Yearly Archives: 2024

Spinal cord stimulation aids in the recovery of stroke patients

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A stroke occurs when blood flow to part of the brain is cut off, preventing brain tissue from getting oxygen and nutrients. Strokes are the leading cause of disability in adults over the age of 55. Despite advances in medical care and rehabilitation, 35% of stroke patients still have difficulty performing daily tasks because they have trouble walking or standing. Approximately 70% of stroke patients have problems with walking, including slower walking speed, problems with coordination, and uneven stride length.

Doctors have found that these problems often occur when the pathways that spinal cord neurons use to transmit information from the brain to the body are disrupted. By applying electrical pulses to the brains of stroke patients, doctors have attempted to reactivate the neural pathways that control movement. Researchers have shown that electrical pulses to the brain can help stroke patients regain control of fine movements, but the ability to maintain basic walking patterns relies on neural pathways in the spinal cord. So a team of scientists from the US and Russia hypothesized that targeting the spinal cord could help stroke patients recover.

To test whether spinal cord electrical stimulation could help stroke patients walk again, the team attached electrodes to the skin of the patients' spinal cord. Transcutaneous Spinal Cord Stimulation or tSCS. Researchers have previously found that tSCS can help stroke patients walk more steadily and smoothly in the short term. But the team wanted to test whether tSCS could improve nerve and muscle function and help patients walk better in the long term.

To measure how tSCS affected the walking ability and muscle function of stroke patients, the researchers recruited two groups of four people each. Both groups of participants were matched for age, time since stroke, and walking speed to minimize experimental bias. All participants were over 18 years old, had experienced a stroke at least one year ago, and were able to walk without support. The researchers conducted gait training in both groups three times a week for eight weeks to improve balance and movement. The first group, called the control group, was assigned to only gait training, while the second group, called the stimulation group, was assigned to a combination of gait training and tSCS.

The researchers assessed how well each participant walked before, immediately after, and three months after walking training. The researchers measured each participant's step symmetry using two metrics: step length and stride length. They also measured participants' walking speed and the distance they walked in a six-minute period. The researchers collected this data through a combination of observation by physical therapists and direct measurements using sensor-equipped mats.

The team found that after gait training, the stimulation group's stride symmetry improved by 64%, while the control group's stride symmetry improved by only 33%. The stimulation group also had faster walking speeds and more consistent swing times than the control group. All participants in the stimulation group and one participant in the control group walked greater distances than they had before gait training, but only one participant in each group maintained this progress after three months. The researchers interpreted these changes as meaning that combining tSCS with gait training enabled stroke patients to walk faster and longer. However, they warned that patients could lose these gains if they did not continue treatment, as only gait symmetry showed a sustained improvement.

The researchers also measured changes in the participants' muscles and neurons before and after tSCS treatment and walking training. The researchers explained that the more complex and numerous a person's muscle groups are, the better they can control leg movements when walking. So they wanted to see how the patients' muscle groups work together when walking, i.e. Muscle synergy. To investigate muscle synergy, the researchers measured the activity of the leg muscles of five participants by attaching sensors to the participants' skin to detect electrical signals when the muscles contracted. The results showed that participants in the two stimulation groups had improved muscle coordination after walking and tSCS. The researchers interpreted this result as meaning that tSCS helped participants improve muscle coordination while walking.

The researchers concluded that electrical stimulation of the spinal cord allowed some stroke patients to walk better than before. However, they suggested that the effectiveness of tSCS could be improved with individualized training and customized stimulation settings to address each patient's challenges. They also suggested that studies be conducted for a longer period of time and with a larger number of participants to better understand the lasting effects of tSCS and to apply the findings to a wider range of stroke patients.


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Source: sciworthy.com

Video games found to have positive effects on health, scientists reveal

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If you like video games, playing them might not be something you need to worry about.

Asia Vision/Getty Images

Despite being an oft-maligned pastime, playing video games actually seems to make people happier, a finding that comes from a unique study taking advantage of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think that if you enjoy a hobby, it has a positive effect on your health.” Hiroyuki Egami At Nihon University in Japan.

In 2019, The World Health Organization has added “gaming disorder” It violates the International Classification of Diseases. However, studies on the effects of playing video games have produced mixed results when it comes to mental health outcomes, with many studies unable to prove causation. Studies that aim to prove causation are usually conducted in controlled laboratory environments, which “are far removed from the experience of actually playing video games,” the researchers say. Peter Etchells The researchers are from Bath Spa University in the UK but were not involved in the latest study.

But between 2020 and 2022, Egami and his colleagues had a rare opportunity to investigate the causal effects of video games on people's happiness in the real world. At the time, game consoles were in short supply, so lotteries were held in parts of Japan where people could enter to receive either a PlayStation 5 or a Nintendo Switch console.

The researchers surveyed 8,192 people aged between 10 and 69 who had entered such lotteries. Respondents answered questions about their gambling habits and levels of psychological distress, an indicator of mental health.

Egami and his colleagues found that people who won the lottery had slightly higher mental health scores than those who didn't, but that their scores plateaued once they exceeded about three hours of total play time per day.

The team also used machine learning models to analyze the data and found that the effects varied by console type and owner demographics. For example, younger people who own a Nintendo Switch saw greater benefits compared to older people. The team also found that people without children saw greater benefits from owning a PlayStation 5 than those with children.

“This highlights the need to be nuanced and specific about what we measure and how we measure it if we want to understand how video games affect us,” Etchells said, though he said participants self-reported the amount of time they played, which may not be accurate.

Etchells and Egami also note that the data was collected during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced people's video game habits and health. Further research using this methodology could reveal whether the trends hold in other contexts.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Fireflies used as bait by spiders to attract more prey

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A spider engulfs its shiny prey

New Hua Fu

Once the spider has captured a male firefly in its web, it turns the dead insect into food and uses its beacon light to lure in more prey.

New Hua Fu Researchers at China’s Huazhong Agricultural University found that male fireflies (Abscondita terminalis), but females of this species often get caught in the webs of orb-weaver spiders (Giant IsopodHe and his colleagues discovered that the spiders were using the flashing signals to lure the insects into their traps, and they wondered if this was what was luring them. Both males and females of this firefly species use flashing signals to court, with the females’ light shows drawing males to their location. So he and his colleagues investigated how the spiders were using this display of affection.

In farmland in China’s Hubei province, the team conducted a series of experiments on 161 different nests, some with spiders and some without. In each nest, the researchers placed male fireflies, some of which had painted the light areas of their abdomens black with ink. They found that nests that contained both spiders and free-flying fireflies attracted more male fireflies than nests without spiders or nests with only non-flying fireflies.

Also, the male fireflies that were tangled in spider webs emitted a different flash than normal — it was more like a female’s flash, emitting one flash instead of two — but the fireflies that were tangled in spider webs emitted normal flashes.

This suggests that the spiders manipulate the male firefly’s signals to mimic those of females and attract other males looking to mate, the team said. Lee Dae Geum The Hubei University researchers say they don’t yet know exactly how the spiders change the signals of their immobilized prey, but they have some ideas.

“The spider’s venom or the bite itself could lead to changes in the blinking patterns of captive males,” Lee said.

Li is interested to know if other spiders that eat fireflies use a similar strategy: Other animals may use different kinds of signals, such as sound or the release of pheromones, to bait their captured prey, he says.

“[The findings] “Spiders prove once again that they are not passive foragers.” Mariella Herberstein “We are discovering more and more cases of highly complex and selective feeding techniques,” say researchers from Australia’s Macquarie University.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Plans explained by Polaris mission commander

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summary

  • SpaceX is gearing up for its next private mission scheduled for August 26, which will mark the company’s inaugural spacewalk endeavor.
  • The crew of four includes billionaire Shift4 founder Jared Isaacman, his colleague Scott Poteat, and SpaceX employees Anna Menon and Sara Gillis.
  • The Polaris Dawn mission is the first of three flights purchased by Isaacman from SpaceX.

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its next private mission by the end of this month, which will be its first attempt to send astronauts into space.

Polaris Dawn Mission — Billionaires and Shift 4 Founder Jared Isaacman Purchased from SpaceX in 2022 The spacecraft, the final mission of the human spaceflight program known as Project Polaris, is scheduled to lift off from Florida in the early hours of August 26th.

“We don’t have the freedom to launch whenever we want,” Isaacman said. “It was pretty close to dawn, which is very appropriate given the mission.” CNBC’s Space Investments In an interview last month.

Isaacman said, Historic Inspiration 4 Flights in 2021 He will again lead a four-person crew, with longtime colleague Scott Poteat joining as pilot, and SpaceX employees Anna Menon and Sara Gillis serving as the flight’s medical director and mission specialist, respectively.

The multi-day journey won’t be a destination-specific one, but rather a free-flight mission on an orbit that will hopefully take the crew far from Earth.

“We will be reaching much higher altitudes than any human has reached in over 50 years,” Isaacman said.

But the highlight of Polaris Dawn will be its planned spacewalks.

Extravehicular activities (EVAs) have been a routine part of NASA astronaut missions for years, such as when the space agency needs to perform maintenance outside the International Space Station, but no private company has ever attempted an EVA until now.

Isaacman said he understood that the spacewalk would mean he and his crew would be “surrounded by death,” and he was ready to embrace the moment. I have been thoroughly trained.

“The only thing that comes close to that is a vacuum chamber. It almost feels like being in a vacuum or in space. … You can actually feel the pressure changes, the temperature changes and the psychological stress of being in a very hostile environment,” Isaacman said.

Five-day mission planning

Isaacman also detailed Polaris Dawn’s daily schedule, which will remain in space for up to five days.

The first day will be all about finding the time when the risk from micrometeorite orbital debris is minimal, which will determine the exact time for Polaris Dawn to launch. After reaching the 190-kilometer by 1,200-kilometer orbit, the crew will conduct a thorough checkout of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft Resilience, Isaacman said.

“It’s really important to make sure there are no defects in the aircraft before we go up to an altitude of 1,400 kilometers,” Isaacman said.

The spacecraft also traveled through what are known as high radiation zones. South Atlantic Anomaly.

“Ideally we want to get as low as possible because even at 200 kilometres the radiation levels are quite high,” Isaacman said. “Two or three high-altitude passes through the South Atlantic Anomaly will account for nearly the entire radiation load of the mission, equivalent to three months on the International Space Station.”

The second day will focus on some of the scientific research Polaris Dawn plans to accomplish, with a total of about 40 experiments. The crew will also prepare for the spacewalk and test their spacewalk suits.

“That way we can make sure there’s nothing unexpected happening in microgravity compared to what we could test on Earth,” Isaacman said.

Day 3 is the big day – spacewalk.

Spacewalk

So who on the crew will be doing the spacewalk?

“It’s fair to say that all four of us are working together. There’s no airlock, there’s a vacuum inside the spacecraft,” Isaacman said.

Two of the crew members (Isaacman and Gillis) will travel outside of Dragon, while Poteet and Menon will remain on board as support.

The spacewalk is expected to take two hours from start to finish, and Isaacman stressed that it is “really a test and development” process.

“We want to learn as much as we can about the spacesuit and its operation, but there is a finite amount of oxygen and nitrogen available,” Isaacman said.

Polaris Dawn will livestream the spacewalk, and mission commanders stressed that there will be “multiple cameras” inside and outside the capsule.

From left: Anna Menon, Scott Poteat, Jared Isaacman and Sara Gillis.
SpaceX

Brand new space suit

A key piece of equipment that makes EVA possible is SpaceX’s spacesuit.

For the past few years, the company has been using its minimalist, black-and-white IVA suits (Internal Vehicle Activity suits, or IVA suits worn by astronauts in emergencies) to develop its EVA suits, which Isaacman said are the result of hundreds of hours of testing different materials over the years.

“So our main goal is to learn as much as we can about the suit,” Isaacman said.

“It’s all about building the next generation of spacesuits. We continue to refine the design of this suit so that SpaceX can manufacture hundreds and thousands of suits in the future for operations on the Moon, Mars and in space. [low Earth orbit]”, and many other things. Building a new spacewalk suit is no easy task,” he added.

Polaris Dawn aims to push the boundaries of private spaceflight, and Isaacman hopes the mission will be inspiring, just like his first orbital flight.

“That’s the inspiration aspect. Anything that’s different from what we’ve seen in the last 20 or 30 years excites people and makes them think, ‘If this is what I’m seeing today, what will it be like tomorrow or a year from now?'”

Read Isaacman’s Q&A with CNBC’s Investing in Space newsletter here.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

AI-Generated Satirical Tune about Immigrants Climbs the Charts in Germany | AI

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A song about immigration, whose music, vocals, and artwork were all created using artificial intelligence, has entered the top 50 most-listened-to songs in Germany, possibly a first in a major music market.

“Verknallt in einen Talahon” is a parody song that blends ’60s schlager pop with modern lyrics based on racial stereotypes about immigrants.

The song reached the 48th spot in Germany, the world’s fourth-largest music market. Within a month of its release, it garnered 3.5 million streams on Spotify, ranking third on the platform’s charts in the Global Viral Charts.

The songwriter of the song, Joshua Wagbinger, known as Butterbro, mentioned that he composed the song’s chorus by inputting his lyrics into Udio, an AI tool that generates vocals and instruments from text prompts.

He then added the verses using music tools after the chorus gained popularity on TikTok. In an interview with German podcast Die Klangküche (Sound Kitchen), the IT specialist and amateur musician expressed his aim to turn the song into a creative project.

The song has garnered attention in the German media not only for its production methods but also for its lyrical content. Translated as “In Love with Tarahon,” the song references the German version of the Arabic phrase “taeal huna,” commonly used in Germany to describe groups of young men with immigrant backgrounds.

The lyrics satirize the classic “good girl falls for the bad boy” narrative from ’60s songs like “Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri-Las, portraying the AI-generated love interest as someone who wears luxury brands and gives off a strong perfume scent.

Waghubinger aimed to create a song that humorously addressed macho behavior without discrimination and set out to make it viral on social media, as he revealed in an interview with Die Klangküche magazine.

However, Marie-Louise Goldman, culture editor at the conservative tabloid Die Welt, raised concerns about the song potentially straddling the line between parody and discrimination.

Felicia Agaye, a writer for the music magazine Diffus, expressed concerns about the song’s popularity and how the term “Tarahon” had turned into an insult against immigrants among young people in Germany and Austria.

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Numerous AI-generated songs in a similar style have been circulating on German social media, blending ’60s MOR schlager pop with suggestive lyrics.

Music producers are increasingly utilizing AI to create vocals resembling those of famous artists. In 2023, The Beatles released “Now and Then,” featuring an AI-assisted rendition of John Lennon’s vocals.

A song using Tupac Shakur’s voice generated by AI was briefly posted on Canadian rapper Drake’s Instagram account in April but was taken down after legal threats from the late rapper’s estate.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Did former Twitter users find what they were seeking on alternative platforms after quitting the app? | Social Media

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“This week has felt like sitting on a half-empty train early in the morning as gradually more people board with horror stories of how awful the service is on the other line,” actor David Harewood wrote on Meta’s Twitter/X rival, which, judging by the number of “Hey, how does this work?” questions from newcomers, seems to be seeing echoes, at least in the UK, following last week’s far-right riots.

Newcomers to the thread might be wondering why it took so long. To say Elon Musk’s tenure as owner of the social network formerly known as Twitter and now renamed X has been outrageous would be a criminal understatement. Recent highlights include the unbanning of numerous far-right and extremist accounts, as well as his own misinformation campaign regarding far-right anti-immigrant riots in the UK.

Before Musk bought the company in 2022, few alternatives to Twitter existed, but several have emerged in the past few years. Today, there are the generally left- and liberal-leaning Blue Sky and Mastodon, the right-leaning Gab, and Donald Trump’s Truth Social Network.

But perhaps the biggest threat to X is Threads, in part because it was launched by Meta, the giant behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But a simple question remains: is Threads any good?

For Satnam Sanghera, an author and journalist, the reason for the move is simple: “This place is corroding the very fabric of British society so I am trying to avoid it as much as possible and hoping it will be regulated,” he explained in a direct message on X. “Systemic abuse has been an issue for me, and for many people of colour, for years.”

But the force behind the switch is not so much the allure of Threads, a popular new social network, but the power to drive people away from X. “Threads has some great things, especially the fact that it links with Instagram, which is probably the most convenient social media platform,” Sanghera says. “But a lot of my loved ones aren’t on it. I’m hoping that will change, or maybe it’s just that it’s time to quit social media altogether.”

The integration with Instagram allows Insta users to open a Threads account with just a few clicks, which seems to have really accelerated Threads’ growth. Threads hit the milestone of 200 million active users earlier this month, just one year after its initial release. In comparison, Bluesky has just 6 million registered accounts and 1.1 million active users, while Mastodon has 15 million registered users, but no public data on active users.




Social media outlet Bluesky is one of X’s current alternatives. Photo: Jaap Arrians/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

“Threads has one big advantage,” says Emily Bell, director of the Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University in New York. “It has a built-in user base of celebrities and athletes. If you really want to kick everyone off Twitter, you can have Taylor Swift, Chapel Rowan, [Italian sports journalist] “Fabrizio Romano”

Bell believes that because all of these users are already on Instagram, it may be easier to attract them to Threads than to convince them to start from scratch with an entirely new social network.

But she says this is a shame, and thinks Threads is a terrible product. “To me, Threads is a platform designed to compete with Twitter, and it feels like it was designed by a company that hates everything about Twitter,” she says. “Threads is boring as hell – presentation, participation, everything.”

From my personal experience trying out Threads for this article, it seems like Meta doesn’t see Threads as a huge, exciting new product that they want new users to use. Having around 88,000 followers on X has always made me hesitant to join other social networks, which is why I’ve never had an Instagram account.

To join Threads, I had to join Instagram first, which took about 24-36 hours because I got some weird error messages while signing up. I finally managed to create a Threads account, but after following five accounts I was limited. A few hours later the limit was lifted, I was able to follow three more accounts, and then I was limited again. I quickly gave up.

Those who found it easy to join the site say that once they were on it, it was more comfortable than X, but that’s mainly for the simple reason that it still has moderation staff and doesn’t actively try to attract the far right.

“Threads have a different vibe because they’re almost always participated in by small, self-organized groups,” says misinformation researcher Nina Jankowitz. “They’re usually want Something different than Twitter/X. It definitely helps that they are actively moderating it and that the site’s leadership is not actively promoting conspiracy theories.”

Both potential rivals to X are keen to differentiate themselves from the original. Meta has said it doesn’t want Threads to focus on news and current events like X. Mastodon is perhaps the most consciously “woke” of the alternatives, with very different norms around content warnings and sharing. As such, Bluesky offers the closest experience to the “rebellious” and playful “old Twitter” that many still miss.

Even some of the early successes on Threads are a bit sceptical about its actual value: Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, has more than 20,000 followers on Threads (166,300 on X), but she confesses that she never actually posts there.

“I just cross-post it to Instagram,” she says, sounding a little guilty. “So I [following] Nothing happens and there is no involvement whatsoever.”

That’s not to say Chrissy has shunned social media: she still posts on X, and is now in a local WhatsApp group with up to 700 members, where her supporters can interact with her directly. While she says she “doesn’t understand” TikTok (“I don’t feel like dancing in public”), she created an account there because “local Asian moms told me that’s where it’s at.”

Chrissie noted that this fragmentation of social media has made her job as a member of Congress more difficult during the recent turmoil: Trying to connect with an audience and provide accurate information is harder on six platforms than it is on one.

Threads’ success may be due to the ease of joining by default: If you use Instagram, it’s the easiest thing to join, and once you’re there, it’s… fine. But if other users seem to be operating on autopilot, they probably are.

“It’s a little bit overloaded here, you’re just in the media and you don’t know what to do,” Creasy says, “and ironically, that’s why I don’t do threads. I know that’s where I get my momentum and that’s where I’m not doing anything.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Uncovering the Root Cause of Bloating and Finding Effective Solutions

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Many people experience uncomfortable sensations like abdominal bloating or pressure.

You may notice your stomach feeling bloated or tighter than usual, hear strange noises, or feel the need to pass gas more often. While bloating is usually harmless, it can be unpleasant.

There are numerous causes of abdominal bloating, from dietary habits to underlying medical conditions. Excess gas in the digestive tract, which occurs when air is swallowed along with food or drink, is a common cause.

Moreover, certain foods and beverages can lead to gas formation during digestion, such as carbonated drinks, beans, broccoli, sprouts, and cabbage. This gas accumulation in the digestive system can result in bloating, exacerbated by factors like chewing gum, sweeteners, alcohol, caffeine, and protein supplements.

Digestive issues like constipation or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can also contribute to abdominal bloating. When stool becomes trapped in the colon, it can cause discomfort and bloating. Similarly, individuals with IBS may experience bloating in conjunction with abdominal pain, diarrhea, and constipation.

To address bloating, start by identifying trigger foods through a food diary and eliminating them from your diet. Opt for a fiber-rich diet consisting of whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Probiotic-rich foods like yogurt and kefir can aid digestion and reduce gas.

In addition to dietary changes, consider incorporating herbs and spices like ginger, peppermint, and fennel to alleviate bloating. Lifestyle adjustments such as eating smaller meals, chewing food slowly, staying hydrated, and engaging in regular exercise can also help combat bloating.

If bloating persists, especially with accompanying symptoms, it is advisable to consult a doctor as it could rarely indicate ovarian cancer, particularly in women over 50.

Written by Natasha Reid of Lincoln, this article addresses the question of why individuals may feel bloated.

For any inquiries, please reach out via the provided email address. For more information: Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (include your name and location).

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Here’s how to soon be able to record your dreams

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Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) in combination with mind-reading technology is essential for recreating the sensations we experience in our dreams.

In a well-known Japanese study, the initial steps of this method were showcased in 2023. Researchers employed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to monitor the brain activity of participants during sleep and utilized machine learning to identify recognized objects like keys, individuals, and chairs from that activity.

Nevertheless, this study concentrated on sleep onset, the first two stages of sleep where visual imagery (hallucinations) occur, and did not explore dreams at all.

They adopted this approach so participants could articulate what they observed upon waking.

To replicate dreams, we need an extensive database of detailed fMRI information from dreaming volunteers to educate a large-scale AI. Participants should possess exceptional recall abilities to describe their dreams vividly, which will help determine the accuracy of the predictions.

Recording dreams in this level of detail poses a significant challenge, and establishing a reliable method to generate such data remains uncertain.

Nonetheless, progress has already been made in related areas, with research studies producing vast datasets of fMRI brain activity from conscious participants watching videos, listening to spoken language, and reading text.

By employing AI trained on these datasets, we can already predict what people are viewing or reading while awake.

Assuming there is enough data to develop such an AI in a few years, as well as portable fMRI machines that allow for dreaming individuals to be monitored while asleep, the required methodologies to exhibit results will already be in place.

Generative AI such as OpenAI’s Sora and Google DeepMind’s Lumiere can already generate captivating video sequences. Utilizing dream analysis AI, when you provide a textual depiction to the generative AI, you receive a video illustrating the dream sequence.

However, it’s important to note that these AIs are not actually reading minds, but rather matching brain activity patterns with images that may have been previously seen. The generative AI cannot validate if the video accurately represents the dream—it simply pieces together images and possibly adds a rudimentary narrative.

Though the end product may strikingly resemble a dream with many familiar elements, it does not provide an exact replica, similar to how the movie Cast Away featuring Tom Hanks only loosely mirrors the true story of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, a fisherman stranded for 14 months in the Pacific Ocean.

AI is remarkable, intelligent, and sometimes eerie, but in terms of understanding the human brain, it is not always precise.

This article responds to a query by Andrew Taylor via email: “How close are we to being able to record our dreams?”

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

When to Alert the Public: Seismologists Investigate Forewarnings of Impending “Major Earthquake”

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New studies conducted by USGS geophysicist Danny Brothers reveal that the Cascadia subduction zone, stretching along the US west coast from northern California to northern Vancouver Island, may have seen around 30 large earthquakes over the past 14,200 years. On average, a large earthquake could occur in that area approximately every 450 to 500 years.

Despite this history, the Cascadia Volcano has remained dormant for years, as many scientists believe the volcano is mainly “frozen” and under immense pressure. Should the volcano erupt, it could cause a significant shift in the ocean floor, leading to potential tsunamis heading towards the shore.

Washington State Emergency Management Director Robert Ezell has warned that this event could be the most catastrophic natural disaster in the country’s history.

Seismologists are now focused on predicting these potential cataclysms, with research suggesting that faults like Cascadia and Nankai may give off warning signs, such as minor foreshocks or subtle tremors only detectable by specialized sensors (known as slow-slip events).

In a worst-case scenario proposed by Tobin, if the Cascadia Fault were to release such vibrations suddenly, the consequences could be devastating.

A major earthquake in the Cascade Range could leave over 100,000 people injured, lasting for five minutes and generating tsunamis along the coast for up to 10 hours. Liquefaction could occur in inland hills, destroying roads and bridges, with around 620,000 buildings, including hospitals and schools, facing severe damage or destruction.

Ezell emphasized that the state is not adequately prepared for such an event, warning residents to be self-sufficient for at least two weeks following a disaster.

The maps of the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates converge to create subduction zones and volcanoes, particularly concern Ezell.

“Over the past few decades, we’ve witnessed major ruptures in all subduction zones’ faults except for Cascadia,” Ezell noted.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

OpenAI claims Iranian group utilized ChatGPT in attempt to sway US elections

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OpenAI announced on Friday that it had taken down the accounts of an Iranian group using its chatbot, ChatGPT, to create content with the aim of influencing the U.S. presidential election and other important issues.

Dubbed “Storm-2035,” the attack involved the use of ChatGPT to generate content related to various topics, including discussions on the U.S. presidential election, the Gaza conflict, and Israel’s involvement in the Olympics. This content was then shared on social media platforms and websites.

A Microsoft-backed AI company investigation revealed that ChatGPT was being utilized to produce lengthy articles and short comments for social media.


OpenAI noted that this strategy did not result in significant engagement from the audience, as most of the social media posts had minimal likes, shares, or comments. There was also no evidence of the web articles being shared on social media platforms.

These accounts have been banned from using OpenAI’s services, and the company stated that it will continue to monitor them for any policy violations.

In an early August report by Microsoft threat intelligence, it was revealed that an Iranian network called Storm 2035, operating through four websites posing as news outlets, was actively interacting with U.S. voters across the political spectrum.

The network’s activities focused on generating divisive messages on topics like U.S. presidential candidates, LGBTQ rights, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

As the November 5th presidential election approaches, the battle between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican opponent Donald Trump intensifies.

OpenAI previously disrupted five covert influence operations in May that attempted to use their models for deceptive online activities.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Brain implants for treatment of epilepsy, arthritis, and incontinence: A closer reality than you think | Healthcare

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ohRan Knowles, a British teenager with a severe form of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, became the first person to try the new brain implant last October, with astonishing results: his daytime seizures reduced by 80 percent.

“The device has had a huge impact on my son's life as he no longer falls and injures himself like he used to,” said his mother, a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London (Gosh), who implanted the device. She added that there has been a huge improvement in her son's quality of life as well as his cognitive abilities. He is more alert and outgoing.”

Oran's neurostimulator is implanted under the skull and sends constant electrical signals deep into the brain with the aim of blocking the abnormal impulses that cause seizures. The implant, called Picostim, is about the size of a cell phone battery, is charged through headphones and works differently during the day and at night.

“The device has the ability to record from the brain, to measure brain activity, and we can use that information to think about how to improve the effectiveness of the stimulation that children are receiving,” says Tisdall. “What we'd really like to do is to make this treatment available on the NHS.”

As part of the trial, three children with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome will be fitted with the implant in the coming weeks, with a full trial planned for 22 children early next year. If the trial is successful, academic sponsors Ghosh and University College London plan to apply for regulatory approval.

Tim Denison, a professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford and co-founder and chief engineer at Amber Therapeutics, a London-based company that developed the implant in collaboration with the university, hopes that the device will be available on the NHS and around the world within the next four to five years.

The technology is one of a number of neural implants being developed to treat a range of conditions, including brain tumors, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's disease, incontinence and tinnitus. These devices are more sophisticated than traditional implants in that they not only decode the brain's electrical activity but also control it, and this is where Europe is racing against the US to develop life-changing technology.

The latest generation of brain implants can not only detect brain activity but also control it. Photo: UCL

Amber isn't the only company working on brain implants to treat epilepsy. California-based Neuropace has developed a device that responds to abnormal brain activity and has been cleared by US regulators for use by people aged 18 and over. But the battery is not rechargeable and must be surgically replaced after a few years. Other devices are implanted in the chest with wires running to the brain that must be reinserted as the child grows.

When most people think of brain chips, they think of Neuralink, another California-based startup from Elon Musk that just implanted a brain chip in a second patient with a spinal cord injury. The device uses tiny wires thinner than a human hair to capture signals from the brain and translate them into actions.

The first recipient, Noland Arbaugh, was in January and is paralyzed from the neck down. Some of the wires had shifted and the implant needed to be adjusted. The implant allows Arbaugh to control a mouse cursor on a computer screen with his mind, as if he were watching a movie. Star Wars A Jedi who “uses the Force.”

Other US companies, such as Syncron, backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, have also recently implanted brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in people who cannot move or speak.

But scientists say these implants simply decode electrical signals. In contrast, a number of companies in the U.S., Britain and Europe, like Amber, are working on so-called “BCI therapy,” or modulating signals in deep brain stimulation to treat disease. Amber's implants are also being used in academic trials for Parkinson's disease, chronic pain and multiple system atrophy, a condition that gradually damages nerve cells in the brain. The company is also sponsoring an early trial in Belgium to treat incontinence, with promising results.

Professor Martin Tisdall led the team that gave Oran Noorsson, who suffers from severe epilepsy, the implant last October. Photo: UCL

A different kind of technology will be tested in humans in clinical trials starting in a few weeks, using the first brain implant made from graphene, a “miracle material” discovered 20 years ago at the University of Manchester.

Medical teams at Salford Royal Infirmary will implant a device with 64 graphene electrodes into the brains of patients with glioblastoma, a fast-growing form of brain cancer. The device will stimulate and read neural activity with high precision, to spare other parts of the brain while removing the cancer. The implant will be removed after surgery.

“We use this interface to map out where the glioblastoma is and then remove it. [cut it out] “Without affecting areas of function such as language or cognition,” says Carolina Aguilar, co-founder and CEO of InBrain Neuroelectronics, the Barcelona-based company that developed the implant in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and the University of Manchester.

Traditionally, platinum and iridium have been used in implants, but graphene, made from carbon, is ultra-thin, harmless to human tissue, and can be decoded and modulated very selectively.

InBrain plans to conduct clinical trials of similar artificial intelligence-powered implants in people with speech disorders caused by Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and stroke.

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Professor Costas Kostarellos, head of nanomedicine at the University of Manchester, co-founder of InBrain and principal investigator on the glioblastoma trial, says the company's goal is to “develop more intelligent implantable systems”.

Equipped with AI, the device, with 1,024 electrical contacts, “will help provide optimal treatment for each patient without the neurologist having to program all those contacts individually, as they do today,” he says.

InBrain has partnered with German pharmaceutical company Merck to use its graphene device to stimulate the vagus nerve, which controls many bodily functions including digestion, heart rate and breathing, to treat severe chronic inflammatory, metabolic and endocrine diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Galvani Bioelectronics, founded in 2016 by the UK's second-largest pharmaceutical company GSK and Alphabet's Verily Life Sciences, has a pioneering treatment that treats rheumatoid arthritis by stimulating the splenic nerve. Galvani has begun clinical trials with patients in the UK, US and the Netherlands, with first results expected within the next 6-12 months.

Bioelectronics, which combines biological sciences and electrical engineering, is a market worth $8.7 billion today and is predicted to reach more than $20 billion (£15 billion) by 2031. According to Verified Market Research:The field focuses on the peripheral nervous system, which transmits signals from the brain to organs and from organs to the brain. When brain-focused neuromodulation and BCIs are added, Aguilar believes the overall market could be worth more than $25 billion.

While U.S. neuromodulation companies are making waves with devices targeting chronic pain and sleep apnea, a growing number of European startups are also working on the technology. MintNeuro, a spinout from Imperial College London, Working on developing next-generation chips The company is developing an implant that can be combined into a smaller implant and has partnered with Amber. With the support of an Innovate UK grant, its first project will be to develop an implant to treat mixed urinary incontinence.

Geneva-based Neurosoft has developed a device that uses a thin metal film attached to stretchy silicon – soft enough to put less pressure on the brain and blood vessels – to target severe tinnitus, which affects 120 million people worldwide.

“Tinnitus begins with ear damage, typically caused by loud noise, but it can also cause changes in the wiring of the brain, making it effectively a neurological disorder,” said Nicholas Batsikouras, the company's chief executive officer.

Founded in 2009 by 13 neurosurgeons, neurologists, engineers and other scientists from the Policlinico Research Center and the University of Milan, Neuronica has developed a rechargeable deep brain neurostimulator that can be used to treat Parkinson's disease. The device provides closed-loop stimulation and adapts moment-to-moment to the patient's condition, and is currently being tested on patients.

“Europe and the UK can compete head-to-head with the US when it comes to getting treatments onto the NHS and distributing them around the world,” Denison said. “It's a fair competition and we're going to give it our all.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Amazon UK warehouse calls for ambulances 1,400 times in five years

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Over the past five years, there have been more than 1,400 ambulance dispatches to Amazon warehouses, a figure that has been described as shocking by the GMB trade union. This raises concerns about the safety of Amazon’s UK workplaces.

The Dunfermline and Bristol Amazon centers had the highest number of ambulance attendees in the UK, with 161 and 125 respectively during the period.

In Dunfermline, a third of Scottish Ambulance Service call-outs were for chest pain, along with incidents related to convulsions, strokes, and breathing difficulties.

Since 2019, Amazon Mansfield has had 84 ambulance calls, with over 70% of them being for serious incidents such as heart attacks and strokes.

Accidents related to pregnancy, miscarriages, traumatic injuries, and suspected heart attacks have been reported at some Amazon sites, as well as exposure to harmful substances and severe burns.

The data was obtained through freedom of information requests to 12 emergency services covering more than 30 Amazon sites. However, the actual numbers may be higher as complete data was not available for all sites.


GMB staff campaigned for union recognition outside an Amazon warehouse in Coventry. Photo: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

In Coventry, Amazon workers and GMB union members narrowly lost a crucial union recognition vote amid allegations of intimidation by the company.

Amanda Gearing, a GMB organizer, called for investigations into Amazon’s working practices, citing the shocking figures as evidence of unsafe working conditions.

Martha Dark from Foxglove emphasized the danger of working at Amazon, criticizing the company’s disregard for safety.


Workers work at an Amazon fulfillment center in Peterborough ahead of the store’s annual Black Friday sales. Photo: Daniel Leal Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

An Amazon spokesperson denied claims of dangerous working conditions, stating that safety is a top priority and ambulances are always called for emergencies.

The spokesperson also refuted claims that ambulances were not called, emphasizing that the majority of calls were for pre-existing conditions, not work-related incidents.

They encouraged individuals to visit Amazon fulfillment centers to see the truth for themselves.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Elon Musk’s Twitter Week: What’s the Controversial CEO Been Tweeting About?

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pictureRon Musk isn’t stopping tweeting. In just seven days last week, he made nearly 650 posts on the social network he bought in November 2022 and reluctantly rebranded as X. He also spent nearly three hours wrestling with technical issues in what he would later conclude was the result of an unproven hacking attack while trying to host a “conversation” with Donald Trump, and livestreamed himself playing Blizzard’s sword-and-sorcery game Diablo IV for several hours.

The volume of his content alone is impressive enough, but even for someone who was so into posting that he spent more money on a site than the Manhattan Project budget, Musk’s consistency is astonishing.

In the week of tweets analysed by The Guardian, there was a 90-minute period when he posted nothing, between 3am and 4:29am local time, but he tweeted at least once every other half hour throughout the day and night: at 4:41am on Saturday morning, 2:30pm on Wednesday night, and at 11pm on six of the seven days.

The longest Musk went without tweeting that week was seven and a half hours, when he slept until 8:10 a.m. after a late-night posting session. On Saturday night, Musk logged out after retweeting a meme likening the Metropolitan police to the SS, then returned online four and a half hours later to retweet a tweet from a cryptocurrency influencer complaining about the prison sentences of British protesters.

Awesome, awakened, cool

Not all of Musk’s posts on X are loaded with meaning. Most are simple one- or two-word replies to fans, followers and allies. Two minutes after he replies “Cool” to a construction influencer’s AI-generated photo of himself, he replies “Cool” to a montage of photos of the Tesla Cybertruck driving through North America, and a minute later an AI-generated cartoon of himself points to a sign that reads “Criticism is welcome on this platform” and replies “💯.”

One-word replies can sometimes be a good thing and a bad thing. Musk, who has never been one to follow traditional “online etiquette,” occasionally replies to messages with a “😂” emoji and then copies the exact same thing to his own feed without credit. It’s unclear why some posts get Musk’s treasured retweets while others get stolen and reposted.

Musk is sometimes careful with his praise, especially when it comes from users he’s not comfortable being too vocal about. An End Wokeness post about a California early release bill, a Malaysian far-right influencer’s post about Haitian criminals, and a Libs of TikTok post about another California bill have all been marked with a simple “!!” by Musk, while a post by Dom Lucre, a far-right influencer who was banned from the site for posting child abuse imagery, doesn’t even get that mark. Personally covered In 2023, I received just one “!” from a billionaire.

Riot and Grok

Musk’s outrage over the UK riots seems to be deepening his ties to the far-right: Over the past week, he has begun a conversation with Canadian influencer Lauren Southern, one of three anti-Muslim activists named in the UK riots. Banned from entering the UK It was launched by Theresa May’s government in 2018. Though the pair share a distrust of the media, Musk is now a paying subscriber to her feed, supporting her – along with more than 160 other users – for £4.92 a month.

But Musk’s crazy behavior makes sense. A showman, the memes and chatter he retweets and reposts are full of promotions he wants to make that day. Sometimes, it’s professional. On Wednesday and Thursday, when his AI company xAI released the latest version of its large-scale language model, Grok, a significant percentage of his posts were sharing quotes and images generated by it.

In the UK in 2030, you could be executed for posting a meme…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2024

And then there are the riots. During the week, Musk’s attention was diverted from tensions in the UK, but the spate of rulings handed down over the weekend meant he was primed for a bit of mayhem.

He latched onto right-wing memes about Keir Starmer promoting a “two-tier” policing system and downplayed their contribution to the violence while constantly drawing attention to the punitive sentences given to rioters. Early on Friday morning, he expanded on his criticism of the SNP's Humza Yousaf, calling the former Scottish First Minister a “super super racist” and challenging him to take legal action in response.

Trump and Tesla

On Monday and Tuesday, Musk drew attention to his conversation with Donald Trump, sharing posts before the livestream in which fans excitedly wondered how many people would tune in and what the two smartest people in the world would discuss, then reposting posts after the livestream in which fans were upset that biased media wouldn’t write more positive headlines and asking fans to shorten the conversation into a more manageable hour-long highlights reel.

Despite this friction, another side of Musk shows up when he talks about his two biggest companies, Tesla and SpaceX. With Tesla being a public company, Musk has to be careful with what he says. He has a fiduciary duty to shareholders and legal obligations on how to disclose material information. Those obligations came to a head when the SEC sued him over his infamous tweets in which he falsely claimed he had “secured funding” to take Tesla private. In a subsequent settlement with regulators, Musk agreed to have his lawyers review all of his tweets about Tesla, a deal he has since regretted.

But after an appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, the deal remains valid, meaning Musk’s final chance to escape the “Twitter guards” may be… It was scrapped in April this year.His posts about Tesla have been surprisingly muted. Shortly after his conversation with Trump, he posted a lengthy, mostly standard, statement retracting some of his comments about climate change: “To be clear, I believe global warming is real.” He startedWhat he meant was that even without global warming, high levels of CO2 It was dangerous.

“Guardians are trash…”

Musk also used the opportunity to take aim at another favorite target, The Guardian. After the paper quoted experts in what he called “the dumbest climate change debate in history,” Musk slammed others he follows who shared the article, telling author Stephen King that “The Guardian cannot be considered objective” and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla that “The Guardian is rubbish.”

Source: www.theguardian.com