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showing posts for 'gains'

AI Watermarking Won't Curb Disinformation

blog post image "Generative AI allows people to produce piles upon piles of images and words very quickly. It would be nice if there were some way to reliably distinguish AI-generated content from human-generated content. It would help people avoid endlessly arguing with bots online, or believing what a fake image purports...
Source: eff.org

Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point? Peter Marks. Robert Califf. JAMA.

This Viewpoint discusses declining vaccination rates in the US, specifically against COVID-19, and the ways in which clinicians and the Food and Drug Administration can counter the current large volume of vaccine misinformation.
Source: jamanetwork.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

British Science Festival: The fight against microplastics

The British Science Festival is coming up In September, and one of the topics being explored across different events is microplastic pollution and how to tackle it. We discuss the events and why taking action now matters.
Source: britishscienceassociation.org

The Lyonesse Project: a study of the coastal and marine environment of the Isles of Scilly (OASIS ID cornwall2-58903)

This project was commissioned by English Heritage and carried out between 2009 and 2013 by Historic Environment Projects, Cornwall Council with a team of specialists from Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Exeter and Plymouth Universities, English Heritage's Scientific Dating Team, volunteers and local experts and...
Source: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk

Here’s a list of all the tech companies taking action against Russia

Ukraine has led a public campaign, mostly through social media, appealing powerful tech institutions to end relationships with Russia.
Source: restofworld.org

The women who fought against nuclear missiles

The Greenham Common anti-nuclear protest was the UK's biggest women-led movement since the Suffragettes.
Source: bbc.co.uk

The Impact of Mask Distribution and Promotion on Mask Uptake and COVID-19 in Bangladesh

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that face masks can protect against COVID-19. There is, however, limited rigorous evidence on the extent to which mask-wearing is effective in reducing COVID-19 in a real-life situation with imperfect and inconsistent mask use. In Bangladesh, researchers...
Source: poverty-action.org

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

Outgoing U.N. aid chief slams G7 for failing on vaccine plan

Outgoing U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock slammed the Group of Seven wealthy nations on Monday for failing to come up with a plan to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, describing the G7 pledge to provide 1 billion doses over the next year as a "small step."
Source: reuters.com

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

 All viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, change over time. Most changes have little to no impact on the virus’ properties. However, some changes may affect the virus’s properties, such as how easily it spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance...
Source: who.int

AT&T lobbies against nationwide fiber, says 10Mbps uploads are good enough

AT&T admits fiber is most "future-proof" but wants US to fund slower networks.
Source: arstechnica.com

How a coronavirus variant tore into an English island - and the world.

Genomic scientists raced against time to find out what was causing the deadly surge in cases despite a national lockdown.
Source: reuters.com

French startup lobby to file privacy complaint against Apple

France Digitale will file a complaint against iPhone maker Apple with data privacy watchdog CNIL on Tuesday over alleged breaches of European Union rules, France's leading startup lobby said in a statement.
Source: reuters.com

Is the UK destined to be the next life science hub?

Jason Shafrin explores the question in The Economist about the role of British science in the pandemic and the future of the UK life sciences activity. "With good data, efficient regulation, an international collection of talent, R&D funds focused on the health care, the UK could see big gains...
Source: healthcare-economist.com

'How many dead bodies?' asked Myanmar protester killed on bloodiest day

Shocking news from Myanmar reported by Reuters. "The day before he was killed, internet network engineer Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing had posted on Facebook about the increasingly violent military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Myanmar." "“#How_Many_Dead_Bodies_UN_Need_To_Take_Action,” he wrote,...
Source: reuters.com

Cornish couple feel 'discriminated against' over wedding language

"Steph Norman and Aaron Willoughby cannot have their ceremony entirely in Cornish." Apparently they could conduct it English obviously but also in Welsh (which is close to Cornish) but it highlights the lack of legal formality to the Cornish language.
Source: bbc.com

Dreadful user experience can be expensive.

"Citibank just got a $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design: Citibank was trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. It sent $900M instead." The screenshot is from court records where the judge ruled against Citibank who had wanted to get their money back. The lesson is to always include...
Source: arstechnica.com

Declining Life Expectancy in the United States

This Viewpoint reviews the social and economic drivers of declines in longevity in the US, especially among lower socioeconomic status groups, and proposes policy options for the Biden-Harris administration to mitigate the trend, including an increase in the federally mandated minimum wage. Atheendar...
Source: jamanetwork.com

ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine prevents SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in rhesus macaques: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine prevents SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in rhesus macaques: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in December 20191,2 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic3. Vaccines are an essential countermeasure urgently needed to control the pandemic4. Here, we...
Source: nature.com