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Can AI Predict Your Death? A new study used machine learning to “autocomplete” the life trajectories of six million Danish people–—and forecast when they might kick the bucket. Lauren Leffer, Elah Feder, Tulika Bose The Best Way to Use Home COVID Tests Right Now When symptoms start, COVID tests may say you’re not infected when you really are. Tanya Lewis, Josh Fischman, Lauren J. Without the Moon, Human Society Might Not Exist The moon helps us keep time, inspires religions and shapes science, yet it still keeps secrets from us. Clara Moskowitz, Jeffery DelViscio The Strange and Beautiful Science of Our Lives Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them. Brianne Kane, Carin Leong The Surprising Health Benefits of Dog Ownership Dogs are good for you, science says. Andrea Thompson, Elah Feder Podcasts of the Year: Cleo, the Mysterious Math Menace Tulika Bose, Allison Parshall, Carin Leong Kelso Harper, Sophie Bushwick Related:  ENA5 Tiede ja tulevaisuusENA7 Kestävä elämäntapa

Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly comments on 'psychological stress' endured in space | Science A retired NASA astronaut has said the "psychological stress" that results from being in space for a year is as damaging as the radiation he was exposed to each day. Scott Kelly, who returned from the International Space Station in March, has also commented on the possible health issues he faces in the future as a result of the trip. He said: “During my time in orbit, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied, and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained my heart.” “Every day, I was exposed to 10 times the radiation of a person on Earth, which will increase my risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of my life,” he said, Geek Wire reported. The 52-year-old added: “Not to mention the psychological stress, which is harder to quantify and perhaps as damaging.” The comments come as part of an announcement that his memoir, “Endurance: My Year in Space and Our Journey to Mars” will be published in November 2017. The book is to be co-authored by Margaret Lazarus Dean. Loaded: 0% Progress: 0%

Huge craters appearing in Russia worry scientists REUTERS/Vladimir Pushkarev/Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration When a helicopter pilot spotted the first crater in the summer of 2014, everyone was baffled. The 100-foot-wide hole appeared on the Yamal Peninsula seemingly out of nowhere, during a tense season of Russian military action in Ukraine and international sanctions. And then more appeared. Lacking a better explanation, aliens and underground missiles were floated as possible theories, according to the Washington Post. But the truth is that the holes might come from a threat not even Mulder and Scully are equipped to handle: climate change. Scientific American reports that Arctic zones are warming at a breakneck pace, and the summer of 2014 was warmer than average by an alarming 9 degrees Fahrenheit, according to another story in Nature. So how does frozen methane blow a 100-foot-wide hole in the ground? Scientists gained more evidence for this theory after an expedition to the bottom of the crater. Vladimir Pushkarev/Reuters

The optical illusion that shows you can't believe what you see | Science Paul Anthony Jones of Haggard Hawks has put together a video that explains a weird linguistic phenomenon known as the McGurk Effect. First Paul asks that the viewer watches him read out "four" words, after which his glamorous assistant Anthony writes down what he thinks Paul said. Anthony comes up with four different words, but Paul reveals that actually No.1 and No.4 were the same. If you close your eyes for the same video, you can hear that for yourself. Paul explains that the McGurk was discovered in the 1970s by the psychologist Harry McGurk, who found that if you play the audio of a different sound over video of a sound being produced, your brain “doesn’t know what to say”. This proves that although we think of speech as purely auditory – visual information is also a factor. So if your brain is receiving two conflicting streams of information, it doesn’t know what to do, and has to decide which is the “more reliable” of the two.

If the world were 100 people: One video that explains how unequal the world is | World If the world's population was shrunk down to 100 people, one person would control 50 per cent of the money, 15 would be malnourished and 13 would not have access to clean water. Using data from the CIA's World Factbook, GOOD produced a video to illustrate how unequal the world is by imagining how the world would look if it was made up of 100 people. Highlighting differences in health across the world, 15 people would be malnourished and one starving, while 21 would be overweight. In terms of income, 15 people would earn less than $2 a day and 56 between $2-10 per day. By contrast, six people would make between $50-90 dollars a day, while one person would take home more than $90 per day. Overall, one person would control 50 per cent of all the money in the world. The video also shows differences in education across the world, out of 100, 14 would be unable to read and 93 would not have attended college. "If there world were 100 people," the video asks, "would we all fight harder for equality?"

Inventions that changed our world « Chestnut ESL/EFL WORKSHEET: Best Inventions of the past 100 years (SOURCE: eslflow.com) ONLINE ACTIVITY: Inventors: Thomas Edison Watch the video and do online activity (SOURCE: englishexercises.org) In pictures: The household gadgets of yesterday AUDIO TEXTS: Listen to stories about inventors (SOURCE: realworldesl.blogspot.com) VIDEO SOURCE:efllecturer.blogspot.fr View LESSON PLAN with videos, questions & exercses (SOURCE:efllecturer.blogspot.fr) Museum of Obsolete Objects (SOURCE: edutechintegration.blogspot.com) READ POST (SOURCE: edutechintegration.blogspot.com) VIEW VIDEOS (SOURCE: visualnews.com) READ ARTICLE: This Radio-Book Was The Future of Education (SOURCE: paleofuture.gizmodo.com) View resources, videos & links (SOURCE: thetravellingteachers.blogspot.it) Like this: Like Loading...

Overpopulation – The Root Cause of Our Problems – Why Is It a Taboo Topic? By Tim Prosser | 30 July 2014Scratch Space Why is overpopulation taboo? It is incredibly frustrating to see so many people and organizations thrashing around over climate change and related issues when none of those problems would exist if we weren’t overpopulating the planet. The problems of epidemic and famine that will emerge over the next two or three decades will compound our relatively new problems with weather and increasing sea levels, and it is likely that at least a few billion people will die untimely deaths before the end of this century, all attributable to the human population explosion. Isn’t a focus on reducing birthrates worldwide what we really need? Are we putting ourselves at risk by addressing the more superficial issues and ignoring the root cause? The population explosion is here now, and it is causing problems. Overpopulation creates scarcity, and scarcity creates conflict. Root cause analysis is not rocket science. Global Speak Out Video

11 of humanity's worst ever inventions Nuclear weapons, reality television and Donald Trump are things that we can probably all agree should never have set foot on planet Earth. But what about some of the more tragic human inventions? The good people over at Reddit decided to compile a list of some of humanity's less-than-stellar inventing moments. Here are some of the best/worst... 1. Propeller hats These are for adults. 2. Because bananas are exceedingly difficult to peel by hand, what with the iron skin and all. 3. Photo: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images Unless you're fondly referring to the diamond on your finger, this has literally no point. 4. Why deprive people of the simple joy of stringy, melted cheese? 5. Gather all the fun to be had from a skipping rope. 6. No. 7. smh, lol, lmao, rofl… "shake my head," just shake it. 8. The cringe is strong in this one. 9. So...it's not a phone...and you can buy it? 10. As opposed to a regular fork? 11. Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images for 20th Century Fox Burn them all. More: Are you creepy?

February breaks global temperature records by 'shocking' amount | Environment Global temperatures in February smashed previous monthly records by an unprecedented amount, according to Nasa data, sparking warnings of a climate emergency. The result was “a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases”, wrote Jeff Masters and Bob Henson in a blog on the Weather Underground, which analysed the data released on Saturday. — Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf)March 13, 2016February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin pic.twitter.com/uZqvum4aVA It confirms preliminary analysis from earlier in March, indicating the record-breaking temperatures. The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period of 1951-1980. “This is really quite stunning ... it’s completely unprecedented,” he said.

Facebook pays 10-year-old Finnish genius $10,000 for exposing flaw in Instagram Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images) A hacker in Finland has become the youngest person to receive a reward from Facebook’s Bug Bounty program — but he’ll have to wait three years before he’s old enough to humblebrag about it on the social media platform. Ten-year-old Jani, whose last name isn’t being shared at the request of his parents, uncovered a way to delete any given comment on Instagram, the photo-sharing company that Facebook bought for $1 billion in 2012 — and which Jani, so to speak, pwned. The flaw Jani exposed gave him the power to erase anyone’s comments, even those posted by “Justin Bieber,” he told Iltalehti, the news outlet in Finland that first reported Jani’s exploits. He left Bieber alone, however, tipping off Facebook instead. Facebook compensated the young Finn — or, more accurately, his parents on Jani’s behalf — to the tune of $10,000. This reward puts Jani in the upper tier of hackers Facebook has paid for finding bugs.

Europe will soon be hit by deadly 'once-in-a-century' extreme weather every year | Europe Europe will soon be hit by deadly, "once-in-a-century" extreme weather events every year, a study has found. Severe wildfires, river floods and windstorms will affect certain areas of the continent annually by 2050, according to research published in the journal Climatic Changes. The study concludes the issue is at “historically high levels” and Europe will undergo a “progressive and strong increase in overall climate hazard”, with a particular impact on the south-western regions. The researchers suggest key hotspots will emerge along coastlines and in floodplains in southern and western Europe, which are often highly populated and economically pivotal. Europe’s entire Mediterranean seaboard will be confronted annually with extreme droughts, coastal floods or heatwaves by the end of the century, the study adds. “In Spain, you will see at least two hazards every year by 2080 that – in the current climate – only show up once in 100 years.” Climate change protests around the world

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