I
He grew up in an era when preadolescent friendships were formed by huddled around a desktop computer and watching YouTube video after YouTube video.
unicorn charlie (It was more interesting than I remembered) and
harry potter puppet friends (It was less funny than I remember) It was considered the height of comedy. Other than the occasional 6pm viewing of ‘Australia’s Funniest Home Videos’, my comedy diet was limited to his 240p internet videos, passed around like schoolyard contraband.
I have to admit that not much has changed. I still spend a lot of time on the internet, and my friends and I constantly quote obscure pop culture references that have become memes. Sometimes I worry that this has rotted my brain. For now, I will carefully select videos that I found interesting.
1. Would you like to be a guest?
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I love musical theater! I love the thrill of secondary embarrassment! I literally gasped every time I watched this video. Performers,
Tay Martinwas involved in 24 hoursbeauty and the beastThe Musical – Casting, direction, costumes and memorization were all done in one day. result? unstable.
2. Shawn Mendes' anxiety failure
This clip of Shawn Mendes 2019 interview It shouldn’t be this funny, but it is. It’s in his choice of words, the way he speaks, and the interviewer’s half-second silence.
3. Homosexuals, straight people, and people in between.
Almost every clip of Tyra Banks feels like a fever dream to me. Making viewers wear slogan T-shirts on national television that color-coded their sexuality? The ’00s were wild. As someone who doesn’t like being in the middle, I appreciate your half-hearted support.
4. Tour of Myra Magdalen's room
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OK, this video is simply iconic. I think about that (and Jimmy Neutron’s father) a lot. For those who don’t know, Myra Magdalene is a TikTok creator and designer who is known for posing in chaotic handmade outfits in front of a wall of keyboards. Here, she takes us on a tour of her bedroom. This is no ordinary bedroom vlog and she is no ordinary girl. You’ll find out soon.
5. I really appreciate it.
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Who among us has not burst into tears or muttered to ourselves at the dinner table? As a water sign, this is relatable, nay, ambitious. Gratitude Diary is afraid of this boy.
6. How to become the #1 fake restaurant on TripAdvisor
If there’s one thing our modern society lacks, it’s a good prank. We need more pranks! Author and filmmaker Uber Butler spent eight months creating a fake restaurant in a bid to steal the number one spot for London’s restaurant on TripAdvisor. This mini-documentary about him is both silly and wise.
7. Hamish and Andy's Train Challenge
Fermi makes a puzzling discovery of gamma rays from beyond our galaxy
Interestingly, the gamma-ray signal detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has a similar orientation to another unexplained feature produced by some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected. and are found to be approximately the same size.
This artist's concept shows the entire sky in gamma rays, with a magenta circle indicating the uncertainty in the direction in which more high-energy gamma rays appear to be arriving than average. In this view, the plane of the Milky Way crosses the center of the map. The circle encloses the region that contains these gamma ray sources with a probability of 68% (inside) and 95%. Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
“It was a completely serendipitous discovery. We found a much stronger signal in a different part of the sky than what we were looking for,” said the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Space. said academic Dr. Alexander Kashlinsky.
Dr. Kasilinsky and his colleagues were looking for gamma-ray signatures associated with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the oldest light in the universe.
This light occurred when the hot, expanding universe cooled enough to form the first atoms, and this event released a burst of light that could penetrate the universe for the first time.
Stretched out by the subsequent expansion of the universe over the past 13 billion years, this light was first detected in 1965 in the form of faint microwave waves across the sky.
In the 1970s, astronomers noticed that the CMB had a so-called dipole structure, which was later measured with high precision by NASA's COBE mission.
The CMB has more microwaves than average in the direction toward Leo and is about 0.12% hotter, and in the opposite direction it is cooler by the same amount with fewer microwaves than average.
To study small temperature changes within the CMB, this signal must be removed.
Astronomers generally believe that this pattern is the result of our solar system's motion relative to the CMB at about 370 km per second (230 miles per second).
This movement causes a dipole signal in the light coming from astrophysical sources, but so far only the CMB has been accurately measured.
By looking for patterns in other forms of light, astronomers can confirm or refute the idea that the dipole is entirely due to the motion of the solar system.
“Such measurements are important because the discrepancy in the size and orientation of the CMB dipole allows us to extend the possibility of going back to the very beginning of the universe, when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old. “Because we can get a glimpse of certain physical processes,” said Professor Fernando Atrio Barrandera from the University of Salamanca.
Astronomers reasoned this by summing up years of data from Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT).
Due to the effects of relativity, gamma-ray dipoles should be amplified five times more than currently detected CMBs.
The authors integrated 13 years of Fermi LAT observations of gamma rays above about 3 billion electron volts (GeV). For comparison, visible light has an energy of about 2 to 3 electron volts.
They removed all resolved and identified sources and removed the central plane of the Milky Way to analyze the extragalactic gamma-ray background.
“We have discovered a gamma-ray dipole, but its peak is located in the southern sky, far from the CMB, and its magnitude is 10 times larger than expected from our motion.” said astrophysicist Dr. Chris Schroeder. Catholic University of America.
“Although this is not what we were looking for, we think it may be related to similar features reported for the highest-energy cosmic rays.”
Cosmic rays are accelerated charged particles, primarily protons and atomic nuclei. The rarest and most energetic particles, called UHECRs (Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays), carry more than a billion times the energy of 3 GeV gamma rays, and their origin remains one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics.
Since 2017, the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina has report Dipole in the direction of arrival of UHECR.
Because cosmic rays are electrically charged, they are deflected by galaxies' magnetic fields by different amounts depending on their energy, but the peak of the UHECR dipole is at a position in the sky similar to that found by researchers with gamma rays.
And both have surprisingly similar sizes. About 7% more gamma rays or particles than average come from one direction, and correspondingly less gamma rays or particles come from the opposite direction.
“The two phenomena are probably related, and an as-yet-unidentified source may be producing both gamma rays and very high-energy particles,” the scientists said.
“To solve this cosmic puzzle, we must either locate these mysterious sources or propose alternative explanations for both features.”
of findings Published in Astrophysics Journal Letter.
_____
A. Kashirinsky other. 2024. Exploration of dipoles in the diffuse gamma-ray background. APJL 961, L1; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/acfedd
Source: www.sci.news
Well actually, I’m unsure of how to address my bad habits of drinking beer, vaping, and constantly scrolling on my electronic devices. Any advice on what to do?
BIt's easy to feel a kinship with pop star Selena Gomez, considering her 430 million Instagram followers, reported net worth of $800 million, and close relationship with Taylor Swift. rare. However, 11 days have passed since the new year started, heading “Selena Gomez returns to Instagram, 18 hours after announcing social media hiatus.''
I feel extra conscious of my bad habits – probably due to my depressed body evidence suggests We usually give up on our New Year's resolutions by mid-January.
It's not even noon yet and I've spent 45 minutes on Instagram today. She drank two cups of coffee, but I can't rule out the possibility of a third one. My mild headache is a solemn reminder that I ended up having three drinks last night after a sudden hinge date ruined my plans for a quiet evening. And I just took a small swig from her nearly empty vape, which I had vowed to buy one last time.
At least I'm not eating sugar yet.
As you can see, I'm ambivalent about what I consider to be my vices, and I'm more or less attached to them. Most of the time I can ignore them as reliable pleasures in life and they are reasonably tolerable. But peer pressure to be better is always insidious and becomes especially acute at the beginning of a new year..
My newsfeed is full of stories about financial goal setting, improving fitness, non-alcoholic drinks, and sugar substitutes. Friends are pledging to spend the month of dry January taking 10,000 steps a day and cutting out junk food. On the other hand, I think I may be missing out on the tricks of the trade by missing out on the opportunity for a fresh start.
“hand“At this time of year, the focus is on what to start doing and what to stop doing,” says the counselor. georgina starmer. She links it to the excesses of the just-past Christmas season: What do you change? ”
But the flip side of this focus on self-improvement is the need for self-monitoring. We become more aware of our supposed flaws and shortcomings, which may not be particularly harmful and may even bring us joy.
… (content continues)
Source: www.theguardian.com
The Ultimate Guide to Getting Revenge in Video Games
PIf you're of a certain age, there's no doubt that you have fond memories of the paper instruction manuals that once came with every video game. Dan Marshall, author of The Swindle and Lair of the Clockwork God, certainly does. He remembers the ritual of poring over a new game's manual on the bus ride home from the store, trying to absorb all of the information in preparation for playing the game itself.
He vividly remembers receiving Bullfrog's 1993 game Syndicate by mail order early one morning and waiting for hours until his younger brother woke up to play it on the PC in his room. “And during that quality time, I did nothing but read the manual over and over and over again,” Marshall says.
Although Marshall has now gotten rid of most of his old DVDs, games and magazines, he still maintains a shelf of treasured physical items that remind him of a time in his life. It's the book he used when he first learned to code, 1989's Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles LCD Handheld, a strange game box he couldn't part with. “They’re nice to walk past and they bring a smile to your face,” he says. “And a well-made manual or a well-made box is fun in that sense.”
A box of fun…early video games came with a set of instruction manuals
Photo: Stephen Cooper/Alamy
In the early days of home video games, manuals were essential. Every byte of memory is valuable, and even adding a simple command like “press A to jump” takes up memory that could be better allocated elsewhere. Information about how to play the game can instead be moved to a manual, which also provides an opportunity to provide a story or background to accompany simple on-screen sprites. There may be other interesting things in the game box. Memorably, Revolution's 1994 adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky It came with a comic by Dave Gibbons of 2000AD., described several events leading up to the start of the game. His pioneering 1984 BBC micro-title, Elite, came with an entire novel called The Dark Wheel, which provided insight into the world of Elite.
However, as consoles and computers became more powerful throughout the 1990s, it became increasingly possible to include instructions on how to play within the game itself. In-game tutorials quickly became mandatory, allowing players to jump right into new games without having to stop to read the manual first. Then, in the 2000s, digital downloads started to become popular. Initially, publishers often offered him PDF versions of game manuals, but eventually even this tradition fell out of fashion. The instruction manual was redundant and dead.
However, several developers have been working hard to revive this lost part of gaming tradition. His 2021 strategy title HighFleet: Deus in Nobis by Konstantin Koshutin has arrived with his lovingly crafted 92-page PDF manual. Downloaded from Steam. The game was published by the newly reformed Microprose, a company that has historically specialized in simulation and strategy games such as F-15 Strike His Eagle and Civilization. All of them came with correspondingly large manuals (his Civilization manual was well over 100 pages long).
And earlier this year, Media Molecule released Tren for the Dreams gaming platform. The game is based on his Brio-style wooden railway tracks, and the company Beautifully crafted digital manual I'm going to talk about the fictional toy “Tren Modular Play System” manufactured by a company called BeechCorp. Best of all, the manual even features realistic-looking tear tracks and children's doodles.
Physical Acquisition … Banished Vault Manual.
Photo: Lunar Division/Bithell
We've seen some developers venture into physical manuals as well. In July, The Banished Vault from Lunar Division added an in-game manual. This manual is printed on demand and can also be ordered in paper form for £4.99. The developers were surprised at how many players did just that. Approximately 10% of those who purchased a digital game also purchased a paper manual. “We've found that people never get tired of beautiful game manuals.” Mike Bissell said. Head of publisher Bithell Games, on X/Twitter. This is perhaps part of a broader trend at the moment, where physical objects are revered by a generation that has seen movies, music and video games disappear into the digital realm. Check out the unexpected love for records among the younger generation.
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Learn more… Tunic in-game manual.
Photo: Andrew Shouldice/Tunic Team
Tunic's manual is authentic in another way, in that you actually need it to progress through the game. Otherwise, little guidance is provided on how to progress through the game. Manual pages are scattered throughout the in-game world, and each page contains important information. Perhaps providing a map, revealing a plot, or even revealing a special move. Each page is written in indecipherable runes, except for the odd intriguing English word here and there, playing imported games and deciphering Japanese manuals for hints on what to do. It reminds me of the days when I tried.
Shouldice worked hard to make the in-game manual look really beat up. “I made a physical booklet, damaged it, tore parts off, spilled stuff on it, then put a little bit in the tumble dryer and messed it up,” he says. “We then scanned every page.” The text was added digitally later to make it easier to translate the manual into different languages. It's certainly a beautiful thing, and Fangamer physical version It's available for purchase by players.
Beautiful things…Fangamer's printed tunic manual.
Photo: Fangamer/ISOMETRICORP Games Ltd./FINJI
Banished Vault also requires players to read the manual carefully. This turn-based title involves leading a gigantic space monastery as it flees from solar system to solar system, harvesting resources from planets, closely monitoring fuel levels, and attempting to escape. malicious phenomenon. Nick Tringali, the game's director, is not nostalgic for manuals. He became interested in games because they were becoming obsolete. Instead, he was inspired by his board game and his table talk role-playing game (TTRPG). “In his modern TTRPG, this book is very well designed to teach you the system and help you navigate this experience smoothly,” Tringali says. His idea was to use the same technique for a complex strategy video game.
“[In-game] “The tutorial is very complex and very likely to break if the interface or design changes,” Tringali said, noting that it may eventually have to be completely reworked later in development. Did. “So I looked at all of this and thought, okay, it's going to be less effort to actually make the book.”
Developers and players may still have a soft spot for game manuals, but it's hard to imagine manuals making a comeback outside of a few niche games. Dan Marshall thinks that's a shame. “I want to make games that come with a physical manual, so make sure you read it,” he says. “There's no tutorial, no explanation of what the buttons do…Imagine releasing a game where you can do things like: only I have a physical copy. Yes, it would be an economic disaster, but a very small number of people our age would be very happy.
Source: www.theguardian.com
The Potential Impact of Banning Smartphones in Schools on US Education
WWhen the weather is nice, Buxton Boarding School moves lunch outside. Students, faculty, staff, and guests grab food from the kitchen and eat together under a white tent overlooking the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.
As the end of the school year approached last June, conversation turned to final assignments (English class was finishing Moby Dick) and year-end fun (a trip to the local lake was planned). Ta. It was, in most ways, a typical teenage afternoon. However, no one was using a cell phone.
Buxton was completing the first year of a simple but novel experiment: banning cell phone use on campus. Or rather, a smartphone.
Instead, the school will require everyone on campus, including staff, to light phone, that is, a “dumb” phone with limited functionality. The device can make calls and send texts (slowly), but it cannot load modern applications. Instead, it comes with intentionally cumbersome versions of the Music and Maps apps. They are about the size of a deck of playing cards and have black and white screens.
One student said: “It's like the devil's baby of the iPad and Kindle.”
But most people agree that schools are better off with these infernal devices. (Yes, that includes students.) There are fewer interruptions during classes, more meaningful interactions on campus, and less time spent on screens.
“We've found a pretty good way to deal with this problem,” said Scott Hunter, who teaches English and music, about smartphones. Buxton senior Bea Sass added: “I think people are a lot more social.”
FFor many teachers, students' cell phone use is frustrating. “That's every class, every time period,” said Mark McLaughlin, a math teacher at Near Car Knee High School in Oregon. “The worst part of my job is being the cellphone police.”
Educators across the country report fighting a near-constant battle with their phones.school districts in virginia The survey found that about a third of teachers asked students to put away their phones five to 10 times during class, and 14.7% did so more than 20 times during class. .
When I was in junior high school in Canada investigated According to staff, 75% of respondents believe that mobile phones have a negative impact on students' physical and mental health. Nearly two-thirds believed the device was also having a negative impact on their academic performance.
“This is a big problem,” said Arnold Glass, a psychology professor at Rutgers University. Researched the impact of mobile phones on student grades. “If they are allowed to look at their cell phones during class, they will drop half to the entire grade.”
Ian Tomonblak, a career guidance counselor at Lamoille Union High School in northern Vermont, is also faced with the proliferation of cell phones at his school. “There are kids who get Snapchats or text messages during the day and it just ruins their whole day,” he says. Another problem he sees is students using their cell phones to coordinate trips to collective restrooms in order to hang out during class. “I feel like it distracts me from learning on an academic level.”
When I told Tromblak about Buxton's experiment, he was intrigued. He noted that one of the things this would address is the argument from students that they need a phone to contact their parents. And teenagers often adapt to new parameters relatively quickly, he said. He remembers learning at the last minute on a field trip with his students that not everyone was allowed to use cell phones. At first, the news was apocalyptic.
“They were very upset. They didn't know how to handle themselves. It was really tense,” Tromblak said, recalling the drama. However, during the trip, the kids almost forgot about their cell phones, and at one point they took it upon themselves to police a girl who secretly tried to call the source of the rope.
“At the end of the first day, we were sitting around the campfire and they were saying, 'I haven't thought about my phone all day,'” Tomblak said. “It was really cool.”
TTo some extent, Buxton experienced a similar progression through stages of panic, grief, and ultimately some acceptance. “When it was announced, I was almost sick,” then-senior Max Weeks said. And while he's still not happy about the switch to Litephone, saying it was a “unilateral” decision, he said overall it was “not as bad as I expected.”
It's an open secret that students still sneak cell phones into their rooms on campus, and some are testing the limits more than others. “People get pretty temperamental and get caught,” said Yamaira Marks, also a senior at Buxton. But smartphones are generally difficult to find on campus.
That includes staff. The school's principal, Peter Beck, said he ditched his iPhone for a Litephone and installed his old GPS system in his car for when he needed to go out into the world. He is thrilled with how his first year went.
Because Buxton uses a narrative evaluation system, it is difficult to determine how the new phone policy is impacting academic performance. But culturally, Beck says, the movement has often led to changes in small but cumulatively meaningful ways.
“People are crazy about the lounge. They stay after class and chat,” says Beck, who estimates they are now having more conversations than ever before at school. “The frequency of all these face-to-face interactions is orders of magnitude higher.”
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Elon Musk prioritizes expanding Tesla’s market share over pursuing AI ambitions.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that in order to help Tesla become a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics, he would require at least 25% of voting power, which is almost double his current holdings. He mentioned facing resistance in achieving this goal.
On a social media platform, Musk mentioned that it is not impossible to achieve this goal. Tesla aims to have its products manufactured outside of electric car manufacturers.
Musk has been promoting Tesla’s partially automated “fully self-driving” software and prototype humanoid robots. However, the majority of Tesla’s revenue comes from its auto business.
According to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, some analysts have highlighted the significance of technology such as Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer, used to train its AI models, in the valuation of the EV maker. He mentioned that “Dojo could add nearly $600 billion to the company’s market value.”
Following Musk’s comments, Tesla shares dipped about 2% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
As the world’s wealthiest individual, Musk currently owns approximately 13% of Tesla shares. He had sold billions of dollars in stock in 2022 to finance his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
In another post, Musk mentioned, “A crazy meta multi-class stock structure that gives control to the next 20+ generations of the Zuckerberg family is fine before the IPO, but even a rational dual class is not allowed after the IPO. That’s strange,” referencing Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook’s parent company.
A dual-class structure in a company involves two or more classes of stock with different voting rights, typically giving more voting rights to the founders and early investors than to other shareholders.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk is currently facing a lawsuit over his compensation package. In 2018, Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta sued Musk and the board, alleging that Musk had used his advantage over Tesla’s board to secure excessive compensation without being required to work full-time at the EV maker. They are aiming to demonstrate that he has earned the package.
With regards to Company X, Musk stated that there was no “dispute” with the board over the new compensation package, and mentioned that the pending verdict was affecting discussions.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Men outperform women in navigation skills, but it’s not due to evolutionary factors
If men were encouraged to play outside as children, they may have better navigation skills than women
Colin Hawkins/Getty Images/Image Source
In fact, men tend to have a better sense of direction than women, but this is probably due to differences in upbringing rather than improved navigational skills being an evolutionary trait.
In previous research, Men slightly outperform women on spatial navigation tasks. Some researchers believe this is due to evolution, since in prehistoric times it was common for men to travel long distances to hunt, while women often stayed close to home. It suggests that it is. This may have resulted in selection pressure on men to develop advanced navigation skills.
But if that were the case, she says, those genes would be passed on to female offspring, as long as they're not on the Y chromosome. Justin Rose At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The really obvious alternative is culture,” he says. “It plays a huge role in what men and women experience.”
For example, boys may be encouraged to play outside more than girls, which may help hone their navigation skills, he says.
To investigate this idea, Rose and his colleagues collected data from 21 species of animals, including humans. This data includes information about their spatial navigation skills and how far they travel on average from home.
If natural selection were at work, we would expect males and females that traveled farther from home to have better navigational abilities, and this is consistent across species.
Instead, the researchers found that males of all species are slightly better at navigating than females, although in some species, such as the rusty crayfish (Faxonius rusticus) and the little devil poison dart frog (Uofaga Silvatica), females had a wider home range.
This finding suggests that differences in navigation between men and women may be cultural. It could also be a side effect of biological differences between males and females, as well as between male and female animals. For example, hormonal differences “can affect all kinds of traits,” Rose says. As long as those traits don't prevent reproduction, “evolution doesn't matter,” he says.
In previous spatial navigation research, There were no differences in these skills between men and women from similar backgrounds.
“The authors show in a very comprehensive way that sex differences in spatial ability are likely acquired, for example through culture.” Antoine Cutolo At the French National Center for Scientific Research. “Spatial skills are much like other cognitive skills: the more you use them, the better you become at them.”
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Source: www.newscientist.com
Alpine ibex are becoming more nocturnal as the climate warms up
Ibex can be at risk from wolves if they move around at night
robert andrighetto
Alpine ibex have become increasingly nocturnal to escape rising daytime temperatures, despite the increased risk of encountering predators.
Animals living in cold regions are expected to be greatly affected by rising global temperatures due to climate change. Alpine Ibex (capra ibex), usually seen grazing during the day in the European Alps, is one such animal.
To see what the impact was, Stefano Grignorio Researchers from the University of Ferrara in Italy tracked 47 individuals in Italy's Gran Paradiso National Park or Swiss National Park from May to October between 2006 and 2019. The animals were fitted with collars equipped with movement sensors.
Researchers found that warmer daytime temperatures made ibex more active at night. Grignolio said the discovery was surprising because doing so increases the chances of encountering wolves, one of their main natural enemies.
“Global warming seems to be driving their behavior changes dramatically,” he says. “Predation is just a variable.”
The ibex, a climate-sensitive animal, has probably shifted to a more nocturnal schedule to avoid the heat. Warmer daytime temperatures mean your body needs to expend more energy to cool itself compared to the energy needed to stay warm at night, Grignolio says.
However, while this response may help ibex cope with warmer climates, it may not be a viable long-term solution for ibex. “[They] may not be able to meet their demands [dietary] If they become too nocturnal or have increased predation, their requirements will not be met.” Niels Martin Schmidt At Aarhus University, Denmark.
“This study successfully quantifies some of the more subtle and often overlooked responses to climate change,” Schimdt says.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
Turning Stress into a Positive Force: Hacking Strategies for a Stress-Free Life
Many of us have felt some amount of stress over the past few years. Exhibit A for me is my teeth. A recent trip to the dentist confirmed that I had been clenching my jaw for months due to the pandemic. This was the result of the normal stress of deadlines, compounded by the demands of two young children, four of whom had broken bones.
A broken tooth is a small fry. Last year, the American Psychological Association Two-thirds of people in the US report feeling more stressed due to the pandemic, found, and predicted “a mental health crisis that could have serious health and social consequences for years to come.” Increased risks of diabetes, depression, and cardiovascular disease are all associated with high stress levels. Just thinking about it makes me feel stressed.
But maybe we just need to think about stress differently. At least, that's the surprising conclusion of researchers studying the mind-body relationship. They say there are natural benefits to feeling stressed, and if we change the way we “think about stress,” we can turn things around and make stress have a positive impact on our lives. maybe. Fortunately, there are some simple hacks that can help you do this, and you can expect to see improved physical health, clarity of thought, increased mental strength, and increased productivity. Masu.
There's no denying that too much stress can have a negative impact on your body and mind. In the West, it has been linked to all six major causes of death: cancer, heart disease, liver disease, accidents, lung disease, and suicide. Your immune system may be weakened, making you more susceptible to infections and less infectious.
Source: www.newscientist.com
Porous iceberg on Saturn’s moon Titan believed to be a strange ‘magical island’
Infrared image of Saturn’s icy moon Titan
NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Stephane Le Mouelik, Virginia Pasek
Saturn’s moon Titan is home to strange “magical islands” that appear and disappear over hours to weeks. These so-called islands are actually porous, sponge-like masses of snow that can slowly fill with liquid before sinking.
Titan’s thick atmosphere is filled with complex organic molecules that can clump together and fall to the moon’s surface like snow. Sintin Yu Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio thought that snow could be the cause of the magical islands. To test their idea, they took advantage of what we know about these atmospheric compounds and how they are expected to interact with Titan’s oceans.
Titan’s liquid is methane, not water, so any solids on the surface of these oceans would normally be expected to sink quickly. Water molecules tend to stick together and displace other substances, but methane easily sticks to other molecules, so the surface tension of a pool of liquid methane is very low.
“Water molecules just love themselves by excluding certain molecules,” he says. michael marasca from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was not involved in the study. “But if you put methane on the same surface, it’ll start crawling all over the place.” That means Titan’s methane oceans and lakes should immediately swallow up any solids that are expected to float. It means that.
But that clearly won’t happen on the magical island, which appeared as a temporary bright spot in observations from the Cassini spacecraft. “For us to see magical islands, they cannot float briefly and then immediately sink,” Yu said in the paper. statement. “You have to stay afloat for a while, but not forever.” Researchers have found a solution to this problem. When large amounts of snow accumulate on the coast, they can form sponge-like, porous ice. Once these porous “icebergs” separated from the land, they could float in Titan’s oceans for long enough to rival Cassini’s observations. The researchers calculated that this would work if the sponge-like structure contained enough free space (at least about 25 to 50 percent, depending on the exact composition of the ice).
However, this does not mean that these mysterious islands are definitely porous icebergs. “We’re narrowing down different scenarios for the magical island, but we don’t know the answer yet,” Malasca says. Other possible explanations include nitrogen gas bubbles, waves caused by wind or solid ocean deposits. However, this provides evidence that Titan’s temporary islands may actually be suspended matter from this strange world’s atmosphere.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
Deep-sea Submersible Discovers Four New Species of Octopus
A female octopus lays her eggs near a small rock outcrop, informally known as El Dorado Hill.
ROV Subastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute
Four new species of deep-sea octopus have been discovered in an underwater mountain range about two miles downstream in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica, according to the Schmidt Institute of Oceanography.
During expeditions in June and December 2023, researchers on the US nonprofit research vessel Falkor also used a remote-controlled vehicle to explore two low-temperature hydrothermal springs, two octopuses, and more. found a nursery, and one skate nursery. Subastian.
Previous research has found areas where octopuses live near low-temperature springs, but these environments have been difficult to find.
Typical 350°C hot hydrothermal vents are easy to spot thanks to smoke rising from the ocean floor. However, the cold spring's water temperature is only about 10 degrees Celsius higher than the average 2 degrees Celsius at the ocean floor, and is only visible through slight diffraction of light.
“It looks like it’s sparkling,” says expedition co-leader. Beth Orcutt at the Bigelow Marine Science Institute, another nonprofit in Maine.
Finding this subtle sign in the dark required multiple dives in different locations. “It's like walking through a forest you've never been in before with a flashlight looking for hot springs,” Orcutt said. “We were kind of making a bet.”
The four new species have not yet been officially described, but one has been named the dorado octopus, after the rock where it was discovered, known as El Dorado Hill.some kind of Muusocopsfemales gather to incubate eggs in warm water.
Orcutt said researchers believe the other species are new based on their appearance. They appear to be solitary, which is common among deep-sea octopuses. “They don't like having their neighbors close,” she says.
These insights into Costa Rica's unique biodiversity could inform regional conservation policy. “It is difficult [protect deep-sea wildlife] That’s when you don’t know it’s underground,” Orcutt says.
Undersea octopus farm
ROV Subastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute
These missions also help inspire and develop local scientific talent through training for early career researchers on how to lead deep-sea explorations, she says. The 310 specimens collected, which also include starfish, spider stars and sea cucumbers, will be kept at the Zoological Museum at the University of Costa Rica, rather than in the United States, where they are not easily accessible to local researchers.
More exploration is needed because the deep sea faces many threats, including mining, Orcutt said. “We're just scratching the surface.”
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Source: www.newscientist.com
Top 10 Multi-World Movies Chosen by a Physicist, Featuring ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Spider-Man’
'Groundbreaking': Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves in The Matrix
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I Professor of Physics at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia He is also the author of 18 popular science books. Although my training was in theoretical physics, particularly the discovery and interpretation of unusual solutions to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, I remained a lifelong admirer of his science fiction and fascinated by the phenomena of physics in culture. I'm here. In my latest book, The charm of the multiverse, I apply my experience and interests to the study of scientific debates and popular beliefs surrounding the concepts of parallel worlds and separate parts of reality. Here's a chronological list of my 10 favorite movies on the subject. Each one has been chosen to be thought-provoking and interesting.
It's a wonderful life (1946)
Beyond the key aspects of this issue Christmas classic There are lies worth chewing through, including the question of what the world would be like if we didn't exist. In theoretical physics, the hypothetical anthropic principle cuts off from all reality the realm of possibility that ultimately leads to the conscious observer. Sadly, unlike the film's protagonist George Bailey, we don't have guardian angels to tell us what the universe would be like without humanity. But maybe, in George's spirit, we recognize the fact that we exist as sentient beings on a fragile planet and take that responsibility seriously.
back to the future (1985)
Children dream of changing their parents. Thanks to the mysterious powers of the time-traveling DeLorean, Marty McFly inadvertently does just that. In physics, the feasibility of backward time travel is debatable. Could it be that the paradoxes caused by voyages into the past, such as acts that prevent the creation of time travelers, make them impossible? Marty's Voyage to 1955 He almost prevents his parents from falling in love until he finds a way to convince them. He returns to his 1985 present and finds himself in a parallel reality. His parents are much cooler there. Such a multiverse avoids paradox and gives hope to teenagers.
marmot day (1993)
In quantum physics, reality is a mixture of different particle histories. It's as if the inhabitants of a subatomic world need to try every possibility to make things right. Eastern philosophy similarly emphasizes that reincarnation ultimately leads to perfection. Similarly, funny movies, weatherman Phil Connors seems doomed to repeat the same terrible day over and over again until he sheds his self-centered attitude and becomes more sensitive to others. Along the way, he not only found love, but experienced enough time to master French, ice sculpting, and piano. Thanks to a kind of repeating multiverse, he contains a large number of things.
“Contains a large number of people”: Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
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12 Monkees (1995)
Partly inspired by great things, La Jetée, 12 Monkees It offers plotlines like twisted knots of wire. But does it constitute a single coherent chain, or does it contain loose parts?The protagonist, James Cole, travels back in time from his imaginary 21st century to his 1990s. and tries to gather clues about the origins of a devastatingly deadly pandemic. Although his superiors stress that the past cannot be changed, he sometimes appears to be influencing reality, but only in the face of reality's resilience. His hopes that he can prevent the catastrophe eventually fade, but there are hints of an alternative even in the final scene.
“A surprising juxtaposition of fate”: Gwyneth Paltrow's “Sliding Doors”
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sliding door (1998)
Have you ever missed a train by just a few seconds and cursed the time you lost? But if that delay resulted in an accident being avoided, it would seem more like a blessing. Brilliantly, through the magic of cinema, we see both parts of the many worlds in which the main character, Helen, misses and misses the subway. In the former case, the girlfriend was unable to witness her boyfriend cheating on her and continues to pretend that she didn't know. In the latter, she witnessed the incident and immediately met Mr. Right. However, both elements have something in common that ultimately points the way to a surprising juxtaposition of fate.
Run, Laura, run (1998)
If two versions of reality aren't enough, try three.in This seminal German film, fate gave Laura three chances to save her boyfriend, who had lost a huge amount of cash and needed it to carry out the mission of a crime boss. Each time, she somehow obtains her booty and takes 20 minutes to run across the city with it to her frenetic lover. Reflecting the butterfly effect of chaos theory, small discrepancies can lead to vastly different results. Her first two attempts prove fatal, but the third is the charm. This film shows that our passion for the multiverse reflects our desire for multiple opportunities in life.
matrix (1999)
Movies allow us to imagine entirely new worlds. Artificial intelligence strengthens that illusion. Imagine if an incredibly powerful and malicious electronic entity exploited our ability to be fooled and created a false world for us to experience life. All the while, it sucked energy from our bodies for its own evil purposes.of The film's groundbreaking sci-fi plot And special effects remain relevant to today's debates about AI capabilities and threats. Some thinkers speculate that the observable universe is a simulation. If that were the case, screenwriters elsewhere in the multiverse would win Academy Awards for the most original screenplays.
“The Haunting”: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Donnie Darko
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donnie darko (2001)
One of the most profound mysteries in theoretical physics is the concept of wormholes. A wormhole is a hypothetical connection between disparate sectors of the universe. Theorists have derived a wormhole solution to Einstein's general theory of relativity and demonstrated how it could potentially be used as a time machine. In reality, no one knows how to assemble the extraordinary amount of mass needed to create such an object, including a special negative mass component called “exotic matter.” Nevertheless, they serve as effective plot devices. this unforgettable movie The story of a troubled teenager who
Source: www.newscientist.com
Has the successful cloning of monkeys opened the door to human cloning?
cloned rhesus monkey
Zhaodi Liao et al.
After many years and many attempts, a healthy rhesus monkey was finally created by cloning. The clone was born in China on July 16, 2020, but its existence has only now been revealed.
“The cloned rhesus macaque is now 3 years old,” team members say Fallon Lu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “So far, no health problems have been found during routine medical examinations.”
However, because the monkeys were cloned from fetal cells rather than adult cells, the embryos had to be provided with a non-cloned placenta. Therefore, despite this progress, primate cloning remains extremely difficult. As a result, apart from ethical and legal issues, it may not yet be technically possible to clone an adult.
Cloning is the creation of an individual that is genetically identical to another individual. Cloning plants is easy, but for most animals it is much more difficult.
Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was born in 1996. Since then, researchers have attempted to clone many mammalian species, with mixed results.
In some cases, cloning works relatively well.A Korean team created a clone over 1500 dogs For example, so far, success rates remain low, with fewer than 4 percent of cloned embryos leading to live births. In many other mammalian species, cloning either fails completely or produces unhealthy animals.
The main problem is that as cells in the body develop and become specialized, various so-called epigenetic markers are added to the DNA in order to turn certain genes on or off. When adult cells are cloned into empty eggs, they usually contain the wrong epigenetic markers.
Primates (a group that includes apes such as monkeys and humans) have proven particularly difficult to treat. There have been several previous reports of monkey clones, but each case so far has come with major warnings.
For example, the rhesus macaque born in 1999 is sometimes described as the first primate clone, but this individual was created not by cloning adult cells like Dolly, but by creating identical twins. It was created by splitting the embryo, as is done.
In 2022, rhesus macaques will be born. cloned from a genetically modified adult However, this clone died shortly after birth.
The most successful attempt to date was the birth of two long-tailed macaques in 2017. The researchers behind this study used a chemical cocktail to help reset epigenetic markers, but they were still able to clone only fetal cells, not adult cells.
Lu's team tried applying the same cocktail to rhesus macaques, but the only clone produced this way did not survive. The researchers concluded that the abnormalities in the cloned placenta were partially to blame, and decided to transplant the part of the early embryo that turns into a fetus (the inner cell mass) into a non-cloned embryo, where the inner cell mass forms. Developed new technology. Cell clumps were removed.
This means that the cloned fetus develops within a non-cloned placenta that is genetically distinct from it. Theoretically, the resulting fetuses could be a mixture of clonal and non-clonal cells, but the researchers found no evidence of such chimerism.
But even with the help of this complex technique, the researchers have so far only cloned fetal cells and not adult cells. In other words, healthy primates have not yet been created by cloning adult cells.
This means that whether it is possible to clone adults remains an open question. Lu wouldn't speculate on whether his team's technique would help.
“The act of cloning humans is completely unacceptable. We don't think about this,” he says.
Shukrat Mitalipov A professor at Oregon Health & Science University, who also works on cloning but was not involved in the study, says it's unclear whether the technology will help create cloned humans. “Aside from ethical issues, it is unclear whether there is any humanity. [cloned] “The fetus has placental abnormalities,” Mitalipov said.
Lu says the purpose of primate cloning is to advance research. “Rhesus monkeys are important and commonly used non-human primate laboratory animals in cognitive and biomedical research,” he says.
Meanwhile, Mitalipov's aim is to use cloning to generate stem cells that are compatible with individual treatments. “In our case, one day doctors will be able to use non-rejection, genetically compatible embryonic stem cells to replace diseased nerve, muscle, blood and other cells, or to produce eggs for infertility treatment. I hope we can produce it,” he says.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
The Post Office Horizon Scandal: Valuable Lessons for Big Tech Companies to Learn
TThe Post Office Horizon scandal has long been a frustrating one to follow as a technology reporter. Because even though it stems from the failure to deploy a large-scale government IT project, it’s not about technology at all.
In such stories there is a desire to uncover the specific fault lines that caused the disaster to occur. Taking Grenfell Tower as an example, the entire system was flawed and the investigation into the fire revealed gory details, but it is also clear that the fatal error was in covering the building with combustible panels. Identifying that fulcrum leads both ways to further questions (how were the panels deemed safe, and was the building able to be safely evacuated despite their flaws?), but the catastrophic It is clear where it is.
I feel like there should be comparable focus points in the Horizon system. “What happened at Horizon that led to so many false accounts?” is a question I’ve asked many times over the decade since I first learned of the scandal. Thanks to Computer Weekly for the coverage. I searched for systems in the hopes of finding some important crux, a terrible decision around which all subsequent problems swirl, that could be sensibly explained to provide a technical foundation for a very human story of malice and greed. I’ve been looking into architecture.
Still, the conclusion I’m forced to draw is that Horizon was really, really broken. From toe to toe, the system was terrible. Each postmaster had fundamentally different flaws, so a plethora of technical errors, worst practice decisions, and lazy cutbacks were probably part of the reason the Postal Service continued to fight for so long. Masu.
One system continued to accept input even when the screen froze, writing transactions to the database invisibly, while other systems simply had edge-case bugs in the underlying system that caused transactions to change. It just couldn’t lock when it shouldn’t have. There was also a problem with the network with the central database, causing transactions to be dropped without warning whenever there was a problem with the data connection.
Still, if you want to trace the point in time when bad IT became a crisis, you need to look completely into the technology past. The Post Office declared Horizon to be functional as legal tender. Everything that happened after that was a logical conclusion. If Horizon works, the cause of the error should be in the subpostmaster operation. If they say they haven’t made a mistake, they must have committed fraud. If they committed fraud, a conviction is morally right.
But Horizon didn’t work.
Today’s big technology companies aren’t so cocky as to claim that their software is perfect. In fact, the opposite is accepted as reality. The phrase “all software has bugs” is repeated too often and casually, implying that users are demanding too much of the technology they rely and work reliably on.
But they often still act as if they believe the opposite. My inbox is constantly filled with unmanageable people who have been falsely flagged as spammers, scammers, or robots by Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple’s automated systems. These people have lost years of shopping, lost access to friends and family, and lost the pages and profiles on which they built their careers. I can’t help them all and still do my day job, but strangely enough, the cases I decide I can contact a large company for are almost always easily resolved. It turns out.
No one would argue that even the worst software Google has put out is as broken as Horizon. (The Post Office says the current version of the software, created in 2017, has been found to be “robust compared to comparable systems.”) But the real culprit is broken software with flaws. If you’re acting like something isn’t supposed to be there, that’s serious. The tech industry may have more lessons to learn from this scandal than it’s willing to admit.
Source: www.theguardian.com
YouTube challenges climate change denialism
Climate change denial has taken on a new focus, according to a recent report from the Center for Digital Action. Instead of denying that the planet is warming, scientists and activists are now questioning climate change solutions and skepticism about policy. Hate, a nonprofit organization researching digital hate speech and misinformation, has outlined this shift in their analysis. They argue that YouTube’s parent company, Google, has ineffective content policy regulations aimed at blocking ad revenue from content denying the scientific consensus of climate change.
Imran Ahmed, CEO of the organization, stated, “A new front has opened in this battle. They used to say climate change wasn’t happening, and now they’re saying, ‘Climate change is happening, but there’s no hope. There are no solutions.'” This reflects the evolution of the debate from outright denial to skepticism about the severity of climate change and potential solutions.
For decades, scientists have agreed that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, are causing an imbalance in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. As the Earth warms, the impacts are becoming increasingly evident, such as melting ice shelves and rising sea levels. Public perception of climate change has changed over recent decades, although it remains highly politicized, according to Pew Research Center.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate utilized artificial intelligence models to analyze YouTube videos with climate change denial content. Their analysis revealed a shift in the denial narrative from denying the existence of global warming to attacking climate change solutions.
John Cook, a senior research fellow, sees similar trends in his work, stating that the focus has shifted from questioning the existence of climate change to evaluating the seriousness of the problem and the effectiveness of proposed solutions.
The report also highlighted YouTube’s policies regarding misinformation about climate change and their failure to stop the monetization of negative narratives. They suggest that YouTube and Google should expand the types of content they can’t monetize to include climate change denial and to update their policies based on current trends.
YouTube has responded, stating that they prohibit advertising on content that violates the scientific consensus on climate change. They allow discussion and debate on the topic but will not show ads on videos that cross the line of climate change denial.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
Pokemon Chaos: Did the Van Gogh Museum Make the Right Moves?
IIn early November, I was standing in a long line at Van Gogh’s gift shop in Amsterdam to buy a Pokemon ballpoint pen. It was one of the few items left in the store – this was in its second month of establishment Pokemon collaboration, but the craze for limited edition merchandise continued. Everything from T-shirts with pictures of Pikachu on the front to notebooks to shoulder bags was stripped away, leaving only prints and postcards behind the cash register. It was just after noon, but the number of people inside the store quickly led to the area being cordoned off and other people being denied access until things calmed down.
This has become a familiar sight for participants and staff alike. Launched in September to commemorate the museum’s 50th anniversary, the collaboration aims to introduce the Dutch artist’s work to a new audience, and since its inception, the collaboration has had enthusiasts and scalpers clamoring for the best. It caused a commotion and caused a huge mess of Pokemon goods. But the main culprit was in one item – limited edition. “Pikachu wearing a gray felt hat” trading card. The card sold out online as soon as it went on sale, with desperate gallery visitors having to scrum to get their hands on the card. Footage of the poke riot was quickly posted to Twitter. (now known as X), the card has since sold for up to $900 in eBay listings. This card was discontinued in mid-October.
“Bedroom” at the Pokemon x Van Gogh Museum exhibition, Munchillax and Snorlax inspired by Sow (1988). Photo: Pokemon International Co., Ltd.
So, what was it like actually working there? “Her first week was pretty bad,” recalls one of her employee girlfriends. “It’s just been too busy. A lot of people are trying to come four times a day just to get their cards.” The cards are aimed at children aged 6 to 12 and will be on display. Awarded after the conclusion of a Pokémon treasure hunt where participants learned about Van Gogh’s history from a new set of Van Gogh-inspired Pokémon drawings that were temporarily added to the Society.
“In the morning, people were rushing to the store at once, even though there was only one item per person,'' the employee said. They describe the scene as more like a “theme park” than a museum, with at least 2,000 of the 5,500 tickets sold by card alone. Many people who came that day had to be turned away.
“It was total chaos,” explains another. “What did people expect? You’re taking out something from the ’90s that people were fans of. You get the idea, but it doesn’t work with Pokémon.”
To meet demand without compromising the experience, trading cards were replaced with postcards. Additionally, in order to prevent scalpers, limited edition items were moved from the gift shop on the first floor to the first floor, a rule of one item per person was introduced, and customers were required to wait in line. However, when I visited, the Pokémon Adventures treasure hunt flyer was also out of stock, and I was told it would be reprinted. When I told him I was a journalist, he found me behind the counter. The Van Gogh Museum later told me that they had enough treasure hunt leaflets (in Dutch and English) until the end of the collaboration, but that’s not what I found.
Pokemon Adventure Treasure Hunt Leaflet. Photo: Matt Poskitt
In any case, shortages and overcrowding led to an increase in dissatisfied visitors. “Usually a month he gets two complaints,” says one of his staff members. “Most of the time, it’s important to have a lot of people here. [During the Pokémon exhibition] There were 12 pieces a day. First, it was about the line.after that [because] We didn’t hand out any more cards…so they felt like they bought a ticket and thought they didn’t get anything.”
The situation has improved somewhat with the removal of trading cards from the Van Gogh Museum. “I think we drew the wrong crowd for the first few weeks,” the staffer says. “[Afterwards] I was happy. All the kids would do was come and leave with a postcard and happy.”
“I think it’s been that way for the last few weeks.” [successful], yes,” they say. “There were a lot of families who wanted to go on a treasure hunt. Even though there are no more treasure hunts, regular art treasure hunts are still held. Usually we give out about 20 or 30 tickets, but yesterday we handed out about 50. I did. The kids are in.”
Indian teenager creates ground-breaking device with potential to revolutionize dementia care on a global scale
IDuring the blissful summer that Hemesh Chadarabada spent with his grandmother in 2018, they watched endless movies and ate her grandmother's chicken biryani. Late one evening, while Chadaravada, then 12, was sitting alone in front of the television, Jayasree got up in her nightgown and went to her home in Guntur, southern India, to make her a cup of tea. Ta.
After returning to her bedroom, Chadarabada went into the kitchen and noticed that her grandmother, then 63, had left the gas on.
“She was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and I was still in shock. What would have happened if I hadn't been there?” Chadaravada says.
Chadaravada knows that Jayasree is not only a loving grandmother but also a dynamic and successful woman with a high-profile career as a civil servant who interacted with Telangana's top politicians and policy makers. Ta.
But Alzheimer's disease changed her forever. “She would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and she would go outside thinking she was on the train,” he says.
During that happy summer, Chadarabada, a self-confessed geek from Hyderabad who loves robotics, decided he wanted to invent a device to help people like his grandmother.
Now 17 years old, Chadarabada is ready to start building a device to detect falls and wandering in Alzheimer's patients, something that is not possible with currently available devices.
Light and compact, Alpha Monitor can be worn as a badge or armband and sounds an alarm when the wearer begins to move, alerting caregivers if the patient falls or wanders.
Most similar devices work over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so if a person moves outside of the frequency's restricted range, they lose connectivity and, with it, monitoring. However, Alpha Monitor Lolait uses.
Chadarabada taught himself by watching YouTube videos about robotics and electronics and developed 20 prototypes.
Understanding the needs of Alzheimer's disease (Alzheimer's disease in India) patients Estimated 8.8 million people), spent time at a day center run by the Alzheimer's Disease Related Disorders Association of India.
SEC Approval of Spot Bitcoin ETF Leads to Increased Volatility in the Market – Blockchain News, Opinion, TV, Jobs
Bitcoin (BTC) closed last week at around $41,750, down 5.0% from the first week of the new year, to close at around $43,750. The price showed significant fluctuations, mainly influenced by the increased market dynamics due to the approval of the BTC Spot ETF. The week began with a strong uptrend in anticipation of approval on Monday, with prices rising 9.0% to nearly $47,000. BTC approached $48,000 on Tuesday, but the false news about confirmation encountered significant volatility, causing a drop below $45,000 before stabilizing near $46,000 overnight.
On Wednesday, the SEC granted approval for the BTC Spot ETF, leading to heightened volatility, especially on Thursday when ETF trading began. After soaring to around $49,000, BTC began a significant downtrend, especially on Friday, when the price fell by 7.7% to below $43,000. Prices gradually declined over the weekend, ultimately ending the week at around $41,750.
The launch of the BTC Spot ETF has increased market activity. An analysis of daily trading volume on centralized exchanges for the seven-day period from January 8th to 14th showed that daily trading volume reached nearly $50 billion, the highest since November 2022. The launch of ETFs has increased activity in the entire market, and not just in BTC.
From January 8th to 14th, BTC's daily trading volume was recorded at $17.8 billion, an increase of 26% from the $14.1 billion recorded the previous week. Ethereum (ETH) recorded a total daily trading volume of $7.7 billion during the same period, an 83% increase from the $4.2 billion recorded the previous week, indicating increased activity across the market.
The recent strength of the market compared to BTC is further substantiated by analyzing BTC's dominance in terms of market capitalization relative to the overall digital asset market. At the end of the week, BTC's share was 51.1%, down 5.4% from 54.0% the previous week.
BTC price trends, coupled with volume data and the performance of specific altcoins, indicate that it adheres to the typical “buy the rumor, sell the news” pattern associated with major market events. Market participants predicted the ETF's approval 90% of the time and adjusted their portfolios accordingly prior to SEC approval.
During Q4 2023, BTC showed significant strength, with the price increasing by 57% to around $42,300 from $27,000 at the end of Q3. As BTC reached almost $49,000 after approval, investors took profits on positions initiated at lower BTC price levels and transferred their capital to altcoins, as evidenced by its decline in dominance over the past week. began to be redistributed.
This pattern is common and does not indicate a failed ETF launch. In the first two days of trading, the 11BTC Spot ETF closed with approximately $1.4 billion in cumulative inflows, partially offset by $600 million in outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF (GBTC). Net inflows were approximately $800 million.
The GBTC outflow was facilitated by the fact that it was not a new product launch, but rather a conversion from an existing Bitcoin trust holding over 600,000 BTC. Grayscale has higher management fees (1.5%) compared to most of its competitors (0.2%/0.3%), leading some investors to withdraw from Grayscale and opt for more favorable management fees. May reinvest in other BTC ETFs with fees.
Source: the-blockchain.com
Many in the UK contracting severe coronavirus infections in summer due to lack of vaccination
A coronavirus vaccine is being administered at Epsom Racecourse in Surrey, England.
PA Image/Alamy
Around 7,000 people in the UK would have avoided dying or being hospitalized from coronavirus in the summer of 2022 if they had been fully vaccinated against the virus, a major study has found. This is the first time that the health impact of hesitancy to get a COVID-19 vaccine has been calculated on a national basis.
Since the emergence of the Omicron variant, covid-19 vaccines are less effective at preventing people from getting infected, but they still reduce the risk of dying or needing hospitalization from the virus.
katherine sudlow Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the UK used national health service data to determine how much vaccination would reduce hospitalizations and deaths in the summer of 2022, when most COVID-19 restrictions had ended. We investigated whether it had an impact on
Sudlow's team included data from June 1 to September 30, 2022, spanning the wave of coronavirus infections that peaked in July. During this period, 40,000 people died or required hospitalization due to the virus, all of which were classified as serious health hazards.
The team then looked at people who have received the recommended number of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters (for example, four doses for people 75 and older by that point) and those who have received fewer than the recommended number of doses. They compared rates of severe outcomes among people who received the vaccine or booster immunization. Not at all.
People who have not been fully vaccinated are more likely to develop severe disease than people who are fully vaccinated, and the exact increased risk depends on age. For example, people over the age of 75 are about three times more likely to develop severe illness from COVID-19 if they have not been fully vaccinated.
The researchers calculated that if everyone in the UK had been fully vaccinated, there would have been around 7,000 fewer deaths and hospital admissions. “Fully immunizing people will reduce adverse outcomes for society as a whole,” Sudlow said.
One caveat is that this study was not a randomized trial, which is the best medical evidence, but simply observed a correlation between vaccination status and outcome, which could bias the results. The fact is that there is, he said. stephen evans At the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Nevertheless, he says the results of studies on the vaccine's effectiveness are broadly consistent with previous randomized trials. “Their approach is a reasonable one.”
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Source: www.newscientist.com
Exoplanet similar in size to Earth found orbiting around star HD 63433
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized planet passing by the young Sun-like star HD 63433.
HD 63433d is located close to its parent star HD 63433, with two neighboring mini-Neptune-sized planets HD 63433b and HD 63433c orbiting further out. Image credit: Alyssa Jankowski.
HD 63433 is a G5V star located approximately 73 light years away in the constellation Gemini.
The star, also known as TOI-1726, is a member of the 414-million-year-old Moving Star Group in the Ursa Major constellation.
The newly discovered exoplanet HD 63433d is the third planet detected in this multi-planet system.
The discovery of two other planets — HD 63433b and HD 63433c (both mini-Neptunes) report By Astronomer in 2020.
The HD 63433d is tidally locked, meaning it has a day side that is always facing the stars and a side that is always in the dark.
The planet has an orbital period of 4.2 days and is very hot on its dayside (1,257 degrees Celsius, or 2,294 degrees Fahrenheit).
“These scorching temperatures are comparable to the lava world of: Corot-7b and Kepler-10bAnd we think the dayside of this planet may be a 'lava hemisphere,''' said the University of Florida astronomer. benjamin capistrant and his colleagues.
HD 63433d is the smallest known exoplanet less than 500 million years old.
The planet is also the closest Earth-sized exoplanet to be discovered at such a young age.
“HD 63433d is the closest planet to our solar system, orbiting a young star with a radius similar to Earth,” the astronomers said.
“This is therefore an attractive target for follow-up observations and provides an opportunity to uncover insights into the physics of atmospheric mass loss in exoplanets.”
“Between HD 63433d and the two larger planets known to date, the HD 63433 system is poised to play a key role in understanding the evolution of planetary systems during the first billion years after their formation. I am.”
The discovery of HD 63433d is paper inside astronomy magazine.
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Benjamin K. Capistrant other. 2024. TESS Search for Young and Mature Exoplanets (THYME). 11. An Earth-sized planet orbiting a nearby Sun-like host in the 400 million Ursa Majoris migration group. A.J. 167, 54; doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/ad1039
Source: www.sci.news
Homo longhi’s facial reconstruction
Brazilian anthropologist reconstructs ancient human face Homolonghi This comes from a well-preserved skull discovered in northeastern China in the 1930s.
Homolonghi It is an extinct species of the genus homo It lived in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene.
The species, also known as dragon man, was identified from a nearly complete skull dating back 148,000 years.
This fossil was discovered in 1933 when a bridge was being built over the Songhua River in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.
Due to unsystematic recoveries and long periods of time, information about the exact location and fossil layers has been lost.
Harbin's skull is huge, larger than all other archaic humans. It is also relatively long and low, lacking the spherical shape of modern human brain cases.
It has larger, almost square eye sockets, thick eyebrow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth.
Its intracranial volume is estimated to be 1,420 ml; homo sapiens Neanderthals, and bigger than before homo seed.
This specimen, also known as the Harbin skull, probably represents a man less than 50 years old.
front view portrait of Homolonghi. Image credit: Cicero Moraes, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.24648591.
“Uranium series dating gives the fossil a reliable date of 148,000 years ago, and its remarkable dimensions mean the skull is larger than all known archaic hominin skulls. ” he said. Cicero Moraesresearcher at the Ortogonline Treinamento em Desenvolvimento Profissional e Consultoria LTDA.
Regarding face approximation, Homo longhiMoraes used not only Harbin's skull, but also a computed tomography (CT) scan of Harbin's skull. homo erectus, homo sapiens and pan-troglodytes.
“Forensic facial reconstruction, or forensic facial approximation, is an auxiliary recognition technique that reconstructs/approximates the face in a skull, and is used when there is little information to identify an individual based on the remains. ” explained Moraes.
portrait side view Homolonghi. Image credit: Cicero Moraes, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.24648591.
“To be able to approximate the face, the jaw and missing teeth had to be reconstructed,” he added.
“For this purpose, we need a complete skull. homo erectus Teeth that underwent some structural modifications and were precisely adjusted in the tooth area were used. ”
“The remaining molars served as parameters for aligning other teeth as well as the alveolus in the upper jaw.”
“Thanks to the wide range of information obtained in previous studies, the reconstruction of the fossil and face is now possible. HomolonghiIn addition to undertaking some measurements and comparisons in the context of other species,” concluded Moraes.
of result Published in an online journal OrtogOnLineMag.
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Cicero Moraes. 2023. Facial shortcuts Homo longhi (Harbin, China, approximately 148,000 AP). OrtogOnLineMag 4(2); doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.24648591
Source: www.sci.news
Researchers unravel enigmatic lunar geological puzzles
New research from the University of Bristol has revealed the origin of titanium-rich basaltic magma on the Moon.
A map of titanium abundance on the moon's surface from NASA's Clementine spacecraft. The red area shows a very high concentration compared to terrestrial rocks. Image credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute.
The presence of surprisingly high concentrations of the element titanium (Ti) on parts of the moon's surface has been known since NASA's Apollo missions back in the 1960s and 1970s. The mission successfully recovered samples of solidified ancient lava from the moon's crust.
Recent maps from orbiting satellites show that these magmas, known as titanium-rich basalts, are widespread on the moon's surface.
Professor Tim Elliott and colleagues at the University of Bristol have used advanced isotopic analysis of lunar samples in a series of high-temperature lava labs to identify key reactions that control the composition of these characteristic magmas.
This reaction occurred about 3.5 billion years ago deep inside the moon, replacing elements of iron in the magma with elements of magnesium in the surrounding rock, changing the chemical and physical properties of the melt.
“The origin of the Moon's volcanic rocks is a fascinating story involving an 'avalanche' of unstable, planetary-scale piles of crystals produced by the cooling of a primordial magma ocean,” Professor Elliott said.
“Central to this epic history is the presence of a type of magma unique to the Moon, which explains how such magma reached the surface to be sampled on space missions. It was a tricky problem to solve. I'm really glad we were able to resolve this dilemma.”
“Until now, models have not been able to reproduce magma compositions that match the essential chemical and physical properties of high-titanium basalts,” said Dr. Martin Claver, a researcher at the Institute of Mineralogy at the University of Münster.
“Explaining that low density made eruptions possible about 3.5 billion years ago has proven particularly difficult.”
“We successfully mimicked high-titanium basalts in a laboratory process using high-temperature experiments,” the researchers said.
“Measurements of the titanium-rich basalts also revealed a unique isotopic composition, a signature of reactions that were reproduced in experiments.”
“Both results clearly demonstrate how melt-solid reactions are essential to understanding the formation of these unique magmas.”
of findings Published in today's diary natural earth science.
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M. Claver other. Titanium-rich basaltic melts exist on the lunar surface, conditioned by reactive flow processes. nut.earth science, published online on January 15, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01362-5
Source: www.sci.news
Should the Great Pacific Garbage Patch be a priority for plastic cleanup efforts?
Fish caught in discarded nets in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Ocean Voyages Institute/ZUMA Wire/Shutterstock
It was a bright sunny day in September 2023. Excitement filled the air and a rainbow appeared on the horizon as the team slowly pulled a giant net out of the glistening sea. ocean cleanup This project was trialling System 03 in the North Pacific. Basically she had two ships dragging a 2.2 kilometer long net designed to remove as much trash as possible. This time it was filmed for a promotional video, with one scoop weighing a record-breaking 18 tons.
Ocean Cleanup was founded in 2012 on the simple premise of trawling ocean plastic hotspots and mopping up floating debris. After years of testing and refining the technology, the organization says it is now ready to begin the planned cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast collection of plastic waste located between Hawaii and California. There is.
That sounds like a laudable goal. But in recent years, marine scientists have warned that efforts to mechanically remove plastic from the ocean are not only futile, but potentially harmful. It’s a waste, as we know that much of the ocean’s plastic waste is too small or out of reach to capture. And it’s probably harmful for two reasons. Firstly, new research shows that marine debris patches are home to all kinds of marine life, and secondly, cleanup efforts have removed such waste from its source. This is because efforts to stem the flow of the virus may be hindered.
So, given what we know…
Source: www.newscientist.com
IMF Chief Predicts AI will Affect 40% of Jobs and Potentially Exacerbate Inequality
According to the Director-General of the International Monetary Fund, artificial intelligence will impact 40% of jobs around the world, and countries need to build social safety nets to reduce the impact on vulnerable workers. “Very important.”
AI, a term that refers to computer systems capable of performing tasks typically associated with a level of human intelligence, is poised to significantly change the global economy, with a growing risk of disrupting developed economies.
Analysis by IMFThe last international financial institution says that around 60% of jobs in developed countries such as the US and UK are exposed to AI, and half of them could be adversely affected. But as AI improves performance, the technology could also help some humans become more productive, the report said.
According to the IMF, the safest jobs at risk are those that are “highly complementary” to AI, meaning that the technology supplements rather than completely replaces jobs. This includes roles that involve a high degree of responsibility and interaction with people, such as surgeons, lawyers, and judges.
High-risk jobs that are “low complementarity” (i.e., could be replaced by AI) include telemarketing or cold calls to solicit people to offer goods or services. According to the IMF, low-exposure occupations include dishwashers and performers.
According to the IMF, AI will account for 40% of job opportunities in emerging market countries (defined by the IMF as countries including China, Brazil, and India) and 26% in low-income countries, for a total of just under 40%.
Generative AI (a term used to describe technologies that can generate highly plausible text, images, and even audio from simple manual prompts) has emerged on the political agenda since the advent of tools such as ChatGPT chatbots.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the ability of AI to impact high-skilled jobs means developed countries face greater risks from the technology. She added that in extreme cases, jobs could be lost in some major economies.
“About half of the exposed jobs could benefit from AI integration and increase productivity,” Georgieva said in a blog post accompanying the IMF study. “For the other half, AI applications could perform key tasks currently performed by humans, which could reduce demand for labor and lead to lower wages and fewer jobs. In extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear.”
He added that in most scenarios, AI would likely exacerbate inequality across the global economy and could cause social tensions without political intervention. AI is expected to be high on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, where top technology industry leaders are expected to attend.
“It is important for countries to establish comprehensive social safety nets and provide retraining programs for vulnerable workers,” Georgieva said. “Doing so can make the transition to AI more inclusive, protect livelihoods, and limit inequality.”
According to the IMF's analysis, high-wage workers in jobs that are highly complementary to AI can expect to see higher incomes, which could lead to higher inequality.
“This will further widen income and wealth inequality resulting from higher returns to capital accruing to high-income earners,” the IMF report said. “Countries' choices regarding fiscal policy, including the definition of AI property rights and redistribution, will ultimately shape the impact on the distribution of income and wealth.”
The report found that the UK workforce, with a high proportion of university graduates, is under no obligation to do so, although older workers may struggle to adapt to new jobs, move on to new jobs or retrain. They say they may be ready to switch from a job that risks leaving them to a job that is “highly complementary.”
Last year, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said the occupations most at risk from AI automation are high-skilled occupations, which account for about 27% of all agency jobs. 38 member countriesThis includes the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, United States, Australia, and Canada. He said skilled professions such as law, medicine and finance are most at risk.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Harnessing Nature: Releasing Billions of Engineered Mosquitoes into the Wild to Combat Disease
Dengue fever is currently endemic in 100 countries, putting half of the world’s population at risk. The threat has increased dramatically, with the number of dengue fever cases increasing tenfold between 2000 and 2019, and the number of cases hitting an all-time high in 2023.
Bangladesh, Peru and Burkina Faso have all seen record outbreaks in the past 12 months, while France, Italy and Spain have also reported cases of mosquito-borne dengue fever.
What’s causing this? Scientists say global warming is making space more hospitable to insects, and that climate change is fueling the rise in this mosquito-borne viral disease. As mosquitoes become more common, we expect the time to outbreak of dengue fever to shorten and the transmission season to lengthen.
This is a worrying situation.But that’s what the sponsoring team decided world mosquito program There is a possible solution. They suggest treating mosquitoes with bacteria that can prevent the development of viruses in the body.
read more:
What are the symptoms of dengue fever?
There’s a good reason dengue fever has been labeled “breakbone fever.” 80% of cases are asymptomatic, but when symptoms develop, symptoms include high fever, muscle and joint pain, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, nausea, and vomiting.
Symptoms begin 4 to 10 days after infection and can last from 2 days to up to a week. DHF (severe dengue fever) manifests as severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, bleeding gums or nose, blood in the stool or vomit, pale, cold skin, and fatigue. Doctors can only alleviate these symptoms because antiviral drugs are not available.
How does dengue spread?
Dengue fever is spread through the bite of an infected female mosquito. Aedes aegypti, typically found in tropical and subtropical regions. Originating from the forests of West Africa, Aedes aegypti They spread around the world during the African slave trade and have continued to hitchhike as a means of human transportation ever since.
other Aedes Other species can also transmit dengue fever, although to a lesser extent. The highly invasive Asian tiger mosquito is the likely cause of dengue infections in Europe. Unlike malaria mosquitoes, which usually bite at night and can be prevented with insecticide-treated bed nets, dengue mosquitoes bite during the day and are very difficult to control.
Mosquitoes are now highly urbanized creatures, admirably adapted to coexist with humans, their preferred blood source. In cities, stagnant water is key to survival, providing spawning grounds and habitat for aquatic larval and pupal development. Mosquitoes breed in small puddles in garbage, used tires, and man-made containers such as flower pots. Thus, humans have been the main driving force behind the success of the dengue mosquito.
How can we fight the spread of infection?
Dengue prevention requires a multipronged attack on mosquitoes, with a focus on insecticide spraying. However, insecticide resistance is developing in mosquito populations around the world, threatening their effectiveness.
what else? Control strategies also include adaptations to eliminate breeding sites or prevent reproduction. Aedes aegypti Prevent spawning in stagnant water (remove debris that could trap water and install covers on water storage containers).
Bacterial toxins are also applied to bodies of water to kill mosquito larvae. These strategies are labor intensive because it is difficult to identify, treat, and eliminate all breeding sites. Therefore, new methods of mosquito control are desperately needed.
The World Mosquito Program (WMP) has devised a non-chemical and non-GMO-based approach for dengue control. Bacteria called Wolbachia which occurs naturally in many insect species; Aedes aegypti.
WMP was found to be “infected”. Aedes aegypti and Wolbachia Prevented the onset of dengue virus in adult women. From a logistical point of view, this method is self-sustaining. Wolbachia It can spread to wild populations because it infects eggs through mating.
WMP reports a significant decrease in dengue cases. Aedes aegypti carry Wolbachia has been released.given that Aedes aegypti Since Zika and Chikungunya viruses are also transmitted, WMP has developed a potential “three-for-one” method of disease control.
It’s no exaggeration to say that mosquitoes are the most hated insects, but despite their notoriety, only a handful of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes transmit disease. They are also important to the ecosystem.
Mosquitoes are a food source for fish, frogs, reptiles, bats, and birds, and they are also pollinators, as male insects suck nectar from flowers (only females drink blood). The WMP approach is species-specific and targeted only. Aedes aegyptiThis is in contrast to the “blunt force” approach with insecticides, which can affect insects other than the target.
The climate change trajectory we are currently on is leading to rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns, which will benefit this terrifying little insect and her viral cargo. Therefore, we need as many weapons as possible in our arsenal to combat the growing global dengue threat.
read more:
Source: www.sciencefocus.com
Elon Musk’s Stance on Free Speech Makes Him a Hypocrite, According to Trevor Timm
Is there a bigger hypocrite in the world when it comes to free speech than Elon Musk?
I say this as someone who wishes Elon Musk really cared about free speech. In my opinion, social media companies are censoring their users excessively. Countless restrictive rules often backfire on those who promote them. The suspension process is often opaque and arbitrary. After all, a public forum filled with the frank and free exchange of opposing views, one that clearly favors allowing more fringe speech than prohibited speech, , that's a good thing.
But it was not created by Mr. Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist.” He has built a system that is the exact opposite of what he stands for, and is more arbitrary and opaque than the old Twitter, which he has relentlessly criticized, or even Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. is. And he uses his power more than anyone on Donald Trump's side to retaliate against his critics.
The most recent example came earlier this week when a group of left-wing journalists and commentators, including The Intercept's brilliant reporter Ken Klippenstein, mysteriously stopped From Twitter (sorry, I always refuse to call you “X”) without any warning or notice as to why. The only thing all the testimonies had in common was that they criticized Israel's war in Gaza.
After sustained protests, their accounts were eventually restored. Musk claimed, without any evidence, that it was due to a spam filter that captured real accounts. If you want to claim it's a coincidence, it might make sense without thinking about it. But this isn't his worst offense in the past six weeks.
When the liberal advocacy site Media Matters published a report alleging that Musk was allowing ads to run next to hate speech, Musk did not simply denounce hate speech on his platform. Without, sued them.too It's not the first time Musk sued the advocacy group last year. Apparently, it's okay to criticize him. “The whole point of free speech is to allow people who disagree with you to express their opinions.” He said This week – unless you also send criticism to potential ad buyers.
Making matters worse, some Republican states attorney general Perhaps seeking favors to later pad his campaign coffers from the world's richest man, he is trying to capitalize on Musk's enemies this week. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an “investigation” into media matters, and Missouri's attorney general is following suit.
Even if you're not a Media Matters fan, you'll know how incredibly chilling this would be if the shoe was on the other foot. Imagine if George Soros tried to bankrupt every right-wing website that accuses him of being behind various left-wing conspiracies. I visit these sites almost every day.
Examples of Mr. Musk's hypocrisy are so frequent that it's difficult to keep track of them all. Musk was once caught taking advice from a right-wing online friend about which left-wing accounts to access. No next time. Sometimes it looks like he's doing it on purpose throttled link Go to the news site he hates. Former Twitter employers say that early in his tenure as owner, Musk made a 180-degree break from his own supposed principles when faced with pressure from advertisers. go from From a stance of entrusting everything to a stance of lowering everything.
The most egregious episode was the controversy surrounding the account @ElonJet that tracked Musk's private jet. First, Musk insisted he would allow it. And the moment he felt he was in even the slightest danger, he renamed the private jet data, which has been published on every plane for decades, “assassination coordinates.”And he Paused Journalists who tweeted about the account were not given any warnings.
While his content moderation decisions have garnered the most attention, what he's done behind the scenes is arguably even more nefarious. He regularly dismantled Twitter's excellent legal department. stuck It violated users' actual free speech rights in court and sought to protect their anonymity in the event a powerful organization filed a lawsuit to expose them. And after Musk's first six months at the helm, Twitter has challenged numerous legal orders against its users. 100% compliance!
Mr. Musk's huge business interests in China mean he doesn't care about the Chinese people's right to free speech (or lack thereof). He refuses to weigh in on the many controversies of the world's largest dictatorship, which has complete authoritarian control of the Internet. It's very likely that defenders of free expression will wholeheartedly welcome his voice, but then again, he doesn't actually care about free speech, so no one should hold their breath. not here.
Of course, this was all completely predictable.in his own companymusk force on employees sign a restrictive non-discrimination agreement; He tried to destroy the whistleblower. Tesla once reportedly tried to get customers to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in order to have their cars repaired. There is no indication that his professed principles are genuine.
Imagine if Musk's professed love for free speech wasn't entirely false. As the world's richest person, he could have great influence. He could create a strong, transparent appeals process for those suspended for allegedly violating the rules. He could hire a large legal team to protect users' anonymity from litigants while defending censorship orders from all governments around the world. If it means that some right-wing bastards and trolls are returned to service as a byproduct of a principled decision supporting freedom of expression, that might be a good deal.
Instead, Mr. Musk took what could have been a powerful strategy and principle for him, as well as for true defenders of freedom of expression, and turned it into a snake oil salesman's marketing plan. I changed it to
Source: www.theguardian.com
The Hubble Space Telescope’s Focus on Galaxies with Supernovae
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken new photos of the relatively small galaxy UGC 5189A in the constellation Leo.
This Hubble image shows UGC 5189A, an irregular galaxy about 150 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Filippenko.
UGC 5189A It is located approximately 150 million light years away in the constellation Leo.
This galaxy, also known as ECO 5363 or LEDA 27776, was observed by Hubble in 2010 to study supernova explosions.
This special supernova SN2010jlwas notable for its enormous brightness.
“In fact, over a three-year period, SN 2010jl alone emitted at least 2.5 billion times more visible energy than the Sun emitted in the same time frame across all wavelengths,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Even after a supernova has dimmed to an unobservable level, it can still be interesting to study the environment in which it occurred.”
“This could provide us with valuable information. Supernovae can occur for a variety of reasons, and understanding the environment in which they occur can help us understand why supernovae are triggered. It will help you better understand the necessary conditions.”
“Furthermore, follow-up studies after a supernova explosion could improve our understanding of the immediate aftermath of a supernova explosion, from the powerful effects on the surrounding gas and dust to the stellar debris left behind by the supernova.”
“To this end, UGC 5189A has been observed by Hubble many times since 2010.”
This new image of UGC 5189A consists of observations from. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) Found in the ultraviolet and optical parts of the spectrum.
Two filters were used to sample different wavelengths. Color is obtained by assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
“This image is from data collected in three recent Hubble studies of UGC 5189A, which also examined several other relatively nearby galaxies that have recently gone supernova. “Relatively nearby” in this context means approximately 100 million light years away. ” said the astronomers.
Source: www.sci.news
How a 2,450-Day Snapchat Streak Has Kept Our Friendships Strong Through Heartbreak, Joy, and COVID-19
I
It's hard to say when it became a daily habit. There were stops and starts. Days when I couldn't think of anything. But little by little, it became non-negotiable. Wake up. Please check the time. Send a snap. Every day for 2,450 consecutive days. I sent fleeting moments spanning almost seven years to a friend on the other side of the world.
Sarah has seen my sleepy eyes and the view of my dresser from my bed more than anyone else on earth. I don't know why I decided my Snapchat streak would be most important, but it became a priority in April 2017, almost four years after I downloaded the app and started using it haphazardly.
We are currently experiencing one of the longest snap streaks in the history of the app. Snapchat doesn't make that information public, so we don't know where they are on the ladder, but they recently ranked among the top 10 sites that collect that data.
Guardian Australia political blogger Amy Lemeikis and her friend Sarah are on a road trip together.
Photo: Amy Lemeikis
Sarah and I met while teaching English in Korea. An American and an Australian, they were excited to be so far away from home. We forged a friendship over BBC's Pride and Prejudice and Korean sheet masks. Eventually, we both returned to real life, me in journalism, she in grad school, but we continued to communicate sporadically. Days, then weeks, then months passed before we spoke.
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She was severely affected by the coronavirus. She kept on ringing until she stood up and her words were breathtaking. She found medical help for her and I sent food and Amazon care packages to her home. This is America's online artery that connects us across closed borders. Her recovery from coronavirus was long and scary, and I woke up in a panic, but it wasn't until I saw her open the app that I felt relieved and went back to sleep.
When I recently asked her what this streak meant to her, she said, “Tangible proof that someone special is thinking of you at least once a day, even on your worst day.” “It's very reassuring to have that,” she said, and it's true. During some particularly difficult moments, that was the only voice I heard outside of my head.
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Source: www.theguardian.com
Oldest Fossilized Skin Preserved in 289-Million-Year-Old Cave System
Fossilized skin fragments collected from the Richards Spur Cave system in Oklahoma, US, are at least 21 million years older than any previously reported skin fossil.
The newly described fossilized skin is captorinus agutia type of early reptile that lived during the Permian period about 289 million years ago.
This reptile specimen and associated skeleton were collected by long-time paleontology enthusiasts Bill and Julie May. Richards Spara limestone cave system in Oklahoma that is currently undergoing quarrying.
The skin fragments are smaller than fingernails and have a pebble-like surface, most similar to crocodile skin.
This is the earliest preserved example of the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, in terrestrial reptiles, birds, and mammals, and was an important evolutionary adaptation in the transition to terrestrial life.
“Every once in a while, we have a unique opportunity to glimpse deep into time,” said Ethan Mooney, a graduate student at the University of Toronto.
“Discoveries of this kind can really enrich our understanding and appreciation of these pioneering animals.”
Skin and other soft tissue rarely fossilize, but Mooney and colleagues say that this is possible thanks to unique features of the Richards Spur Cave system, including fine clay deposits that slow decomposition, oil seepage, and a cave environment. We believe that in this case it was possible to save the skin. It was probably an environment without oxygen.”
“Animals would have fallen into this cave system during the early Permian period and become buried in very fine clay sediments, slowing down the process of decay,” Mooney said.
“What is surprising, however, is that this cave system was also the site of an active oil seepage during the Permian, and the interaction of the hydrocarbons in the oil with the tar is likely what enabled the preservation of this surface. is.”
Analysis of the specimens revealed epidermal tissue, a characteristic of the skin of amniotes, a group of terrestrial vertebrates that includes reptiles, birds and mammals that evolved from amphibian ancestors during the Carboniferous Period.
“What we saw was completely different from what we expected, so we were in complete shock,” Mooney said.
“Finding ancient skin fossils like this is a unique opportunity to peer into the past and learn what the skin of these early animals looked like.”
The skin shares features with ancient and extant reptiles, including a pebble surface similar to crocodile skin and hinge areas between epidermal scales similar to the skin structure of snakes and earthworm lizards.
However, because the skin fossils are not associated with skeletons or other artifacts, it is not possible to determine which species or body part the skin belonged to.
The fact that this ancient skin resembles the skin of reptiles living today shows how important these structures are for survival in terrestrial environments.
“The epidermis was an important feature for vertebrates to survive on land. It is an important barrier between internal processes and the harsh external environment,” Mooney said.
“This skin may represent the skin structure of an early amniote terrestrial vertebrate ancestor that allowed for the eventual evolution of feathers in birds and hair follicles in mammals.”
of findings appear in the diary current biology.
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Ethan D. Mooney other. Paleozoic cave systems preserve the earliest known evidence of amniote skin. current biology, published online on January 11, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.008
Source: www.sci.news
British Library starts process of reinstating digital services following cyber attack
After enduring a severe cyber attack, the British Library is now in the process of restoring its main catalog online. This is a significant milestone as the catalog contains 36 million records of printed and rare books, maps, magazines, and sheet music.
Despite this progress, access is currently limited to a “read-only” format, and it may take until the end of the year for the National Library’s services to be fully restored.
Sir Rory Keating, the library’s chief executive, confirmed that the full restoration of all services will be a gradual process. This has been particularly challenging for researchers who rely on the library’s collections for their work and livelihood.
The devastating cyber attack, which occurred on October 31st and was claimed by the ransomware group Rhysida, caused the main catalog to be inaccessible online and led to the theft of some employee data.
Upon restoring the online catalog, users will have the ability to search for materials. However, the process for checking inventory and ordering materials for use in the library reading room will differ from before. Users will also need to visit the library in person to view offline versions of the specialized catalog.
The library has also acknowledged the financial impact of the attack, stating that significant spending will be required to rebuild its digital services and complete the technological recovery. Additionally, concerns have been raised about the impact of the attack on payments to authors through the UK’s public lending rights system.
Despite the challenges ahead, the library is committed to restoring its services to their full capacity and continues to work with cybersecurity experts to address the aftermath of the attack.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Scented Traps Used for Removing Invasive Mink from Areas of England
Mink are currently being spotted across the UK after escaping from fur farms or being released by animal activists
Roy Waller/Alamy
Wildlife conservation groups aim to eradicate the invasive American mink from all parts of the UK after removing it from parts of the country during a three-year trial. This includes a new approach that uses the odor of the mink's anal glands to lure them into clever traps, making it the first time in the world that the animals have been eradicated from a large area.
“Until about a month ago, we didn't think mink had been eradicated anywhere,” said association president Tony Martin. Waterlife Recovery Trust, organized the trial with volunteers. “Then we found reports of them being exterminated on a small island off the coast of Estonia, but nothing on this scale. This is an order of magnitude larger.”
Mink are small semi-aquatic predators related to weasels and are often farmed for their fur. Over the past century, the American mink (Neo Gale Vizon) is native to North America and has spread to many parts of Europe and South America.
There, the small European mink (Itachi Lutreola) Native to continental Europe.
Mr Martin said the idea of eradicating mink was previously considered completely unbelievable and attributed the success of the Waterlife Recovery Trust's attempt to two innovations. First, they use traps equipped with devices that detect when something is caught and alert the volunteer in charge. “This means you don't have to go to the traps every day,” Martin says.
This is especially important at the end of eradication efforts, he says, when mink may not be captured for months and volunteers are tired of checking traps every day. It is also more humane because traps are readily available and mink can be killed immediately.
The second innovation is the use of scent harvested from the anal glands of captive mink as bait. This makes the trap more attractive to mink and less likely to catch other animals.
In 2020, around 500 traps were set in an area of 6,000 square kilometers covering most of East Anglia. Currently, only traps on the border between the test area and other areas where mink still exist are capturing mink, Martin said. On January 15, the Waterlife Recovery Trust announced that its trials were successful in eradicating mink from designated areas.
The trust has already been given £500,000 by government agency Natural England to expand its eradication efforts to wider areas of the country, with the aim of eradicating mink from across the UK.
“We now know we can do this,” said Martin, who previously led a successful effort to eradicate rats from South Georgia. How long it takes depends on how many traps you can set, he says.
The same approach would work in continental Europe and South America, he says. “With proper planning, any size can work.”
topic:
Source: www.newscientist.com
Getty Images CEO discusses potential withdrawal from UK’s creative sector or investing in AI with Sunak
Rishi Sunak needs to decide whether to support Britain’s creative industries or bet everything on the artificial intelligence boom, Getty Images’ chief executive has said.
Craig Peters, who has led Image Library since 2019, made the comments amid growing anger in the creative and media sectors over the material being collected as “training data” for AI companies. His company is suing a number of AI image generators for copyright infringement in the UK and US.
“If you look at the UK, probably about 10% of GDP is made up of creative industries like film, music and television. I think it’s dangerous to make that trade-off. It’s a bit of a complicated trade-off to bet on AI, which is less than a quarter of the country’s GDP, much less than the creative industries.”
In 2023, the government, in response to consultation from the Intellectual Property Office, set a goal to “overcome the barriers currently faced by AI companies and users” when using copyrighted material, and promised to “support access to copyrighted works.” input to the model.”
This was already a step back from previous proposals for broad copyright exceptions for text and data mining. In a response to a House of Commons committee on Thursday, Viscount Camrose, a hereditary peer and under-secretary of state for artificial intelligence and intellectual property, said: This will help secure the UK’s place as a world leader in AI, while supporting the UK’s thriving creative sector.”
The role of copyrighted material in AI training is under increasing pressure. In the US, the New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, the creators of ChatGPT, for using news articles as part of training data for their AI system. OpenAI said in a court filing that it is impossible to build an AI system without using copyrighted material.
Peters disagrees. Getty Images collaborated with Nvidia to create its own image generation AI that is trained using only licensed images.
The tide is changing within the industry as well. A dataset of pirated e-books, called Books3, is hosted by an AI group whose copyright takedown policy at one point even includes a costumed person pretending to masturbate with an imaginary penis while singing. Similar to the lawsuit by Getty and the New York Times, a number of other legal actions are underway against AI companies over potential training data breaches.
Ultimately, whether courts or even governments decide how to regulate the use of copyrighted material to train AI systems may not be the final word on this issue. Peters is optimistic that this result is not a foregone conclusion.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Can Inspirational Speeches Boost Your Gym Performance? A Look at the Callus on Your Heart
Maybe my father walked out on me, the speaker theorized, his voice sounding like the crash of drums (often typical of tense moments on reality TV shows).
Father absence is a common theme in motivational training speeches, so the narrator in my earphones takes the form of a father. Sometimes they encourage dad, but more often dad yells angrily from the sidelines.
Motivational speeches were first adopted by weightlifters who called for loud encouragement during bench presses, but have since made their way into the fitness mainstream. These stand-in dads live in a maze of proliferating playlists on Spotify and YouTube. So you can listen to it at the gym, or if you’re feeling bored, you can watch a montage of stock footage of people screaming in the rain on your laptop. Tracks can feature snippets from solo speakers or multiple sources. Ministers, athletes, and business leaders feature prominently, but their voices are often uncredited. The voice is usually accentuated with dramatic music.
you probably know better david goggins a former U.S. Navy SEAL lashed out at the cameras during a run, ordering his 10.4 million Instagram followers to “numb your mind.”
When it comes to motivation, I prefer carrots to sticks. “Great work” makes me blossom. But after a few months of overindulgence, you need a strict taskmaster. I usually take my training seriously, fighting in Muay Thai and competing in amateur bodybuilding, but if anything, when I started going into full beast mode, my true self… ‘s father was a little confused.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Porous iceberg on Saturn’s moon Titan may be a mysterious ‘magical island’
Infrared image of Saturn’s icy moon Titan
NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Stephane Le Mouelik, Virginia Pasek
Saturn’s moon Titan is home to strange “magical islands” that appear and disappear over hours to weeks. These so-called islands are actually porous, sponge-like masses of snow that can slowly fill with liquid before sinking.
Titan’s thick atmosphere is filled with complex organic molecules that can clump together and fall to the moon’s surface like snow. Sintin Yu Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio thought that snow could be the cause of the magical islands. To test their idea, they took advantage of what we know about these atmospheric compounds and how they are expected to interact with Titan’s oceans.
Titan’s liquid is methane, not water, so any solids on the surface of these oceans would normally be expected to sink quickly. Water molecules tend to stick together and displace other substances, but methane easily sticks to other molecules, so the surface tension of a pool of liquid methane is very low.
“Water molecules just love themselves by excluding certain molecules,” he says. michael marasca from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was not involved in the study. “But if you put methane on the same surface, it will start crawling all over the place.” That means Titan’s methane oceans and lakes should immediately swallow up any solids that are expected to float. It means that.
But that clearly won’t happen on the magical island, which appeared as a temporary bright spot in observations from the Cassini spacecraft. “For us to see magical islands, they cannot float briefly and then immediately sink,” Yu said in the paper. statement. “You have to stay afloat for a while, but not forever.”
Researchers have found a solution to this problem. When large amounts of snow accumulate on the coast, they can form sponge-like, porous ice. Once these porous “icebergs” separated from the land, they could float in Titan’s oceans for long enough to rival Cassini’s observations. The researchers calculated that this would work if the sponge-like structure contained enough free space (at least about 25 to 50 percent, depending on the exact composition of the ice).
However, this does not mean that these mysterious islands are definitely porous icebergs. “We’re narrowing down different scenarios for the magical island, but we don’t know the answer yet,” Malasca says. Other possible explanations include nitrogen gas bubbles, waves caused by wind or solid ocean deposits. However, this provides evidence that Titan’s temporary islands may actually be suspended matter from this strange world’s atmosphere.
topic:
Source: www.newscientist.com
Get Ready to Be Amazed by the AI, Post Office Horizon Incident
For over 16 years, a large corporation relentlessly accused 900 postmasters of theft, false accounting, and fraud, despite the fact that the branch shortages were actually due to an accounting bug. It’s easy to understand the possible consequences of such accusations. The software enforced by the company is now being considered “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.”
However, Rishi Sunak lacks imagination. On the other hand, the U.S. Marine Corps has coined an economic term that perfectly describes the Horizon fiasco as a “clusterfuck.” The Cambridge Dictionary primarily defines this as “a very rude word for a complete failure or a very serious problem.” Many mistakes and problems occurring at the same time.
Horizon was a product of the flawed and sometimes ignorant IT procurement system that the British state relied on for decades. The system procured from its ICL offshoot, owned by the Japanese giant Fujitsu, was a sprawling, computer bug-filled monster.
The plan was to replace the post office’s paper-based accounting system, but the hasty rollout for 13,000 busy, non-technical postmasters starting in 1999 was inadequately trained for the scale of the workflow transformation involved. Users quickly discovered bugs and flaws in the system, but the post office administrators showed a blind trust in the technology, leading to the prosecution of the sub-postmasters, ruining their lives and even leading to suicides.
Horizon was an electronic POS system that replaced paper-based cash registers and was networked, theoretically allowing the Post Office to keep an overall record of cash flows across the country. However, it seemed the system was “simply not up to the task it was asked to do,” according to The Guardian’s Alex Hearn.
By 2001, a team led by one of the system’s developers had discovered “hundreds” of bugs. Although a full list has not been compiled, court records revealed several examples, including the “Dalmellington Bug,” which caused the screen to freeze while the operator was trying to confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user pressed the Enter key on a frozen screen, the record was silently updated, making the subpostmaster responsible for the result.
The most peculiar part of the story is how long it took for the truth to emerge in the political system. Journalists have continued to tell the stories of Horizon’s victims, and a class action lawsuit was filed against the post office, with a public investigation beginning in 2020.
It wasn’t until ITV aired “Mr Bates vs. Post Office” that the issue became a hot political topic. The power of drama changed public opinion and revitalized the government. If there’s one major lesson to be learned from this mess, it’s the blind faith in technology that companies purchased at high prices. Now, organizations are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence, which may lead to further injustices in the future.
John Norton is Minderoo Center for Technology and Democracy, Cambridge
Source: www.theguardian.com
UK Government Data Reveals Electric Scooter Injuries Account for Small Percentage of Road Safety Incidents
A recent study found that the majority of e-scooter accidents requiring hospital treatment are not officially recorded in road accident figures. This suggests that the danger of e-scooter accidents is being underestimated.
The analysis revealed that only 9% of e-scooter-related injuries reported in 20 emergency departments over a two-month period were included in official accident statistics. Additionally, just over a quarter of the most serious injuries are accounted for in road accident casualty data.
The study, commissioned by the Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety (Pacts), highlighted concerning trends in head, face, and spine injuries resulting from e-scooter accidents. The report warned that the increase in e-scooter use is surpassing the ability of police reporting systems to accurately record all injuries and collisions.
Margaret Winchcomb, Deputy Executive Director of Pact, emphasized the importance of consistent and robust methods for measuring risk to e-scooter riders and other road users.
The use of e-scooters is currently being trialled in multiple locations across England, despite being illegal on public roads. It is estimated that there are over 750,000 privately owned electric scooters in the country.
The study compared official road death and injury figures (known as Stats19) with hospital records from a two-month period in 2021. It found that only 8.6% of e-scooter-related incidents were included in Stats19 data.
Analysis of National Clinical Audit of Trauma in England and Wales data during the same period found 54 serious injuries related to electric scooters, compared to only 25.9% included in the Stats19 database.
The study also revealed that the system for recording road accidents (Stats19) does not capture a significant proportion of non-fatal casualties related to e-scooters. The Department for Transport (DfT) acknowledged the need for clear information to the public about reporting accidents to the police.
DfT analysis revealed that more than half of e-scooter-related traffic fatalities and injuries reported in the year ending June 2023 occurred outside the test zone. There were 1,269 crashes involving electric scooters during this period, resulting in 7 deaths and 390 serious injuries.
Nicholas Lies from road safety charity IAM Roadsmart called for urgent legislation on private electric scooters, including standards for equipment, speed limiters, and minimum rider competency requirements.
A DfT spokesperson assured that safety remains a top priority and that they are working closely with the police to enhance data on e-scooter accidents.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Post Office Memo from 25 Years Ago Predicts Scandal: The Post Office Horizon Incident
I
In any major scandal that has the power to monopolize national attention, there are always key moments when events could have been stopped in their tracks. But few early warnings were as prescient as his seven-page memo handed to postal workers 25 years ago.
During an acrimonious meeting at Newcastle Rugby Club in 1999, the memo set out a number of concerns raised by postmasters in the north-east of England who were trialling the now infamous Horizon accounting system. It had been. Problems such as account balances caused stress for some people, forcing them to work late into the night.
Shortly after these concerns were raised, the subpostmasters met again to discuss the potential severity of the problem.
“The hardship and trauma that some postmasters are experiencing has raised concerns about their health and mental well-being,” the meeting was informed.
“Some felt that unless something changed soon, tragedy was not far away. The software was of poor quality and was not intended to run such a large network. Ta.”
Warnings of potential tragedy come as the flawed software – later found to have the potential to cause false losses that were blamed on postal workers – is rolled out across the Post Office network. done before.
But from the moment of the fateful decision to press forward with this destiny, a disastrous combination of legal change, geopolitics, a catastrophic lack of political curiosity, and above all outright deception, ultimately led to Thousands of innocent workers were victimized and prosecuted, with devastating effects.
At least four people took their own lives this week, the week in which Westminster finally acknowledged that unprecedented mass exonerations were needed to right more than two decades of injustice. Sadly, it was too late for the dozens of postmasters who were wronged and died, including one who died.
Former Posts Minister Paul Scally announced an independent inquiry into the Horizon scandal in 2020. Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Source: www.theguardian.com
AI’s potential for improving software development comes with hard truths
aAs you may have noticed, we’re in the midst of a craze about something called generative AI. Many hitherto ordinary people, and economists alike, are riding a wave of irrational enthusiasm about the potential for change. It’s the newest new thing.
Two antidotes are recommended for people suffering from fever. The first one,
Hype Cycle Monitor created by consultant Gartner
This indicates that the technology is currently at the “peak of inflated expectations” before plummeting into the “trough of disillusionment”. the other one is,
hofstadter’s law
describes the difficulty of estimating the time required for difficult tasks: “Even when Hofstadter’s law is taken into account, it always takes longer than expected.” Just because a powerful industry and its media patrons are losing their marbles about something doesn’t mean it’s going to wash over society as a whole like a tsunami. Reality moves at a much slower pace.
In the Christmas issue,
economist We published an instructive article titled “
Tractor history in English
” (itself a low-key homage to Marina Levicka’s hilarious 2005 novel).
History of Ukrainian tractors
of
)This article aims to explain “What tractors and horses can tell us about generative AI.” The lesson is that tractors have a long history, but they took a long time to transform agriculture. He has three reasons for this. Early versions were not as useful as backers thought. Introducing these required changes in the labor market. And farms had to reinvent themselves to use them.
So history suggests that whatever transformations AI hypemongers predict, they will materialize more slowly than expected.
However, there is one exception to this rule. It’s computer programming, or the business of creating software. Ever since digital computers were invented, humans have had to tell machines what they want them to do. Because machines could not speak English, machine code and programming languages such as Fortran, Algol, Pascal, C, C++, Haskell, and Python evolved over generations. So if you wanted to communicate with a machine, you had to learn to speak Fortran. , C++ or whatever, is a tedious process for many people. And as the title the great Donald Knuth gave to the first book of his seminal five-volume guide suggests, programming has become something of an esoteric craft.
the art of computer programming
. As the world went digital, this craft became industrialized and rebranded as “software engineering” to downplay its artisanal origins. But mastering it remained an esoteric and valuable skill.
Then along came ChatGPT and the amazing discovery that not only could you create apparently clear sentences, but you could also create software. What’s even more remarkable is that when you outline a task with a plain English prompt, the machine writes the Python code needed to accomplish that task. Often the code is not perfect, but can be debugged by further interaction with the machine. And suddenly, a whole new perspective opened up. Even non-programmers can tell a computer to do something without having to learn computer conversation.
inside
new yorker Programmer James Summers recently wrote the following:
Lamentation essay What are the implications of this development? “A range of knowledge and skills that previously took a lifetime to acquire are being swallowed up all at once,” he said. “For me, coding has always felt like an endlessly deep and rich field. Now, I want to write a memorial to it. I’ve been thinking about Lee Sedol. Sedol is the world One of the best Go players and a national hero in South Korea, he is now best known for losing to a computer program called AlphaGo in 2016.”
That seems a little strange to me. The evidence we have suggests that programmers are embracing AI assistance like ducks to water.a
recent research
For example, 70% of software developers are using or plan to use AI tools in their work this year, and 77% of them have a “favorable or very favorable” opinion of these tools. I found out that They see them as a way to increase your productivity as a programmer, speed up your learning, and even “improve accuracy” when writing computer code.
This doesn’t seem like defeatism to me, but the attitude of experts who see this technology as “power steering for the mind,” as the saying goes. In any case, they don’t sound like horses.
economist's story. But just as tractors ultimately transformed agriculture, this technology will ultimately transform the way software is developed. In that case, software engineers will need to be more like engineers than craftsmen. It’s almost time (says this engineer and columnist).
what i was reading
Smart move?
Great quote from Gary Marcus on his Substack blog.
AI companies will be exempted from lobbying activities Not responsible for copyright infringement.
control mechanism
A very thoughtful article by Diana Enríquez on the Tech Policy Press website about what it means to be.
“managed” by algorithms.
Get out of your head
a
nice post Margaret Atwood’s Substack on films about the French Revolution, including Ridley Scott’s works
napoleon.
Source: www.theguardian.com
The Important Facts about Testing and Accuracy
The United States is currently in the midst of an outbreak of the new coronavirus. JN.1 variant That's driving up hospitalizations and deaths across the country. But for most people, the new variant does not seem to cause worsening of symptoms.
That's why many people are wondering whether they should keep swabbing their nasal passages for coronavirus tests at the first sign of nasal congestion or pain. How well do rapid at-home tests work against new variants?
Here's what you need to know:
Do I still need to take a Covid test?
Influenza and some cold viruses are also circulating along with the new coronavirus. So there is good reason to know which virus you have, especially if you are at high risk of becoming seriously ill.
“It's important to know whether you have COVID-19, influenza, or a completely non-viral infection such as strep throat,” said Dr. Abrar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University. Because they have different treatments.” “There are different treatments for each, and the sooner you receive treatment, the better the results.”
If you're a healthy 25-year-old, there’s still some value in getting tested. For example, if you have someone in your household with a weakened immune system or someone who is battling cancer, it is important to isolate them to see if they have COVID-19.
“Remember that all of these viral and bacterial infections are transmissible differently and get sick differently,” Curran said.
Joseph Petrosino, a professor of molecular biology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, said while there may not be much need for young, healthy people to get tested at home, they should be tested for the coronavirus just in case. He acknowledged that it might be helpful to know. Eventually, the symptoms will persist.
“Some people, even healthy people, runners and people who train, can get a prolonged COVID-19 infection,” he said. “We really don't know. It's difficult to predict based solely on comorbidity factors.”
Otherwise, for people at low risk, a positive coronavirus test does not change treatment much. Whether you have coronavirus, a cold or the flu, get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, and stay away from others.
How will new variants impact testing?
Experts say there is no data showing the JN.1 variant affects the results of rapid home tests.
“We have not seen anything to suggest that the new variant has evaded test detection,” Curran said. “Certainly, similar things have happened in the past with other diagnostics early in the pandemic, but right now tests should be able to detect these mutations.”
Susan Butler Wu, a clinical pathologist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, said she hasn't seen any data on this particular variant, but if it's similar to other variants, it’s not a problem. Rapid tests actually look for parts of the virus that are less likely to mutate and bypass testing.
“There's always the fear that a mutation will occur and the test won't work, but so far that hasn't really happened,” Butler-Wu said.
When is the best time to test?
An individual's viral load is highest early in a pandemic, when most people first develop symptoms, either after infection or before they have developed any immunity from vaccines.
Now, one researcher says that virus levels may actually be at their highest in the first few days of illness. study It was published last fall in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases by researchers at Harvard Medical School. They found that in people with pre-existing immunity, virus levels peaked around the fourth day after symptoms appeared.
This means that if you are tested in the early stages of the disease, it may turn out to be negative.
“Their symptoms may be caused by an immune response,” Curran said. “That means there's inflammation going on, which is causing the symptoms, and that's preventing the virus from multiplying as quickly. That's why the initial test could be negative.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends getting tested immediately if you think you have been infected with the coronavirus and have symptoms such as a stuffy nose, cough, or body aches.
The CDC says to wait five days if you are infected but have no symptoms.
Butler-Wu says there is a misconception that rapid tests are “one-and-done”.
“If you have symptoms and your first test was negative, you should test again,” she says.
Official guidance from the CDC is to get a rapid test if you have symptoms and then test again 48 hours later if you test negative.
The test result was positive. Does that mean I'm contagious?
A rapid at-home test is a good way to find out if someone is contagious.
Simply put, rapid tests require higher levels of virus to be positive, and higher virus levels usually mean you're more contagious.
However, the test has some limitations.
Curran said they can be a good surrogate for contagiousness in the early stages of the disease, but are not as reliable at the end of the disease.
Rapid tests have shown positive results, but data shows the virus could not be cultured when samples were taken from people. That means those people are less likely to be contagious, Curran said.
2022 study Researchers at Harvard Medical School suggested that only half of people who test positive after five days are actually infectious.
“Even after that period, even if you test positive on a rapid test, there is no guarantee that you are still contagious.”
Source: www.nbcnews.com
2024: The Longest-Living Animal on Earth
The concept of time
Understanding time can be challenging, as Einstein demonstrated time’s relativity and how it can be experienced differently based on an object’s speed. But what about the animals’ experience of time? Many animals around the world have lived incredibly long lives, defying the odds. So, what is the world’s longest-living animal species?
Scientists have been studying the secrets of longevity, and the species on this list may offer hints about living longer and healthier lives in the future. Let’s take a look at some of the world’s longest-living creatures.
Humans are the longest-lived land mammals
A photo depicts Jeanne Calment, recognized as the world’s oldest person, who lived an astonishing life of 122 years and 164 days. Despite smoking after every meal, she attributed her long life to her lack of stress and her sense of humor. She passed away in 1997 at the age of 117, outliving her only daughter and grandson, who both died much younger.
The longest-lived aquatic creature – glass sponge
One of the longest-lived creatures on Earth is the vitreous cavernosa, estimated to live up to 15,000 years. Found in all oceans, its unique ability to generate electrical impulses throughout its body sets it apart from other species.
The longest-living bird – Parrot Cookie
Cookie, a male pink parrot recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, lived to the age of 83. He outlived the next longest-living pink parrot by 52 years.
Longest living rodent – naked mole rat
Naked mole rats, known for surviving 18 minutes without oxygen and resistance to cancer, are burrowing rodents with long lifespans. One male was reported to have lived 37 years, making it the longest-living rodent on the planet.
The longest-lived invertebrate – ocean quahog
The ocean quahog’s age is estimated by counting its shell stripes, with one specimen found to be 507 years old. It was named “Ming” after the Ming dynasty that ruled China when it was born.
The longest-lived turtle – Aldabra giant tortoise
The Aldabra giant tortoise is the longest-living turtle, with the oldest individual reaching 255 years. It is a species native to the Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll, known for its large population living in the world’s largest turtle habitat.
Longest living fish – Greenland shark
The Greenland shark, estimated to live to between 252 and 512 years, is the longest-lived shark species due to its slow metabolism in cold oceans.
The longest-lived dog – Bobbi
Bobi, a purebred Rafeiro de Alentejo, lived to the age of 31, surpassing previous records as the oldest dog in history. However, there are claims that this age may be incorrect.
read more:
Source: www.sciencefocus.com
