Tag Archives: pushing

How Tinsel Science is Pushing to Restrict Access to Abortion Pills

Posted on by
Reply

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tasked the Food and Drug Administration with conducting a safety assessment of Mifepristone, the primary medication used in most abortions in the U.S. This week, Kennedy indicated that the review was prompted by a “surprising” report on significant adverse events that was released last month.

“At the very least, it clearly indicates that we need to modify the labeling,” he stated during the Senate budget hearing on Wednesday, addressing Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo). “We requested FDA Director Marty McCurry to carry out a comprehensive review and provide a report.”

The report suggests that neither peer-reviewed studies nor medical journals have identified a higher rate of serious complications from Mifepristone than that reported by the FDA. It calls for “further investigation into the harm Mifepristone may cause to women” and urges a “reconsideration of its approval entirely.”

Published online in April by the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, a conservative think tank that endorses Jewish and Christian values, the center is associated with the Advisory Committee for Project 2025, which pushes right-wing policy initiatives allegedly influencing many recent actions by President Donald Trump.

A few days before the report’s release, FDA Commissioner Marty McCurry mentioned that he had no intention of taking action against Mifepristone unless new data indicated safety concerns.

Hawley has consistently voted to restrict abortion access, and called on McCurry last month to restore certain restrictions that have made obtaining Mifepristone challenging, including requiring doctors to handle the process directly.

Conversely, data shows that fewer than 0.5% of women taking Mifepristone experience serious side effects, while the report claims the actual figure is about 11%.

Researchers studying reproductive health have criticized the report as junk science, exaggerating the medication’s risks.

Dr. Ushima Upadyyay, a public health scientist from the University of California, San Francisco, expressed on Thursday, “We should be cautious about public health officials demanding a review of science.”

“A rigorous study, which involved my own consultation with a clinician, ensured that the medication is safe for use at home,” she added.

The report claims its analysis is based on 865,727 insurance claims for women prescribed abortion medications, yet it does not disclose the database used, failing to adhere to standard scientific research protocols. Multiple external researchers have noted that the definition of a “serious adverse event” is broad enough to capture minor side effects like daily bleeding. However, the report’s authors assert that they excluded mild or moderate events.

Regardless, complications after medication abortions were categorized as “serious” in contradiction to medical consensus. The Mifepristone label already indicates that the treatment fails in roughly 2.6% of cases, with the physician community suggesting the failure rate may reach up to 5%. Additionally, the report classified ectopic pregnancies as serious incidents, even in the context of Mifepristone use.

Alina Salganicoff, the director of the Women’s Health Policy Program at KFF—a health policy research and news organization—asserted that the report “does not meet generally accepted research standards,” noting that using insurance claims to evaluate abortion outcomes is ineffective as “many abortions, especially early ones, are not covered by insurance.”

Rachel Jones, a leading research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, an organization advocating for abortion access, remarked that the report seems to stem from ideology rather than science.

“The FDA typically relies on clinical trials and studies, but this isn’t the case here. It should not influence current policies,” she stated.

The authors of the report responded to these criticisms in a post on the Center’s website, claiming the peer review system is biased against anti-abortion groups, leaving “no opportunity to publish peer-reviewed analyses that provide critical views on abortion medications.”

“As the largest ever study on abortion drugs reveals they are neither safe nor effective, the abortion industry has opted to misrepresent our findings to protect their financial interests, jeopardizing women’s health,” said the report.

Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Pro-Life Physicians Association, indicated that the report sends a message for the FDA to conduct a thorough reassessment of Mifepristone’s safety.

“We have long urged the FDA to conduct a more detailed review of the real-world complication rates,” she explained. “In my view, this report is timely and much needed.”

HHS, which handles media inquiries for the FDA, did not provide comments upon request.

Reproductive health researchers argue that disseminating flawed research represents one of the many strategies employed by anti-abortion groups to restrict access to Mifepristone, alongside litigation and lobbying federal officials.

“Organizations wishing to ban abortions often produce these types of studies,” said Jones.

Misleading research has previously contributed to legal challenges against Mifepristone access, which were ultimately withdrawn by the Supreme Court. In a 2023 decision temporarily revoking Mifepristone’s approval, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kakusmalik cited a study from an anti-abortion group that was later retracted by a medical publisher.

Attorneys General from Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri sought to revive a lawsuit in October against Mifepristone in the same Texas federal court. However, earlier this month, the Trump administration requested the judge dismiss the case.

Julia Kaye, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, indicated at a press conference that this might complicate the administration’s legal arguments in other ongoing cases. Other legal experts view this as a strategy to sidestep taking a definitive stance on abortion.

During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy pledged to align with Trump on abortion issues, proposing on Wednesday that Trump would ultimately determine how Mifepristone is managed in the U.S.

“We believe that policy shifts will ultimately pass through President Trump,” he stated.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Pushing the Boundaries of Light Speed: Unusual Particles Impacting the Laws of the Universe

Posted on by
Reply

We've all seen it frequently in science fiction films, so the concept seems completely plausible. Characters enter commands, and spacecraft reverse speed, jump to hyperspace, and create wormholes through space and time.

Whatever the terminology, the outcome is always the same. They fly through fictional universes faster than the speed of light, so travel between star systems is not only possible, but practical.

But in the real universe we live in, a huge barrier appears to forbid this. According to Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, it cannot travel faster than light.

The light travels at an incredible speed of approximately 3 x 108 meters per second. This means that when you look at the universe, you won't see the heavenly objects as they are currently appearing. You can see how light from them first emerged when they departed across the universe.

Within the solar system, these delays are relatively short. For example, it takes only one second of sunlight to bounce off the surface of the moon and reach the Earth, but it takes eight minutes to cover the distance between the sun and our world.

Due to the enormous distance from us, if the sun suddenly disappears, you won't notice until 8 minutes later – Photo Credit: Getty

The more visible the longer the delay, which gives rise to the light-year concept as a measure of distance. Our closest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 4.25 light years away. In other words, it takes 4.25 years to get there from there. Therefore, the stars are not as they are now, and look like 4.25 years ago.

Beyond the vast expanse of the universe, distance is ultimately measured in billions of light years. This is what makes cosmology possible. The more we see the universe, the older the objects we see, and we can diagrammaticize today's evolution into stars and galaxies.

But if you can travel there and see what those objects look like now, wouldn't that be great?

Having a warp drive may sound like it, but it has some pretty weird results. For one thing, it would ruin the notion of causality.

Causality is our common sense perception that precedes effectiveness. But if you saw a faster spaceship trip towards you, you will see the ship in two places at once. The light carrying information about the ship's departure would not have reached the eye before the ship could be seen along the way.

Worse, the mathematics of relativity shows that if the speed exceeds the speed of light, literally time travel is possible.

This creates a full-scale causal paradox such as the famous “grandfather's paradox.” And how does it work – will you just no longer exist?

read more:

  • What happens at Black Hole Event Horizon?
  • Ghost Detector: This new machine can reveal the deepest secrets of the universe
  • Do you know what the star core looks like?

Negative energy inside

At first glance, Einstein's theory appears to protect us from such head-envelope challenges, as it appears to make it impossible to move faster than light. Masu.

According to the equation, the energy required to accelerate the ship to such a speed is infinite. However, researchers then began to look at mathematics in more detail.

A general theory of relativity – Einstein's extension of his special relativity – he proposes that the universe is made of adaptive fabrics called the space-time continuum, and he uses gravity to make this fabric I explained that it was distorted.

Who knows if tachyons exist, but if so, the theory suggests that it travels faster than light. – Image credits: Science Photography Library

1994, Physicist Dr. Miguel Alcubière At the University of Wales, and at Cardiff, we showed that solutions exist within the theory of general relativity that can be interpreted as warp drives. The problem was that it requires an exotic substance known as “negative energy” to make it work.

Astronomers have toyed using the concept of negative energy to explain why the universe appears to be accelerating, but with an understanding of physics, matter is comfortable to exist It cannot be done.

Then in May 2024, A group of researchers reexamined mathematics We will use only the types of particles and energy that make up the planet and people to see if the Alkbiere Warp phenomenon can be generated.

Their conclusion: Yes, they did. Dr. Jared Fuchs And colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA, discovered that they could arrange for normal material and energy to create warp phenomena and transport people through space. But there was a catch: they could only make it work at sub-light speed.

“It takes a lot of energy to make small changes to the space,” Fuchs says. To move the passenger seat, the size of a small room requires a small house-sized “warp bubble” for the size of a small room. And to make it, you need to narrow the mass of Jupiter several times. It becomes the volume that is the size of a small asteroid.

“now, [is that] Is it possible? perhaps. [Is it] Practical? I wouldn't say that,” says Fuchs. Even if it was possible to create such a device, the old boundaries still exist. To accelerate faster than the speed of light, you need an infinite amount of energy.

“We will not resolve the future of rapid transportation like Star Trek,” admits Fuchs.

Trouble with Tachon

Other researchers have conducted their own research into relativity. Professor Andrzej Dragan Collaborators at the University of Warsaw in Poland decided to consider possible solutions within the equation of particles that travel faster than light.

Physicists have previously messed with such concepts. They even called such virtual particles “tachyons,” but essentially considered them more than mathematical curiosity. However, Dragan and her colleagues found an equation explaining Tachyon's behavior.

“Mathematically, they make perfect sense,” says Dragan. In other words, our familiar world of secondary particle particles could coexist with the upper heart family of the second family, the tachyon.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that spacecraft can speed faster than light. To do that, Dragan explains that it requires the infinite energy that Einstein predicted, as well as the infinite energy to slow the Tachyon down to a sub-blue-minal speed.

“You can't exceed the speed of light in either direction,” says Dragan.

Nevertheless, the study We have proposed some fascinating results that may explain some of the most inexplicable observations physicists are working on.

When dealing with Tachon, Dragan and his colleagues encountered the causal issues they had been expecting. But the more I looked into these details, the more I realized that something surprising was happening. The strict lack of causes and effects was very similar to the behavior of normal, everyday subatomic particles.

The theory of relativity explains the behavior of the universe at its largest scale, while quantum theory describes the subatomic domain as a very different location.

Quantum theory introduces probability into particle interactions. For example, we know that an atom can absorb photons of light and at some stage it will re-emit that photon, but we cannot predict when or in which direction it will take.

In other words, the exact cause is hidden from us, and all we have left is an observable effect. Dragan suggests that when tachyon interacts with normal substances, the outcome of that interaction is unpredictable – like the emission of photons.

So, while these latest ideas do not seem to open a route to practical warp drives, they may only show a deeper look at the nature of the cosmos and the origins of quantum behavior.

About our experts

Dr. Jared Fuchs He is the CEO of Celedon Solutions Inc. and works in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA. His work has been published Classical and quantum gravity.

Professor Andrzej Dragan He is a filmmaker and professor of physics at the University of Warsaw in Poland, and a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore. His work has been published Physical review, Classic and Quatnam Gravity and New Journal of Physics.

read more:

  • What is the most powerful material in the universe?
  • This is our first photo of a star outside our galaxy
  • How the hidden “scars” of the universe unlock time travel

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Should Parents be Concerned About Roblox Safety? Exploring the Risks of Pushing the Button

Posted on by
Reply

RJust before last week's newsletter was published, a short selling firm called Hindenburg Research issued the following report. Highly critical report on Roblox. In it, they accuse public companies of inflating their metrics (and thus their valuations), and even more worryingly for the parents of the millions of children who use Roblox. He also called it a “pedophile's hellscape.'’ The report claims that there were some gruesome discoveries within the game. Researchers found chat rooms of people purporting to exchange images and videos of children, and users claiming to be children or teens offering such material in exchange for Robux, an in-game currency. I discovered it. roblox I strongly refuse The claims made by Hindenburg in his report.

For those unfamiliar with the title, Roblox is more of a platform than a game (or, as corporate communicators like to think of it, a metaverse). It claims 80 million daily users (though Hindenburg says this figure is inflated). Log in, customize your avatar, and from there you can dive into thousands of different “experiences” created by other users. From role-playing cities to pizza delivery mini-games to cops-and-robbers games to cops-and-robbers games and, unfortunately, much less, Public Bathroom Simulator (which the creators say was 12 years old before they realized bad people existed) It is a delicious dish that looks like the one that he made at the time of his death. Roblox games are created by players, so the site must be constantly moderated. The company's moderation team handles a huge amount of content every day.

It's important to recognize that Hindenburg has a vested interest in making Roblox a stock tank. Hindenburg has a short position in the company (meaning it stands to profit if the stock price falls). Several other companies I've seen their stocks crater after releasing a report on them. However, it is also possible to independently verify some of the claims made in the report. A very quick search of the platform reveals that these in-game chat groups that appear to be soliciting and trading images do indeed exist and are active. And the accounts with questionable usernames that reference child abuse and Jeffrey Epstein are genuine. Some of the specific games and accounts mentioned in Hindenburg's report last week have been removed by the company.

Roblox defended itself in a statement posted online, saying, “Every day, tens of millions of users of all ages have safe and positive experiences on Roblox, and we adhere to our community standards.” said. But any safety incident is terrifying. We take content and conduct that does not adhere to our standards on our platform very seriously. ” The company further added: “We are continually evolving and enhancing our safety approach to catch and prevent malicious and harmful activity, including text chat filters that block inappropriate words and phrases; , which includes disallowing image sharing between users on Roblox” (as further reported in this article in the Guardian).

If your kids are playing on a platform like Roblox, triple-check their settings. Photo: Phil Noble/Reuters

Of course, this isn't the first sensational report about Roblox. In recent years, articles in CNN, the Observer, Wired, and many other publications have found that there is a large amount of inappropriate content on the platform, and that child predators are There are also some proven cases of using Roblox for crafting. Last July, More from Bloomberg In one such case, a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for grooming a minor and having her cross state lines to perform sex acts as part of a broader investigation into the platform's apparent flaws in moderation and child safety. He was sentenced in 2018.

Many parents are worried about what to do. Roblox is part of the daily online lives of millions of children, even if the figure of around 80 million daily users is inflated, as Hindenberg claims. Anyone who has children of school age knows that it is very widely used. Is Roblox dangerous for kids? Should they stop playing it immediately?

Despite everything presented in this and other reports over the past few years, I believe it is entirely possible for children to play Roblox safely. Appropriate parental controls are in place to limit or eliminate the extent to which strangers can contact your child. When used correctly. If I had kids playing Roblox, I'd be checking all of these settings over and over again to make sure the “friends list” feature was set to include only real-life friends. We also recommend supervising young children to minimize the likelihood that they will encounter or actually seek out the many inappropriate games that seem to regularly elude Roblox's management efforts. I'm very reluctant to let you play this game without it.

Basic online safety education is critical for all children who use the Internet. Given the multiple convictions of child predators who used Roblox to access children, it is impossible to deny the presence of pedophiles on the platform, but it is difficult to objectively assess the extent of it. It's difficult. Some of what Hindenburg highlights in his report seems to me more likely to be the product of an adolescent fringe master than an actual child predator. Roblox is full of teenagers who have grown up with the game. When you see 900 variations of the username Jeffrey Epstein, you don't necessarily see 900 active child abusers, you see 900 stupid 14-year-olds trying to be funny. .

Full disclosure: I don't let my kids play Roblox, and I have no intention of starting them. I don't believe that a publicly traded company can be trusted to put the interests and safety of children ahead of profits. Moderation is expensive and difficult. No one in the big tech industry is any closer to building a system to prevent harmful material from appearing on these types of open platforms, or to prevent people from exploiting harmful material for their own purposes. No. Legitimate safety concerns aside, rather than trying to squeeze money out of kids to pay for endless in-game cosmetics and “experiences,” it's simply better to serve kids' imaginations and curiosity. There are hundreds of great games.

Only offline games can completely eliminate this risk of children being exposed to inappropriate content. After just a few hours of exploring Roblox, one thing is abundantly clear. It's not hard to find something very problematic.

what to play

The wolf in the game Neva grows into a magnificent creature crowned with horns that protects you.

Neva, a game about a warrior and a she-wolf, surprised me. I've played so many beautiful, artistic indie platformers that it’s hard to find one that really makes me feel something. But there I was ugly crying in front of the TV after a few nights with Neva. It takes place over four seasons. The wolf starts out as a cub that you have to protect, but later grows into a magnificent creature with horns that can protect you. Use an elegant combination of jumps, double jumps, dashes, and strikes to explore an incredibly beautiful but horribly corrupt natural world and make multiple attempts to conquer the demons that poison it. Worth a few hours of anyone's life.

Available: PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox
Approximate play time: 3-4 hours

Skip past newsletter promotions

what to read

The cause of the Alamo…Nintendo's new clock. Photo: Nintendo

  • On Friday, a group of people who worked on highly acclaimed psychology and political science research RPG Disco Elysium announced the creation of a new studio to work on the game's spiritual successor. Then, confusingly, another new studio was announced same thingThis time it comes with a trailer. And on the same day, a third group announced another spiritual successor. as one viral tweet “Disco Elysium splitting into three unions claiming succession is more of a commentary on communism than the game wanted.”

  • A premium book/magazine hybrid about video games. above, Released today. Guardian games correspondent Keith Stuart and I feature in issue one. Naturally, his article is about Sega arcade boards and mine is about Nintendo details.

  • game freakThe developer of Pokemon suffered a hack of almost unprecedented scale.: Details about unreleased Pokemon game and movie projects, employee information, source code, and details about the series' development. decades I'm there now.

  • To cap off a truly bizarre week of video game news: nintendo We have announced an alarm clock that watches over you while you are sleeping. It's called “Alarmo,” and it wakes you up with the not-so-gentle sounds of Mario, Splatoon, or Zelda, synchronized with your groggy morning movements. the available now For those willing to jump through a few hoops (and pay £90).

What to clickwww.theguardian.com

Meta cracks down on deceptive content by pushing for labeling of all AI images on Instagram and Facebook

Posted on by
Reply

Meta works to identify and label AI-generated images on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, and is striving to expose “people and organizations that actively seek to deceive the public.” Masu.

Images created using Meta’s AI image tools are already labeled as AI, but Nick Clegg, the company’s global president, stated in a blog post on Tuesday that the company’s competing services will start labeling AI-generated images.

Meta’s AI images already have metadata and an invisible watermark indicating that the image was created by AI. The company has partnered with Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock to work on AI image generators, according to Clegg.

Clegg said, “As the line between human content and synthetic content becomes blurred, people want to know where the line is.”

He added, “People often encounter AI-generated content for the first time, and our users appreciate the transparency around this new technology. It’s important to let people know that it was created using AI.”

A surfing llama or an AI? Image labels for AI-generated content on Facebook.

Clegg mentioned that the labeling feature is being developed and will be rolled out to all languages in the coming months.

He also stated that the company will add more prominent labels on images, videos, or audio that are “digitally created or altered” and “have a particularly high risk of materially misleading the public.”

Additionally, the company is working to develop technology to automatically detect AI-generated content, even when the content lacks invisible markers or has been removed.

“This work is particularly important because the online space is likely to become increasingly hostile in the coming years,” Mr Clegg said.

He concluded, “People and organizations actively trying to deceive people with AI-generated content will find ways to circumvent the safeguards in place to detect it. Our industry and society as a whole must continue to find ways to stay ahead of the curve.”

AI deepfakes have already become an issue in the US presidential election cycle, with examples of AI-generated deepfakes used to dissuade voters in the New Hampshire Democratic primary.

Australia’s Nine News also faced criticism for altering an image broadcast on the evening news that exposed Victorian Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell’s belly button and altered her chest, using Adobe’s AI image tools.

Source: www.theguardian.com