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Aug 6, 2020

Scientists Propose Adding Psychoactive Drug to our Water Supplies

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

It’s also worth noting that some water already naturally contains low amounts of lithium. And in research published last week in The British Journal of Psychiatry, scientists from a cohort of U.K. universities identified a link that naturally-present lithium and lower suicide rates.

Therefore, they suggest, more lives could be saved by putting the drug in high-risk communities’ water supplies.

“In these unprecedented times of COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent increase in the incidence of mental health conditions, accessing ways to improve community mental health and reduce the incidence of anxiety, depression and suicide is ever more important,” Anjum Memon, lead author and epidemiology chair at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, said in a press release.

Aug 6, 2020

Valley formation on early Mars

Posted by in category: space

The southern highlands of Mars are dissected by hundreds of valley networks, which are evidence that water once sculpted the surface.


Some valleys in the southern highlands of Mars may have formed by subglacial erosion, consistent with a cold and icy early Mars, according to a statistical analysis of valley morphometry.

Aug 6, 2020

Police dog finds missing mom and baby during his first shift on the force

Posted by in category: futurism

Max’s human handler said the dog was “invaluable” in finding the mom and 1-year-old, who were missing for two days.

Aug 6, 2020

New fossil discovery shows how ancient ‘hell ants’ hunted with headgear

Posted by in category: existential risks

In findings published Aug. 6 in the journal Current Biology, researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Rennes in France have unveiled a stunning 99-million-year-old fossil pristinely preserving an enigmatic insect predator from the Cretaceous Period—a ‘hell ant’ (haidomyrmecine)—as it embraced its unsuspecting final victim, an extinct relative of the cockroach known as Caputoraptor elegans.

The ancient encounter, locked in amber recovered from Myanmar, offers a detailed glimpse at a newly identified prehistoric ant species Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri, and presents some of the first direct evidence showing how it and other hell ants once used their killer features—snapping their bizarre, but deadly, scythe-like mandibles in a vertical motion to pin prey against their horn-like appendages.

Researchers say the rare fossil demonstrating the hell ant’s feeding mode offers a possible evolutionary explanation for its unusual morphology and highlights a key difference between some of the earliest ant relatives and their modern counterparts, which today uniformly feature mouthparts that grasp by moving together laterally. The hell ant lineage, along with their striking predatory traits, are suspected to have vanished along with many other early ant groups during periods of ecological change around the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 65 million years ago.

Aug 6, 2020

Spacecraft of the Future Could Be Powered By Lattice Confinement Fusion

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space travel

NASA researchers demonstrate the ability to fuse atoms inside room-temperature metals.

Aug 6, 2020

MIT’s machine learning designed a COVID-19 vaccine that could cover a lot more people

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Not all vaccines for COVID-19 will cover everyone, in fact many may have large gaps. A novel, large-scale machine learning project at MIT designed one that might protect many more people.

Aug 6, 2020

AI is learning when it should and shouldn’t defer to a human

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, information science, robotics/AI

The context: Studies show that when people and AI systems work together, they can outperform either one acting alone. Medical diagnostic systems are often checked over by human doctors, and content moderation systems filter what they can before requiring human assistance. But algorithms are rarely designed to optimize for this AI-to-human handover. If they were, the AI system would only defer to its human counterpart if the person could actually make a better decision.

The research: Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Laboratory (CSAIL) have now developed an AI system to do this kind of optimization based on strengths and weaknesses of the human collaborator. It uses two separate machine-learning models; one makes the actual decision, whether that’s diagnosing a patient or removing a social media post, and one predicts whether the AI or human is the better decision maker.

The latter model, which the researchers call “the rejector,” iteratively improves its predictions based on each decision maker’s track record over time. It can also take into account factors beyond performance, including a person’s time constraints or a doctor’s access to sensitive patient information not available to the AI system.

Aug 6, 2020

This Tesla Model 3, Like All Teslas, Can Become A Boat For A Bit

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Tesla’s Elon Musk has said on multiple occasions that Tesla’s vehicles can function as boats for a time. He doesn’t advise it, but it has been proven true.

Aug 6, 2020

Take action and join me in the fight against respiratory infections! Relative humidity of 40–60% in buildings will reduce respiratory infections and save lives

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health

#COVID19: There is overwhelming scientific evidence that a mid-range air humidity has significant benefits for human health. It is very possible for us to be managing the indoor air quality of our public buildings in line with this evidence. The time has come for regulations on indoor air quality to include a humidity level of 40-60u0025RH. This is the optimal level for our respiratory immune system, and will reduce the spread of seasonal respiratory illnesses and their burden on society.nn


There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that a mid-range air humidity has significant benefits for human health. It is very possible for us to be managing the indoor air quality of our public buildings in line with this evidence. The time has come for regulations on indoor air quality to include a humidity level of 40–60%RH. This is the optimal level for our respiratory immune system, and will reduce the spread of seasonal respiratory illnesses and their burden on society.

Continue reading “Take action and join me in the fight against respiratory infections! Relative humidity of 40-60% in buildings will reduce respiratory infections and save lives” »

Aug 6, 2020

Quantum Blackjack: Using Quantum Entanglement to Gain an Advantage in the Game of Blackjack

Posted by in categories: entertainment, quantum physics

Can a Quantum Strategy Help Bring Down the House?

In some versions of the game blackjack, one way to win against the house is for players at the table to work as a team to keep track of and covertly communicate amongst each other the cards they have been dealt. With that knowledge, they can then estimate the cards still in the deck, and those most likely to be dealt out next, all to help each player decide how to place their bets, and as a team, gain an advantage over the dealer.

This calculating strategy, known as card-counting, was made famous by the MIT Blackjack Team, a group of students from MIT, Harvard University, and Caltech, who for several decades starting in 1979, optimized card-counting and other techniques to successfully beat casinos at blackjack around the world — a story that later inspired the book “Bringing Down the House.”