Tag Archives: recreate

AI Company Aims to Recreate Lost Footage from Orson Welles’ Masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons

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An AI company is set to recreate the missing 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ iconic film, The Magnificent Ambersons.

As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Showrunner Platform aims to utilize AI technologies for this reconstruction project.

Edward Saatchi, CEO of the interactive AI filmmaking studio Fable, is overseeing the project. In a statement to Indiewire, he stated, “We’re starting with Orson Welles because he is the greatest storyteller of the last two centuries… Many people hold valid concerns about AI’s influence on cinema.”

The report indicates that the showrunner is collaborating with filmmaker Brian Rose, who has been working since 2019 to reconstruct the missing segments through animation and VFX expert Tom Clive.

Welles began production in 1942 on Ambersons, following his Oscar-winning debut with Citizen Kane. He had previously adapted the novel into a radio drama in 1939.

Unfortunately, some footage from the completed film was cut after unfavorable audience test screenings, and Welles lost final cut rights due to negotiations with the studio. While editing the film, he traveled to Brazil and started work on It’s All True, ultimately re-editing Ambersons’ finale. RKO stated that Welles felt “completely betrayed.” The master negative of the excised footage was later destroyed to free up storage space.

Numerous efforts have been made to restore or recreate the film. The working print sent to Welles in Brazil is believed to be lost. Filmmaker Joshua Grossberg is leading the search for this elusive footage. A reconstruction using still photographs was showcased at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005.


However, the search has informed Hollywood reporters that the showrunners do not hold the rights to The Magnificent Ambersons, making it unlikely that the resulting footage will be shown outside of academic settings and exhibitions. “The aim isn’t to monetize the 43 minutes, but to make it available after 80 years of speculation on whether this was the best film in its original form,” they stated.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Scientists use genes from pre-animal choanoflagellates to recreate mice

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Scientists at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Hong Kong have utilized genetic tools from single-celled organisms that share a common ancestor with animals to create mouse stem cells capable of producing fully developed mice.

Choanoflagellate Sox can induce pluripotency in mammalian cells. Image credit: Gao others., doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54152-x.

Alex de Mendoza, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London, and his colleagues used genes found in choanoflagellates, single-celled organisms related to animals, to create stem cells that were then employed in giving birth to living, breathing mice.

Choanoflagellates are the closest living relatives of animals, housing genes in their genomes that support pluripotency in mammalian stem cells, including versions of Sox and POU.

This surprising discovery challenges the notion that these genes only evolved within animals.

“With the successful creation of mice using molecular tools derived from our single-celled relatives, we are witnessing an incredible continuity of function spanning nearly a billion years of evolution,” Dr. Mendoza stated.

“This research suggests that crucial genes involved in stem cell formation may have originated well before the stem cells themselves, potentially paving the way for the multicellular life we observe today,” he added.

Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize in 2012 for demonstrating the obtainment of stem cells from differentiated cells by expressing factors such as Sox (Sox2) and POU (Oct4) genes, highlighted the significance of the study.

In their research, Dr. de Mendoza and co-authors incorporated the choanoflagellate Sox gene into mouse cells, leading to reprogramming into a pluripotent stem cell state.

These reprogrammed cells were then injected into developing mouse embryos to assess their efficacy.

The resulting chimeric mice displayed physical attributes from both donor embryos and laboratory-derived stem cells, highlighting the essential role these ancient genes play in shaping animal development.

This study showcases how early versions of the Sox and POU proteins, known for binding to DNA and regulating other genes, were utilized by unicellular ancestors for functions critical to stem cell development and animal growth.

“Despite choanoflagellates lacking stem cells and being unicellular organisms, they possess these genes, likely governing fundamental cellular processes that multicellular animals later repurposed to construct intricate bodies,” Dr. Mendoza explained.

“This newfound insight underscores the evolutionary adaptability of genetic tools and how early life forms employed similar mechanisms for controlling cell production, even before the emergence of truly multicellular organisms,” he concluded.

“This discovery goes beyond evolutionary biology and could lead to innovative advancements in regenerative medicine.”

A paper detailing the study findings was published in Nature Communications.

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Y. Gao others. 2024. The appearance of Sox and POU transcription factors predates the origin of animal stem cells. Nature Communications 15, 9868;doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54152-x

This article is based on a press release provided by Queen Mary University of London.

Source: www.sci.news

Researchers recreate the appearance of 400-year-old Polish ‘vampire’ Zosia

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“Zosia” was buried with a padlock on her leg and an iron sickle around her neck, and was never supposed to come back to life.

The young woman buried in an unmarked cemetery in Pien, northern Poland, was one of dozens of people feared by her neighbors to be “vampires.”

Now, a team of scientists has used DNA, 3D printing, and clay modeling to reconstruct Zosia’s 400-year-old face, revealing a human story buried in supernatural beliefs.

“In a way, it’s really ironic,” says Swedish archaeologist Oskar Nilsson. “The people who buried her did everything they could to prevent her from rising from the dead…We did everything we could to bring her back to life.”

In 2022, the body of Zosia, a woman buried as a vampire, was discovered in a tomb in Pien, Poland.
Nicolaus Copernicus University/Oskar Nilsson via Reuters

Zosia, as it was named by local residents, was discovered in 2022 by a team of archaeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Zosia was between 18 and 20 years old at the time of her death, and analysis of her skull suggested she suffered from a health condition that could cause fainting, severe headaches and even mental health problems, Nilsson said.

According to Nicolaus Copernicus’ team, sickles, padlocks and certain types of wood found in graveyards were all believed at the time to have magical properties that could protect against vampires.

Zosia’s grave was grave number 75 in an unmarked cemetery on the outskirts of Pien, a city north of Bydgoszcz. Among the other bodies found at the scene was a “vampire” child who was buried face down with a padlock at his feet as well.

Little is known about Zosia’s life, but Nilsson and Pien’s research team believe that the items with which she was buried indicate that she came from a wealthy (possibly aristocratic) family.

Nilsson suggests that the war-torn 17th-century Europe in which she lived created a climate of fear in which belief in supernatural monsters was common.

Nilsson’s recreation began by creating a 3D-printed replica of the skull, then gradually built up layers of clay “muscle by muscle” to form a lifelike face.

He combines bone structure with information about gender, age, ethnicity, and approximate weight to estimate the depth of facial features.

“It’s emotional to see a face come back from the dead, especially when you know this young girl’s story,” Nilsson says.

Nilsson said he wanted to bring Zosia back “as a human being, not as a buried monster.”

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Scientists successfully recreate Martian “spiders” in laboratory for the first time

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Martian “spiders” are small, dark, spider-shaped formations up to 1 km (0.6 miles) in diameter. The leading theory is that they form when spring sunlight hits a layer of carbon dioxide that builds up during the dark winter months. In a new experiment, a team of NASA scientists has recreated these formation processes for the first time, simulating Martian temperatures and air pressure.

Examples of “Keefer Zoo” features proposed to have formed by seasonal CO2 sublimation dynamics on Mars: (a) a “skinny” spider within layered deposits in Antarctica, (b) a dark spot on a layer of translucent CO2 slab ice covering a group of “fat” spiders in an “Inca city” on Mars, (c) a “fried egg” showing a ring of dark dust surrounded by a bright halo, (d) patterned ground within high Antarctic latitudes with dark directional fans and some bright white fans indicating wind direction, (e) a bright halo surrounding a Swiss cheese depression, (f) a “lacey topography”, a type of patterned ground suggested to be polygonal patterned ground that was later scraped and eroded by surface-flowing CO2 gas from the Keefer model. Image credit: HiRISE/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of Arizona.

Today, Mars is a dynamic planet with a rich variety of surface changes, despite its thin atmosphere and cold climate.

In winter, most of Mars' mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere accumulates on the surface as frost.

In spring, it sublimates and takes on forms never seen on Earth.

These include dark Dalmatian spots, directional alluvial fans, “fried eggs”, grooves which may have dark finger-like flows or light “halos” in spring, dendritic “spiders”, sand grooves in active dunes and growing dendritic valleys.

These features have been detected in the loose material around the Antarctic and in the inter-dune material towards the mid-Antarctic latitudes, although some smaller phenomena have also been detected in the Arctic.

Many of these features make up the so-called “Kiefer zoo,” or collection of surface expressions. Explained It was first published in 2003 and was proposed to be produced by the solid-state greenhouse effect.

“In the Kiefer model, sunlight penetrates a translucent ice sheet in spring, trapping thermal radiation and heating the topsoil beneath the ice, causing the impermeable sheet to sublime from beneath,” explained Dr. Lauren McKeown of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and her colleagues.

“Through this process, the spiders are thought to be caused by high-velocity gases scraping away topsoil beneath the ice sheet, littering the ice surface with fan and patchy variations that are then deposited by dust and gas plumes.”

The study authors were able to create a complete cycle of the Kiefer model in the lab and confirm the formation of several types of Kiefer zookeeper features.

“The greatest challenge in conducting the experiment was replicating the conditions found on the polar surface of Mars, namely the extremely low air pressure and temperatures of minus 185 degrees Celsius (minus 301 degrees Fahrenheit),” the researchers said.

“To do this, we used a liquid nitrogen-cooled test chamber, the Dirty Under Vacuum Simulation Chamber for Icy Environments (DUSTIE).”

“In our experiments, we cooled a Martian soil simulant in a container submerged in a bath of liquid nitrogen.”

“We placed it in the Dusty Chamber, where the air pressure was lowered to the same as in the southern hemisphere of Mars.”

“Carbon dioxide gas was then released into the chamber, where it condensed from the gas into ice over a period of three to five hours.”

“It took a lot of trial and error before we found the right conditions to make the ice thick and clear enough for the experiment to work.”

“Once we have ice with the right properties, we place a heater in the chamber underneath the simulant to heat it up and crack the ice.”

“We were thrilled when we finally saw plumes of carbon dioxide gas coming out of the powdered simulant.”

a paper The explanation for these experiments is Planetary Science Journal.

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Lauren E. McKeon others2024. Laboratory-scale investigation of the Kiefer Model of Mars. Planet Science Journal 5, 195;doi:10.3847/PSJ/ad67c8

Source: www.sci.news

AI Technology can accurately recreate visual perceptions using mind-reading capabilities

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Top row: Original image. Second row: AI-reconstructed image based on macaque brain recordings. Bottom row: Image reconstructed by the AI ​​system without the attention mechanism.

Thirza Dado et al.

Artificial intelligence systems can currently create highly accurate reconstructions of what a person sees, based on recordings of brain activity, and these reconstructed images improve significantly as the AI ​​learns which parts of the brain to pay attention to.

“As far as I know, these are the most accurate and closest reconstructions.” Umut Güçül Radboud University, Netherlands.

Güçül's team is one of several around the world using AI systems to understand what animals and humans see through brain recordings and scans. In a previous study, his team used a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner to record the brain activity of three people while they were shown a series of pictures.

In a separate study, the team used an implanted electrode array to directly record the brain activity of a single macaque monkey as it viewed AI-generated images — an implant done by a different team and for a different purpose, Güçül's colleagues say. Sarza Dado“We didn't put implants in macaques to restructure their perception,” she says. “That's not a good argument against doing surgery on animals.”

The research team has now reanalyzed the data from these earlier studies using an improved AI system that can learn which parts of the brain to pay most attention to.

“Essentially, the AI ​​is learning where to pay attention when interpreting brain signals,” Gyuklüh says, “which of course in some way reflects what the brain signals pick up on in the environment.”

By directly recording brain activity, some of the reconstructed images were very close to the images seen by the macaques, as generated by the StyleGAN-XL image-generation AI. But accurately reconstructing AI-generated images is easier than real images, because aspects of the process used to generate the images can be incorporated into the AI ​​training to reconstruct those images, Dado said.

The fMRI scans also showed a noticeable improvement when using the attention guidance system, but the reconstructed images were less accurate than those for the macaques. This is partly because real photographs were used, but Dado also says that it is much harder to reconstruct images from fMRI scans. “It's non-invasive, but it's very noisy.”

The team's ultimate goal is to develop better brain implants to restore vision by stimulating the higher-level parts of the visual system that represent objects, rather than simply presenting patterns of light.

“For example, we can directly stimulate the area that corresponds to a dog's brain,” Güçül says, “and in that way create a richer visual experience that is closer to that of a sighted person.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com