“Businesses are waking up to the skills gamers can bring to the workplace,” argues the BBC, adding that “Even the military is hiring gamers.” “The ability to assimilate information, react swiftly and co-ordinate actions whilst remaining calm under pressure are often attributes of people that are good at gaming,” a Royal Air Force spokesperson tells the BBC. Those skills are part…
Tag: big
Giant virus has evolved its own kind of CRISPR to destroy invaders
The massive mimivirus is so big it has its own kind of CRISPR-like immune system to defend against the tiny viruses that attack it Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2214663-giant-virus-has-evolved-its-own-kind-of-crispr-to-destroy-invaders/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
EFF Warns: ‘Don’t Play in Google’s Privacy Sandbox’
An EFF analysis looks at the problems with some of Google’s new “Privacy Sandbox” proposals, a few of which it calls “downright dangerous”: Perhaps the most fleshed-out proposal in the Sandbox is the conversion measurement API. This is trying to tackle a problem as old as online ads: how can you know whether the people clicking on an ad ultimately buy…
The Big Levandowski: Could an Uber Engineer’s Indictment Discourage Workers From Changing Jobs?
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: For nearly 20 years,” writes WIRED’s Alex Davies in How Anthony Levandowski Put Himself at the Center of an Industry, “the French-American Levandowski has played a kind of purposeful Forrest Gump for the world of autonomous driving. Rather than stumbling into the center of one momentous event after another, Levandowski has put himself there. And he…
Scientists Excited By Discovery of an Impossibly Large Black Hole
In 2017 several scientists co-signed a wager at the Aspen Center for Physics that a black hole wouldn’t be discovered between 55 and 130 solar masses. They may have lost, reports the Atlantic:
Black-hole physicists have been excitedly discussing reports that the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors recently picked up the signal of an unexpectedly enormous black hole, one with a mass…
Intermittent Fasting May Be As Beneficial As Counting Calories
“A type of intermittent fasting that calls for eating nothing one day, and then whatever a person wants the next, can be done safely for several months and comes with a number of health benefits, a study has found.” An anonymous reader quotes Today.com: Alternate day fasting improved cardiovascular markers, reducing blood pressure and heart rate after four weeks, researchers reported…
How Big Is the Universe?
Ever wanted to time travel? Just look out at the night sky. Source: https://www.livescience.com/how-big-universe.html
CRISPR Now Cuts and Splices Whole Chromosomes
Researchers report they’ve adapted CRISPR and combined it with other tools to cut and splice large genome fragments with ease. The study, conducted by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K., has been published in this week’s issue of Science. Science Magazine reports: The tried and true tools of genetic engineering simply can’t handle…
Google to Pay More Than $150 Million in YouTube Privacy Case
YouTube has agreed to pay more than $150 million to resolve U.S. allegations that it violated children’s privacy laws. Bloomberg reports: The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission resolves a probe into whether the video service broke a law that makes it illegal to collect information on children under 13 and disclose it to others without parental permission. A group of…
Uber CEO Sees Path To Profitability Despite Bumps in the Road
CEO of Uber, which posted a record $5.2 billion quarterly loss earlier this month, believes the company is on track to reach profitability. In an interview with Bloomberg Thursday [video], Dara Khosrowshahi said the company has “resolved all of the governance conflicts and legal issues.” He said: We have a great investor base, we have taken the company public, and the…