Goodbye Academia
March 4th, 2014Via: Yes, Another Science Blog:
As a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, I am not even back to earning what I did ten years ago as a junior programmer with no skills or domain-specific knowledge. In a commercial setting, my compensation would have kept pace with my knowledge and skills, but in academia, there seems to be a complete decoupling of the two.
Rapid Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Job Losses
March 4th, 2014Via: Financial Times:
The impact of IT and automation on the world of work – and dire warnings about the job destruction they might cause – are as old as the technology itself. But the convergence of a number of tech trends has made the threat more immediate.
As a result, 47 per cent of jobs in the US are now at risk from computerisation, according to a prediction last year from Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne from Oxford university. McKinsey, the management consultancy, has estimated that by 2025, productivity gains in fields of “knowledge work”, ranging from clerical to professional services, could account for 40 per cent of all the current jobs in those areas.
Sleep Problems Plague Device-Dependent Children
March 4th, 2014Via: The Fiscal Times:
Parents reported that nearly 75 percent of children ages 6 to 17 have at least one electronic device in their bedroom, with many using those devices right before bedtime.
“To ensure a better night’s sleep for their children, parents may want to limit their [children’s use of] technology in the bedroom near or during bedtime,” said Orfeu Buxton, PhD, Harvard Medical School and a member of the poll’s task force, in a statement.
“We found that when parents take action to protect their children’s sleep, their children sleep better,” added Kristen L. Knutson, PhD, of the University of Chicago.
Headband Could Help Brain Communicate with Computers
March 4th, 2014Via: Boston Globe:
Computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini are working on a headband to read brain activity, enabling a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp.
In a tower full of air traffic controllers wearing headbands, the computer could automatically shift flight assignments, depending on which controllers show higher levels of mental acuity.
The possibilities for the brain scanner are not limited to air travel. The researchers and their students also have used the device to generate movie recommendations for wearers, based on how their brains respond to other films. In another experiment, pianists practiced on an electronic keyboard while wearing the headband. As their brain signals indicated mastery of a melody, a computer added complexity to the songs by playing harmonies.
For now, the headband prototype is a bit clunky; it connects to a desktop computer through two fat cables.
Eventually, Jacob and Fantini envision integrating the brain scanner with a wearable computer, such as Google Glass. They see the technology as part of a future in which humans communicate with computers through thoughts instead of mouse clicks.
RUSSIA DEMANDS SURRENDER OF UKRAINE’S CRIMEA FORCES
March 3rd, 2014Update: Moscow Denies Ultimatum
Via: euronews:
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Russia’s western partners on Monday to put aside geopolitical calculations and think about the Ukrainian people. “We call for a responsible approach, to put aside geopolitical calculations, and above all to put the interests of the Ukrainian people first,” he said in Geneva on a live feed broadcast to Moscow. He said all sides should stand by a Feb. 21 agreement, which agreed on undertaking constitutional reforms. Moscow has denied this afternoon previous information on an alleged Black Fleet ultimatum to ukrainian forces to “surrender or face military action” up to 4h00AM CET.
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Via: BBC:
The Russian military has given Ukrainian forces in Crimea until 03:00 GMT to surrender or face an assault, Ukrainian defence sources have said.
The head of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Aleksander Vitko set the deadline and threatened an attack “across Crimea”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier said Russia was responding to “ultra-nationalist threats”.
Western powers have condemned Moscow’s decision to send troops as a “violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty”.
Russia is now said to be in de facto control of the Crimea region.
Ukraine has ordered full mobilisation to counter the intervention.
The Derelict Mansions on Britain’s Billionaires’ Row
March 2nd, 2014Via: CNN:
A third of the houses on Britain’s second most expensive street are lying vacant, many abandoned for decades and left to rot.
Behind the padlocked gates and long driveways, up to 20 mansions stand empty on London’s The Bishops Avenue, despite a reported combined value of around £350 million ($582 million).
Dubbed “Billionaires’ Row,” the road’s average house costs over £6 million ($9.98 million), but many have been deserted by their wealthy owners.
Despite their dilapidated condition, the houses remain a safe place for wealthy foreigners to park their money because of London’s rocketing property prices, which rose 11% last year, and because of the road’s reputation as a magnet for the rich and famous.
Research Credit: ottilie
Mayor of London: The State Should Abduct Children of Thought Criminals
March 2nd, 2014Via: BBC:
Muslim children who risk radicalisation by their parents should be taken into care, Boris Johnson has said.
Writing in his weekly Daily Telegraph column, the London mayor said such children were victims of child abuse.
Mr Johnson said they should be removed from their families to stop them being turned into “potential killers or suicide bombers”.
A “fatal squeamishness” had developed over intervening in the behaviour of certain groups in society, he added.
But he said there was a need to be “stronger and clearer in asserting our understanding of British values”.
He warned that some young people were being “taught crazy stuff” similar to the views expressed by the two men who killed Fusilier Lee Rigby on a south-east London street.
Dismantling Fukushima Will Require Robotic Technology That Has Not Been Invented Yet
March 2nd, 2014Via: IEEE:
“At Fukushima you have wrecked infrastructure, three melted cores, and you have some core on the floor, ex-vessel,” Barrett says. Nothing like Fukushima, he declares, has ever happened before.
Britain: Perovskite Solar Panels
March 2nd, 2014Via: Guardian:
Materials researchers in Oxford, led by Dr Henry Snaith, have recently shown that they can make simple perovskite solar cells with efficiencies pushing 20%. This is big news, because 20% makes them competitive with existing commercial silicon solar cells while being much cheaper to make in high volumes. They are also more suitable for incorporating into roofing materials and glass panels than silicon and so have the clear potential of being as fundamental to our city architecture as steel, concrete and asphalt. In other words, they could well be the materials that will make it possible to collect the 1% of solar energy we need as a nation, at a cost that can compete with fossil fuels.
China Vows ‘Iron Fist’ Response to Deadly Train Station Attack
March 2nd, 2014Via: Christian Science Monitor:
For more than a year, the Chinese media have published regular reports of deadly violent incidents in the predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang, in China’s far west.
More than 100 people died last year in clashes between the police and ethnic Uighurs identified by the government as terrorists seeking independence from Beijing.
Saturday night’s attack in the southwestern city of Kunming, however, which officials attributed to Xinjiang separatists, appears to have been of an entirely different order.
The assault by more than a dozen knife-wielding men and women who killed 29 people at the train station waiting to buy train tickets, and wounded 140 more, was the most violent episode ever involving Uighurs outside Xinjiang. It illustrates that despite heightened police surveillance of suspected Xinjiang terrorists, there is little the authorities can do to prevent attacks by determined opponents, as they cannot maintain the level of security across the country that they seek to impose in Xinjiang.
