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showing posts for '21'

What happened when a 'wildly irrational' algorithm made crucial healthcare decisions

Advocates say having computer programs decide how much help vulnerable people can get is often arbitrary - and in some cases downright cruel
Source: theguardian.com

'Laws of Nature Turned up to 11': Astronomers Spot Two Neutron Stars Being Swallowed by Black Holes

In two separate observations, just ten days apart, astronomers discover a neutron star circling a black hole before being gobbled up.
Source: singularityhub.com

Brexit shrank UK services exports by £110bn, academics find

Research shows that financial services exports were hardest hit over four-year period
Source: www.ft.com

Tailored messaging increases understanding of climate change in Republicans

A team of researchers at Yale University's Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has found that the use of tailored advertising can increase awareness among Republicans of the dangers posed by climate change. In their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the group describes field...
Source: phys.org

Outgoing U.N. aid chief slams G7 for failing on vaccine plan

Outgoing U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock slammed the Group of Seven wealthy nations on Monday for failing to come up with a plan to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, describing the G7 pledge to provide 1 billion doses over the next year as a "small step."
Source: reuters.com

Reuters, New York Times win Pulitzers for coverage of racial injustice, COVID-19

Reuters and the Minneapolis Star Tribune each won a Pulitzer Prize on Friday for journalism about racial inequities in U.S. policing, while the New York Times and the Atlantic were honored for chronicling the COVID-19 pandemic, the two topics that dominated last year's headlines.
Source: reuters.com

How an informant and a messaging app led to huge global crime sting

It took $100,000 plus expenses, and the opportunity for a reduced prison sentence, for the smartphone developer to collaborate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2018 and kick-start Operation Trojan Shield, according to a court document.
Source: reuters.com

China’s GPT-3? BAAI Introduces Superscale Intelligence Model ‘Wu Dao 1.0’ | Synced

The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) releases Wu Dao 1.0, China’s first large-scale pretraining model.
Source: syncedreview.com

Bill Gates' next generation nuclear reactor to be built in Wyoming

Billionaire Bill Gates' advanced nuclear reactor company TerraPower LLC and PacifiCorp (PPWLO.PK) have selected Wyomingto launch the first Natrium reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant, the state's governor said on Wednesday.
Source: reuters.com

'Big risk': California farmers hit by drought change planting plans

Joe Del Bosque is leaving a third of his 2,000-acre farm near Firebaugh, California, unseeded this year due to extreme drought. Yet, he hopes to access enough water to produce a marketable melon crop.
Source: reuters.com

Greta Thunberg aims to change how food is produced

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has set her sights on changing how the world produces and consumes food in order to counteract a trio of threats: carbon emissions, disease outbreaks and animal suffering.
Source: reuters.com

Germany declares U.K. a virus variant region

Germany's public health institute on Friday declared Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region, requiring anyone entering the country from the United Kingdom to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
Source: reuters.com

Facebook faces prospect of 'devastating' data transfer ban after Irish ruling

Ireland's data regulator can resume a probe that may trigger a ban on Facebook's transatlantic data transfers, the High Court ruled on Friday, raising the prospect of a stoppage that the company warns would have a devastating impact on its business.
Source: reuters.com

Watch a Jet Suit Pilot Fly Onto a Ship to Trial the Tech for Fighting Pirates

The jet suit is made by UK-based Gravity Industries, whose founder Richard Browning was himself in the Royal Marine Reserves for a time.
Source: singularityhub.com

I tracked my kid with Apple's Airtags to test its privacy features

I clipped a keychain with one of Apple's tiny new Bluetooth trackers, AirTags, onto my son's book bag and waved goodbye to him on the school bus. I watched on my iPhone's Find My app as the bus stopped at a light a few blocks down from our street.
Source: cnn.com

Why Did It Take So Long to Accept the Facts About Covid?

"The importance of airborne transmission in the pandemic was clear long before the World Health Organization finally began to acknowledge it." "If the importance of aerosol transmission had been accepted early, we would have been told from the beginning that it was much safer outdoors, where these small...
Source: nytimes.com

Founded Upon an Error

A recent post on Reddit asks, “Why was Bayes’ Theory not accepted/popular historically until the late 20th century?” Great question! As always, there are many answers to a questio…
Source: allendowney.com

Flat Pasta That Turns Into 3-D Shapes - Just Add Boiling Water

The engineers are in the kitchen, again.
Source: nytimes.com

No Evidence That Associations Between Adolescents' Digital Technology Engagement and Mental Health Problems Have Increased

Digital technology is ubiquitous in modern adolescence, and researchers are concerned that it has negative impacts on mental health that, furthermore, increase over time. To investigate whether technology is becoming more harmful, we examined changes in associations between technology engagement and...
Source: sagepub.com

Human remains from Mary Rose show diversity of Tudor crew

A team of researchers with Cardiff University, the Mary Rose Trust, HM Naval Base and the British Geological Survey's National Environmental Isotope Facility has found evidence of racial diversity among the crew of the Mary Rose—a warship from the time of King Henry the VIII. In their paper published...
Source: phys.org