Breathing is a missing pillar of health, and our attention to it is long overdue. Most of us misunderstand breathing. We see it as passive, something that we just do. Breathe, live; stop breathing, die. But breathing is not that simple and binary. How we breathe matters, too. Inside the breath you just took, there Read more about Breathing Habits Are Related To Physical and Mental Health[…]
New research published today in Science Advances suggests pulses of ultrasonic waves can be used to partially control decision-making in rhesus macaque monkeys. Specifically, the ultrasound treatments were shown to influence their decision to look either left or right at a target presented on a screen, despite prior training to prefer one target over the Read more about Researchers Control Monkeys’ Decisions With Bursts of Ultrasonic Waves[…]
Do smartphones alter what people are willing to disclose about themselves to others? A new study in the Journal of Marketing suggests that they might. The research indicates that people are more willing to reveal personal information about themselves online using their smartphones compared to desktop computers. For example, Tweets and reviews composed on smartphones Read more about Why smartphones are digital truth serum[…]
A 17-year-old boy in Los Angeles County who became the first teen believed to have died from complications with covid-19 in the U.S. was denied treatment at an urgent care clinic because he didn’t have health insurance, according to R. Rex Parris, the mayor of Lancaster, California. Roughly 27.5 million Americans—8.5 percent of the population—don’t Read more about LA Teen Who Died of Covid-19 Was Denied Treatment Because He Didn’t Have Health Insurance. The US looks like a banana republic.[…]
The World Health Organization recommended Tuesday that people suffering COVID-19 symptoms avoid taking ibuprofen, after French officials warned that anti-inflammatory drugs could worsen effects of the virus. The warning by French Health Minister Olivier Veran followed a recent study in The Lancet medical journal that hypothesised that an enzyme boosted by anti-inflammatory drugs such as Read more about Avoid taking ibuprofen for COVID-19 symptoms: WHO[…]
Across the globe, governments are imposing travel limits in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus. The unintended consequence is a squeeze on migrant labor that’s a cornerstone of food production. American produce growers preparing to harvest crops are warning of a devastating impact on fruit and vegetables after the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Read more about Virus Travel Bans Threaten Labor for Global Food Harvests[…]
Rutgers researchers have discovered the origins of the protein structures responsible for metabolism: simple molecules that powered early life on Earth and serve as chemical signals that NASA could use to search for life on other planets. Their study, which predicts what the earliest proteins looked like 3.5 billion to 2.5 billion years ago, is Read more about Scientists have discovered the origins of the building blocks of life[…]
Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have created a new, rubber-like material with a unique set of properties that could act as a replacement for human tissue in medical procedures. The material has the potential to make a big difference to many people’s lives. The research was recently published in the highly regarded scientific Read more about Nanostructured rubber-like material with optimal properties could replace human tissue[…]
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has been sneaking onto online chess sites using stupid pseudonyms and taunting his opponents by using pointless maneuvers with names like “the Bongcloud.” One YouTube commenter calls it “a revolution in the history of chess.” Slate documents the antics in an article titled “DrDrunkenstein’s Reign of Terror.” “DrDrunkenstein” is one Read more about World Chess Champion Plays Recklessly Online Using a Pseudonym[…]
Our rapidly evolving world forces us to adopt distinct patterns of behavior, and in the process, paves the way for new cognitive biases to emerge. Source: Infographic: 50 Cognitive Biases in the Modern World
The maintainer of the Actix web framework, written in Rust, has quit the project after complaining of a toxic web community – although over 100 Actix users have since signed a letter of support for him. Actix Web was developed by Nikolay Kim, who is also a senior software engineer at Microsoft, though the Actix Read more about ‘I am done with open source’: Developer of Rust Actix web framework quits, appoints new maintainer[…]
Now, some researchers have focused on the immune response, inducing it at the site of the tumor. And they do so by a remarkably simple method: injecting the tumor with the flu vaccine. As a bonus, the mice it was tested on were successfully immunized, too. Revving up the immune system This is one of Read more about Injecting the flu vaccine into a tumor gets the immune system to attack it[…]
The study, published in Lancet Public Health on Monday, is a review of existing research that looked at how commonly traumatic brain injuries happen among people. It specifically included studies that also took into account people’s housing situation. These studies involved more than 11,000 people who were fully or partially homeless at the time and Read more about Most People Experiencing Homelessness Have Had a Traumatic Brain Injury, Study Finds[…]
I have spent the better half of the last two years trying to convince companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DeepMind, and OpenAI that they need to hire philosophers. My colleagues and I—a small collective of academics that make up a program called Transformations of the Human at the Los Angeles-based think tank called the Berggruen Read more about Why tech companies need to hire philosophers[…]
a recent experiment by Microsoft Japan suggests with a 4-day workweek we may be more productive if we work less. In particular, it shows that a shorter workweek can actually impact productivity positively. In August this year, Microsoft Japan ran an experiment where for one month they had a 3 day weekend, taken Friday off. Read more about Microsoft finds workers are more productive with a 4-day workweek[…]
The internet has made it easier than ever to reach a lot of readers quickly. It has birthed new venues for publication and expanded old ones. At the same time, a sense of urgency of current affairs, from politics to science, technology to the arts, has driven new interest in bringing scholarship to the public Read more about Scholars Shouldn’t Fear ‘Dumbing Down’ for the Public[…]
Elizabeth Warren has taken an attention-getting approach to attacking Facebook’s recent announcement that it won’t fact-check politicians’ posts. She’s running an ad on the social network that deliberately contains a falsehood. “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election,” reads the ad, which Warren also tweeted out Saturday. The ad immediately Read more about Warren runs a false Facebook ad to protest false Facebook ads – Politicians can lie on social media ads[…]
And it’s something becoming more and more common among open source developers.
The annual Misery Index ranks the most and least miserable countries, based on four economic factors—unemployment, inflation, lending rates, and GDP growth. Source: Visualizing The Most Miserable Countries in the World
Source: The rise of social media – Our World in Data An excellent resource, but the most fascinating I thought shows that technology adoption for most technologies since the 30s has been just as fast for most products.
Humans effortlessly know that a tree is a tree and a dog is a dog no matter the size, color or angle at which they’re viewed. In fact, identifying such visual elements is one of the earliest tasks children learn. But researchers have struggled to determine how the brain does this simple evaluation. As deep-learning Read more about No Bones about It: People Recognize Objects by Visualizing Their “Skeletons”[…]
A study out of Texas State University attempted to determine the number of available horticultural community service opportunities for individuals completing community service hours per their probation or parole requirements, and whether that brand of community service generates a calculable offset against the common nature of repeat offenses for an inmate population once released. […] Read more about Combating prison recidivism with plants[…]
In the mid-1950s, domesticated cats in Minamata, Japan mysteriously began to convulse and fall into the bay. The people of Minamata took on similar symptoms shortly after, losing their ability to speak, move, and think. Chisso Corp., a Japanese chemical company, had dumped more than 600 tons of mercury into the bay between 1932 and Read more about Marine plastic pollution hides a neurological toxin in our food[…]
Italians are some of the fastest speakers on the planet, chattering at up to nine syllables per second. Many Germans, on the other hand, are slow enunciators, delivering five to six syllables in the same amount of time. Yet in any given minute, Italians and Germans convey roughly the same amount of information, according to Read more about Human speech may have a universal transmission rate: 39 bits per second[…]
Researchers from Texas A&M University published new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, which shows that retailers’ branded mobile apps are very effective in increasing customer engagement, increasing sales on multiple levels, not just on the retailer’s website, but also in its stores. At the same time, apps increase the rate of returns, although Read more about Do those retail apps increase customer engagement and sales in all channels? In the US: Yes.[…]