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gewg_ writes:

Roundup-Ready GMO Maize Causes Serious Health Damage

A scientific study [has] identified serious health impacts on rats fed on 'Roundup ready' GMO maize

[The] paper by Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini and colleagues has been republished after a stringent peer review process.

The original study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) in September 2012, found severe liver and kidney damage and hormonal disturbances in rats fed the GM maize and low levels of Roundup that are below those permitted in drinking water in the EU.

However it was retracted by the editor-in-chief of the Journal in November 2013 after a sustained campaign of criticism and defamation by pro-GMO scientists.

The second review involved a non-transparent examination of Prof Seralini's raw data by a secret panel of unnamed persons organized by the editor-in-chief of FCT, A. Wallace Hayes, in response to criticisms of the study by pro-GMO scientists.

In a letter to Prof Seralini, Hayes admitted that the anonymous reviewers found nothing incorrect about the results, but argued that the tumour and mortality observations in the paper were "inconclusive", and this justified his decision to retract the study

Now the study has passed a third peer review arranged by the journal that is republishing the study, Environmental Sciences Europe.

It will be interesting to see what response this study will draw from regulators regarding the review of GMO and agro-chemical licenses and licensing procedures.

lhsi writes:

Researchers have discovered (abstract) how one of the Earth's oldest reefs, now located on dry land in Namibia, was formed by the first animals to have hard shells.

Scientists say it was at this point that tiny aquatic creatures developed the ability to construct hard protective coats and build reefs to shelter and protect them in an increasingly dangerous world.

They were the first animals to build structures similar to non-living reefs, which are created through the natural processes of erosion and sediment deposition.

The study reveals that the animals attached themselves to fixed surfaces and to each other by producing natural cement composed of calcium carbonate, to form rigid structures.

The creatures known as Cloudina built reefs in ancient seas that now form part of Namibia. Their fossilised remains are the oldest reefs of their type in the world.

lhsi writes:

Researchers from the University of Granada have shown that some of us are "morning-types" and others "'evening-types", as a function of the time of day when our biological and cognitive functions are more active. This has a marked influence on the individual's capacity to react when behind the driving wheel.

Evening-types drive worse during their "off time" - in the early morning - by comparison with their optimal time - during the evening. But, morning-types are more stable drivers, both in the morning and the evening.

In fact, evening-types are much worse drivers - they pay less attention - at their "non-optimal" time of day (early in the morning) by comparison with their optimal time (during the evening). However, in this experiment morning-types were more stable drivers than evening-types and drove relatively well both in the morning and the evening

The University of Granada researchers [also] warn that driving after more than 18 hours wakefulness e.g. at 2.00 in the early morning after waking at 8.00 the previous morning, which is quite common, "entails the same level of risk as driving with the legal maximum level of blood alcohol, because our level of vigilance declines considerably".

gewg_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports:

SumAll, a data analytics company, makes all of its employees' compensation public to everyone in the company.
[...]
when he started SumAll three years ago, [CEO Dane Atkinson] and his core team decided to make transparency a "foundational concept", from compensation to documentation to reviews. "We made sure everyone had a chance to see what was happening in the business", he said. And there have been many quantifiable benefits to the company's performance ever since.

"The real benefits where you get money back from your team is in much more productivity... a much higher degree of trust", he said. People are less focused on trying to figure out if they're being paid fairly and more focused on their jobs. "It's stunning how much stress exists in the workplace around compensation, how much time is spent by employees trying to be treated fairly", he said. "When you take that all away, it's not only more productive for the company but a huge relief on the team."

Productivity is also boosted because workers don't feel compelled to impress the boss to get a raise or to move up, but to do work that will be recognized by everyone, given that it's made clear up front how and when they'll get increases.

"They strive to achieve in the eyes of the people that really matter... not just make me the CEO feel good", he said. And with all of the company's financials out in the open, employees often help make decisions to boost the bottom line. "You end up getting a much bigger brain trust for running the business", he said.
[...]
"Our expectation is over the next decade the tech industry will be the lead for it, but we believe [this transparency] will be adopted more widely", he said. "It works, so things that work in efficient systems tend to get taken to."

lhsi writes:

Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Rice University have released a study that shows hormone levels might affect voter turnout.

As witnessed by recent voter turnout in primary elections, participation in U.S. national elections is low, relative to other western democracies. In fact, voter turnout in biennial national elections ranges includes only 40 to 60 percent of eligible voters.

The study, published June 22 in Physiology and Behavior, reports that while participation in electoral politics is affected by a host of social and demographic variables, there are also biological factors that may play a role, as well. Specifically, the paper points to low levels of the stress hormone cortisol as a strong predictor of actual voting behavior, determined via voting records maintained by the Secretary of State.

The study can be found here.

dryriver writes:

The BBC reports (Javascript required for Video):

'Police forces are embracing the latest 3D-scanning technology to record crime scenes as virtual reality models. This helps them find clues, but also to immerse juries in the scene of the crime. London's Metropolitan Police is one force which has used the technique, and it is being used nationwide to investigate traffic accidents. The same technology was initially used for land surveying and other industrial applications. David Southam of Faro, a US company that specialises in 3D measurement technologies and has manufactured equipment used by UK police forces, explained to BBC News how the kit works.'

AnonTechie writes:

In a speech Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) declared immigration reform dead. He chastised and baited Republicans in Congress for blocking reform, and declared that winning the White House without the support of a growing Hispanic population will become mathematically impossible. "The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up," said Gutierrez. Gutierrez didn't mention the H-1B visa in the speech, but if he's right, and comprehensive immigration reform is indeed dead, then so too is a provision in the bill that would have raised the cap on H-1B visas. Immigration reform advocates have successfully blocked any effort to take up the immigration issue piecemeal. They don't want support for broader reform to peel away.

Blackmoore writes:

Perovskite materials are the newest contender for breaking the silicon ceiling in solar cell technology. But they don't just absorb light. Cambridge researchers have found they emit it like a laser, opening up an entirely new field of applications. Abstract which has links to the full article which was published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

Note: Perovskite is just one of a class of materials that have a perovskite structure, i.e. is any material with the same type of crystal structure as calcium titanium oxide (CaTiO3).

In 2013, the use of perovskite materials in solar cells was voted as one of the breakthroughs of the year by Science magazine; more recently, the Guardian website declared that they "are the clean tech material development to watch right now."

AnonTechie writes:

A dispute between Facebook and Manhattan's district attorney ( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/technology/facebook-battles-manhattan-da-over-warrants-for-user-data.html ) demonstrates the company's inability to protect its customers from government requests for outrageous amounts of data and the legal ramifications it would suffer if it were to reveal those requests to its customers. The conflict is rooted in the district attorney's request for complete profile information, from Likes and messages to photos and videos, of more than 300 accounts. In a blog post ( http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/fighting-bulk-search-warrants-in-court/ ), Facebook says this "unprecedented request is by far the largest we've ever received by a magnitude of more than ten and we have argued that it was unconstitutional from the start." The district attorney's office threatened to have company officials held in contempt of court if they didn't offer complete access to both the profiles and archived information of the indicated accounts.

Melissa Jackson, an acting Supreme Court justice, then argued that Facebook is nothing more ( http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/26/technology/facebook-search-warrants-case-documents.html ) than a "digital storage facility of its subscribers' digital information" and that it cannot fight the warrant on its users' behalf. She then told the company that it could not inform its users of the warrant because of the "fungible nature of digital information" and the possibility of some users attempting to delete their information before the district attorney's office could get it. (Never mind the difficulty of permanently deleting anything uploaded to Facebook's servers.)

Additional reporting can be found at: http://pando.com/2014/06/27/facebooks-inability-to-protect-its-users-privacy-from-manhattans-district-attorney-shows-the-governments-strength/

lhsi writes:

A new algorithm has been published that simplifies grouping data sets together according to their similarity, sometimes referred to as Cluster Analysis [CA].

Data sets can be imagined as "clouds" of data points in a multidimensional space. These points are generally differently distributed: more widely scattered in one area and denser in another. CA is used to identify the denser areas efficiently, grouping the data in a certain number of significant subsets on the basis of this criterion. Each subset corresponds to a category.

"Think of a database of facial photographs ", explains Alessandro Laio, professor of Statistical and Biological Physics at SISSA. "The database may contain more than one photo of the same person, so CA us used to group all the pictures of the same individual. This type of analysis is carried out by automatic facial recognition systems, for example".

"We tried to devise a more efficient algorithm than those currently used, and one capable of solving some of the classic problems of CA", continues Laio.

AnonTechie writes:

A motorized exoskeleton, designed to help paralyzed people walk again, just earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It is the first such device to do so.

The device, called ReWalk, straps on a user's body and helps those with certain spinal-cord injuries to sit, stand, and walk. Users have to wear a backpack to carry the ReWalk's computer and battery. They also have to wear a wrist device with buttons to tell the motorized legs when to stand up, sit down, or start walking. But it's not like users are punching every step into their wrist controllers — ReWalk's legs also respond to movements of the user's torso, so that leaning forward triggers a step.

Blackmoore writes:

The Independent brings us — Breakthrough in solar panel manufacture promises cheap energy within a decade.

A study has shown that the solar cells produced with magnesium chloride — which is also found in bath salts as well as used to coagulate soya milk into tofu — work just as efficiently as conventional cadmium cells but at a fraction of the cost and with much lower toxicity.

"We certainly believe it's going to make a big change to the costs of these devices. The cost of solar is going to match fossil fuels eventually but this is going to get us there quicker," said Jon Major of the University of Liverpool, who led the research.

lhsi writes:

The ESA is planning on using a technology based on harpoons to try and control the problem of space junk orbiting the planet.

Faced with the challenge of capturing tumbling satellites to clear key orbits, ESA is considering turning to an ancient terrestrial technology: the harpoon.

Several different solutions have been considered, including a throw-net, clamping mechanisms, robotic arms and a tethered harpoon.

The harpoon concept has already undergone initial investigations by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK.

Harpoons rely on three physical actions to ensure safe and clean grasping: a high-energy impact into the target, piercing the structure and then reeling it in.

lhsi writes:

In what may be bad news for Facebook, it has been found that uses of social media sites are less likely to recommended something online as they are exposed to a larger potential of adverse comments on their recommendation.

Facebook has more than 1.23 billion active users worldwide, with over 50 percent of all users logging on to it on any given day. Most of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising and the company is looking at ways to make the site a more effective advertising platform for marketers. This includes selling ads that are more targeted to their users.

However, researchers have found that users of social media websites are less likely to use them to say positive things about their favourite products and services. Instead, they are more likely to express their opinions about products in intimate face-to-face social situations. This is because most users usually have a wide range of "friends" or "followers" on social media sites, outside of their immediate family and friends, which deters them from expressing their opinions as they feel more vulnerable to adverse comments.

lhsi writes:

The smallest ever force measured has been detected using a combination of lasers and a unique optical trapping system that uses a cloud of ultracold atoms. The researchers measured a force of approximately 42 yoctonewtons. A yoctonewton is one septillionth of a newton and there are approximately 3 x 10^23 yoctonewtons in one ounce of force.

"We applied an external force to the center-of-mass motion of an ultracold atom cloud in a high-finesse optical cavity and measured the resulting motion optically," says Dan Stamper-Kurn, a physicist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and the UC Berkeley Physics Department. "When the driving force was resonant with the cloud's oscillation frequency, we achieved a sensitivity that is consistent with theoretical predictions and only a factor of four above the Standard Quantum Limit, the most sensitive measurement that can be made."

Such measurements will be useful in the study of gravity waves and quantum gravity. Wikipedia has a nice write up of the quantum limit. Science Magazine has the abstract.