Welcome to the latest installment of edX Insider, where we take you behind the scenes at edX HQ. Today we chat with Farhanah, Engineering Manager, Sustaining & Escalations, about the things that make edX unique, what inspired her to pursue an engineering career, the best course she’s ever taken, and more. Quick stats Name: Farhanah Sheets Department/role: Engineering Manager, Sustaining &…
Tag: school
Light-sensing system could show distant galaxies in unprecedented detail
Researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have developed an ultra-sensitive light-detecting system that could enable astronomers to view galaxies, stars and planetary systems in superb detail. …
Can Google Ads Change Your Beliefs?
The New York Times ran a disturbing opinion piece about Google by the founder of search engine marketing consulting firm Berlin SEM. In it he discusses counter-messaging ads offering “redirection”, where marketers “swerve your monetizable desperation. But we can also swerve something bigger: your beliefs, convictions and ideology.” There are advertisers in the digital marketing industry who want to find out…
Hong Kong Protests ‘Show The Dangers of a Cashless Society’
“Allowing cash to die would be a grave mistake. A cashless society is a surveillance society,” writes Reason, adding that “The recent round of protests in Hong Kong highlights exactly what we have to lose…” schwit1 shared their report: [T]ens of thousands of Hongkongers took to the streets to protest what they saw as creeping tyranny from a powerful threat. But…
44 US States Still Allow ‘Religious Exemptions’ For Vaccines
An anonymous reader quotes the Pew Research Center: New York recently became the fifth state — after California, Maine, Mississippi and West Virginia — to enact a law requiring children in public school to be vaccinated unless they have a valid medical reason. Legislatures in several other states are considering similar legislation. Most states (44), however, allow children to be exempt…
Performance-Enhancing Bacteria Has a Symbiotic Relationship With Athletes
Long-time Slashdot reader tomhath shares some big bacteria news from Harvard Medical School:
Researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center determined Veillonella metabolizes lactic acid produced by exercise and converts it into propionate, a short chain fatty acid. The human body then utilizes that propionate to improve exercise capacity… “It creates this positive feedback loop. The host is producing something that this particular microbe…
This Horrifying App Undresses a Photo of Any Woman With a Single Click
The $50 DeepNude app dispenses with the idea that deepfakes were about anything besides claiming ownership over women’s bodies.Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzm59x/deepnude-app-creates-fake-nudes-of-any-woman…
How To Evaluate Computers That Don’t Quite Exist
sciencehabit writes: To gauge the performance of a supercomputer, computer scientists turn to a standard tool: a set of algorithms called LINPACK that tests how fast the machine solves problems with huge numbers of variables. For quantum computers, which might one day solve certain problems that overwhelm conventional computers, no such benchmarking standard exists. One reason is that the computers, which…
Blind children in Chile get solar eclipse experience
A group of children at a Chilean school for the blind used sound and braille Tuesday to experience conditions that resemble a total solar eclipse. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-06-children-chile-solar-eclipse.html…
Two-Thirds of American Employees Regret Their College Degrees
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: A college education is still considered a pathway to higher lifetime earnings and gainful employment for Americans. Nevertheless, two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their advanced degrees, according to a PayScale survey of 248,000 respondents this past spring that was released Tuesday. Student loan debt, which has ballooned…