As is too often the case, the article is paywalled, and crucial information allowing for real understanding is hidden.

But, based on info given, some back-of-the-napkin calculations can be done. These are done with the intent to estimate doses, and thereby answer questions brought up in some of the comments here.

One obvious detail is that this will be intravenous infusion, something that can be started in the field with emt's and paramedics, or expeditiously in the ER.

Basics - CO poisoning is common, from vehicle and marine exhaust, faulty lamps-furnaces-camping equipment, faulty home heating, house fires, et al. Normally, hemoglobin (hgb) shuttles oxygen around. Hemoglobin is protein red blood cells, each hemoglobin protein carrying four heme groups each holding one iron atom. That iron atom wants to "rust" and bind with oxygen. Oxygen is picked up by hgb as blood goes through the lungs. In the periphery where O2 is needed, local chemistry based on CO2 and acid-base levels allow hgb to release the oxygen. It is one of nature's brilliant systems, and key is that Hgb can easily bind and unbind.

But, CO has very high affinity for hemoglobin, and once iron bound, it blocks oxygen binding. Once locked in, it does not dislodge, so the body loses that oxygen carrying capacity. All red cells eventually die and are replaced, so the situation is self correcting for low levels of carboxyhemoglobin, as you might have after sitting around a campfire or commonly in smokers. Generally, up to 10% carboxyhemoglobin is tolerated with no or minimum symptoms. On the other hand, 50% carboxyhemoglobin (instead of hemoglobin or oxyhemoglobin) is highly toxic and needs icu care, often fatal, and 70% COHg is uniformly fatal. Anything that can dislodge CO and thereby bring current red cells back "on line" is the goal.

Current best rx is oxygen, hyperbaric oxygen, and blood replacement in more extreme case, but these all take time to implement. This new RcoM peptide sounds promising for very rapid effects, in minutes.

Now, here is the estimated stoichiometry:
There is published info about RcoM which is a peptide with about 250 residues (amino acids), and this paper intro implies they modified the natural protein, presumably making a smaller peptide having the same CO binding affinity.

Each red cell has about 250 million hgb molecules, meaning 1 billion iron atoms = 10^9.
Red blood cell (rbc) counts in normal healthy people are about 5 million cells per cubic mm = 5 x 10^6.
A liter has one million cubic mm per liter = 10^6.
Normal adult blood volume is about 5 liters.

So : (10^9 iron atoms per rbc) x (5 x 10^6 rbc / cu.mm) x (10^6 cu.mm / liter) x (5 liters)
= 25 x 10^21 = 2.5 x 10^22, round off to 10^22 iron atoms per circulating blood (other rbc's are sequestered in bone marrow and spleen, but we can ignore for this calculation).

Avogadro's number is about 6 x 10^23. Rounding off :
(10^22 iron atoms / blood volume) / (10^23 atoms / mole) = 10^-1 moles/ blood volume.

In CO poisoning, each iron binds on CO, so there is 1:1 molar equivalency.

What I can infer from the article stub is that the RcoM peptide they made has high and tight CO binding, and once joined, the complex is excreted by the kidneys. It also sounds like one peptide of RcoM binds one molecule CO, so the molar stoichiometry is 1:1.
That means that 0.1 moles of their RcoM-HBD is need to suck up 0.1 moles of CO. That would be needed in a patient who has 100% carboxyhemoglobin, but they would be dead already, so we are talking about 0.05 moles for someone with 50% COHg.

Next question is - how many grams is 1 mole of RcoM-HBD?

The kidney is a giant filter. Pressurized blood in renal capillaries (going through a structure called the glomerulus) is filtered through a membrane into the urine space. Small molecules are forced across the membrane - water, electrolytes (inorganics), and small organics. The downstream renal tubules reabsorb the water and ash as they cannot otherwise be conserved (new such molecules must come from diet). Small organics are mainly waste that needed to be eliminated, or some small bioactive chemicals that the body easily regenerates. The healthy kidney has such a fine mesh "sieve" that larger molecules like proteins cannot pass through. Proteinuria is a key marker of renal disease as the membrane gets too porous. However, some peptides, too small to be officially classified as proteins, can get through. What is the limit on size of chemicals that normally get through the sieve or are blocked?

Peptides 10-12 kDa (kilodaltons, molecular weight units) filter freely. Proteins 50-70 kDA are blocked. In between, filtration drops off according to some curve. It is safe to assume from the paper that RcoM-HBD, freely and easily eliminated in the urine, is down there around 10-12 kDa.

How many residues (individual chained AA amino acids) are in a peptide weighing 10,000 - 12,000 daltons?
Average amino acid weight is about 110 da. So, (11,000 DA per RcoM-HBD) / (110 Da per AA) = 100 aa's.

Native RcoM has about 250 residues, so RcoM-HBD / RcoM = 100 / 250 = 0.4 which is also the relative molecular weight.
That number is not needed for further calculations, but it implies that these guys re-engineered RcoM to eliminate 60% of its weight, and that sounds quite plausible trying to derive a pharmaceutical from a natural source.

So -
In a patient with 50% COHg, we need 0.05 moles of therapeutic RcoM-HBD.
Molar weight is the molecular weight in grams, so if RcoM-HBD has molar weight 11,000, then
(11,000 gm / mole) x (0.05 moles) = 550 GM.

And - believe it or not, that is a reasonable number.

An analogous drug (in terms of bulk biological chemistry) is mannitol, a 6-carbon polyol (a sugar alcohol, basically a sugar molecule that stays straight instead of chasing its tail into a ring). It is a vital drug for treating brain edema, pulmonary edema, renal failure, trauma resuscitation, etc. Depending on the clinical situation, it is given IV "push", or IV drip, or both, push then drip. Push doses are typically 25-100 Gm.

So, a drug like this could plausibly given as, let's say, 50 Gm at once, then a continuous drip until a total of 550 Gm is administered. A comparable dose, 50 Gm, maybe every 10-15 minutes, would see a full course of rx administered in 2-3 hours.
Depending on the pharmacokinetics and clinical pharmacy, which would have to be studied in detail for approval and clinical use, might reveal higher lower limits or tolerances, and actual care adjusted accordingly.

I can foresee something like this being combined with mannitol infusion perhaps, to augment renal blood flow and glomerular clearance (if the RcoM is not inherently osmotic, probably not at 11 kDA), plus short term 100% oxygen but only for 2-3 hours until CO is cleared enough.

This stuff is pretty brilliant, and important, and life saving. Many of these estimates might be right or wrong, and many of these details might already be worked out by them - but behind a paywall - you all know about that.
But this "Fermi problem" estimation comes up with clinically and biologically realistic numbers.

There was a similar article on Slashdot about a week ago - not the same topic or news item, but similar in that someone with some bona fides as a scientist or engineer was making polyanna predictions about future tech or tech-based ways of life.

The two are similar because - it is all a big "so what?"
Whatever their credentials, they are not writing about real tech or its applications. They are just fantasizing about the future based on some theme peripherally connected to what they work on their day jobs.

In the case of this article, if Cosimo Bambi is a black hole expert, then his thoughts about astrophysics and black holes is to be respected and admired. But, being a star scientist doesn't make him a rocket scientist. Reading the comments so far on this article, I think nearly every Slashdot reader immediately recognized the fallacies in his fantasies. His expertise as a star researcher does not make him any more knowledgeable than anyone else on Slashdot about how to get to the stars.

Spewing fantasies about a subject you have only some minor familiarity with doesn't make you an expert or even entitled to have an opinion. BUT - that can be okay when done right. We have done it for hundreds of years. It is called "fiction", in this case "science fiction", and like any fiction and literature, it can be engaging, intriguing, inspiring. Who here on Slashdot doesn't love good science fiction stories or movies?

Popular and award winning authors have a gift - being able to express their fictional ideas in interesting and compelling ways. That is their strength. Also, all good science fiction has a similar foundation - it doesn't have to be real, and it may ask us to accept some odd premise from an alternate universe or physics, but within that framework, the story is plausible. And when a fictional but plausible story is told by a story telling genius who wraps the fiction around a good plot and characters, the result can be magical.

In this case, Cosimo is not an engaging and beguiling science fiction story teller, just a science guy making a ridiculous prediction on a subject outside his expertise, based on nothing scientifically plausible. It's not just bad science fiction, it's stupid "science fiction". So, why does he get air time or page ink? Because he knows about stars? He gave a bad and inarticulate interview to a non-Pulitzer reporter on a slow news day. That's the real story. Nothing to see here - move along ...

I enjoyed your remarks.
You are exactly right, and so was gavron that you responded to.
You two obviously experienced those years first hand, and so did I. Remarks in this thread make me wonder how many of the commenters did not, and are measuring an older era with modern yardsticks.

Back then, those dial-up services were the only means of online or "e-community" access for nearly everyone who was not a computer whiz.
In the early 90's, most people did not have a home computer. For those that did, online connections were not standard. You had to buy and install a modem or internal card. You had to dial up to a local BBS or to CompuServe, and then AOL and similar wannabes.
Unless you were in CS or something techy at a university, you had no clue about the "internet".

In the early 90's, "democratizing" things that opened up computers to ordinary non-tech people were things like the 386 processor and its mate Windows 3.1 which exposed many ordinary non-tech people, via their computers at work, to using a computer on user-friendlier terms; and, AOL and it mass-marketing, which exposed users to connectivity with other users. AOL was not as sophisticated or rich with information as CompuServe, as I recall, but CompuServe never matured, then took a dump when bought by H&R Block (if I recall correctly), whereas AOL had the vision to expand and become the everyman service. The Time-Warner merger seemed to kill it because it was then unable to respond to evolving technology, but no one can discount its influence in those years circa 1995 - 2000.

What some comments in this thread seem to miss is that before there was an internet, there was dial-up. That was the best tech of the times. For those who learned to connect, it was with phone, modem, and CompuServe or AOL.
When Netscape and the World Wide Web came along, that was another revolutionary and democratizing event, a user friendly and widely marketed form of usenet-gopher-archie-ftp-etc., and later of Mosaic, none of which were everyman user-friendly and easy-to-access. They opened up the internet to ordinary people, and in turn spurred the need for high speed access which ultimately trivialized slow speed dial-up.

But, for users circa 1985-1990 to 1995-2000, dial-up to BBS, CompuServe, AOL, Genie was the only option - that was the standard technology. The internet and Netscape (then IE, etc.) were the newfangled technologies. Remember, once you are comfortable with a certain set of tools and workflow, newer and better technologies can take time to adopt or switch over or incorporate into your hearts and business. New users with no prior experience or allegiances are more likely to readily adopt the new technologies. People who grew up from the start with cable-dsl-broadband, Netscape-IE-Firefox, etc., www versus usenet, etc., they are now in their 20's and 30's.

Some comments in this thread seem to reflect that perspective, which is fair. But back then, as many of us remember so well, those modems and dial-up services, including AOL, for all its deficiencies as seen from a modern perspective, were revolutionary and glamorous. Horses and buggies would be glamorous to bare-footed troglodytes, and gas lamps and lamp lighters would seem thoroughly modern to candle dippers. You can't judge older technologies by today's standards. For those years back in the 90's, AOL, using the available tech of the times, and a technology people already had in their homes, the telephone, was a potent force to get people familiar with computers and connectivity. By building a market and money, it spurred the need and means for better faster tech - and here we are today.

The error wasn't in the kernel, not in the code, just in the documentation.
A simple spell check would have flagged or fixed that faster and with less carbon footprint.

So, AI not needed, just word processor or spell checker.
But, programmer is obviously ai himself, anti-intelligent, doesn't know how to use spell checker, doesn't even know he needs it.
So, ai needs AI. ...
AI not needed ... AI needed.

That's the high tech Catch-22.

For a moment, leave the science behind and enter the poetical realm. Imagine that the moon was still actively volcanic. Eruptions would easily be seen from Earth.

How would that have influenced mythology, religion, arts, poetry? How would that have changed ideas like "lunacy" or romance under a full moon?

This could be the impetus for some good sci-fi movies or romance novels.

... it AI'nt no good for you.

Schizaiphrenia.

Schiz-ai-phrenia
Treated with phenoth-ai-zines, like Thor-ai-zine.

  - or - others, like

olanz-ai-pine, and quet-ai-pine.

And - no joke - if this continues, susceptibility to it will get recognized as a bona fide psychiatric disorder, then classified in the DSM - the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" [of Mental Disorders],

Technology was supposed to do good for man.
Makes you wonder if Gene Roddenberry came of age now, if he would have had such a utopian view of man as he formulated in the Star Trek universe, or if he would just give up, WTF.

In this case it's not bullshit at all.

How very cynical and unfair to cows.

It's horseshit.

Maybe to those making such claims, AI is smarter.

As a kid in Philadelphia, my neighbor in the nice house across the street was well employed as an engineer for General Electric. That was the height of Space Age and race for the moon. Then, circa 1970, big cuts started, and he lost his job. To find employment as soon as possible, he started driving a taxicab. Seems like a step down - BUT - when he was eligible to have a new engineering job, he kept driving the cab. He said he was making more money that way than he ever did as an engineer.

Just one person, just one anecdote, but I am pretty sure it's not an isolated example.

Interesting. Thanks for providing some positive context.

There are responses above like these :

jenningsthecat
Because of the subsequent review by qualified humans, I don't see this as a problem.

Ksevio
What exactly is the issue here? If the questions were vetted by professionals and found to be appropriate, does it matter if it was an expert human or machine or cat walking across the keyboard that wrote them to begin with?

That seems fair enough, that a human test writer used something to help write the question, as long as it was properly reviewed.

What I don't understand is why they would do so?

Per the article, these were usual multiple choice questions.
Meaning, a question writer has to think of a pertinent question or issue, with one valid answer, then have fun fudging 4 fake answers.
The question writer is presumably someone expert in the subject to begin with, so the questions subject matter is of intimate familiarity, making it easy to write at least the gist of the question plus its right answer.

I have participated in this process for board exams.
Fine tuning the question to be clear, eliminate ambiguity, etc., takes some time and effort. But, I do not see how AI can best the human writer who is the expert.
If the rejoinder is that AI was used to do the fine tuning, that makes even less sense in this case, since lawyers, especially those successful enough to be invited to write questions, are literate, capable of clear analytical writing, that's what they do for a living.
So, how does AI help?

I get the sense that this is another case of "AI makes people stupid", not post facto by having used it, but ante facto by thinking they have to try it out, even for something it doesn't apply to, because - you know - AI - everyone's doing it, jump on the bandwagon.

If they are using AI simply to annotate a question, such as supportive history or case law, then okay, but that's just "Search" by a fancy name. I could see where this might be a good exercise for those first year law students, to explore concepts new to them, a learning and study tool. But for the senior certified experts who get invited to write questions, it is BS, not AI.

I hate when people say what you just said.

You are of course correct. Many of the comments are from people with no background or expertise on the subject.

But, don't forget that many or most or all people reading and writing on Slashdot are smart, technically savvy, and expert on something that is an allied subject. And, some may not be top-est of top experts but still highly knowledgeable in the field.

And, even if they are not questioning the report, they would like to learn more - that's the nature of smart, educated, tech savvy people - so what better way than to throw out an idea and see if someone with the bona fides to write an opinion have something to say.

And, don't forget another point. In this era of shit reporting and journalism, we see way too many premature press releases meant to invigorate investors even though they are the emperor's new clothes made of vaporware and smelling like bad farts.

Let's assume that these guys really did work out some effective new technology. Without any public disclosure of the underlying science and tech, how can anyone else know what they are talking about?

And when all the people here who are knowledgeable about a wide range of pertinent subjects get a sense that something doesn't jive, as seems to be the case here, they should indeed raise the questions. Worse that can happen is that someone who has the right answer will speak up, and we all get educated.

So, here's my non-expert question. I am not offering advice or explanations, just asking a question, hoping someone will have a good answer as so often happens :

Earth surface area is 510.1 million km.
Assume this device has a resolution of 10 m. That means that a sq km has 10,000, 10^4 grid points to be resolved, and over the whole earth, that is roughly 5.1 x 10^12 points.
We are asked to believe that the earth's magnetic field is sufficiently different everywhere, and measurably so, that the device can resolve 5x10^12 points. Whether by look up tables, or interpolation along or simultaneous solution of field vectors, or whatever, each of 10^12 values maps to a unique point on the earth. That is not only some impressive technology but a salute to Mother Earth for giving all her little magnetites a unique name other than Dave.

I can see why so many people responding to this are raising questions. That does not make them stupid, arrogant, naive, obnoxious, or out of line - just curious.

For me, it was in the early 90's that I could see a demoralizing change in Radio Shack.
They had more and more of toys and telephones, and less and less of parts, knowledgeable employees and - customers.

Had anyone in the corporation asked me then, I would have told them that by ignoring their traditional business and customers, the very same ones who made them wealthy, successful, and beloved, with thousands of stores, they were committing suicide. They in turn, as all corporate MBA bureaucrats, would have told me that they ran that successful business, and I had no such track record, so ipso facto shut up, they knew what they were doing.

Well, now they are bankrupt and gone, and rather unceremoniously, a 15-20 year slide to oblivion. One can only hope that the idiots who destroyed it all somehow got their comeuppance.

On the other hand, the market and customers they served, they are still there.
Sure, with modern online sales and delivery services, you can order almost any product or component and have it within a week, often just a day or two. But when you are elbow deep in a project and realize you need that extra 555, op amp, capacitor, or power transistor, or such and such cable or connector or proto-board, where are you going to go?
Anyone who valued Radio Shack for that reason knows exactly what I am talking about, and I am guessing there are still quite a few of you.

And, had they any real vision or management at that point, circa 1985-90, they could have been a credible Apple or MS competitor, or they could have been Compaq. Like too many once awesome businesses, the MBA mantra of "think small, latch on to fomo me-too get-rich-quick trendy services, and ignore your customers - that was the philosophy that prevailed - and lost.

I didn't look up any stats on the Texas lottery, but likely there are public details to analyze the following.

It is quite possible that these guys not only did not defraud Texas, but even "made" the State some money, in a relative sense.

Remember, the lottery works by lots of people buying tickets and losing. The money accumulates. Eventually, someone wins, but the money won is just a percentage of all money accumulated. As quoted : "[Then Texas announced no winner in an earlier lottery, rolling its jackpot into another drawing three days later.]"

The $95M they made was a percentage of something bigger. Instead of the total fund being funded by millions of individual citizens paying $1 (or whatever the ticket price is), it was funded by 1 entity buying 1M tickets (or whatever the exact number). Either way, 1M tickets-dollars were transacted. If done legally, it is all the same to the lottery and its bank account. Whatever they put in, it was a small percentage of what everyone else added, and that is where their winnings came from.

The money they won was already there in part, from reserves from earlier play cycles. The money they put in likewise feeds the kitty for next cycles. Even if they did not play, other people are putting money in. Regardless who is putting their money in, as they do, the coffers swell, and if one entity puts in "way more", the coffers swell by that much more. If they bought "1 million" tickets, and it was 1 million more than would have been bought by the public, then the lottery, which keeps a percentage, made more than if those guys hadn't played.

They got a lot, but the state also got more than had they not played. The only true hurt is that other players were unfairly disadvantaged. But even on that point, they did not steal the game, and it was still possible that another player or players could have won it all or split it with them.

That is probably why they have done so for a long time and stayed under the radar, because it is unsavory but not illegal, and the lotteries are still making good money - or possibly even more money.

The problem is not that they stole anything - they played square, if not so fair. And that is the heart of the issue it seems to me.

1 - The state got hoodwinked, bamboozled, egg-on-face, pants-down, call it what you will, and nobody wants that embarrassment.

2 - There is a bit of of "gee whiz, I wish I thought of that, lucky sob's."

3 - It is genuinely unfair to the playing public who expects a fair chance at winning.

The just need to change the rules to limit how many tickets one can buy, and a system to catch violations.