Apple announces multibillion-dollar agreement for 5G components made in US
Apple on Tuesday announced a multibillion-dollar agreement to develop 5G radio frequency and wireless connectivity components in the United States.
2023-05-23 22:47
8 tips for parents and teens on social media use — from the U.S. surgeon general
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, is calling for “immediate action” by tech companies and lawmakers to protect kids’ and adolescents’ mental health on social media
2023-05-23 19:26
Scientists have discovered how many T-Rex ever existed
If you’re anything like us, you were probably absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs as a child. However, did you ever stop to think about the sheer number of dinos that were wandering around the planet before they met their untimely end at the hands of an asteroid? A new study has been published which states that a whopping 1.7 billion T-Rex roamed the Earth in total across the Late Cretaceous period. It comes after researchers calculated their average lifespan, which measured up to a whopping 40 feet in length and 12 feet in height. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They cross referenced this with the number of eggs which survived and the sexual maturity of the animals to come up with the figure. It’s a huge number, but it’s actually far less than previously thought. A previous study from 2021 estimated that there were 800 million more of them that existed between about 90 to 66 million years ago. The research was published in Palaeontology, and evolutionary ecologist Eva Griebeler from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany wrote about the findings. "Unlike my model, the generation time as well as life expectancies, gross reproduction rates, and reproductive values of individuals calculated from the previous model all strongly contradicted our current understanding of the biology of T. rex and of other theropods,” she said. "Their values also disagreed with those of large extant reptiles, birds, and mammals. All of these shortcomings of the previous model favor the assessment of individual and population characteristics of T. rex and of other extinct species using my model." Griebeler also explained how the findings suggest a lower T-Rex survival rate, as well as fewer generations of the animal and less egg laying. "All of these shortcomings of the previous model favor the assessment of individual and population characteristics of T. rex and other extinct species using my model," she wrote. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-05-23 18:58
Car seats and baby formula are regulated. Is social media next?
The U_S_ Surgeon General is warning there is not enough evidence to show that social media is safe for young people — and is calling on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now.”
2023-05-23 17:23
Mexcian girl who was bullied at school has a higher IQ than Einstein and Stephen Hawking
A young girl who was bullied for being autistic may have a higher IQ than Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein. Adhara Maite Pérez Sánchez, an 11-year-old from Tláhuac, Mexico, is being described as a prodigy by many after recently graduating with a degree in Systems Engineering. She is now going on to study industrial engineering. The extraordinary girl has a passion for astronomy and space, expressing the dream to become the first Mexican woman to travel to space as an astronaut and has given talks about her interest and knowledge of aerospace. She intends to become an astronaut at NASA, and is currently taking courses in astronomy and gravitational waves at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which is widely regarded as a top research university. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Adhara has also had her achievements recognised in 2021 by the Senate of the Republic, as well as being declared one of Mexico’s 100 most influential women, and appearing on the cover Marie Claire Mexico. However, life hasn’t always been easy for Adhara, who struggled with being bullied by her classmates. Often labelled as a ‘weirdo’ for her autism. Adhara was diagnosed with Asperger’s at 3 years old, but has succeeded greatly with it. Recently she has begun developing a bracelet designed to monitor the emotions of children such as herself in order to improve their communication skills. But she hasn’t let the negativity bring her down. Determined to succeed and achieve her goals in spite of what others say about her. Her inspirations include late physicist, Stephen Hawking, and Carmen Félix, a Mexican engineer currently developing a plan to launch a manned mission to Mars. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-05-23 00:29
Brains of three suspected zombies scanned in Haiti
Researchers in Haiti once scanned the brains of three people believed to be long-deceased individuals returning from the dead - or zombies. In a study published in 1997, researchers investigated three such cases, using electroencephalography and DNA testing techniques to try and find a rational explanation for a Haitian Voodoo theory that the spirits of the dead can be captured by sorcerers called bokors, who use these souls to reanimate fresh corpses into zombies who walk around rural areas. One case involved a woman who had died aged 30 and was spotted three years later by family members who recognised her because of a distinctive facial mark. A local court then authorised the opening of the woman’s grave, revealing it to be full of rocks. Describing the 'zombie', the study authors explained that “she kept her head in a lowered position, and walked extremely slowly and stiffly, barely moving her arms.” She was also unable to communicate “but would occasionally murmur some incomprehensible but stereotyped words.” But the scan showed her “electroencephalogram and central nervous system examination were unremarkable” and said she may have had catatonic schizophrenia, but couldn't explain how she came back from the dead. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They proposed that the woman might not have died at all, but may instead have been poisoned by a “neuromuscular toxin” to induce catalepsy and trick relatives into thinking she was dead. A lack of oxygen within the grave may have resulted in brain damage, thus explaining her zombie-like state when she was taken out of the grave. Next, the study described a 26-year-old man who was seen at a local cockfight 19 months after being buried. The man’s uncle was subsequently found guilty of using sorcery to zombify the man, who was then kept chained to a log at his parents’ house. But clinical examinations found nothing weird and the man was diagnosed with “organic brain syndrome and epilepsy.” And DNA testing revealed that he was not even the man who had died shortly beforehand. In a similar case, a 31-year-old woman was identified as a villager who had been dead for 13 years. Once again, however, a medical examination revealed that she was a normal human while genetic analyses showed that she was not the dead individual after all. The study authors concluded that “mistaken identification of a wandering, mentally ill, stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-05-23 00:15
Applied Materials to Build $4 Billion R&D Site With US Aid
Applied Materials Inc. is planning to spend as much as $4 billion on a new research-and-development center near
2023-05-22 23:57
‘RIP photoshop’: New AI can alter any photo with the click of a mouse
New AI tools that use generative artificial intelligence to manipulate photos have rendered traditional editing tools like PhotoShop obsolete, according to experts. One recently unveiled product called DragGAN allows users to radically alter pictures – from facial expressions to the layout of a landscape – with no prior editing experience. Developed by researchers at Google and the Max Planck Institute of Informatics, DragGAN works through a system that uses multiple points that users can “drag” to create different effects without compromising the image’s realism. “RIP Photoshop,” wrote tech entrepreneur and AI commentator Lorenzo Green. “In just a few clicks, you’ll be able to edit any image exactly the way you want... The applications are endless.” Examples of applications include changing the position of the Sun in the sky, altering the size and setting of a vehicle and editing an animal’s head to change its expression and shape. A research paper detailing the technology explained how the approach can “hallucinate occluded content, like the teeth inside a lion’s mouth”, while also deforming an object’s rigidity, like the bending of a horse’s leg. “Through DragGAN, anyone can deform an image with precise control over where pixels go, thus manipulating the pose, shape, expression, and layout of diverse categories such as animals, cars, humans, landscapes, etc.,” the paper stated. Other features recently launched by generative AI companies include Stability AI’s upscaler that allows users to quadruple the resolution of an image without compromising the sharpness of the original. “Since the emergence of digital imagery, it has been nearly impossible to expand small images into larger ones without compromising the quality of the image,” the company wrote in a recent blog post detailing the advance. “Upscaling adds to popular tools by expanding small images into larger ones while maintaining – or even improving – their level of detail.” While these tools currently go beyond what Adobe’s Photoshop is capable of, the photo editing giant announced earlier this year that it is working on generative AI models. Collectively dubbed Firefly, the next-generation features will allow creators to create images, audio, video, illustrations and 3D models with simple text inputs. “Generative AI is the next evolution of AI-driven creativity and productivity, transforming the conversation between creator and computer into something more natural, intuitive and powerful,” David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media Business, said in March. He added that the tools would help customers by “increasing productivity and creative confidence... from high-end creative professionals to the long tail of the creator economy.” Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity WhatsApp will let people change messages after they are sent New Twitter boss says ‘game on’ over Instagram clone rumours Meta hit with record €1.2 billion fine
2023-05-22 23:15
SpaceX Launches Crew of Private Astronauts to Space Station
SpaceX launched four private astronauts en route to the International Space Station, including the first woman from Saudi
2023-05-22 06:25
University of Chicago Gets Quantum Tech Funding From IBM, Google
The University of Chicago will partner with International Business Machines Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in deals totaling
2023-05-22 03:23
Scientists have discovered why we wake up earlier as we get older
Are your grandparents up very early in the morning, without fail? Well, it turns out there are scientific reasons why older people wake up earlier as they get older. It’s been revealed that in later life, the natural process of ageing leads to changes in the times the body approaches sleep. According to HuffPost, our approach towards resting and amount of sleep we require is down to both genetics and our age. Cindy Lustig, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said: “Like most of the things that change with age, there’s not just one reason, and they are all interconnected.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It’s all to do with the brain becoming less responsive as people age to factors such as sunlight, social cues and physical activity which indicate where in the day we are at any given time. “The wiring of the brain is likely not sensing... and responding to the inputs as well as it should because it’s an ageing brain,” Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, the director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at the University of Arizona Health Sciences, also told the publication. “These are all what we call time givers, or they give time to the brain,” he said. In other words, they help the brain sense where it is in the 24-hour circadian cycle. Younger people can more easily connect indicators like eating dinner with the idea of sleeping in the next few hours. However, that’s not as easy for older people to register naturally, especially as their vision tends to suffer in later life. “Interestingly, one of [the reasons] seems to be that the vision changes that come with age reduce the intensity of the degree of light stimulation that our brain receives, which plays an important role in ‘setting’ our circadian clock and keeping it on track,” said Lustig. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-05-20 22:52
U.S. FDA approves Krystal Biotech's skin disorder gene therapy
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Krystal Biotech Inc's topical gene therapy for patients with
2023-05-20 02:17