Linking ideas with the world
Scientists from ITMO in collaboration with international colleagues have proposed new DNA-based nanomachines that can be used for gene therapy for cancer. This new invention can greatly contribute to more effective and selective treatment of oncological diseases. The results were published in Angewandte Chemie. Gene therapy is considered one of the promising ways of treating Read more about Nanomachines taught to fight cancer[…]
AdScan biedt elke adverteerder een snelle gratis pre-test om in kaart te brengen welke elementen beter of minder scoren en daarmee effect hebben op de ontvangst en het effect van die specifieke commercial. AdScan is een machine learning-tool die op basis van de inhoud van reclames een voorspelling kan doen over hoe een panel van Read more about Ster uses Adscan AI to allow you to test your TV advert (dutch)[…]
Many major companies, like Air Canada, Hollister and Expedia, are recording every tap and swipe you make on their iPhone apps. In most cases you won’t even realize it. And they don’t need to ask for permission. You can assume that most apps are collecting data on you. Some even monetize your data without your knowledge. Read more about Many popular iPhone apps secretly record your screen without asking[…]
In new research they plan to present at the USENIX Security conference on Thursday, a group of researchers from the University of Washington has shown for the first time that it’s possible to encode malicious software into physical strands of DNA, so that when a gene sequencer analyzes it the resulting data becomes a program Read more about Biohackers Encoded Malware in a Strand of DNA[…]
Financial analysts whose surnames are perceived as favourable elicit stronger market reactions to their earnings forecasts, new research from Cass Business School has found. The researchers found that following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, market reactions weakened for forecasts from analysts with Middle Eastern surnames. They also found that following the French and German governments’ opposition Read more about Stock market shows greater reaction to forecasts by analysts with favorable surnames[…]
The Crime Rate Perception Gap There’s a persistent belief across America that crime is on the rise. Since the late 1980s, Gallup has been polling people on their perception of crime in the United States, and consistently, the majority of respondents indicate that they see crime as becoming more prevalent. As well, a recent Read more about Visualizing the Crime Rate Perception Gap[…]
Most browsers have a “Do Not Track” (DNT) setting that sends “a special signal to websites, analytics companies, ad networks, plug in providers, and other web services you encounter while browsing, to stop tracking your activity.” Sounds good, right? Sadly, it’s not effective. That’s because this Do Not Track setting is only a voluntary signal Read more about The “Do Not Track” Setting Doesn’t Stop You from Being Tracked – by Google, Facebook and Twitter, among many more[…]
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has created the most detailed three-dimensional maps of the Universe ever made, with deep multi-color images of one third of the sky, and spectra for more than three million astronomical objects Source: SDSS
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new Read more about Zooniverse – crowd sourced classification of real scientific questions[…]
The Milky Way galaxy’s disk of stars is anything but stable and flat. Instead, it becomes increasingly warped and twisted far away from the Milky Way’s center, according to astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). From a great distance, the galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars that Read more about The Milky Way is warped, not a flat disc[…]
Scientists a Hokkaido University have found a way to create materials that actually get stronger the more you use them. By mimicking the mechanism that allows living muscles to grow and strengthen after exercise, the team led by Jian Ping Gong developed a polymer that breaks down under mechanical stress, then regrows itself into a Read more about Muscle-inspired materials that get stronger after stretching[…]
McCormick — the maker of Old Bay and other seasonings, spices and condiments — hopes the technology can help it tantalize taste buds. It worked with IBM Research to build an AI system trained on decades worth of data about spices and flavors to come up with new flavor combinations. The Baltimore, Maryland-based company plans Read more about The world’s biggest spice company is using AI to find new flavors[…]
Chenoweth and Stephan collected data on all violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 that resulted in the overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation. They created a data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables related to success criteria, participant categories, state capacity, and more. The results turned her Read more about Why nonviolent resistance is more successful in effecting change than violent campaigns[…]
Columbia Engineering researchers have made a major advance in robotics by creating a robot that learns what it is, from scratch, with zero prior knowledge of physics, geometry, or motor dynamics. Initially the robot does not know if it is a spider, a snake, an arm–it has no clue what its shape is. After a Read more about A step closer to self-aware machines – let the robot imagine itself[…]
A robot built by a team of researchers at MIT in America has two prongs for fingers, sensors in its wrist, and a camera for eyes. As the AI-powered bot surveys the tower, one of its prongs is told by software to poke a block, which sends feedback to its sensor to work out how Read more about OK, smarty pants AI. You can beat us humans at video games. But how about real-world puzzles like Jenga? Oh, oh no[…]
Some would argue he has broken every ethical and moral rule of his in his profession, but genealogist Bennett Greenspan prefers to see himself as a crime-fighter. “I spent many, many nights and many, many weekends thinking of what privacy and confidentiality would mean to a genealogist such as me,” the founder and president of Read more about I’m a crime-fighter, says FamilyTreeDNA boss after being caught giving folks’ DNA data to FBI[…]
A former long-serving police officer has been jailed for six months for illegally accessing the personal details of almost 100 women to determine if they were “suitable” dates. Adrian Trevor Moore was a 28-year veteran of WA Police and was nominated as police officer of the year in 2011. The former senior constable pleaded guilty Read more about Officer jailed for using police database to access personal details of dozens of Tinder dates[…]
A Dutch security researcher has stumbled upon the Kremlin’s backdoor account that the government had been using to access the servers of local and foreign businesses operating in Russia. The backdoor account was found inside thousands of MongoDB databases that had been left exposed online without a password. Any hacker who noticed the account could Read more about Unsecured MongoDB databases expose Kremlin’s single username / password backdoor into Russian businesses[…]
The latest weekly report includes German firm Enox’s Safe-KID-One watch, which is marketed to parents as a way of keeping tabs on their little ones – ostensibly to keep them safe – and comes with one-click buttons for speed-dialling family members. However, the commission said the device does not comply with the Radio Equipment Directive Read more about European Commission orders mass recall of creepy, leaky child-tracking Enox smartwatch[…]
A distinct pathway in the white matter part of the brain known as the cingulum bundle can be used to alleviate stress and anxiety during awake brain surgery, according to new research published today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. When electrically stimulated, this pathway triggers instantaneous laughter in the patient. But unlike previous experiments, Read more about Doctors Zap the Brains of Awake Brain Surgery Patients to Make Them Laugh and Have Fun[…]
We received a statement from Google regarding the implication that the Nest Secure alarm system has had an unlisted microphone this whole time. It turns out that yes, the Nest Guard base system (the circular device with a keypad above) does have a built-in microphone that is not listed on the official spec sheet at Read more about Nest Secure has an unlisted disabled microphone (Edit: Google statement agrees!)[…]
Dating-slash-hook-up app Jack’d is exposing to the public internet intimate snaps privately swapped between its users, allowing miscreants to download countless X-rated selfies without permission. The phone application, installed more than 110,000 times on Android devices and also available for iOS, lets primarily gay and bi men chat each other up, exchange private and public Read more about Hi, Jack’d: A little PSA for anyone using this dating-hook-up app… Anyone can slurp your private, public snaps • The Register[…]
Last August, Zac Plansky woke to find that the rifle scopes he was selling on Amazon had received 16 five-star reviews overnight. Usually, that would be a good thing, but the reviews were strange. The scope would normally get a single review a day, and many of these referred to a different scope, as if Read more about Dirty dealing in the $175 billion Amazon Marketplace[…]
The cyber tool allowed the small Gulf country to monitor hundreds of targets beginning in 2016, from the Emir of Qatar and a senior Turkish official to a Nobel Peace laureate human-rights activist in Yemen, according to five former operatives and program documents reviewed by Reuters. The sources interviewed by Reuters were not Emirati citizens. Read more about UAE used cyber super-weapon to spy on iPhones of foes[…]
Facebook has yet again vowed to “do better” after it was caught secretly bypassing Apple’s privacy rules to pay adults and teenagers to install a data-slurping iOS app on their phones. The increasingly worthless promises of the social media giant have fallen on deaf ears however: on Wednesday, Apple revoked the company’s enterprise certificate for Read more about Furious Apple revokes Facebook’s enty app cert after Zuck’s crew abused it to slurp private data[…]