Daily Archives: April 22, 2025

Early childhood antibiotics increases risk of asthma, food allergies, allergic rhinitis, and intellectual disability

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[…] Among 1,091,449 children, antibiotic exposure before age 2 was positively associated with asthma (hazard ratio 1.24, 1.22-1.26), food allergy (hazard ratio 1.33, 1.26-1.40), and allergic rhinitis (hazard ratio 1.06, 1.03-1.10), with stronger associations observed following multiple antibiotic courses. Findings from sibling-matched analyses were similar. Early-childhood antibiotic exposure was also dose-dependently associated with intellectual disability (5+ vs. 1-2 courses: hazard ratio 1.73, 1.49-2.01; sibling-matched: 2.79, 1.87-4.18), but not with celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, or anxiety. Sibling-matched results and a negative control outcome suggested minimal confounding bias.

Conclusions

Children receiving multiple antibiotic courses between birth and age 2 were more likely to develop asthma, food allergies, allergic rhinitis, and intellectual disability. However, risks of most autoimmune, neurodevelopmental, and psychiatric conditions studied were minimal following early-childhood antibiotic exposure.

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Source: Early childhood antibiotics and chronic pediatric conditions: a retrospective cohort study | The Journal of Infectious Diseases | Oxford Academic

British soldiers take down drone swarm in groundbreaking use of radio wave weapon

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  • UK-made, invisible radio wave weapon knocks out drone swarms for the first time.
  • Weapon has potential to help protect against drone threats as nature of warfare changes.
  • The project supports more than 135 highly skilled jobs across the UK.

The trial was completed at a weapons range in West Wales and was the largest counter-drone swarm exercise the British Army have conducted to date.

The weapon system demonstrator is a type of Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon (RF DEW) and has proven capable of neutralising multiple targets simultaneously with near-instant effect.

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At an estimated cost of 10p per shot fired, if developed into operational service it could provide a cost-effective complement to traditional missile-based air defence systems.

RF DEW systems can defeat airborne targets at ranges of up to 1km and are effective against threats which cannot be jammed using electronic warfare.

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Successful experiments included the Army taking down two swarms of drones in a single engagement, and the project saw more than 100 drones being tracked, engaged and defeated using the weapon across all trials.

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Source: British soldiers take down drone swarm in groundbreaking use of radio wave weapon – GOV.UK

Synology confirms that higher-end NAS products will require its branded drives

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Popular NAS-maker Synology has confirmed and slightly clarified a policy that appeared on its German website earlier this week: Its “Plus” tier of devices, starting with the 2025 series, will require Synology-branded hard drives for full compatibility, at least at first.

“Synology-branded drives will be needed for use in the newly announced Plus series, with plans to update the Product Compatibility List as additional drives can be thoroughly vetted in Synology systems,” a Synology representative told Ars by email. “Extensive internal testing has shown that drives that follow a rigorous validation process when paired with Synology systems are at less risk of drive failure and ongoing compatibility issues.”

Without a Synology-branded or approved drive in a device that requires it, NAS devices could fail to create storage pools and lose volume-wide deduplication and lifespan analysis, Synology’s German press release stated. Similar drive restrictions are already in place for XS Plus and rack-mounted Synology models, though work-arounds exist.

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Synology does not manufacture its own drives but packages and markets drives from major manufacturers, including Toshiba and Seagate. As such, Synology’s drives are typically more expensive than third-party models with similar specs. An 8TB 3.5-inch HDD from Synology’s Plus line, the HAT3310, costs $210 on Synology’s web store. One of the original drives the HAT3310 is reportedly sourced from, the Toshiba N300, can be found for $173 at more than one vendor. That number changes as you move up and down in capacity or move to “Enterprise” levels—and, of course, as you multiply it across large arrays.

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Source: Synology confirms that higher-end NAS products will require its branded drives – Ars Technica

And a lot of people, who are already pissed off with Synology for old software and removing HEIC and mp4 support will be leaving the brand.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1k3o1u6/the_results_are_in/