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showing posts for '67'

Kenya's push to make 'boda-boda' motorbike taxis go electric

blog post image "The government wants Kenya's three million motorbike taxi riders to go green but only a few have done so." I last went to Kenya over 10 years ago and I got around Kitale on the back of push bikes by local riders. Motorised bikes 'boda-boda' were only just being introduced at the time. Apparently there...
Source: bbc.com

Huge ancient city found in the Amazon

The city was built 2,500 years ago but may have been abandoned after a volcanic eruption.
Source: bbc.com

Coding excursions

blog post image Anonymity with encryption At Outcomes Engine we are working on techniques to gather data from learners, analyse the data, and share the data whilst maintaining anonymity. I was involved in some work in my previous company (pharmaceutical) with the security of personal data - in our case it was data...

Cornwall: Nearly £5m awarded to tackle health inequalities

The aim of the work is to enable "more research on issues that affect people in Cornwall".
Source: bbc.com

QR codes to become less convenient?

A sticker with a fraudulent QR code pasted over a legitimate one can lead the unwary to websites that can capture your personal data. Thornaby: Woman targeted in £13k train station QR code scam. Rail firm TransPennine Express has since removed QR codes from all of its station car parks. Is the root...
Source: bbc.com

Tantalising sign of possible life on faraway world

Nasa's James Webb Telescope may have discovered a molecule thought only to be produced by life.
Source: bbc.com

Exclusive: The $2 Per Hour Workers Who Made ChatGPT Safer

A TIME investigation reveals the difficult conditions faced by the workers who made ChatGPT possible
Source: time.com

Gender differences in individual variation in academic grades fail to fit expected patterns for STEM - Nature Communications

Fewer women than men pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), despite girls outperforming boys at school in the relevant subjects. According to the ‘variability hypothesis’, this over-representation of males is driven by gender differences in variance; greater male...
Source: nature.com

Ransomware group LockBit apologizes saying 'partner' was behind SickKids attack | CBC News

A global ransomware operator has issued a rare apology after it claims one of its "partners" was behind a cyberattack on Canada's largest pediatric medical centre.
Source: www.cbc.ca

Clinically contextualised ECG interpretation: the impact of prior clinical exposure and case vignettes on ECG diagnostic

Does teaching ECGs with a clinical vignette improve training? Not greatly ... but having seen a condition previously (and presumably the ECG that went with it) is probably best. The researchers concluded that "ECG training should therefore not rely on experiential learning alone, but instead be supplemented...
Source: biomedcentral.com

No Evidence That Associations Between Adolescents' Digital Technology Engagement and Mental Health Problems Have Increased

Digital technology is ubiquitous in modern adolescence, and researchers are concerned that it has negative impacts on mental health that, furthermore, increase over time. To investigate whether technology is becoming more harmful, we examined changes in associations between technology engagement and...
Source: sagepub.com

Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) clinic to close

Hundreds of patients with a rare but debilitating syndrome are concerned for a clinic's future in Derriford.
Source: bbc.com

World's wealthiest (and 'business as usual') 'at heart of climate problem'

"These [polluter elite] are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they’re well insulated or not. … They’re also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels...
Source: bbc.com

To them that hath: economic complexity and local industrial strategy in the UK Penny Mealy. Diane Coyle. International Tax

Divergent economic performance in many countries has led to renewed interest in place-based policies, such as the UK’s local industrial strategies at the level of Combined Authorities or Local Economic Partnerships. However, an analysis of employment data using methods from the economic complexity...
Source: springer.com

Using GPT-2 to generate Tweets

blog post image Last summer I blogged about using a Deep Neural Network to generate tweets but only used 3200 of my tweets. Since then I've used Twitter's archive mechanism to retrieve ALL my tweets (just over 30,000) to train a network. Not any old network - the GPT-2 model from OpenAI. This 'finetuning' of an existing...

Scientists unlock mysteries of world's oldest 'computer'

The 2,000-year-old mechanism has baffled experts since it was discovered on a shipwreck in 1901.
Source: bbc.com

Microsoft Teams AI could tell you who is most enjoying your video call

Researchers at Microsoft have developed an AI for the firm's Teams videoconferencing software that highlights positive audience reactions during a virtual presentation
Source: newscientist.com

IBM Explores Sale of IBM Watson Health

IBM is studying alternatives for the unit that could include a sale to a private-equity firm or industry player, or a merger with a blank-check company, as the technology giant moves to streamline and become more competitive in cloud computing.
Source: wsj.com

Feeding your cat a very meaty diet may mean it kills less wildlife

In a small trial in the UK, pet cats fed on an unusually meaty diet brought home 36 per cent fewer prey animals than cats given a typical diet. "Domestic cats seem to hunt less when their diets are richer in animal-sourced protein, suggesting that feeding cats more meat could help reduce their impact...
Source: newscientist.com

Abydos beer factory: Ancient large-scale brewery discovered in Egypt.

"The archaeological find in the Abydos burial ground is thought to date back about 5,000 years." They brewed beer in batch sizes of about 220 hectolitres and I bet they got away without paying much beer duty. Wonder if we can work out some of the recipes.
Source: bbc.com