rise of militarism in Japan just before the Second World War, thus providing a relatively rare Japanese perspective of the war. It’s also notable in that it stars Setsuko Hara, who is best known for her collaborations with Yasujirō Ozu. I believe this is the only film in which Kurosawa and Hara worked together and I’m fascinated by how Kurosawa uses the actress in a way Ozu never would. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy in its execution so this isn’t considered to be a great film. But making this film in 1946 must have been an incredibly bold artistic statement and I really have to admire that.
