NHS England is facing growing criticism from public health leaders over its failure to publish data on the ethnicity of people who have been vaccinated against covid-19 Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2266017-nhs-england-criticised-over-missing-ethnicity-data-for-covid-19-jabs/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: failure
Famous alien-hunting telescope collapsed in December. Now, investigators might know why.
An ongoing investigation of the December collapse of the iconic radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico offers early evidence a manufacturing issue may have contributed to the failure. Source: https://www.livescience.com/arecibo-telescope-debris-clearing-possible-cause-update.html
Are Experts Underselling the Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines?
David Leonhardt won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2011. This week in a New York Times newsletter, he argues that early in the pandemic experts around the world mistakenly discouraged mask use because of “a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses. The experts were also [at the time] unsure…
NASA “mole’s” attempts to dig into Mars failed. What’s next?
The mission team for NASA’s InSight lander called off its attempts to try to dig deeper into Mars with the heat probe known as “the mole.” Meanwhile, the rest of the mission gained an extension to December 2022. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-calls-halt-to-attempts-by-insight-mole-to-dig-into-mars…
‘Major Component Malfunction’ Ends SLS Rocket Test Early. NASA Considers New Timeline
“NASA’s rocket charged with taking the agency back to the moon fired its four main engines Saturday afternoon, but the test in Mississippi was cut short after a malfunction caused an automatic abort,” reports Florida Today… “We did get an MCF on engine four,” a control room member said less than a minute into the test fire, using an initialism that…
US President-Elect Biden Starts New Twitter Account, Criticizes Policy on POTUS Account
“This will be the account for my official duties as President,” tweeted U.S. president-elect Joe Biden on Thursday — but from a new account at @PresElectBiden (which will transition to @POTUS after Wednesday’s inauguration). But Bloomberg reports Biden is still “clashing with the social media company over its decision to deny the incoming administration millions of existing White House followers.” Biden’s…
Theranos Destroyed Crucial Subpoenaed SQL Blood Test Database, Can’t Unlock Backups
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Failed blood-testing unicorn Theranos trashed vital incriminating evidence of its fraud, prosecutors said on Monday. The imploded startup’s extensive testing data over three years, including its accuracy and failure rate, was “stored on a specially-developed SQL database called the Laboratory Information System (LIS),” according to a filing [PDF] in the fraud case…
Court Rules Deliveroo Used ‘Discriminatory’ Algorithm
An algorithm used by the popular European food delivery app Deliveroo to rank and offer shifts to riders is discriminatory, an Italian court ruled late last week, in what some experts are calling a historic decision for the gig economy. The case was brought by a group of Deliveroo riders backed by CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union. From a report: A…
Is the US Government’s Cybersecurity Agency Up to the Job?
CNN reports that some critics are now questioning whether America’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is equipped to protect the integrity of government systems from adversaries: Some of the nearly half-dozen government agencies affected by the hack have recently reached out to CISA for help with addressing the known vulnerabilities that were exploited in the attack but were told the…
Are Tech Companies Censoring Their Users For Access to China’s Market?
This week MSNBC published an opinion piece from a researcher on China (who works on internet censorship and freedom of expression issues) from the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. It examines specific exchanges between a China-based Zoom executive and employees at the company’s California headquarters (taken from the 47-page complaint filed by America’s Justice Department) showing how Zoom disrupted video meetings…