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AnonTechie writes:

Automated hiring software is mistakenly rejecting millions of viable job candidates:

Automated resume-scanning software is contributing to a "broken" hiring system in the US, says a new report from Harvard Business School [PDF]. Such software is used by employers to filter job applicants, but is mistakenly rejecting millions of viable candidates, say the study's authors. It's contributing to the problem of "hidden workers" — individuals who are able and willing to work, but remain locked out of jobs by structural problems in the labor market.

The study's authors identify a number of factors blocking people from employment, but say automated hiring software is one of the biggest. These programs are used by 75 percent of US employers (rising to 99 percent of Fortune 500 companies), and were adopted in response to a rise in digital job applications from the '90s onwards. Technology has made it easier for people to apply for jobs, but also easier for companies to reject them.

[...] Over-reliance on software in the hiring world seems to have created a vicious cycle. Digital technology was supposed to make it easier for companies to find suitable job candidates, but instead it's contributed to a surfeit of applicants. In the early 2010s, the average corporate job posting attracted 120 applicants, says the study, but by the end of the decade this figure had risen to 250 applicants per job. Companies have responded to this deluge by deploying brutally rigid filters in their automated filtering software.

[...] Fixing these problems will require "overhauling many aspects of the hiring system," from where companies look for candidates in the first place to how they deploy software in the process.

What suggestion(s) can experts here provide, to solve this issue? Or, is this yet another case of "If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail."

Original Submission

Mockingbird writes:

Video from HubbleESA that gives a zoom in on the Globular Cluster Messier 13. Also at the non-YT site: ESAHubble.org.

(Related story on a study comparing Messier 3 and 13 at Phys.org.)

The prevalent view of white dwarfs as inert, slowly cooling stars has been challenged by observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. An international group of astronomers have discovered the first evidence that white dwarfs can slow down their rate of aging by burning hydrogen on their surface.

"We have found the first observational evidence that white dwarfs can still undergo stable thermonuclear activity," explained Jianxing Chen of the Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, who led this research. "This was quite a surprise, as it is at odds with what is commonly believed."

White dwarfs are the slowly cooling stars which have cast off their outer layers during the last stages of their lives. They are common objects in the cosmos; roughly 98% of all the stars in the Universe will ultimately end up as white dwarfs, including our own Sun. Studying these cooling stages helps astronomers understand not only white dwarfs, but also their earlier stages as well.

To investigate the physics underpinning white dwarf evolution, astronomers compared cooling white dwarfs in two massive collections of stars: the globular clusters M3 and M13 . These two clusters share many physical properties such as age and metallicity but the populations of stars which will eventually give rise to white dwarfs are different. In particular, the overall color of stars at an evolutionary stage known as the Horizontal Branch are bluer in M13, indicating a population of hotter stars. This makes M3 and M13 together a perfect natural laboratory in which to test how different populations of white dwarfs cool.

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owl writes:

WaPo link: Nearly 1 In 3 Americans Experienced A Climate Disaster This Summer, From Hurricane Ida To The Caldor Fire:

(archive link: https://archive.is/GhZTP)

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans live in a county hit by a weather disaster in the past three months, according to a new Washington Post analysis of federal disaster declarations. On top of that, 64 percent live in places that experienced a multiday heat wave — phenomena that are not officially deemed disasters but are considered the most dangerous form of extreme weather.

The expanding reach of climate-fueled disasters, a trend that has been increasing at least since 2018, shows the extent to which a warming planet has already transformed Americans' lives. At least 388 people in the United States have died due to hurricanes, floods, heat waves and wildfires since June, according to media reports and government records.

Record-shattering temperatures in the Pacific Northwest cooked hundreds of people to death in their own homes. Flash floods turned basement apartments into death traps and in one instance ripped twin babies from their father's arms. Wildfires raged through 5 million acres of tinder-dry forest. Chronic drought pushed federal officials to impose mandatory cuts to Colorado River water for the first time.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Plant-based diets cause men to fart more and have larger stools, researchers have found – but that seems to be a good thing, because it means these foods are promoting healthy gut bacteria.

Claudia Barber at the Liver and Digestive Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre in Barcelona, Spain, and her colleagues compared the effects of a Mediterranean-style diet mostly comprised of plants with a Western-style diet containing fewer fruit and vegetables on the guts of 18 healthy men aged between 18 and 38. Each participant was randomly assigned to follow one of the diets for two weeks, then after a break, they switched to the other diet for two weeks.

The men did a similar number of poos per day on the two diets, but each one was about double the size while they were on the plant diet. The men collected and weighed their own stools using digital scales and found they produced about 200 grams per day on the plant diet, compared with 100 grams on the Western diet.

This is because eating plants promotes certain types of bacteria in our guts that make food for themselves by fermenting plant fibre, says Rosemary Stanton at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

[...] The findings suggest that flatulence associated with eating more plants should be welcomed, says Stanton. "Our Western idea that farting is a sign of something being wrong is totally false," she says. In most cases, "farting is a sign of a healthy diet and a healthy colon", she says.

NEW SCIENTIST

[Journal Reference]: Differential Effects of Western and Mediterranean-Type Diets on Gut Microbiota:

Original Submission

upstart writes:

U.S. traffic deaths up during pandemic even though mileage down -data:

New data shows a sustained increase in U.S. traffic deaths that regulators ascribe to impaired driving, speeding, a failure to wear seats beats and other unsafe behavior since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Thursday estimated 8,730 people died in car crashes in the first three months of 2021, compared with 7,900 deaths during the same period last year.

That's a year-on-year increase of 10.5% despite a 2.1% drop in the number of miles driven, the preliminary data shows.

For all of 2020, U.S. traffic deaths rose 7.2% to 38,680, hitting the highest yearly total since 2007 - even though Americans drove 13% fewer miles. The early 2021 deaths were also the highest in a first quarter since 2007.

China Steps in to Regulate Brutal '996' Work Culture

upstart writes:

China steps in to regulate brutal '996' work culture:

Chinese tech tycoon Jack Ma famously said it was a "blessing" for anyone to be part of the so-called "996 work culture"- where people work 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

Now, China's authorities have issued a stern reminder to companies that such punishing work schedules are in fact, illegal.

In a joint statement published last Thursday, China's top court and labour ministry detailed 10 court decisions related to labour disputes, many involving workers being forced to work overtime.

The cases covered various scenarios across a wide range of sectors, from tech to the media and construction. The one thing they had in common? The employers had lost.

"Legally, workers have the right to corresponding compensation and rest times or holidays. Complying with national working hours is the obligation of employers," the notice warned, adding that further guidelines will be developed to resolve future labour disputes.

[...] According to China's labour laws, a standard work day is eight hours-long, with a maximum of 44 hours a week. Any work beyond that requires extra pay for overtime.

But this has not been well enforced. In many of the country's biggest firms - particularly in the thriving tech sector - employees often work far longer hours and are not always compensated.

Employers Can't Require People to Work 72 Hours a Week, China's High Court Says

upstart writes:

Employers Can't Require People To Work 72 Hours A Week, China's High Court Says:

upstart writes:

Scientists reveal the secrets behind ant teeth super strength:

To keep consumer electronics shrinking in size, engineers need to build tiny yet tremendously strong instruments to use in the gadgets' construction. One group is hoping to get blueprints from mother nature by studying some of the teeniest, toughest tools we know of: ant teeth.

Thinner than a strand of human hair, the insects' miniature chompers can bite down forcefully enough to cut through sturdy leaves without suffering any damage. It all has to do with the teeth's even arrangement of zinc atoms, which allow for equal distribution of force each time the creatures crunch on something. That feature, researchers say, can one day be applied to human-made tools.

"Having the uniform distribution, essentially, is the secret," said Arun Devaraj, a senior research scientist at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and author of a study on the composition of ant teeth published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports. The ant chompers "can even cut human skin without breaking -- it's hard to even do that with our own teeth."

To get to the bottom of nature's secrets and meet humanity's need for pocket-size electronics [...] the study researchers first isolated a minuscule piece of a single ant tooth. Ants have two, or sometimes more, teeth on their curved external mandible, or jaw. Then, the team turned to a technique called atom probe tomography, which precisely paints a picture of where each atom within an object is located.

"The plan," Devaraj said, "was to use that technique to really understand how zinc is distributed inside these ant teeth, and how that is leading to the strength that it's getting."

Journal Reference:
R. M. S. Schofield, J. Bailey, J. J. Coon, et al. The homogenous alternative to biomineralization: Zn- and Mn-rich materials enable sharp organismal “tools” that reduce force requirements [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-91795-y)

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Windows 11 arrives on October 5, Android apps will come later"

Windows 11 is no longer merely "coming this fall." Microsoft will begin releasing the new operating system to the public on October 5, starting with newer PCs (and PCs being sold in stores) and then rolling out to other supported systems over the next nine or so months. The company also says that the Amazon-powered Android app support that's coming to Windows 11 won't be ready for public consumption at launch; Microsoft will offer "a preview [of Android apps in the Microsoft Store] for Windows Insiders over the coming months."

Like recent Windows 10 updates, Windows 11 will have a phased rollout through Windows Update—most PCs won't begin to see and automatically install the update on October 5. Microsoft says that new PCs will be the first to upgrade, followed by older compatible PCs, "based on intelligence models that consider hardware eligibility, reliability metrics, age of device and other factors." As with Windows 10 updates, you'll be able to download an ISO file to initiate the upgrade yourself (Microsoft also offers tools like the Windows Update Assistant to manually trigger upgrade installs, which we assume it will do for Windows 11, too). All compatible PCs should be offered the update by mid-2022.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Long-Lasting Disinfectant Protects Against Viruses for Up to 7 Days – Promises To Help Fight Pandemics:

UCF researchers have developed a nanoparticle-based disinfectant that can continuously kill viruses on a surface for up to seven days – a discovery that could be a powerful weapon against COVID-19 and other emerging pathogenic viruses.

The findings, by a multidisciplinary team of the university's virus and engineering experts and the leader of an Orlando technology firm, were published this week in ACS Nano, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

Christina Drake '07PhD, founder of Kismet Technologies, was inspired to develop the disinfectant after making a trip to the grocery store in the early days of the pandemic. There she saw a worker spraying disinfectant on a refrigerator handle, then wiping off the spray immediately.

"Initially my thought was to develop a fast-acting disinfectant," she says, "but we spoke to consumers, such as doctors and dentists, to find out what they really wanted from a disinfectant. What mattered the most to them was something long-lasting that would continue to disinfect high-touch areas like doorhandles and floors long after application."

upstart writes:

Rocket 'terminated' in fiery explosion over Pacific Ocean:

A privately designed, unmanned rocket built to carry satellites was destroyed in an explosive fireball after suffering an "anomaly" off the California coast during its first attempt at reaching Earth's orbit.

Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket was "terminated" over the Pacific Ocean shortly after its 6:59 p.m. Thursday liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base, according to a base statement. Video from the San Luis Obispo Tribune showed the explosion.

Firefly said an "anomaly" occurred during the first-stage ascent that "resulted in the loss of the vehicle" about two minutes, 30 seconds into the flight. Vandenberg said a team of investigators will try to determine what caused the failure.

The rocket was carrying a payload called DREAM, or the Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission. It consisted of items from schools and other institutions, including small satellites and several demonstration spacecraft.

"While we did not meet all of our mission objectives, we did achieve a number of them: successful first stage ignition, liftoff of the pad, progression to supersonic speed, and we obtained a substantial amount of flight data," Firefly said in a statement. The information will be applied to future missions.

[...] Standing 95 feet (26 meters) high, the two-stage Alpha is designed to carry up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of payload into low orbit. The company wants to be capable of launching Alphas twice a month. Launches would have a starting price of $15 million, according to Firefly.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Making Methane from CO2: Carbon Capture Grows More Affordable:

RICHLAND, Wash.—In their ongoing effort to make carbon capture more affordable, researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a method to convert captured carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane, the primary component of natural gas.

By streamlining a longstanding process in which CO2 is converted to methane, the researchers' new method reduces the materials needed to run the reaction, the energy needed to fuel it and, ultimately, the selling price of the gas.

A key chemical player known as EEMPA makes the process possible. EEMPA is a PNNL-developed solvent that snatches CO2 from power plant flue gas, binding the greenhouse gas so it can be converted into useful chemicals.

Earlier this year, PNNL researchers revealed that using EEMPA in power plants could slash the price of carbon capture to 19 percent lower than standard industry costs—the lowest documented price of carbon capture. Now, in a study published Friday, August 21 in the journal ChemSusChem, the team reveals a new incentive—in cheaper natural gas—to further drive down costs.

When compared to the conventional method of methane conversion, the new process requires an initial investment that costs 32 percent less. Operation and maintenance costs are 35 percent cheaper, bringing the selling price of synthetic natural gas down by 12 percent.

Beryllium Sphere (r) writes:

We already had safety data from samples of tens of thousands in the Phase 3 trials. What's new here is the size, and one of the increased risks is one I had not heard of before.

Israel somehow found a control group of more than 884,000 unvaccinated people. They matched them to a comparable sample of vaccinated people the same size, and asked the right question, which is does a bad thing happen more often for vaccinated people or is it just what you'd expect statistically?

"Vaccination was most strongly associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis (risk ratio, 3.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55 to 12.44; risk difference, 2.7 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 1.0 to 4.6), lymphadenopathy (risk ratio, 2.43; 95% CI, 2.05 to 2.78; risk difference, 78.4 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 64.1 to 89.3), appendicitis (risk ratio, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.02 to 2.01; risk difference, 5.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 0.3 to 9.9), and herpes zoster infection (risk ratio, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.20 to 1.73; risk difference, 15.8 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 8.2 to 24.2)."

Those are the risk ratios. With herpes zoster flareups happening at a 160 per million rate, maybe 'per million' isn't the best way to think about it and we could call it 0.16 per thousand. That's the one I hadn't known about.

The word "neuropathy" doesn't appear when I search the paper, so maybe they've ruled it out as an effect. I know this is a real issue for someone in our Soylent community. But if they didn't include people with existing neuropathy, it sheds no light.

They also include data on the side effects of a COVID infection. Eep. To avoid that I'll raise my chance of appendicitis 40%.

Journal Reference:
Noam Barda, Noa Dagan, Yatir Ben-Shlomo, et al. Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting [open], New England Journal of Medicine (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2110475)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From tom's HARDWARE: Apple Exploring RISC-V, Hiring RISC-V 'High Performance' Programmers

Apple is in the process of switching its PCs to Arm-based SoCs, but the company might not be putting all its eggs into one basket, as it is also exploring the emerging open-source RISC-V architecture. This week the company posted a job alert for RISC-V high-performance programmer(s).

Apple is currently looking for experienced programmers with detailed knowledge of the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and Arm's Neon vector ISA for its Vector and Numerics Group (VaNG) within its Core Operating Systems group. Apple's VaNG is responsible for developing and improving various embedded subsystems running on iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

Known for its secrecy, Apple's listing doesn't disclose exactly what it plans to do with RISC-V, but the job description indicates that the programmer will have to work with machine learning, computational vision, and natural language processing. Among other things, low-level high-performance programming experience is required. Furthermore, the job description also indicates that Apple is already working with RISC-V.

"You will work in a SW and HW cross functional team which is implementing innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines," the description reads [emphasis added]. "This is to support the necessary computation for such things as machine learning, vision algorithms, signal and video processing. [....]

Does RISC-V offer Apple any technical flexibility that their ARM license does not?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A brief overview of IBM's new 7 nm Telum mainframe CPU:

From the perspective of a traditional x86 computing enthusiast—or professional—mainframes are strange, archaic beasts. They're physically enormous, power-hungry, and expensive by comparison to more traditional data-center gear, generally offering less compute per rack at a higher cost.

This raises the question, "Why keep using mainframes, then?" Once you hand-wave the cynical answers that boil down to "because that's how we've always done it," the practical answers largely come down to reliability and consistency. As AnandTech's Ian Cutress points out in a speculative piece focused on the Telum's redesigned cache, "downtime of these [IBM Z] systems is measured in milliseconds per year." (If true, that's at least seven nines.)

IBM's own announcement of the Telum hints at just how different mainframe and commodity computing's priorities are. It casually describes Telum's memory interface as "capable of tolerating complete channel or DIMM failures, and designed to transparently recover data without impact to response time."

When you pull a DIMM from a live, running x86 server, that server does not "transparently recover data"—it simply crashes.

Telum is designed to be something of a one-chip-to-rule-them-all for mainframes, replacing a much more heterogeneous setup in earlier IBM mainframes.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Internet shutdowns by governments have 'proliferated at a truly alarming pace':

The number of government-led internet shutdowns has exploded over the last decade as states seek to stifle dissent and protest by limiting citizens' access to the web.

Nearly 850 intentional shutdowns have been recorded over the past 10 years by nonprofit Access Now's Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP), and although the group acknowledges that data on incidents before 2016 is "patchy," some 768 of these shutdowns took place in the last five years. There were 213 shutdowns in 2019 alone, with this figure ticking down to 155 in 2020 as the world adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic (which delayed elections and led to lockdowns that kept populations at home more often). And already in the first five months of 2021 there have been 50 shutdowns across 21 countries.

"Since we began tracking government-initiated internet shutdowns, their use has proliferated at a truly alarming pace," Access Now's Felicia Anthonio, campaigner and #KeepItOn lead, said in a new report on the issue in The Current, a publication of Google's internet thinktank Jigsaw. "As governments across the globe learn this authoritarian tactic from each other, it has moved from the fringes to become a common method many authorities use to stifle opposition, quash free speech and muzzle expression."

Original Submission