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Jul 2, 2021

Predicting new major depression symptoms from long working hours, psychosocial safety climate and work engagement: a population-based cohort study

Posted by in categories: climatology, health, neuroscience

Objectives This study sought to assess the association between long working hours, psychosocial safety climate (PSC), work engagement (WE) and new major depression symptoms emerging over the next 12 months. PSC is the work climate supporting workplace psychological health.

Setting Australian prospective cohort population data from the states of New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia.

Participants At Time 1, there were 3921 respondents in the sample. Self-employed, casual temporary, unclassified, those with working hours 35 (37% of 2850) and participants with major depression symptoms at Time 1 (6.7% of 1782) were removed. The final sample was a population-based cohort of 1084 full-time Australian employees.

Jul 2, 2021

Avalanches and edge-of-chaos learning in neuromorphic nanowire networks

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, neuroscience

Neuromorphic nanowire networks are found to exhibit neural-like dynamics, including phase transitions and avalanche criticality. Hochstetter and Kuncic et al. show that the dynamical state at the edge-of-chaos is optimal for learning and favours computationally complex information processing tasks.

Jul 2, 2021

Quantum-enhanced nonlinear microscopy

Posted by in categories: biological, quantum physics

A quantum microscope obtains signal-to-noise beyond the photodamage limits of conventional microscopy, revealing biological structures within cells that would not otherwise be resolved.

Jul 2, 2021

Galactic ‘bridges’ could be the largest rotating structures ever discovered

Posted by in category: space

New research suggests that filaments of matter connecting one galaxy to another may be spinning.

Jul 2, 2021

How bad are Utah’s drought conditions, how will they impact the summer?

Posted by in category: futurism

Utah is in a drought. Utah is in the need of water. Yes I do live here; for the past 51 yrs. Snowfall has decreased and rainfall is scarce! I’ve started collecting water in gallon jugs, taking less showers. Peeps have been collecting rain in barrels. Utah has not been hit so hard. Wanna go boating, river rafting, kayaking — better check if there is enough water to support your sport.


Utah (ABC4) – Utah’s water supply is not looking good this year. It’s looking so bad that in March, Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox issued an executive order, declaring a state of emergency in Utah.

Jul 2, 2021

‘Exhausted’ restaurants turn to technology to address worker shortages

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

“People are just exhausted.”


As COVID-19 restrictions loosen across the United States, the hospitality industry — which was walloped by the pandemic — is experiencing a new challenge: too few workers available to address soaring demand for dining out.

A furious debate is underway over what’s behind the labor shortage, which is prompting restaurants to adapt by modernizing with kiosks and digital ordering. Many are biting the bullet and ponying up more in compensation just to attract employees.

Continue reading “‘Exhausted’ restaurants turn to technology to address worker shortages” »

Jul 2, 2021

Physicists observationally confirm Hawking’s black hole theorem for the first time

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

There are certain rules that even the most extreme objects in the universe must obey. A central law for black holes predicts that the area of their event horizons — the boundary beyond which nothing can ever escape — should never shrink. This law is Hawking’s area theorem, named after physicist Stephen Hawking, who derived the theorem in 1971.

Fifty years later, physicists at MIT and elsewhere have now confirmed Hawking’s area theorem for the first time, using observations of gravitational waves. Their results appear today in Physical Review Letters.

Jul 1, 2021

Amazon is reportedly using algorithms to fire Flex delivery drivers

Posted by in categories: information science, mobile phones

Whenever there’s an issue, there’s no support. It’s you against the machine, so you don’t even try.


Amazon’s contract Flex delivery drivers already have to deal with various indignities, and you can now add the fact that they can be hired — and fired — by algorithms, according to a Bloomberg report.

To ensure same-day and other deliveries arrive on time, Amazon uses millions of subcontracted drivers for its Flex delivery program, started in 2015. Drivers sign up via a smartphone app via which they can choose shifts, coordinate deliveries and report problems. The reliance on technology doesn’t end there, though, as they’re also monitored for performance and fired by algorithms with little human intervention.

Continue reading “Amazon is reportedly using algorithms to fire Flex delivery drivers” »

Jul 1, 2021

Restaurants are starting to hire robots instead of people who are demanding higher pay

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Americans are taking their time finding work. The longer they wait, the more it will kickstart the age of automation. Restaurants are leading the way.

Jul 1, 2021

Fibromyalgia Could Actually Be an Autoimmune Disorder, Mouse Study Suggests

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is one of the most common chronic pain conditions out there, yet we still know shockingly little about it.

For decades, the debilitating condition — marked by widespread pain and fatigue — has been vastly understudied, and while it’s commonly thought to originate in the brain, no one really knows how fibromyalgia starts or what can be done to treat it. Some physicians maintain it doesn’t even exist, and many patients report feeling gaslit by the medical community.

New research on mice has now found further evidence that fibromyalgia is not only real, but may involve an autoimmune response as a driver for the illness.