Showing 1 - 10 of 13
Covid closure is needed. Congress blew its chance
News, FD Flam, Published on 07/06/2024
» Congress blew its chance on Monday to give Americans some insight into the Covid pandemic that dominated our lives for years. Following a 15-month inquiry, Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic called Anthony Fauci to testify in public at a special hearing, but committee members spent most of the time posturing rather than probing the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Deepfakes will hijack your brain -- if you let them
News, F D Flam, Published on 22/02/2024
» Realistic AI-generated images and voice recordings may be the newest threat to democracy, but they're part of a longstanding family of deceptions. The way to fight so-called deepfakes isn't to develop some rumour-busting form of AI or to train the public to spot fake images. A better tactic would be to encourage a few well-known critical thinking methods -- refocusing our attention, reconsidering our sources, and questioning ourselves.
Musk must be more transparent about Neuralink
News, F D Flam, Published on 05/02/2024
» When researchers with Elon Musk's company Neuralink implanted a chip in someone's brain, they were working under a Food and Drug Administration clearance. But that doesn't mean this experiment was safe or ethical.
Ditch Google to avoid fake news
News, FD Flam, Published on 15/01/2024
» Searching for information has become instant and effortless -- just go to your nearest device, ask Siri or click a few keys. But are we better informed than we were before Google became a verb?
Are scientific breakthroughs on the decline?
News, F.D. Flam, Published on 27/12/2023
» This year had barely begun when scientists got some jolting news. On Jan 4, a paper appeared in Nature claiming that disruptive scientific findings have been waning since 1945. An accompanying graph showed all fields on a steep downhill slide.
The biggest threat was at home
News, FD Flam, Published on 25/12/2023
» A new trove of data from 7 million contacts have revealed that Covid-19 doesn't spread the way many people think it does.
Rise of mixed-sex athletics will be good for sport
News, FD Flam, Published on 11/09/2023
» The assumption that an athlete's birth sex dictates his or her performance level has made transgender participation in sports a lightning rod -- but the issue is moot in a growing number of coed sports, from competitive sailing to pickleball to esports. And in the future, athletics are likely to evolve so that mixed-gender competition becomes much more common. That will lead to a rise in sports that are just as riveting, but more inclusive.
Want to use less air conditioning? Turn on a fan
News, FD Flam, Published on 25/07/2023
» Earlier this year, the UK attempted to go coal-free. But an increased need for air conditioning forced the usually temperate country to reverse itself and restart an old coal-fired power plant -- after only 46 days.
'Forever chemicals' deserve far more scrutiny
News, Faye Flam, Published on 20/03/2023
» Most of us are walking around with an array of poorly understood chemicals in our bloodstreams and livers -- an unintended consequence of the great 20th century heyday of chemical innovation. They're so stable they've been dubbed "forever chemicals". That means that even if we stop producing them today, some might still course through people's veins centuries from now. We're barely regulating them, even though their harms have become better-known.
Haven't had Covid? Maybe you've just been lucky
News, Faye Flam, Published on 15/07/2022
» There's a trend for experts who've yet to test positive for Covid to explain their disease virginity on social media, detailing all the steps they've taken to evade the increasingly pervasive virus. Covid virginity is becoming more special now that it describes a shrinking minority. The lucky few, like weight-loss gurus, are only too happy to share their secrets to success.