How the Post Office's Horizon system failed: a technical breakdown
"From bugs to unqualified staff, the Post Office's point-of-sale system was inadequate on many levels." The code was poor from the start and the small team of developers were not up to the job. However, the problems were apparent in 1999 before it was launched. Includes a discussion of the Dalmellington...
Source: theguardian.com
Yaws could soon be eradicated — 70 years behind schedule Jones, Sam. Nature 2024.
Researchers are cautiously optimistic that the neglected tropical disease could be gone by 2030, but new barriers — including antibiotic resistance and primate reservoirs — might stand in the way. Researchers are cautiously optimistic that the neglected tropical disease could be gone by 2030, but...
Source: nature.com
Assessing learners - a mindset for the era of generative AI.
ChatGPT assignments to use in your classroom today. "Teachers and faculty everywhere first need to adopt a mindset that acknowledges the availability of AI and the likelihood that students will use it. As a result, we need to adjust our expectations of students. With online tests, maybe we should stop...
Source: ucf.edu
The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
"This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default, i.e. unless it has exited the ‘semi-anarchic default condition’. Several counterfactual historical and...
Source: doi.org
Workplace well-being initiatives don't boost employee mental health
"The mental health of people who undertake mindfulness or meditation courses offered by their employer is generally no better than those who are not offered such programmes." "Instead of offering these initiatives, Fleming suggests that employers focus on bettering the work environment. For example,...
Source: newscientist.com
Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations
"The last 10,000 years have seen some of the most extreme global changes in lifestyle, with the emergence of farming in some regions and pastoralism in others. While 5,000 years ago farmer ancestry predominated across Europe, a relatively diverged genetic ancestry arrived with the steppe migrations around...
Source: nature.com
How machine learning might unlock earthquake prediction
Researchers are applying artificial intelligence and other techniques in the quest to forecast quakes in time to help people find safety.
Source: technologyreview.com
Wearable Soft Robot Helps Parkinson's Patients Avoid 'Freezing'
A collaboration between Harvard University and Boston University, this device offers a solution to one of the most debilitating hallmarks of Parkinson's disease.
Source: extremetech.com
AI will be deeply disruptive to Higher Education
Paul LeBlanc and George Siemens are teaming up to explore how AI is going to change higher education. "LeBlanc transformed SNHU from 2500 students in 2003 to over 200,000 students in 20 years by using technology to switch delivery online." Siemens is one of the proposers of connectivism - a theory...
I’ve Researched Time for 15 Years—Here’s How My Perception of It Has Changed
Why does time slow down in near-death situations? Does time really pass more quickly as you get older? How do our brains process time?
Source: singularityhub.com
20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke—Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously
Some of the fixes put in place in 1999 are still used today to keep the world’s computer systems running smoothly
Source: time.com
Tetris defeated?
34 years later, a 13-year-old hits the NES Tetris “kill screen” says ArsTechnica. "BlueScuti forces the game to crash after 40 minutes and 1,511 lines." Having tried to play the game I can appreciate how difficult - and what an outstanding feat - this has been to basically break the game.
Source: arstechnica.com
Sustained decrease in latent safety threats through regular interprofessional in situ simulation training of neonatal emergencies
Simulation training at trainees' actual workplace offers benefits over traditional simulation-based team training. We prospectively investigated whether regular in situ simulation training of neonatal emergencies in an interprofessional and interdisciplinary team could be used to identify and rectif...
Source: nih.gov
Changes in Hospital Adverse Events and Patient Outcomes Associated With Private Equity Acquisition.
"Private equity acquisition of hospitals, on average, was associated with increased hospital-acquired adverse events despite a likely lower-risk pool of admitted Medicare beneficiaries, suggesting poorer quality of inpatient care."
Source: jamanetwork.com
We're getting closer to OpenAI's first device
Sam Altman and Jony Ive have tapped Apple executive Tang Tan to build their new AI device.
Source: businessinsider.com
Why Are Alaska's Rivers Turning Orange?
Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid. Scientists are trying to figure out why
Source: scientificamerican.com
Discovery of a structural class of antibiotics with explainable deep learning.
One of the challenges with deep learning (neural networks) is that although they find patterns the reasoning disappears into an endless detail of numbers. In this paper the researchers built an 'explainable' AI to discover antibiotics instead of such a 'black box'. "The discovery of novel structural...
Source: nature.com
This AI Trained on the Life Events of Every Person in Denmark. It Can Now Predict Their Future.
Artificial intelligence is very good at finding patterns. Given enough data it will start making telling you what's going to happen. "The AI can make highly accurate predictions about people’s lives, including how likely they are to die in a given time window and their personality traits." ... ...
Source: singularityhub.com
NFTs died a slow, painful death in 2023 as most are now worthless
A reminder that early adoption of technology is not without risk. "Non-fungible tokens promised to revolutionise the concept of ownership using the blockchain technology behind bitcoin, but the market seems to have all but collapsed."
Source: newscientist.com
Innovating Pedagogy 2023
Looking for something innovative to try in 2024? MedEd professionals would benefit by looking through these ideas first. Open University's, Institute of Educational Technology's latest innovating pedagogy report from August 2023. This is the 11th annual report on emerging technologies in education...
Source: open.ac.uk
RSS feed