US Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jan Schakowsky on Thursday sent letters to the two potential buyers of troubled genetic testing firm 23andMe demanding details about consumer data privacy should either of them acquire the company. Signed by 20 other Democratic members of Congress, the letters were sent to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals …
Read More »The EPA Wants to Roll Back Emissions Controls on Power Plants
The US Environmental Protection Agency moved to roll back emissions standards for power plants, the second-largest source of CO2 emissions in the country, on Wednesday, claiming that the American power sector does not “contribute significantly” to air pollution. “The bottom line is that the EPA is trying to get out …
Read More »Astronomers Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Unlock the Secrets of Black Holes
There may not yet be telescopes capable of unlocking all the secrets of supermassive black holes, but AI is now on the case. Recently, an international team of astronomers successfully trained a neural network with millions of black hole simulations to allow it to interpret fuzzy data captured from these …
Read More »A Political Battle Is Brewing Over Data Centers
“I think it’s the right policy, for us to take a national standard,” they said. While the intent of the AI moratorium may not have been to regulate physical infrastructure, the reaction from Massie illustrates just how much of a hot-button issue data centers are becoming across the country. The …
Read More »What Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets Do to the Human Body
A 2014 study by the US military has also found that exposure to tear gas and pepper spray make people vulnerable to respiratory infections in the week following exposure compared with the week before exposure. Army recruits exposed to CS tear gas just once during basic training had a much …
Read More »WHO Monitors New Covid Variant Spreading in America and Europe
A new Covid variant is being kept under surveillance by the World Health Organization (WHO) as its emergence has led to an increase in infections in several regions of the world. First identified at the end of January, the variant—called NB.1.8.1 but known informally as “Nimbus”—is a descendant of the …
Read More »A New Law of Nature Attempts to Explain the Complexity of the Universe
Kauffman argues that biological evolution is thus constantly creating not just new types of organisms but new possibilities for organisms, ones that not only did not exist at an earlier stage of evolution but could not possibly have existed. From the soup of single-celled organisms that constituted life on Earth …
Read More »Uber Just Reinvented the Bus … Again
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Every few years, a Silicon Valley gig-economy company announces a “disruptive” innovation that looks a whole lot like a bus. Uber rolled out Smart Routes a decade ago, followed a short time later by the Lyft …
Read More »How to Prepare for a Climate Disaster in Trump’s America
In your go bag, FEMA recommends packing three days’ worth of food and water, physical maps of local areas, a change of clothing, and copies of important documents. According to a checklist from the agency, these should include birth certificates, medical information, copies of your rental contract or home lease …
Read More »How One Keto Trial Set Off a New War in the Nutrition World
While the study was still in the recruitment phase, Nadolsky left the team. Entrenched Positions Klatt, of UC Berkeley, is extremely well-versed in nutrition research and the current online debates around cholesterol. He’s written about this study and its fallout on his personal Substack, and calls Nadolsky a friend. Klatt …
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