Archive for May, 2019
3D-Printed Guns Are Unstoppable
May 24th, 2019Via: Wired: A new network of 3D-printed gun advocates is growing in America – and this time things are different. Unlike previous attempts to popularise 3D-printed guns, this operation is entirely decentralised. There’s no headquarters, no trademarks, and no real leader. The people behind it reckon that this means they can’t be stopped by governments. […]
Facebook Now Censoring Diet Information
May 24th, 2019Via: CrossFit: CrossFit is a contrarian physiological and nutrition prescription for improving fitness and health. It is contrarian because prevailing views of fitness, health, and nutrition are wrong and have unleashed a tsunami of chronic disease upon our friends, family, and communities. The voluntary CrossFit community of 15,000 affiliates and millions of individual adherents stands […]
Merck Created Hit List to “Destroy,” “Neutralize” or “Discredit” Dissenting Doctors
May 24th, 2019Via: CBS: Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who criticized Vioxx, according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia. The list, emailed between Merck employees, contained doctors’ names with the labels “neutralise,” “neutralised” or “discredit” next to them.
23% of Americans Are Going Into Debt Trying to Pay for Food, Rent, Utilities
May 24th, 2019Via: CNBC: American have an average of $6,506 in credit card debt, according to a new Experian report out this week. But which expenses are adding to that balance the most? A full 23% of Americans say that paying for basic necessities such as rent, utilities and food contributes the most to their credit card […]
SpaceX Deploys 60 Starlink Satellites
May 24th, 2019Via: Reuters: SpaceX, the private rocket company of high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, launched the first batch of 60 small satellites into low-Earth orbit on Thursday for Musk’s new Starlink internet service. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellites blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at about 10:30 p.m. local time (0230 GMT Friday), […]
Robots Conduct Daily Health Inspections of Schoolchildren in China
May 23rd, 2019Wow! Via: New Scientist: Please stand in front of Walklake for your examination. This health checking robot takes just 3 seconds to diagnose a variety of ailments in children, including conjunctivitis, and hand, foot and mouth disease. Over 2000 preschools in China, with children aged between 2 and 6, are using Walklake every morning to […]
Dome Covering Nuclear Waste in Marshall Islands Is Beginning to Crack
May 23rd, 2019Via: Independent: Beginning in 1977, 4,000 US servicemen began collecting an estimated 73,000 cubic meters of tainted surface soil across the islands, according to the Marshall Islands’ government. The material was then transported to Runit Island, where a 328-foot crater remained from a May 1958 test explosion. For three years, the American military dumped the […]
U.S. Charges WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange with Espionage
May 23rd, 2019Via: Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department unveiled 17 new criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, saying he unlawfully published the names of classified sources and conspired with and assisted ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in obtaining access to classified information. The superseding indictment comes a little more than a month after the […]
Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions
May 23rd, 2019This strikes an interesting balance. It’s right on the line between cringe inducing and hilarious. Via: Bloomberg: Amazon.com Inc. is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions. The wrist-worn gadget is described as a health and wellness product in internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. It’s a collaboration between Lab126, the hardware development […]
Ford’s Vision for Package Delivery Is a Robot that Folds Up Into the Back a Self-Driving Car
May 23rd, 2019Ford conveniently doesn’t show you the robot retrieving the package from the vehicle. As a former FedEx driver who worked with delivery trucks piled top to bottom with packages for years, I chortle deeply and satisfyingly at this one. Assume that the self driving issue is somehow sorted out, which isn’t going to happen anytime […]
