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ACLU challenges NIH for allegedly removing researchers based on ideology

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The U.S. Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit alleging that the National Institutes of Health violated federal law by engaging in an unconstitutional “continuous ideological purging.”

The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts District Court on behalf of members, four researchers, and three unions that rely on NIH funding, claims that federal scientific agencies have abruptly cancelled hundreds of research projects without providing scientifically sound explanations.

According to the lawsuit, the cancellations were justified by the NIH based on “ideological purity instructions” regarding research areas such as diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), vaccine reluctance, and gender identity.

The lawsuit argues that this new arbitrary regime lacks any legal or policy basis, and accuses the NIH of failing to establish clear guidelines, definitions, or explanations for the restrictions on research related to DEI, gender, and other areas that do not align with the agency’s standards.

The defendants named in the lawsuit include the NIH, its director Jay Battacharya, the American Department of Human Health Services, and Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Both federal agencies have declined to comment on the pending lawsuit.

The ACLU is working with the Science Center for the Public Interest and Conservation Democracy Project on this litigation.

This lawsuit is just one of several legal challenges facing the NIH as the Trump administration seeks to reduce research funding, change allocation methods, and diminish the emphasis on diversity in academia.

After facing legal challenges, a Massachusetts judge halted the NIH’s efforts to restrict overhead funding in February. Other lawsuits are challenging the freeze on federal-wide funding and the administration’s ban on DEI programs.

Olga Axelrod, senior attorney for the ACLU Racial Justice Program, emphasized the importance of maintaining a fair grant review process and ending NIH’s alleged lawless grants that have disrupted numerous research projects and affected the careers of many scientists.

According to the lawsuit, at least 678 research projects, including studies on breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and HIV prevention, have been terminated by the NIH, amounting to over $2.4 billion in cancelled grants.

The lawsuit highlights the significant impact of these cancellations not only in terms of financial loss but also in the disruption of years of dedicated research aimed at addressing critical biomedical issues.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include researchers like Brittany Charlton, a Harvard Medical School professor who focuses on LGBTQ health inequality, and Katie Edwards, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work who studies sexual violence prevention in minority communities.

These researchers, along with others, have had their grants abruptly cancelled by the NIH, prompting the lawsuit to seek justice and protection for the affected research projects and scientists.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

AI Researcher Develops Chatbot Based on Future-Self Concept to Assist in Decision Making

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If spending time on the couch, binging fast food, drinking too much alcohol or not paying into your company pension is ruining your carefully laid plans for life, it might be time to have a conversation with your future self.

With time machines not readily available, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an AI-powered chatbot that simulates a user’s past self and offers observations and valuable wisdom in the hope of encouraging people to think more today about who they want to be tomorrow.

By digitally de-aging profile photos so that younger users appear as wrinkled, grey-haired seniors, the chatbot generates plausible artificial memories and weaves a story about a successful life based on the user’s current aspirations.

“The goal is to encourage long-term changes in thinking and behavior,” says Pat Pataranuthapong, who works on the Future You project at the MIT Media Lab, “which may motivate people to make smarter choices in the present that optimize their long-term well-being and life outcomes.”

In one conversation, an aspiring biology teacher asked a chatbot, a 60-year-old version of herself, about the most rewarding moment in her career so far. The chatbot, responding that she was a retired biology teacher in Boston, recalled a special moment when she turned a struggling student’s grades around. “It was so gratifying to see my student’s face light up with pride and accomplishment,” the chatbot said.

To interact with the chatbot, users are first asked to answer a series of questions about themselves, their friends and family, the past experiences that have shaped them, and the ideal life they envision for themselves in the future. They then upload a portrait image, which the program then digitally ages to create a portrait of them at 60 years old.

The program then feeds information from the user’s answers into a large language model to generate a rich synthetic memory for the simulated older version of itself, ensuring that the chatbot draws on a coherent background story when responding to questions.

The final part of the system is the chatbot itself, powered by OpenAI’s GPT3.5, which introduces itself as a potential older version of the user and can talk about their life experiences.

Pattaranuthapong has had several conversations with his “future self,” but the most memorable was when the chatbot reminded him that his parents won’t be together forever, so he should spend time with them while he still can. “The perspective I gained from that conversation is still influential to me today,” he said.

Users are told that their “future self” is not a prediction, but a potential future self based on the information they provide, and are encouraged to explore different futures by varying their survey answers.

be A preprint scientific paper on the projectA trial of 344 volunteers, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, found that talking to a chatbot made people feel less anxious and more connected to their future selves. Pattaranthapong said this stronger connection should encourage better life choices, from focusing on specific goals and exercising regularly to eating healthier and saving for the future.

Ivo Vlaev, professor of behavioural science at the University of Warwick, said people often struggle to imagine themselves in the future, but doing so could lead to stronger adherence to education, healthier lifestyles and more careful financial planning.

He called the MIT project a “fascinating application” of behavioral science principles. “It embodies the idea of a nudge, a subtle intervention designed to steer behavior in a beneficial direction by making your future self more salient and relevant to the present,” he said. “Implemented effectively, this could have a profound impact on how people make decisions today with their future well-being in mind.”

“From a practical standpoint, its effectiveness will depend on how well it simulates meaningful, relevant conversations,” he added. “If users perceive the chatbot as authentic and insightful, it can have a significant impact on behavior. But if the interaction feels superficial or quirky, its impact may be limited.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

When will the current Bitcoin bull run peak based on its early characteristics? – Blockchain News, Opinion, TV, Jobs

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Mateo Greco, Research Analyst, Listed Digital Assets and FinTech Investment Business Finekia International (CSE:FNQ).

Bitcoin (BTC) ended the week at around $68,400, down just 0.8% from the previous week’s closing price of around $69,000. Throughout the week, BTC showed significant volatility, with a price range of 13.4%. The week started off strong with BTC surging to $72,000 on Monday. It then peaked above $73,000 on both Wednesday and Thursday, before reaching an all-time high of nearly $73,800 on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, BTC plummeted to $68,000 before rebounding to close around $71,400. Selling pressure continued on Friday and Saturday, with BTC falling to $64,700 before closing near $65,300 on Saturday. However, positive momentum returned on Sunday, nearly reversing weekly losses and closing at around $68,400.

Despite the volatility and price changes, the past week demonstrated continued strong momentum for the BTC Spot ETF, with net inflows recorded on every trading day. Net inflows for the week exceeded $2.5 billion, with net inflows exceeding $1 billion on Tuesday alone. Cumulative net inflows since its inception are currently approximately $12.2 billion.

BTC spot ETF trading volume is also on the rise, with total trading volume reaching $141.7 billion since inception, including around $28 billion in trades last week. This took his daily trading volume past his $5.5 billion mark last week, and his average daily trading volume has increased since its inception, now sitting at around $3.15 billion.

These numbers confirm that investment momentum from traditional finance to the digital asset space continues. Despite BTC price stabilization last week, demand is primarily coming from ETFs, while native digital asset investors are more active on the short side.

This trend is noticeable in the decline in BTC held by long-term holders, which refers to BTC that has not moved for at least 155 days. At the beginning of 2024, this supply was approximately 16.3 million BTC, but has gradually decreased and currently stands at approximately 15.1 million BTC. While this shift reflects traditional investors driving purchasing activity through ETFs, native digital asset investors who accumulated during the downtrend in 2022 and 2023 are now seeing higher profit-taking rates. The supply of long-term holders is decreasing.

Such behavior is characteristic of early bull phases, when long-term holders distribute assets to new investors. Analyzing past cycles, if the current market is trending up, this pattern is likely to continue until supply from long-term holders matches demand from new investors, which typically occurs at the peak of the cycle. coincides with the beginning of the downtrend phase.

Notably, BTC’s halving is approximately 1 month later, whereas previous cycles’ peaks have historically been 6 to 12 months later. If past patterns repeat, the peak of the current cycle could occur in late 2024 or early 2025.

Source: the-blockchain.com

French experts in security unveil a disinformation network based in Moscow | Cyberwarfare

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French military and cybersecurity experts have identified a Moscow-based network that is spreading propaganda and disinformation across Western Europe.

France’s Agency Viguinum, established in 2021 to detect digital interference from foreign groups influencing public opinion, stated that it was unclear whether Russia was involved online in the lead-up to the European elections and other important votes this year, paving the way for a new wave of operations.

The online network, named Portal Combat, consists of at least 193 sites spreading pro-Russian propaganda supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and criticizing the Kiev government. The disinformation is spread through social media sites and messaging apps targeting people who propagate conspiracy theories.

Researchers at Biginum identified and analyzed the network between September and December last year, tracing the massive disinformation campaign back to Moscow. One pro-Russian channel on the French Telegram app publishes up to nine articles an hour almost continuously.

The European Commission, NATO, and UN agencies have classified disinformation as one of the biggest threats to democracy in 2024, recognizing it as a national security issue.

UN Information Secretary-General Melissa Fleming stated that disinformation was being used to create more suspicion and hatred, weakening peacekeeping forces.

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell described this new war as being about words and ideas that can colonize minds, not about bombs that can kill people.

Vera Yulova, the EU’s vice-president for values and transparency, expressed the EU’s determination to fight back against Kremlin’s actions to spread propaganda and interfere in democracy, welcoming the strong determination of France, Germany, and Poland.

French defense experts noted that sites linked to disinformation networks do not produce original material, instead flooding the internet with materials from pro-Russian sources since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biginum report revealed that the disinformation network is directly contributing to the polarization of digital public debate in the Francophone world and is targeting Russian communities in Ukraine and several Western countries.

Furthermore, Biginum identified three “ecosystems” involved in the propaganda campaign.

Another network of websites primarily targets Russian-speaking audiences in Ukraine and began operating just over a month after the Russian invasion, delivering propaganda focused on the Ukraine conflict.

Despite the massive propaganda and disinformation campaign, security experts believe it has had limited success, with the average traffic for the five portals in November 2023 reaching 31,000 visits.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Researchers can now estimate your biological age based on a snapshot of your body

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It is now possible to measure a person’s biological age, which refers to the wear and tear of the body’s cells, as opposed to the chronological age based on the number of years lived. Chinese scientists have developed a new method to predict biological age using artificial intelligence to analyze 3D images of the face, tongue, and retina.

This approach provides a way to estimate biological age more accurately than previous methods that primarily relied on DNA or blood tests and brain scans. By combining images of the face, tongue, and retina, scientists have created a model that can accurately predict biological age. This allows for easier, more accessible, and less invasive methods to estimate a person’s biological age compared to traditional tests.

Research from China’s Macau University of Science and Technology and Shanghai Jiao Tong University involved testing this model on healthy individuals and those with chronic diseases. The results showed that the biological age of individuals with chronic diseases was significantly higher than their chronological age compared to healthy individuals, indicating the potential impact of chronic diseases on aging.

Furthermore, this new method could also be used to assess the effectiveness of anti-aging treatments, such as diet, exercise, and longevity drugs. Dr. Andrew Steele, a longevity expert, highlighted the potential for using photos to evaluate the efficacy of anti-aging strategies and speed up clinical trials in the future.

About our experts

Dr. Andrew Steele is a scientist, author, and presenter, known for his work in the field of aging. He is the author of Ageless: The new science of growing older without getting older. After earning his doctorate in physics, Steele transitioned into biology, using computers to decipher human DNA at the Francis Crick Institute in London.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com