Air quality could reach dangerous levels across a wide chunk of the continental U.S. and Caribbean this weekend as a rare, giant Saharan dust storm reaches the U.S. Source: https://www.livescience.com/saharan-dust-cloud-is-here.html
Tag: Dangerous
Boston Votes To Ban Government Use of Facial Recognition
Boston is now the largest city on the East Coast to ban facial recognition technology for municipal use. They join cities like San Francisco, Oakland, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. CNET reports: The ordinance passed unanimously and will prevent the capital city from using facial recognition technology or obtaining software for conducting surveillance using the technology. “Boston should not be using racially…
What is a derecho? An atmospheric scientist explains these rare but dangerous storm systems
The derecho in the U.S. East on June 3, 2020, killed 4 people and left a million without power. A Colorado derecho on June 6 had winds in excess of 100 mph. Europe, Asia and South America also have derechos. Here’s what scientists know about them. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-a-derecho-storm-system…
Future space travelers may follow cosmic lighthouses
For centuries, lighthouses helped sailors navigate safely into harbor. Their lights swept across the water, cutting through fog and darkness, guiding mariners around dangerous obstacles and keeping them on the right path. In the future, space explorers may receive similar guidance from the steady signals created by pulsars. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-future-space-cosmic-lighthouses.html…
The US Government Is Now Stuck with 63 Million Doses of Hydroxychloroquine
The World Health Organization has now halted research on whether hydroxychloroquine could be an effective treatment for COVID-19, reports NBC News, after multiple studies showed the drug “has no impact on the coronavirus.” But now that America’s Food and Drug Administration has revoked permission for using it to treat coronavirus patients, CNN reports that the U.S. government “is stuck with 63…
Facebook Takes Down Trump Ads Featuring Symbol Used By Nazis To Mark Political Prisoners
Facebook on Thursday took down Trump campaign ads against antifa that prominently featured a symbol used by Nazis to designate political prisoners, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to The Hill. From the report: “We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate,” Facebook said in a statement. “Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol…
The Pandemic Claims New Victims: Prestigious Medical Journals
One study promised that popular blood-pressure drugs were safe for people infected with the coronavirus. Another paper warned that anti-malaria drugs endorsed by President Trump actually were dangerous to these patients. The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, were retracted shortly after publication, following an outcry from researchers who saw obvious flaws. From a report:…
Interview with the Science Writer Who Predicted the Pandemic 8 Years Ago
In 1945, after atomic bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several former Manhattan Project scientists founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Publishing continuously since 1945, its current deputy editor, science writer DanDrollette, is also a Slashdot reader, and shared one of the nonprofit magazine’s thought-provoking new interviews:
In 2012, author David Quammen wrote a book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next…
Some States Have Embraced Online Voting. It’s a Huge Risk.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: On Sunday, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan revealed numerous security flaws in the product that West Virginia and Delaware are using, saying it “represents a severe risk to election security and could allow attackers to alter election results without detection.” In fact, it may be a…
There might not be as many microplastic fibres in oceans as we feared
Most of the microfibres polluting oceans aren’t plastic but cotton and wool, a study suggests, but these natural fibres could still be dangerous to sea life Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245110-there-might-not-be-as-many-microplastic-fibres-in-oceans-as-we-feared/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…