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When we think of extraterrestrials, our minds generally go from the latex-suited bipedal aliens seen in Star Trek and Star Wars to more exotic critters in sci-fi movies. Scientists think in terms of carbon-based microbial life and other lower life forms. But some researchers, such as Mikhail Tikhonov from Washington University, suggest that life can take more unusual forms, ones we might not even recognize. He further suggests a new definition of life: something that takes in and transforms energy and replicates. His ideas radically expand our notions of alien life and how it might be recognized.



Headlines:

Space Shuttle Endeavour's New Launch Configuration Exhibit Debuts

SpaceX Prepares for Starship Flight 15's First Attempted Double Landing

Risks and Stakes for SpaceX's Reusable Starship Program

Main Topic: Searching for Alien Life—Redefining the Approach

Origins and motivations for thinking differently about our definition of life

Traditional "follow the water" strategy versus seeking energy as life's marker

Challenges in recognizing non-Earth-like life forms

Signature of life through energy use and ecological patterns

Implications for planetary exploration and sampling, including Mars, Europa, and Venus

Theoretical examples and sci-fi inspirations for nontraditional life

Current research intersections between physics and microbial ecology

Limits, opportunities, and philosophical implications of agnostic biosignature searches

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

Guest: Mikhail Tikhonov

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Jacob Ward shows the show this week! Jensen Huang was first reported as a target in a Chinese spy plot and has since resigned from Nvidia following numerous reported extramarital affairs! Hands-on with Apple's new touchscreen MacBook Pro. And are wearable devices using your data to train AI models?

Jacob talks about Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang admitting to an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whose company bought nearly $5 billion in Nvidia chips and who was reportedly flagged in a US intelligence memo as a suspected Chinese asset.

Nvidia also announced that Huang is stepping down, with CFO Colette Kress taking over as interim CEO, amid a missing succession plan, a Bernstein downgrade, and reports of a second affair. Jacob and Mikah discuss the board's reported concern over Huang's alleged dishonesty and the regulatory scrutiny awaiting his successor.

ZDNet's Kyle Kucharski joins the show to share his review of Apple's touchscreen MacBook Pro, calling it still very much a MacBook, with a stunning OLED display, great battery life, and excellent speakers.

And Mikah looks at a year-long Science investigation of 57 consumer EEG companies that found several are training AI "brain foundation models" on customers' brainwave data, often without clear disclosure.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jacob Ward

Guest: Kyle Kucharski

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NVIDIA's RTX Spark ushers in a new era for Windows PCs with massive unified memory and a game-changing GPU—if you can figure out how to tap into its raw power. This episode breaks down what makes Spark intriguing and why its target audience is anyone but casual users.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Which AI model should you use, and how much effort should it put in? Using Claude as the example, Mikah Sargent explains its four model families, Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, and Fable, and its five effort levels, and shows that ChatGPT and Gemini have the same two dials. He explains what an AI model's "thinking" actually is and what changes when you switch models or turn up the effort. He compares an easy job on a light setup and a heavy one, tests a logic puzzle with one right answer at two effort levels, and explains why the top setting isn't automatically the best one. Then he shares a way to choose that works in any chatbot.

Send your AI questions to handsonai@twit.tv

Host: Mikah Sargent

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