Working definitions
45 terms across artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and biotechnology. Each one is written to be read cold by someone who has just clicked it mid-sentence.
14 terms
A system that plans a sequence of steps, calls tools, checks its own output and retries — rather than producing one response.
Artificial IntelligenceA hypothetical system matching human competence across essentially any cognitive task, rather than excelling at specific ones.
Artificial IntelligenceThe mechanism by which each position in a sequence decides how much of every other position to mix into its own representation.
Artificial IntelligenceA fixed test set used to compare models — which measures one thing well and everything else badly.
Artificial IntelligenceMachine learning where the model also learns its own representation of the input, layer by layer.
Artificial IntelligenceA list of numbers representing a word, image or molecule, arranged so that similar things sit close together.
Artificial IntelligenceContinuing to train an existing model on a smaller, more specific dataset to change its behaviour.
Artificial IntelligenceA fluent, confident, and false output — the model's normal behaviour applied to something it does not know.
Artificial IntelligenceAny system whose rule is fitted to examples rather than written by hand.
Artificial IntelligenceWhen a model learns the noise in its training data well enough to perform worse on anything new.
Artificial IntelligenceOne of the numbers inside a model that training adjusts; the count of them is the usual proxy for a model's size.
Artificial IntelligenceFetching relevant documents at question time and putting them in front of the model, rather than training the facts in.
Artificial IntelligenceThe process of adjusting a model's parameters so its outputs match a dataset better.
Artificial IntelligenceThe neural network architecture behind nearly every current language model, built around attention rather than sequential processing.
15 terms
An instrument that images a surface by dragging or tapping an extremely sharp tip across it and recording the deflection.
NanotechnologyBuilding structures by letting atoms and molecules arrange themselves into the arrangement you want.
NanotechnologyEstablishing what a sample actually is — size, shape, composition, structure — rather than what it was intended to be.
NanotechnologyA stable suspension of particles small enough that they stay dispersed instead of settling out.
NanotechnologyMedicine that uses nanoscale carriers to control where a drug goes and when it is released.
NanotechnologyOne billionth of a metre (10⁻⁹ m) — roughly the width of ten hydrogen atoms in a row.
NanotechnologyA particle with at least one dimension between roughly 1 and 100 nanometres, at which size its behaviour stops matching the bulk material.
NanotechnologyWhat happens when a particle is small enough that its electrons' allowed energy levels separate into discrete steps.
NanotechnologyA semiconductor nanocrystal whose emission wavelength is set by its physical size rather than its composition.
NanotechnologyStructures that form themselves because the components' own interactions make the ordered arrangement the lowest-energy one.
NanotechnologyWorking out what something is made of by measuring which wavelengths of light it absorbs or emits.
NanotechnologyA collective oscillation of the electrons at a metal surface, which absorbs light at a wavelength set by the particle's size and shape.
NanotechnologyThe fraction of a particle's atoms that sit on its surface — the mechanism behind most nanoscale behaviour.
NanotechnologyMaking small structures by carving them out of a larger block — lithography, etching, milling.
NanotechnologyAn instrument that fires electrons through an ultra-thin sample to image structure down to individual atomic columns.
12 terms
Analysing biological data — sequences, structures, expression — computationally.
BiotechnologyA device that turns a biological binding event into a measurable signal — a current, a colour, a frequency shift.
BiotechnologyA gene-editing system that uses a short guide RNA to find one address in a genome and an enzyme to cut it there.
BiotechnologyThe short RNA sequence that tells a CRISPR enzyme where in the genome to cut.
BiotechnologyAn experiment performed as a computation — a simulation, a docking run, a model prediction.
BiotechnologyAn experiment performed outside a living organism — in a dish, a tube or a well plate.
BiotechnologyAn experiment performed in a living organism.
BiotechnologyA short DNA sequence that must sit next to the target site for a CRISPR enzyme to cut — a constraint you cannot design away.
BiotechnologyA cycle of heating and cooling that doubles a chosen DNA sequence each round, turning one copy into billions.
BiotechnologyThe process by which a chain of amino acids adopts the three-dimensional shape that determines what it does.
BiotechnologyDetermining the order of bases in a stretch of DNA or RNA.
BiotechnologyDesigning and building biological systems that do not exist in nature, rather than modifying ones that do.
4 terms
The probability of seeing data at least this extreme if the effect being tested were absent.
Cross-domainEvaluation of a manuscript by other researchers before a journal publishes it.
Cross-domainA manuscript posted publicly before, or instead of, peer review.
Cross-domainWhether an independent group following the published method obtains the same result.
