Fast Company just published a 4,000 appreciation of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors:
[W]hile places like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter struggle to fend off a barrage of false content, with their scattershot mix of policies, fact-checkers, and algorithms, one of the web’s most robust weapons against misinformation is an archaic-looking website written by anyone with an internet connection, and moderated by a largely anonymous…
Tag: toxic
Some Clever Farmers are Harvesting Metals From Plants
The New York Times reports: Some of Earth’s plants have fallen in love with metal. With roots that act practically like magnets, these organisms — about 700 are known — flourish in metal-rich soils that make hundreds of thousands of other plant species flee or die…. The plants not only collect the soil’s minerals into their bodies but seem to hoard…
Himalayan glacier shows evidence of start of Industrial Revolution
Human beings altered one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas hundreds of years before a person ever set foot there, new research has found. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/himalayan-glacier-evidence-start-industrial-revolution…
A New Implant For Blind People Jacks Directly Into the Brain
Researchers have successfully bypassed the eyes with a brain implant that allows rudimentary vision. MIT Technology Review reports: “Alli,” says Bernardeta Gomez in her native Spanish, pointing to a large black line running across a white sheet of cardboard propped at arm’s length in front of her. “There.” It isn’t exactly an impressive feat for a 57-year-old woman — except that…
China’s Battle With the Wuhan Coronavirus is Shackled by a Toxic Relationship With Information
An anonymous reader shares a report: People are panicking. When a new disease is discovered, it’s undeniably hard to identify and inform the public about it quickly. Yet China is making the problem harder to solve, even though it should have learned from the SARS outbreak in 2003, when the government admitted to underreporting cases in the initial stages. Nearly 800…
Why This Time The New Browser Wars Are Different
The Verge argues that the browser wars “are back, but it’s different this time.” The mobile web is broken and unfettered tracking and data sharing have made visiting websites feel toxic, but since the ecosystem of websites and ad companies can’t fix it through collective action, it falls on browser makers to use technological innovations to limit that surveillance, however each…
Scientists made a bow tie-shaped molecule and it changes colour
A molecule shaped like a bow tie changes colour in the presence of toxic chemicals, which could make it useful for monitoring air Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2230388-scientists-made-a-bow-tie-shaped-molecule-and-it-changes-colour/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Palau is First Country To Ban ‘Reef Toxic’ Sun Cream
The Pacific nation of Palau has become the first country to ban sun cream that is harmful to corals and sea life. From a report: From Wednesday, sun cream that includes common ingredients, including oxybenzone, is not allowed to be worn or sold in the country. Palau’s President Tommy Remengesau said: “We have to live and respect the environment because the…
How Cruise Ships Bring 1,200 Tons of Toxic Fumes To Brooklyn a Year
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to introduce [a $21 million plug-in station] in Red Hook several years ago in an effort to eliminate 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide, 25 tons of nitrous oxide and tons of hazardous particulate matter spewed…
Smelly, poisonous molecule may be a sure-fire sign of extraterrestrial life
Phosphine is among the stinkiest, most toxic gases on Earth, found in some of the foulest of places, including penguin dung heaps, the depths of swamps and bogs, and even in the bowels of some badgers and fish. This putrid “swamp gas” is also highly flammable and reactive with particles in our atmosphere. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-12-smelly-poisonous-molecule-sure-fire-extraterrestrial.html…