Radiation From Smartphones May Impair Memory In Teens
February 18th, 2019Via: StudyFinds:
Don’t want your child to have a cellphone? One recent study gives you good reason to make kids wait as long as possible for their first mobile device: it appears that radiation from phones can hurt a teenager’s memory.
A research team at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute says that radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) may negatively affect an adolescent’s brain from cellphone exposure, causing potentially harmful effects on his or her memory performance. The authors say having the device close to one’s head lead to the greatest amount of radiation exposure.
The researchers studied nearly 700 public school students in Switzerland between ages 12 and 17. They examined how RF-EMF exposure from mobile phones over a year’s time affected memory in the adolescents, and found that memory processed and stored in the right brain hemisphere was particularly worsened. It’s believed that participants primarily held the phone up to the right side of their heads when talking, which likely led to the right hemisphere impairment.
“This may suggest that indeed RF-EMF absorbed by the brain is responsible for the observed associations.” says Martin Röösli, Head of Environmental Exposures and Health at Swiss TPH, in a statement. “A unique feature of this study is the use of objectively collected mobile phone user data from mobile phone operators.”
But Röösli couldn’t rule out that puberty and other external factors may also have played a role in memory development among the children. Further research is needed to rule out such factors, as well as to determine what, if any, long-term risks come with radiation exposure from phones.
The authors note that handheld smartphone usage, such as browsing the web, texting, or playing games led to notably less exposure to the radiation and was not believed to impair the participants’ memory.
Life Imitates Akira: The NSA’s Fear of Psychic Nukes
February 18th, 2019Via: Muckrock:
Agency wondered if ten psychics could cause a chain reaction that would cause a city to become lost in time and space.
The New Totalitarianism
February 17th, 2019Via: Richard Dolan:
China Tracking Physical Locations of 2.5 Million People in Western Region of Country
February 17th, 2019Via: South China Morning Post:
A Chinese surveillance firm is tracking the movements of more than 2.5 million people in the far-western Xinjiang region, according to a data leak flagged by a Dutch internet expert.
An online database containing names, ID card numbers, birth dates and location data was left unprotected for months by Shenzhen-based facial-recognition technology firm SenseNets Technology, according to Victor Gevers, co-founder of non-profit organisation GDI.Foundation, who first noted the vulnerability in a series of social media posts last week.
Exposed data also showed about 6.7 million location data points linked to the people which were gathered within 24 hours, tagged with descriptions such as “mosque”, “hotel”, “internet cafe” and other places where surveillance cameras were likely to be found.
“It was fully open and anyone without authentication had full administrative rights. You could go in the database and create, read, update and delete anything,” Gevers said.
Most Americans Don’t Realize What Companies Can Predict from Their Data
February 16th, 2019Via: The Conversation:
For example, data about a mobile phone’s past location and movement patterns can be used to predict where a person lives, who their employer is, where they attend religious services and the age range of their children based on where they drop them off for school.
These predictions label who you are as a person and guess what you’re likely to do in the future.
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Data brokers are companies that are in the business of buying and selling datasets from a wide range of sources, including location data from many mobile phone carriers. Data brokers combine data to create detailed profiles of individual people, which they sell to other companies.
Combined datasets like this can be used to predict what you’ll want to buy in order to target ads. For example, a company that has purchased data about you can do things like connect your social media accounts and web browsing history with the route you take when you’re running errands and your purchase history at your local grocery store.
Shell Buys Sonnen, Tesla’s Competitor in the Home Battery Business
February 16th, 2019Via: Ars Technica:
On Friday, oil major Royal Dutch Shell and German energy storage company Sonnen announced that Shell would acquire Sonnen for an undisclosed amount.
Sonnen has been one of the top competitors with Tesla’s Powerwall in the US home battery market. The company built its base in Germany, attaching batteries for self-consumption to homes with solar panels. Sonnen now claims 40,000 batteries installed in households in Germany, the US, and Australia.
The company’s assets include proprietary software that optimizes a home’s battery use in combination with solar power.
Dr Stephanie Seneff Presents Roundup, MMR and Autism A Toxic Connection
February 16th, 2019Via: Donald Hutton:
Trump Declares U.S.-Mexico Emergency for Border Wall
February 15th, 2019Via: Reuters:
President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The Republican president’s move to circumvent Congress represented an escalation in his efforts to make good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge to build a wall to halt the flow into the country of illegal immigrants, whom Trump says bring crime and drugs.
Facebook May Remove Anti-Vaccine Recommendations
February 15th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Facebook Inc., under pressure to reduce harmful, misleading and fake content, said it is exploring removing anti-vaccine information from software systems that recommend other things to read on its social network.
Information discouraging people from getting vaccines for their children, which has gone viral on Facebook, especially in its Groups product, may have contributed to an increase in outbreaks of measles. The crisis drew attention on Thursday from Representative Adam Schiff, who sent a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai, asking them to address the problem.
In response, Facebook said it is “exploring additional measures to best combat the problem,” according to a statement from the company. That might include “reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including Groups You Should Join, and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available.”
Survey: 53 Percent of Californians Want to Leave the State
February 15th, 2019Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
Dreaming of greener (read: cheaper) pastures? You’re not alone.
According to a new survey by Edelman Intelligence, 53 percent of Californians are considering moving out of state due to the high cost of living. Millennials are even more likely to flee the Golden State — 63 percent of them said they want to.
