The Singularity is Coming

How to capture videos of brains in real time http://ift.tt/2sTaUgJ Individual neurons firing within a volume of brain tissue (credit: The Rockefeller University) A team of scientists has peered into a mouse brain with light, capturing live neural activity of hundreds of individual neurons in a 3D section of tissue at video speed (30 Hz) in a single recording for the first time. Besides serving as a powerful research tool, this discovery means it may now be possible to “alter stimuli in real time based on what we see going on in the animal’s brain,” said Rockefeller University’s Alipasha Vaziri , senior author of an open-access paper published June 26, 2017 in Nature Methods . By dramatically reducing the time and computational resources required to generate such an image, the algorithm opens the door to more sophisticated experiments, says Vaziri, head of the Rockefeller Laboratory of Neurotechnology and Biophysics . “Our goal is to better understand brain function by monitor...

How to capture videos of brains in real time http://ift.tt/2sTaUgJ Individual neurons firing within a volume of brain tissue (credit: The Rockefeller University) A team of scientists has peered into a mouse brain with light, capturing live neural activity of hundreds of individual neurons in a 3D section of tissue at video speed (30 Hz) in a single recording for the first time. Besides serving as a powerful research tool, this discovery means it may now be possible to “alter stimuli in real time based on what we see going on in the animal’s brain,” said Rockefeller University’s Alipasha Vaziri , senior author of an open-access paper published June 26, 2017 in Nature Methods . By dramatically reducing the time and computational resources required to generate such an image, the algorithm opens the door to more sophisticated experiments, says Vaziri, head of the Rockefeller Laboratory of Neurotechnology and Biophysics . “Our goal is to better understand brain function by monitor...

How to Have the Second Brain to Remember More http://ift.tt/2tq5bjT Your whole life depends on you being able to retrieve things from your memory. I’m sure you know what I mean… “Where are my keys?” “What major tasks do I need to complete today?” “What time is that meeting I need to attend?” Questions such as these bombard our minds daily. If you’re able to recall the relevant information, you’ll keep your life on track. However, if you fail to recall the information – your life will start to move in a confused and unproductive direction. We’d all love to boost our memories, but often we go about it in the wrong way. It’s not about how much information we can absorb into our minds, but how easily we can retrieve this information (which most people aren’t good at). Information Overload = Memory Failure We live in an information age , where our minds are besieged 24/7 by facts, figures, news, drama and trends. To maintain our standing among our peers, most of us strive in vain...

Why Victims of Facebook Harassment Will Never Leave Facebook http://ift.tt/2tZMXCV On Wednesday, one day after Facebook had announced that two billion people use its service every month, ProPublica released a bombshell investigation into the company's hate-speech censorship guidelines. The report included documents that revealed that Facebook's rules often end up protecting the rights of those in power over those who are powerless. These two revelations are inextricably entwined, each enabling and necessitating the other. Facebook is the biggest social network on the planet—with over a quarter of the human race using its site—precisely because it so actively censors and curates its community and follows local laws that enable it to exist even in oppressive countries. And because it is so huge, people who most need a platform for expression online can’t afford to not be on it—even if that means enduring seemingly arbitrary censorship. This is the network effect in act...

DHS Won't Extend Laptop Ban, But Its New Protocols Will Make Airport Security Extra Annoying http://ift.tt/2sSLW16 Let's start with the good news for international travelers and the airlines that serve them: The Department of Homeland Security has decided not to extend its laptop ban , which prohibits any electronics larger than a phone in the cabin on flights from some Middle Eastern and African countries entering the US. Bad news is, the feds are compensating by demanding new airport security measures that will make getting through to the gate more of a slog than ever. OK, back to good news: When it comes to making flying safer, these measures stand a much better chance than stuffing your MacBook in the cargo hold. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced more rigorous measures for all commercial flights landing in the US. “The United States and the global aviation community face an adaptive and agile enemy,” it said in a statement. “Terrorist g...

Personal assistance relationships are complex and need support, study finds http://ift.tt/2ukukcg Personal assistance relationships are usually empowering and flexible for both employer and workers, but can become emotionally fraught and even wounded, according to a report launched today. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 07:25PM

Instagram Unleashes an AI System to Blast Away Nasty Comments http://ift.tt/2tmpXjE Every word has at least one meaning when it stands alone. But the meaning can change depending on context, or even over time. A sentence full of neutral words can be hostile (“Only whites should have rights”), and a sentence packed with potentially hostile words (“Fuck what, fuck whatever y'all been wearing”) can be neutral when you recognize it as a Kanye West lyric. Humans are generally good at this kind of parsing, and machines are generally bad. Last June, however, Facebook announced that it had built a text classification engine to help machines interpret words in context. The system, called DeepText , is based on recent advances in artificial intelligence and a concept called word embeddings, which means it looks at every word in the context of all the words that appear near it. White, for instance, means something completely different when it’s near the words snow, Sox, House, or powe...

Elon Musk's boring machine completes the first section of an LA tunnel http://ift.tt/2tqCinY Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk says his ambitious tunnel-boring endeavor, aptly named The Boring Company, has officially started digging underneath Los Angeles. Musk announced the news on Twitter , where he said “Godot,” the Samuel Beckett-inspired name of the company’s tunnel boring machine , had completed the the first segment of a tunnel in the Southern California metropolis. Prior to today, it was unclear how long it would take Musk to convince the city to allow him to move the experimental effort beyond the SpaceX parking lot in Hawthorne. Musk has made a rather public showing of his offbeat tunnel-digging venture over the last few months, with an occasional flurry of Twitter announcements and Instagram posts to commemorate each new milestone. In May, Musk posted videos of test runs of the electric sled mechanism that would theoretically ferry cars at speeds up to 124 mph. Back...

Malaria control in African schools dramatically cuts infection and reduces risk of anemia http://ift.tt/2tqg1q6 Schools that provide prevention education, insecticide-treated nets and antimalarial treatment, in regions where malaria is highly seasonal, could reduce the risk of schoolchildren developing anemia and improve their cognitive performance, according to new research by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 05:46PM

Inequalities in malaria research funding in sub-Saharan Africa http://ift.tt/2tZzF9s A quarter of countries in sub-Saharan Africa receive very little funding for research into malaria despite having high malaria-related death rates. In a new study, led by the University of Southampton and published in The Lancet Global Health , countries have been ranked according to how much research and non-research funding they receive from major public and philanthropic global health funders to combat the disease. The study examined the portfolios of several of the major global health research funders and compared funding levels to national malaria-related burden of disease. They could not find any investment for malaria research in countries such as Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Chad, Congo and Central African Republic. Chad, Congo and Central African Republic are among the countries with the highest malaria death rates in the world at 71.9, 64.84 and 128.34 per 100,000 of the population resp...

Study raises concern over accuracy of melanoma diagnoses http://ift.tt/2tqEbB2 Concerns over the accuracy of melanoma diagnoses are raised in a study of US pathologists published by The BMJ today. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 05:46PM

Higher IQ in childhood is linked to a longer life http://ift.tt/2ujVnUV Higher intelligence (IQ) in childhood is associated with a lower lifetime risk of major causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, smoking related cancers, respiratory disease and dementia, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 05:46PM

WikiLeaks Dump Reveals a Creepy CIA Location-Tracking Trick http://ift.tt/2tZPZHi How many people specifically know where you are right now? Some friends and family? Your coworkers, maybe? If you're using a Windows laptop or PC you could add another group to the list: the CIA. New documents released on Wednesday as part of WikiLeaks' series of CIA hacking revelations detail a method the agency uses to geolocate computers, and the people using them. The agency infects target devices with malware that can then check which public Wi-Fi networks a given computer can connect to at a given moment, as well as the signal strengths of those networks. From there, the malware compares the list of available Wi-Fi options to databases of public Wi-Fi networks to figure out roughly where the device is. The leaked documents detailing the project, which is known as ELSA, date back to 2013, and specifically address laptops and PCs running Windows 7. But experts say that the technique...

Reiner_Riedler_Lifesaving_Machines http://ift.tt/2sSMHXQ Singularity via https://www.wired.com June 28, 2017 at 05:15PM

I'm Marc Rogers, Hacker and Head of Information Security for Cloudflare, and This Is How I Work  http://ift.tt/2tZZ5UG Marc Roger’s career spans more than twenty years, including a decade managing security for the UK operator Vodafone. He’s been a CISO in South Korea and co-founded a disruptive Bay Area startup. He’s been hacking since the 80s and is now a white-hat hacker as well as the Head of Security for Cloudflare. In his role as technical advisor on “Mr. Robot,” he helped create hacks for the show. And as if that’s not enough, he also organizes the world’s largest hacking conference. We caught up with Marc to find out how he works. Location: San Francisco Current gig: Head of Information Security for Cloudflare One word that best describes how you work: Relentless Current mobile device: iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy 6, Blackphone Current computer: Apple MBP (Late 2016) First of all, tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you are today...

PornHub now has videos that synchronize with connected sex toys http://ift.tt/2s3lui9 If Joseph Gordon Levitt in the movie Don Jon taught me anything about how men watch porn, it’s that some people are willing to put a whole lot of effort in to find the perfect clip and time themselves along with on-camera action. About four years after the film’s release, it looks like PornHub has figured out the ideal solution in the form of interactive videos that synchronize with a connected sex toy. PornHub’s launch partners include Fleshlight and Kiiroo, and there will be a new category on the website which contains videos that can be synced to a toy. Depending on what’s happening in the video, the toys will simulate the action with pulses — removing the need to perform your own manual labor. And yes, it will work with one of Fleshlight’s newest device which looks like more like a wine cooler (if you replace the wine with, well, you, and the thing rumbles a whole lot.) Interactive sex ...

Turn Your To-Do List Into a To-Do Calendar http://ift.tt/2sSuHgr Do you always install your air conditioner on a sweltering summer day, or rush to do your taxes in mid-April? For absolutely necessary tasks like these, a to-do list isn’t always enough. You need to block out time on your calendar, and treat these tasks like actual appointments. We’ve listed all the best to-do items to turn into calendar items. Chores Infrequent chores : Flipping the mattress and couch cushions, getting your car inspected, using your annual free credit report , cleaning the pool, clipping pet nails, and replacing toothbrushes, razors, smoke detector batteries, air fresheners, and water filters Frequent chores that you forget or put off, like laundry, garbage day, haircuts, moving your car, donating blood, watering your plants, cleaning up (and backing up) your computer, and changing the sheets Doing your taxes (and paying your quarterly estimates if you freelance) Bills that don’t autopay Wi...

Study of US seniors strengthens link between air pollution and premature death http://ift.tt/2s3h375 A new study of 60 million Americans -- about 97 percent of people age 65 and older in the United States -- shows that long-term exposure to airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone increases the risk of premature death, even when that exposure is at levels below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 04:21PM

NIAID scientists identify cause, possible treatment for life-threatening gut condition http://ift.tt/2tmbTHp Investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and international colleagues have discovered a genetic cause and potential treatment strategy for a rare immune disorder called CHAPLE disease. Children with the condition can experience severe gastrointestinal distress and deep vein blood clots. No effective treatments are available to ameliorate or prevent these life-threatening symptoms. Singularity via http://ift.tt/orfraw June 28, 2017 at 04:21PM