SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Drug companies reach $260 million settlement, averting first federal opioid trial

Four large drug companies could resume talks on Tuesday to try to reach a $48 billion settlement of all opioid litigation against them, after agreeing with two Ohio counties to a $260 million deal to avert the first federal trial over their role in the U.S. opioid epidemic.

Drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp and drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd agreed to the deal that removed the immediate threat of a trial that was to begin on Monday in Cleveland.

The parties could resume talks as soon as Tuesday aimed at a broader settlement of thousands of opioid lawsuits brought by states and local governments, according to Paul Hanly, an attorney for the towns and counties.

Under Monday's local settlement, the distributors, which handle around 90% of U.S. prescription drugs, will pay a combined $215 million immediately to Ohio's Cuyahoga and Summit counties that were plaintiffs in Monday's trial.

Israel-based Teva said it was paying $20 million in cash and will contribute $25 million worth of Suboxone, an opioid addiction treatment.

Teva, the world's largest maker of generic drugs, said it will make its contribution over three years.

[Ed Note - Since the time of submission it appears that most, if not all of the linked article has been revised with no indication that one or more updates have been made.]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

How the brain dials up the volume to hear someone in a crowd

Our brains have a remarkable ability to pick out one voice from among many. Now, a team of Columbia University neuroengineers has uncovered the steps that take place in the brain to make this feat possible. Today's discovery helps to solve a long-standing scientific question as to how the auditory cortex, the brain's listening center, can decode and amplify one voice over others -- at lightning-fast speeds. This new-found knowledge also stands to spur development of hearing-aid technologies and brain-computer interfaces that more closely resemble the brain.

These findings were reported today in Neuron.

"Our capacity to focus in on the person next to us at a cocktail party while eschewing the surrounding noise is extraordinary, but we understood so little about how it all works," said Nima Mesgarani, PhD, the paper's senior author and a principal investigator at Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. "Today's study brings that much-needed understanding, which will prove critical to scientists and innovators working to improve speech and hearing technologies."

The auditory cortex is the brain's listening hub. The inner ear sends this brain region electrical signals that represent a jumble of sound waves from the external world. The auditory cortex must then pick out meaningful sounds from that jumble.

"Studying how the auditory cortex sorts out different sounds is like trying to figure out what is happening on a large lake -- in which every boat, swimmer and fish is moving, and how quickly -- by only having the patterns of ripples in the water as a guide," said Dr. Mesgarani, who is also an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia Engineering.

martyb writes:

It Really was the Asteroid:

Fossil remains of tiny calcareous algae not only provide information about the end of the dinosaurs, but also show how the oceans recovered after the fatal asteroid impact. Experts agree that a collision with an asteroid caused a mass extinction on our planet, but there were hypotheses that ecosystems were already under pressure from increasing volcanism. "Our data speak against a gradual deterioration in environmental conditions 66 million years ago," says Michael Henehan of the GFZ [(GeoForschungsZentrum)] German Research Centre for Geosciences. Together with colleagues from the University of Yale, he published a study in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that describes ocean acidification during this period.

He investigated isotopes of the element boron in the calcareous shells of plankton (foraminifera). According to the findings, there was a sudden impact that led to massive ocean acidification. It took millions of years for the oceans to recover from this acidification. "Before the impact event, we could not detect any increasing acidification of the oceans," says Henehan.

The impact of a celestial body left traces: the "Chicxulub crater" in the Gulf of Mexico and tiny amounts of iridium in sediments. Up to 75 percent of all animal species went extinct at the time. The impact marks the boundary of two geological eras – the Cretaceous and the Palaeogene (formerly known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary).

takyon writes:

Japan grants half a million pardons to mark enthronement of emperor Naruhito

Japan has pardoned more than half a million people found guilty of petty crimes such as traffic violations to mark the formal ascension of Naruhito to the Chrysanthemum throne.

Naruhito proclaimed himself Japan's new emperor and vowed to "stand with the people" after performing a series of ancient rituals on Tuesday that culminated in his appearance on the imperial throne alongside his wife, Empress Masako.

The 59-year-old, who ascended the throne in May following the abdication of his father, Akihito, marked his official enthronement in front of around 2,000 guests, including heads of state and other royals from more than 180 countries.

[...] To mark the occasion on Tuesday, Abe's ultra-conservative government granted pardons to about 550,000 eligible applicants. The decision was not publicly debated.

The pre-war custom of clemency by the emperor, who was revered as a god in those days, has triggered criticism as being undemocratic and politically motivated. At the time of former Akihito's enthronement, 2.5 million people were given amnesty.

Also at CNN, Asahi Shimbun, and Japan Times.

Previously: MonarchyNews: The King is My Co-Pilot and Japanese Succession "Crisis"
Japan Clears Way for Emperor to Step Down in 1st Abdication in 200 Years
Big Tech Warns of 'Japan's Millennium Bug' Ahead of Akihito's Abdication
Japan's Next Era to be Called "Reiwa"

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

With 379 long, long days to go until the 2020 US presidential election, Facebook is promising to do a better job than it did in 2016 of preventing bad actors, both foreign and domestic, from abusing its platform to potentially affect the outcome.

The company unveiled a slew of "election integrity efforts" today, saying the measures will "help protect the democratic process" by identifying threats, closing vulnerabilities, and reducing "the spread of viral misinformation and fake accounts."

The sheer scope of the problem is admittedly mind-boggling but perhaps unsurprising, given that Facebook's most recent investor report claimed more than 2.4 billion monthly active users on the platform (Instagram also boasts more than 1 billion MAUs). Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with reporters that the company spends "billions" on security annually, totaling more in a given year than Facebook's annual revenue at the time it went public. (For context, Facebook went public in 2012; it posted total revenues of just about $5 billion for that fiscal year. Its total revenue for 2018 was about $55.8 billion.)

All that money goes to a combination of projects that aim to reduce both fake news and voter-suppression efforts, Zuckerberg said. "I'm confident we are more prepared now" than in 2016, he added.

Facebook's biggest target is "coordinated inauthentic behavior"—big bunches of super-fake accounts posting super-fake stuff—that originates from a certain geographic area. Today, in tandem with its announcement about election security, the company updated its policy on how it will handle different kinds of coordinated efforts.

"We're constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people," Facebook said. To that end, the company works with the intelligence community and law enforcement to identify and take down disinformation campaigns, particularly around elections.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

El Niño events cause serious shifts in weather patterns across the globe, and an important question that scientists have sought to answer is: how will climate change affect the generation of strong El Niño events? A new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by a team of international climate researchers led by Bin Wang of the University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), has an answer to that question. Results show that since the late 1970's, climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events. Continued warming over the western Pacific warm pool promises conditions that will trigger more extreme events in the future.

The team examined details of 33 El Niño events from 1901 to 2017, evaluating for each event the onset location of the warming, its evolution, and its ultimate strength. By grouping the common developmental features of the events, the team was able to identify four types of El Niño, each with distinct onset and strengthening patterns. Looking across time, they found a decided shift in behavior since the late 1970's: all events beginning in the eastern Pacific occurred prior to that time, while all events originating in the western-central Pacific happened since then. They also found that four of five identified extreme El Niño events formed after 1970.

[...] "Simulations with global climate models suggest that if the observed background changes continue under future anthropogenic forcing, more frequent extreme El Niño events will induce profound socioeconomic consequences," reports Wang.

Journal Reference:
Bin Wang, Xiao Luo, Young-Min Yang, Weiyi Sun, Mark A. Cane, Wenju Cai, Sang-Wook Yeh, and Jian Liu. Historical change of El Niño properties sheds light on future changes of extreme El Niño. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1911130116

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Non-invasive brain stimulation is to be trialled for the first time alongside advanced brain imaging techniques in patients who are minimally conscious or in a vegetative state.

The study builds on promising results from the Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham which suggested that non-invasive brain stimulation can improve the success of rehabilitation for non-responsive patients.

The RAINDROP trial, a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and The Wellington Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK, will use advanced brain imaging technologies to track the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation in a small group of patients. The aim is to better understand how stimulation techniques can be harnessed to improve communication and recovery, with the hope of one day offering improved rehabilitation rates for non-responsive patients with a prolonged disorder of consciousness.

Improvements in trauma care have increased the chances of surviving the most severe brain injuries. Recent research has shown that as many as 20% of these patients retain a much higher level of awareness than could be expected from their clinical diagnoses -- however, these patients remain unable to demonstrate their awareness, trapped in their unresponsive bodies.

Previous research by the Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham and Western University, Canada, pinpointed what happens in the brain to cause this unresponsive behaviour -- suggesting for the first time a potential target for treatment.

In the RAINDROP study, researchers will work with five patients in The Wellington Hospital's Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness Unit (PDoCU) to examine how a form of brain stimulation called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can be used to identify and treat damaged connections within the brain.

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for Bytram.

Stretching before or after a workout: Only one of them is right

Even though most of us probably don't work on it enough, flexibility is vital to overall health, and it's especially important in connection to your exercise routine. While all stretching may seem the same, there are important distinctions about what stretching routines to perform at different points of your workout.

Working out already feels like an onerous task, and the thousands of opinions on the internet about how to exercise in the correct way aren't helping. You've probably heard tons of conflicting advice surrounding your workout routine, and when there's voices shouting in all directions around you it's far easier to just give up and push off the gym for another day.

One part of exercising I often hear disagreements on is stretching. Some people are vehemently opposed to the idea, saying that the practice is bunk and a waste of time. Others swear by it, believing that stretching is vitally important and helps ward off all kinds of injuries. Even for those in the pro-stretching camp, there are differing opinions on whether to stretch before or after your workout.

I'm here to dispel the confusion once and for all and explain how exactly stretching should fit into your exercise habits so that you can finally get back to what's really important -- actually working out.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Expensive broadband is pricing millions out of accessing the internet

A lack of competition among broadband providers in some countries means millions of people around the world can't afford internet access, according to a report published Tuesday.

The internet affordability report, published annually by Tim Berners-Lee's Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet, offers a snapshot of the barriers to people being able to afford to get online. In 2019, the report identifies a lack of competition in the market as one of the factors keeping costs too high in some countries.

[...] But in countries where there's one primary broadband provider with no real competitors, there's no incentive to keep prices low. In countries with just one operator, data costs on average $3.42 more per gigabyte than in countries where there's healthy competition in the market, the report found. With no rivals, 1GB of data can cost up to $7.33 more than if there was just one other broadband provider to choose from.

[...] For internet service to be considered affordable, people should be able to purchase 1GB of data for less than 2% of their monthly salary. In low- and middle-income countries around the world, the average cost of 1GB currently stands at 4.7% of people's salary, and across Africa it rises to 7.1%.

According to the Alliance for Affordable Internet, countries can tackle this by establishing competition in the market through policy initiatives and lowering the barrier to entry for new players. It also wants governments to invest in more free public Wi-Fi, especially in areas not served by the market.

"Competitive broadband markets provide the foundation needed to make universal access a reality," said Jorge. "Yet, governments must also play their role by pursuing public access policy and investments that build healthy, competitive markets that drive down the cost to connect."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Economists say this is the Minimum Amount of Money you Need in an Emergency Fund:

Money experts generally encourage you to set aside three to six months' worth of living expenses in an emergency fund. Some even want you to stash away a year's worth.

After all, life doesn't usually go as planned: There could be another recession, you could lose your job, have a medical emergency or have to deal with a car breaking down. That's why, when it comes to emergency savings, "more is always better," personal finance author David Bach says.

But economists Emily Gallagher and Jorge Sabat challenge the oft-cited savings rules in their 2019 report, "Rules of Thumb in Household Savings Decisions." "People are usually given really high savings thresholds, like you should be saving six months' worth of income or you should have $15,000 squirreled away," Gallagher tells CNBC Make It. But those numbers aren't "based on much," she adds.

After crunching the numbers, Gallagher and Sabat found a more realistic amount for low-income households, specifically, to aim for: $2,467. If you have that much saved, your probability of falling into financial hardship (not being able to pay rent, bills or medical care) is low.

To get to that number, Gallagher and Sabat, who are also assistant professors of finance, used data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to graph the relationship between falling into hardship in the next six months and how much you have saved as a buffer. They looked at financial information on more than 70,000 lower-income households, which the report defines as those earning under 200% of the poverty line. To put that into context, that's up to about $30,000 a year for a family of four, says Gallagher. This group represents "about 30% of the U.S. working-age population," she adds.

They found that if you have very little saved — say $200 to $500 — each additional dollar you set aside dramatically reduces your likelihood of falling into financial hardship. But once you have at least $2,467, "all of a sudden, saving an additional dollar didn't seem to be that helpful anymore," says Gallagher. "It still reduced your probability of falling into hardship a little bit, but it wasn't nearly as effective as when you were at low levels of savings."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Boeing's 737 Max troubles deepen, taking airlines, suppliers with it:

Boeing shares continued their slide Monday after explosive messages last week revealed a top pilot had concerns about a system on the 737 Max that was later implicated in two fatal crashes.

Several Wall Street analysts downgraded Boeing, fretting about the fallout from the crisis that has barred the manufacturer from delivering its best-selling planes that make up around 40% of its profit.

Boeing's stock was down 3.8% Monday afternoon, shaving more than 80 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but had pared losses from earlier in the session

The messages made public Friday included an exchange from a top Boeing pilot to a colleague in 2016 that expressed his worries about an aggressive flight control system on the Max, whose performance he called "egregious." The pilot, who now works for Southwest, said in the exchange that he "unknowingly" lied to regulators. That same pilot months later told the FAA to remove the system, known as MCAS, from pilot procedures and training materials.

The FAA said Boeing knew about the messages for months and scolded Boeing in a letter for not releasing the documents earlier. Boeing defended its training materials for the 737 Max, which regulators deemed safe in 2017, and said it told regulators on "multiple occasions" about the broadened capabilities of the now-questioned system.

[...]Boeing's board is holding a regularly scheduled meeting in San Antonio that concludes Monday, a spokesman said. The board stripped CEO Dennis Muilenburg of his chairmanship on Oct. 11 to focus on getting the Max back into service.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for Runaway1956.

Hacking the hackers: Russian group hijacked Iranian spying operation, officials say

The Russian group, known as “Turla” and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia’s FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said.

[...] Paul Chichester, a senior official at Britain’s GCHQ [(Government Communications Headquarters)] intelligence agency, said the operation shows state-backed hackers are working in a “very crowded space” and developing new attacks and methods to better cover their tracks.

In a statement accompanying a joint advisory with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre said it wanted to raise industry awareness about the activity and make attacks more difficult for its adversaries.

“We want to send a clear message that even when cyber actors seek to mask their identity, our capabilities will ultimately identify them,” said Chichester, who serves as the NCSC’s director of operations.

Officials in Russia and Iran did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent on Sunday. Moscow and Tehran have both repeatedly denied Western allegations over hacking.

[...] By gaining access to the Iranian infrastructure, Turla was able to use APT34’s[*] “command and control” systems to deploy its own malicious code, GCHQ and the NSA said in a public advisory.

The Russian group was also able to access the networks of existing APT34 victims and even access the code needed to build its own “Iranian” hacking tools.

[*] APT34: Wikipedia Entry.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/

The US Supreme Court last week formally declined to weigh in on an argument that the Americans with Disabilities Act should not apply to websites and digital storefronts, leaving intact a lower ruling finding that the ADA does, indeed, apply to digital space. Internet and Web users with disabilities, as well as advocates for accessible design, are breathing a sigh of relief.

[...] The case the Court declined to hear, Domino's v Robles, stemmed from a 2016 lawsuit. Guillermo Robles, a blind California resident who uses screen readers to access the Internet, tried to place an order through Domino's mobile app. Neither the app nor Domino's website proved usable by a screen reader, and Robles eventually sued the company, arguing the site's inaccessibility violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The section of the ADA at question is Title III, which says, in part, that you can't discriminate against an individual on the basis of disability "in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation."

[...] About 61 million US adults, roughly one in four, live with some kind of disability, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The point of the ADA is to prevent discrimination against a quarter of the population and to codify the need for reasonable accommodations.

[...] "Here's what's shocking about Domino's: like Target [in 2008], just fixing the problem costs a great deal less than suing. So they were suing for the right to discriminate," Quesenbery told Ars.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Guess what's on the receiving end of more NASA dollars for SLS?

Hint: It rhymes with 'throwing' as lawmakers baulk at lobbing an unknown amount of cash into the 2024 lunar bonfire[.]

NASA brought a smile to faces of Boeing shareholders this week with the announcement that it would be ordering 10 Space Launch System (SLS) core stages from the US aviation giant for Artemis rocket launches to the Moon. Although paying for the things could be tricky.

[...]It is expected that the next batch of rocket core stages will not suffer the same hideous cost overruns and horrendously drawn-out birthing process of the first build, which might finally fly in 2021 after years of delay.

While more ex-Shuttle RS-25 engines will be needed for dumping into the ocean after the non-reusable SLS is expended, NASA also wants Boeing to finally get on with building the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) to be used from Artemis IV. The EUS is essential to send heftier payloads of the order of 45 tons into lunar orbit.

The comparatively weedy Interim Cryogenic Propulsion stage will be used on the first three Artemis missions in NASA's headlong rush to get those boots on the surface to meet US President Donald Trump's 2024 deadline.

And that arbitrary 2024 date is causing some furrowed brows. At a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee's Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee into NASA's proposal to bring the Moon landing forward from 2028, US lawmakers hauled the agency over the coals as the price tag for all the lunar japery remained unclear.

See also: A House budget committee has likely killed the 2024 Moon landing
NASA will award Boeing a cost-plus contract for up to 10 SLS rockets
Rocket Report: The Falcon 9 goes for four, Boeing's big cost-plus deal

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Amazon is shipping expired food, from baby formula to old beef jerky, scaring consumers and putting big brands at risk

Amazon's spokesperson said the company uses a combination of humans and artificial intelligence to monitor the 22 million-plus pieces of customer feedback received weekly for product quality and safety concerns. Amazon may remove products or suspend an account if the seller violates its policies.

"We work hard to make sure customers receive high-quality products when they order from our store," the spokesperson said. "We have robust processes in place to ensure customers receive products with sufficient shelf life.

"If customers have concerns about items they've purchased, we encourage them to contact our Customer Service directly and work with us so we can investigate and take appropriate action," the spokesperson added.

[...]Amazon says it feeds data from suspended listings and accounts into its AI systems so they can get better at detection and at blocking suspicious activity. Human moderators can also trigger an investigation if they receive feedback suggesting a product is unsafe. In the food category, Amazon uses a database called "Heartbeat" to monitor customer commentary through reviews, phone calls, emails and seller feedback for safety issues.

Even with all these tools, several consultants who advise sellers say Amazon needs to rely on more than just customer complaints and refunds to catch expired foods. They argue that Amazon needs to devise new strategies to police the marketplace more effectively and improve detection of questionable products, while strictly enforcing its policies when third-party sellers break the rules.

Also at:

• Amazon Third-Party Vendors Are Selling Expired Food
• Amazon sellers are shipping long-expired food

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

According to Netflix documentary by Vox: Reddit, 4chan, Gab and Bodybuilding.com are "cult-like"

A wide variety of accusations and criticisms coming from different political and ideological corners are being leveled at social media these days, but referring to them as giving rise to “cult-like” communities might be a first.

Netflix has posted a full new documentary on YouTube that deals with various well known and notorious real-world cults, gives survivors a chance to share their experiences and also provides commentary aimed at explaining what a cult is, how it functions, and what motivates its leaders and followers.

But those who make it to the last five or so minutes of the documentary might be in for a bit of a surprise: “Cults, Explained” refers to several large and small social media platforms and online message boards as creating and hosting “cult-like” communities, although, not by name.

Instead, the reference is illustrated by a graphic that shows the logos of some very diverse online places: 4chan, Reddit, Gab, Facebook, and Bodybuilding.com among others. Cults are known to grow around a charismatic leader, who keeps the whole operation together – something that the documentary acknowledges and explores.

However, its makers state that online places of gathering are also legitimately cult-like, even if they are, as the narrator explains, “without a need for a leader.” But the film doesn't at all delve any deeper into why or how this may be the case.

[...]The documentary finds fault with the nature of these communities that are said to provide a place of understanding and kinship to those who are alienated from society or otherwise disaffected. This may be sometimes true, but does it warrant the “cult-like” label?

The film goes on to say that these communities are bad for people simply because “they provide a home, they provide someone to listen to them.”

Original Submission