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Duke University has announced plans to provide a tuition-free education to eligible students living in North Carolina and South Carolina.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 29, 2023--

Microsoft has made the world’s first purchase agreement for nuclear fusion energy, betting that the next-generation technology will be capable of producing electricity at a commercial scale by 2028. The US tech firm made the deal with fusion research firm Helion Energy, which is aiming to have a 50MW nuclear fusion power plant set up within the next five years. This is despite several significant research hurdles that still need to be overcome before it becomes a viable source of clean energy. “This collaboration represents a significant milestone for Helion and the fusion industy as a whole,” said Helion chief executive David Kirtley. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we are confident in our ability to deliver the world’s first fusion power facility.” Nuclear fusion promises near-limitless energy by mimicking the natural reactions that occur within the Sun. It has been referred to as the “holy grail” of clean energy, as it requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste. Scientists have made several major breakthroughs with the technology in recent years, with researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California announcing the first ever fusion ignition last year. This meant that they had achieved a net energy gain for the first time using nuclear fusion, marking “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century”, according to US Energy Secretary Jennifer Graham. At the time, scientists said that commercial nuclear fusion was still likely to be a decade a way due to the complicated and expensive nature of scaling up the process. Microsoft’s bet that it can be achieved in half that time marks the latest phase of the company’s 2020 pledge to be carbon negative by 2030. If achieved, Microsoft could become the first major tech firm to remove more carbon from the environment than it emits, while a longer term goal aims to eliminate all carbon the firm has ever emitted since it was founded in 1975. “We are optimistic that fusion energy can be an important technology to help the world transition to clean energy,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith. “Helion’s announcement supports our long term clean energy goals and will advance the market to establish a new, efficient method for bringing more clean energy to the grid faster.” Read More Nuclear fusion breakthrough holds promise of ‘near-limitless’ clean energy

Popular streamer Kai Cenat mistakenly confuses a Japanese man for fellow streamer xQc during an IRL stream in Tokyo

Robots could soon take over doctors’ jobs, according to experts. A recent study found that AI technology was able to accurately diagnose patients in a healthcare setting. Investigators found the controversial model ChatGPT to be nearly 72 per cent accurate in making clinical decisions. It was also 77 per cent accurate in making final diagnoses. It was able to come up with possible diagnoses, final diagnoses and care management decisions. The artificial intelligence chatbot was found to perform equally well in both primary care and emergency settings. Researchers at Mass General Brigham in Boston, Massachusetts conducted the study. They tested how ChatGPT would be able to work through an entire clinical encounter with a patient. This included recommending a diagnostic workup, deciding the clinical management course, and ultimately making the final diagnosis. It was tested by putting 36 published clinical descriptions into ChatGPT. Patient gender, age and symptoms were put into the language model. ChatGPT was then given further information and asked to make management decisions and a final diagnosis. This simulates the process of seeing a real patient. However, scientists also found it was less accurate - 60 per cent - at making several possible diagnoses. Co-author Marc Succi said: “Our paper comprehensively assesses decision support via ChatGPT from the very beginning of working with a patient through the entire care scenario, from differential diagnosis all the way through testing, diagnosis, and management. ”No real benchmarks exist, but we estimate this performance to be at the level of someone who has just graduated from medical school, such as an intern or resident. ”This tells us that LLMs in general have the potential to be an augmenting tool for the practice of medicine and support clinical decision making with impressive accuracy.” The research team say they will soon be looking at whether AI tools can improve patient care and outcomes in resource-constrained areas of hospitals. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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