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US passes emergency waiver over fuel pipeline cyber-attack

The US acts to keep fuel flowing after its largest pipeline was hit by a ransomware cyber-attack. "Cyber-security firm Digital Shadows says the Colonial attack has come about due to the pandemic - with more engineers remotely accessing control systems for the pipeline from home. James Chappell, co-founder...
Source: bbc.com

NASA has flown its Ingenuity drone helicopter on Mars for the first time

The historic moment was livestreamed on YouTube and Ingenuity captured the photo above with one of its two cameras.
Source: technologyreview.com

Building customer relationships with conversational AI

We’ve all been there. “Please listen to our entire menu as our options have changed. Say or press one for product information…” Sometimes, these automated customer service experiences are effective and efficient—other times, not so much. Many organizations are already using chatbots and virtual...
Source: technologyreview.com

Machine Learning Applications in the Evaluation and Management of Psoriasis: A Systematic Review - PubMed Journal of psoriasis

Machine learning has significant potential to aid psoriasis evaluation and management. Current topics popular in ML research on psoriasis are the evaluation of medical images, prediction of complications, and treatment discovery. For patients to derive the greatest benefit from ML advancements, it i...
Source: nih.gov

Medical educators’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and knowledge: development of a new framework

Interesting paper about beliefs among medical educators. This has been developed with a qualitative study of undergraduate educators but the framework makes for good reading for those of us involved in urging colleagues and expert speakers to become more learner-centred. "The sharp divide between...
Source: biomedcentral.com

The US is about to have a vaccine surplus

Covid-19 vaccines are still hard to come by in many places, but supply in the US will soon outpace demand.
Source: technologyreview.com

Can ultrasound novices develop image acquisition skills after reviewing online ultrasound modules? Elaine Situ-LaCasse.

Background Point-of-care ultrasound is becoming a ubiquitous diagnostic tool, and there has been increasing interest to teach novice practitioners. One of the challenges is the scarcity of qualified instructors, and with COVID-19, another challenge is the difficulty with social distancing between learners...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Using GPT-2 to generate Tweets

blog post image Last summer I blogged about using a Deep Neural Network to generate tweets but only used 3200 of my tweets. Since then I've used Twitter's archive mechanism to retrieve ALL my tweets (just over 30,000) to train a network. Not any old network - the GPT-2 model from OpenAI. This 'finetuning' of an existing...

Why European vaccine suspensions could have unintended consequences

Europe’s difficult rollout of covid-19 shots took another blow over the weekend, as several countries halted deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid worries it could cause blood clots. On Monday Germany, Spain, Italy, and France were among those to suspend deployment of the vaccine, following similar...
Source: technologyreview.com

Over 27,000 students share how colleges and universities could improve digital learning

"A Jisc survey of 27,069 higher and further education students reveals that most are pleased with their digital learning, but areas such as wellbeing, mental health and staff digital skills need more attention." Get the basics right (like college WiFi)Make learning sessions more interactive Record lessons...
Source: jisc.ac.uk

UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

Consumer group Which? staged a sting operation to investigate fake Google reviews in the UK.
Source: bbc.com

How to poison the data that Big Tech uses to surveil you

Algorithms are meaningless without good data. The public can exploit that to demand change.
Source: technologyreview.com

Data-driven humanitarianism

An article from MIT Technology Review showing how the World Food Programme uses geospatial data that is developed and made 'open' to all by people within the areas being served. "It’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but its people are among the most vulnerable. Afghanistan’s snowy...
Source: technologyreview.com

Open Access, Conspiracy Theories and the Democratization of Knowledge

The Scholarly Kitchen "We are in the middle of a new political dynamic here in the US – one that has been building for over a decade. This new dynamic has meant that science and scientists are being viewed with a level of distrust – and even, at times, hostility – that is unprecedented in modern...
Source: sspnet.org

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

Eeek! or E484K mutation and the coronavirus pandemic

Rupert Beale · Eeek! · LRB 19 February 2021: "Uncontrolled spread – as we knew it would – led to an even greater wave of infections, hospitalisations and deaths than last spring. Children were sent to school for one day before the necessary ‘lockdown’ was reimposed. The impulse to keep schools...
Source: lrb.co.uk

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

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