Every tech company with voice-activated computer assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Assistant promises to protect privacy. But it turns out that Apple has been allowing its Siri voice assistant to transmit highly personal recordings of people without their knowledge as part of a project that transcribed portions of Siri …
“Are Republican leaders really willing to throw in their lot with demented conspiracy theorists? “The answer, for the moment, would seem to be yes. President Trump tacitly endorsed the far-right QAnon cult the other day, saying its followers were patriots who “love our country” and, more importantly, “like me very much”. When a reporter pointed …
Tiny pieces of plastic that pollute the environment can be produced by simply opening a plastic bottle or tearing a food wrapper. Microplastics are between 0.001 and 5 millimetres in size and are usually either produced directly, or form when large plastic debris breaks up. We now know that millions of tonnes of microplastics are …
Since E.T has yet to show up on our planet, estimating the number of alien civilisations in our galaxy might seem a premature – and rather futile – exercise. But that hasn’t stopped the authors of a new study from claiming that across the entire Milky Way, there are probably just over 30, each with …
Continue reading ‘Are there any available aliens out there?’ »
Analysis of the ice in an Alpine glacier has shed unexpected light on the murder of Thomas Becket, Henry II’s “turbulent priest”, 900 years ago. Scientists from the University of Nottingham have been tracking historical levels of airborne pollution by analysing the chemicals that were trapped in layers of ice as the Colle Gnifetti glacier, …
Continue reading ‘Background of a famous dispute (and murder)’ »
Fish are infected with 283 times more parasitic worms than they were 40 years ago. Anisakis worms can infect a variety of marine fish and squid, as well as whales and dolphins, and can be present in fish used raw for sushi. Scientists analysed the abundance of Anisakis, or herring worm, between 1978 and 2015, …
The weekly Bible study arranged by Capitol Ministries for members of Congress and President Trump’s cabinet, illustrates how entwined Christianity is with our government. Attendees include the vice president, secretaries of state for education, housing and urban development, agriculture, and health; the head of NASA; Trump’s chief of staff; former labor and energy secretaries; and …
Continue reading ‘Rule by religious extremists? Bad for peace of mind!’ »
The following are just a few of the reversals of environmental protection laws in the last three or so years. 1. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord. 2. Easing of the regulation of methane emissions. 3. Scale-back of requirements for storing and releasing waste from coal-fired power plants 4. Increase in allowable levels of …
Continue reading ‘Fifty years of environmental regulations scrapped’ »
More than half of us breathe the wrong way , missing out on better health and altered consciousness. Here are some tips on how to breathe properly: Breathing exercise Pranayama – Alternate nostril breathing, often performed for stress and anxiety relief. (Microgen) It may be the most natural thing in the world, but breathing is …
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3.5 m people forced to flee cyclone Fani in India and Bangladesh 1000 killed and 617,000 uprooted from their homes by cyclone Idai in Mozambique and Zimbabwe Bahamas were recently devastated by Hurricane Dorian The Amazon forest fires are mostly caused naturally (although no one knows how many were man-made). Fast ice melt in Greenland …
The promise of artificial intelligence is that it will make decisions faster. But what happens if it makes bad decisions faster? We are trying to replicate human skills that have evolved for millions of years, and yet we cannot predict accurately what decisions AI will come up with. Just say AI progresses to a point where …
What is it about Greta Thunberg that makes people so angry?. How can a 16-year-old in plaits, who has dedicated herself to the not unreasonable cause of saving the planet, inspire such incandescent rage? Following her recent speech to the UN, in which she excoriated world leaders for their lack of action, her critics were …
We concentrate on the obvious places where dictators thrive and warfare kills thousands, but tend not to note the stress experienced by the people of Greenland, who are struggling to cope with global warming, which is totally altering their way of life. More than 90% of Greenlanders accept that the climate is changing, while 76% are …
From Tony Dale, Oxford, UK, in reply to a letter in New Scientist dated May 25 Contrary to what Graham Lawton seems to suggest, population isn’t a fringe or a taboo issue, at least not in schools in England. Geography deals with it in depth. It is discussed as “population change” rather than “population growth”. …
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Walter Isaacson, biographer ofAlbert Einstein, writes the following (page 550): Perhaps the most important aspect of his personality was his willingness to be non- conformist. “The theme I recognise in Galileo’s work” , he said, “ is the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority”. Plank, Poincare and Lorentz all came close …
