Most brain activity is "background noise"
"Most brain activity is "background noise" and that's upending our understanding of consciousness." This complexity view of the mind is not new but this article explains it quite clearly.
Source: salon.com
Climate Change: Government may review road-building policy
It follows a legal challenge from campaigners, who argue the policy does not fit with climate targets.
Source: bbc.com
Microsoft Teams AI could tell you who is most enjoying your video call
Researchers at Microsoft have developed an AI for the firm's Teams videoconferencing software that highlights positive audience reactions during a virtual presentation
Source: newscientist.com
Fires Raged in the Amazon Again in 2020
"After intense fires in the Amazon captured global attention in 2019, fires again raged throughout the region in 2020. According to an analysis of satellite data from NASA’s Amazon dashboard, the 2020 fire season was actually more severe by some key measures." “Our system identified about 23,000...
Source: nasa.gov
Ancient Northland swamp kauri solves 42,000 year old mystery
NZ Herald: Ancient Northland swamp kauri shows breakdown of Earth's magnetic field 42,000 years ago. "For the first time ever, we have been able to precisely date the timing and environmental impacts of the last magnetic pole switch," Chris Turney, a professor at UNSW Science and co-lead author of the...
Source: nzherald.co.nz
Google fires Margaret Mitchell, co-lead of its Ethical AI team
"Last December, Gebru was fired from Google after she tried to be outspoken about unethical AI. This prompted some 225 Google employees to club together to create a union, in the hope of preventing further unfair dismissal and protecting employee rights. Mitchell was a member of said union, but that...
Source: techspot.com
AI uses "ugly duckling" technique to spot melanoma with high accuracy
"Artificial intelligence is starting to combine with smartphone technology in ways that could have profound impacts on the way we monitor health, from tracking blood volume changes in diabetics to detecting concussions by filming the eyes." "Using the technology to spot melanoma in its early stages is...
Source: newatlas.com
Dreadful user experience can be expensive.
"Citibank just got a $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design: Citibank was trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. It sent $900M instead." The screenshot is from court records where the judge ruled against Citibank who had wanted to get their money back. The lesson is to always include...
Source: arstechnica.com
Preventing critical failure
Can routinely collected data be repurposed to predict avoidable patient harm? A quantitative descriptive study Objectives To determine whether sharing of routinely collected health service performance data could have predicted a critical safety failure at an Australian maternity service. Design Observational...
Source: bmj.com
Feeding your cat a very meaty diet may mean it kills less wildlife
In a small trial in the UK, pet cats fed on an unusually meaty diet brought home 36 per cent fewer prey animals than cats given a typical diet. "Domestic cats seem to hunt less when their diets are richer in animal-sourced protein, suggesting that feeding cats more meat could help reduce their impact...
Source: newscientist.com
Facebook and Australia's media bargaining law
In Australia, Facebook’s ban on sharing news stories has sent publishers’ traffic tumbling: Audience declines of 20 percent or more have followed Facebook taking its traffic ball and going home. "Even people outside Australia can no longer share stories [on Facebook] from Australian publishers big...
Source: niemanlab.org
Nasa's Perseverance rover in 'great shape' after Mars landing
"Perseverance will now spend at least two years looking for evidence of past life on the Red Planet. The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero. "The good news is the spacecraft, I think, is in great shape," said Matt...
Source: bbc.com
Increasing Students Critical Thinking Skills and Learning Motivation Using Inquiry Mind Map
These researchers from Indonesia explore the use of inquiry-based models in encouraging critical thinking in medical students. "Critical thinking skills are very important to have for students given the rapid distribution of information. To promote the critical thinking skills of the student, it could...
Source: online-journals.org
Declining Life Expectancy in the United States
This Viewpoint reviews the social and economic drivers of declines in longevity in the US, especially among lower socioeconomic status groups, and proposes policy options for the Biden-Harris administration to mitigate the trend, including an increase in the federally mandated minimum wage. Atheendar...
Source: jamanetwork.com
No, frozen wind turbines aren't the main culprit for Texas' power outages
"Lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm." Plenty of disinformation out there. There have been posts apparently showing a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine but it...
Source: texastribune.org
46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime
"We found that the House that’s shown on the news is much more ideologically extreme than the actual House."
Source: niemanlab.org
Abundant Rain Turns Namibia Green
The landscape has been transformed by the wettest rainy season since 2011. "January 2021 saw rainfall totals double to triple the norm in the northeastern, central, and southern parts of Namibia. According to a weather monitor in Windhoek, 228 millimeters (9 inches) of rain fell in January; the long-term...
Source: nasa.gov
Twitter a goldmine for tracking consumer mood on prices, Bank of Italy finds.
The Bank of Italy said on Monday a set of experimental indicators it created from the content of millions of tweets accurately tracked consumer mood on price, offering scope for a powerful new monetary policy tool.
Source: reuters.com
Brain-Based Learning, Myth versus Reality: Testing Learning Styles and Dual Coding | Science-Based Medicine: Ed. Note: Today
Brain-Based Learning, Myth versus Reality: Testing Learning Styles and Dual Coding | Science-Based Medicine: Ed. Note: Today we present a guest post from Josh Cuevas, a cognitive psychologist and assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of North Georgia. Enjoy! "Since early on...
Source: sciencebasedmedicine.org
3D Scene Understanding with TensorFlow 3D
Posted by Alireza Fathi, Research Scientist and Rui Huang, AI Resident, Google Research "The growing ubiquity of 3D sensors (e.g., Lidar, depth sensing cameras and radar) over the last few years has created a need for scene understanding technology that can process the data these devices capture. Such...
Source: googleblog.com
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