Tootfinder

🕸️ Spiders inspire biologists to create artificial webs to capture airborne DNA for biodiversity monitoring
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-spiders-biologists-artificial-webs-capture.html

Spiders inspire biologists to create artificial webs to capture airborne DNA for biodiversity monitoring
The global crisis of diminishing biological diversity is challenging our current ability to monitor changes in ecosystems.

Synthesizing Artifact Dataset for Pixel-level Detection
Dennis Menn, Feng Liang, Diana Marculescu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19589 https://arxiv.org/pdf/25…

Synthesizing Artifact Dataset for Pixel-level Detection
Artifact detectors have been shown to enhance the performance of image-generative models by serving as reward models during fine-tuning. These detectors enable the generative model to improve overall output fidelity and aesthetics. However, training the artifact detector requires expensive pixel-level human annotations that specify the artifact regions. The lack of annotated data limits the performance of the artifact detector. A naive pseudo-labeling approach-training a weak detector and using…

Anthropic says Claude Opus 4.5 is "harder to trick with prompt injection than any other frontier model in the industry" but isn't "immune" to such attacks (Hayden Field/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-int

Anthropic’s new model is its latest frontier in the AI agent battle — but it’s still facing cybersecurity concerns
Claude Opus 4.5 is out today.

ArtiFree: Detecting and Reducing Generative Artifacts in Diffusion-based Speech Enhancement
Bhawana Chhaglani, Yang Gao, Julius Richter, Xilin Li, Syavosh Zadissa, Tarun Pruthi, Andrew Lovitt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19495

ArtiFree: Detecting and Reducing Generative Artifacts in Diffusion-based Speech Enhancement
Diffusion-based speech enhancement (SE) achieves natural-sounding speech and strong generalization, yet suffers from key limitations like generative artifacts and high inference latency. In this work, we systematically study artifact prediction and reduction in diffusion-based SE. We show that variance in speech embeddings can be used to predict phonetic errors during inference. Building on these findings, we propose an ensemble inference method guided by semantic consistency across multiple di…

I knew that little galvanized steel fucker wasn't dead
https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-copilot/microsofts-new-copilot-has-a-secret-it-can-turn-into-clipp…

Microsoft's new Copilot has a secret: It can turn into Clippy, if you know how
The new Copilot avatar Mico has a hidden easter egg that lets you turn it into Clippy by tapping it a number of times.

Advances in artificial vision systems: a comprehensive review of technologies, applications, and future directions https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13534-025-00513-4 "clinical value hinges on durability, effective resolution, surgical practicality, and user t…

Advances in artificial vision systems: a comprehensive review of technologies, applications, and future directions - Biomedical Engineering Letters
This review article focuses on recent advancements and persistent challenges in artificial vision prostheses designed to restore sight for patients affected by retinal diseases. It comprehensively examines various approaches, including epiretinal, subretinal, and suprachoroidal implants, as well as optic nerve and visual cortex stimulation strategies. The critical role of the retina in visual perception is explored, emphasizing how retinal degeneration affects the transmission of visual informa…

If you are still using javax.mail.jar 1.x aka #JavaMail be aware that this is not supported any more. As a quick fix you can use the 1.6.8 release of jakarta.mail
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com

🦾 Artificial tendons give muscle-powered robots a boost
#robotics

Artificial tendons give muscle-powered robots a boost
Our muscles are nature's actuators. The sinewy tissue is what generates the forces that make our bodies move. In recent years, engineers have used real muscle tissue to actuate "biohybrid robots" made from both living tissue and synthetic parts. By pairing lab-grown muscles with synthetic skeletons, researchers are engineering a menagerie of muscle-powered crawlers, walkers, swimmers, and grippers.

"A high acuity is trivially obtained at the expense of field of view through suitable enlarging optics, so whenever a high acuity is claimed for a visual prosthesis one must also check if the corresponding field of view is better than tunnel vision." https://www.artificialvision.com/neuralink

A look at the growing reliance of US data centers and the Pentagon on Chinese batteries, a dependence increasingly viewed as a national security threat (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/…

The Pentagon and A.I. Giants Have a Weakness. Both Need China’s Batteries, Badly.
As warfare is reinvented in Ukraine, and Silicon Valley races to maintain its A.I. lead, China’s battery dominance is raising alarms far beyond the auto industry.