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Runaway Technology: What To Do?

Runaway Technology: What To Do?

Apr 30 2025 | comment(s)

Image credit: Depositphotos

In 2025 it’s hard to argue that social media are not to blame for much antisocial and suicidal behavior among preteens and teens (e.g., Orben and Matias 2025). The harms of online bullying, deepfake nudes, and fringe conspiracies, all present on social media, were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, years in which young people were buried in their screens.

Cover Plants Can Remove Toxic Pesticides Like Copper Sulfate From Soil

Cover Plants Can Remove Toxic Pesticides Like Copper Sulfate From Soil

Apr 30 2025 | comment(s)

For farmers, land is their most valuable asset so they protect it in ways environmentalists do not understand. By using science whenever possible, to reduce water, energy, and environmental strain.

Even organic farmers use toxic pesticides but because they are older and less effective they must use a lot more. A new literature review posits that organic farmers, and conventional as well, can reduce effects on soil using cover plants. Most farmers grow cover plants, animal feed or just plants to lay there and decompose, between main crops to supply the soil with nutrients before the next planting. They also protect against erosion and may increase biodiversity above and below ground. 
Fortified By Silk: Nutrients And Pesticides Get A New Targeted Approach

Fortified By Silk: Nutrients And Pesticides Get A New Targeted Approach

Apr 29 2025 | comment(s)

Greenpeace is in a longstanding campaign to oppose a public domain Golden Rice created by scientists so that it can be grown to create more Vitamin A and prevent blindness in children of poor countries.

It is part of their long history of promoting claims farming is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. The reality is that farmers simply want ways to safely and affordably improve yields. Science is the best way to create that and corporations are the best way to make it scale. No conspiracy needed.
Safe Water May Be Killing You

Safe Water May Be Killing You

Apr 28 2025 | comment(s)

The drinking water treatment process is designed to remove harmful pathogens that are prevalent in nature, but a new study suggests that it may be harmful also.

Scientists know that inert ingredients are not harmful you but the authors of the new paper invoke the environmental "chemical cocktail" MacGuffin. Since every harmless product has not been tested in every possible combination with other inactive ingredients, they suggest agricultural, pharmaceutical and other common products could be hazardous to our health in ways that scientists don't know about.
Earth-Like Exoplanets Are Common

Earth-Like Exoplanets Are Common

Apr 27 2025 | comment(s)

A new study of light anomalies combined with results from a Korea Microlensing Telescope Network microlensing survey show that super-Earths exist as far from their host star as our gas giants are from the sun. Which means that Earth-like exoplanets are a lot more common NASA press releases over every new statistical wobble suggest.
Bioprinting Pancreatic Tissues

Bioprinting Pancreatic Tissues

Apr 26 2025 | comment(s)

Trial lawyers hate when scientists note that animals are not tiny people, so their claims PFAS which harms animals in high doses does not mean it impacts humans at all. That animals are not little people are why drugs and medical devices must survive human clinical trials. There would be 10,000 cures for cancer being sold if effectiveness in a mouse was enough.

Animal activists also hate animal trials. They will be happy about bioprinting organic tissue models that function like living organs. 
Using AI To Find Neural Traits In Social Interaction

Using AI To Find Neural Traits In Social Interaction

Apr 25 2025 | comment(s)

An algorithm that maps individual brain activity can reveal a “neural fingerprint” of  transient brain states during social interactions. 

The authors of the new paper believe their work demonstrates that individuals whose neural fingerprints are more aligned tend to more readily enter a shared state of deep focus—commonly known as team flow—which has profound implications for enhancing teamwork and performance across various high-stakes environments.
'Here Is The Letter That Has Destroyed My Universe' And 4 More Astrophysics Revolutions

'Here Is The Letter That Has Destroyed My Universe' And 4 More Astrophysics Revolutions

Apr 25 2025 | comment(s)

On this day, April 25, in 1929, the world learned how astronomer Edwin Hubble had discovered that the universe was much larger than we had believed. On this day in 2025, you can preorder a book and on the 29th learn about this and four other Astrophysics discoveries that changed how we see the universe - and ourselves - in The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions.


By Ersilia Vaudo, translated by Vanessa Di Stefano. If you use this link we get a penny or something.
Big Organic Continues To Oppose Food That Uses No Pesticides

Big Organic Continues To Oppose Food That Uses No Pesticides

Apr 19 2025 | comment(s)

I get pitches for stories every day and sometimes I want to see if the world that opposes science has made any progress now that a member of a Republican administration who was formerly one of their own, former Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is being helped by their rhetoric.

So when I got a message from a PR rep for the Real Organic Project™ about their client, I wanted to know if they still oppose hydroponic food. Hydroponic food uses no soil, which means in a controlled environment it needs no pesticides. The public loves that idea. The last time a survey was done, only 7% of the public wanted to know about GMOs in their food unsolicited while over 70% wanted to know what pesticides are used in food production.(1)
Prosthetic Hearing: Soft Brainstem Implant One Step Closer To Human Trials

Prosthetic Hearing: Soft Brainstem Implant One Step Closer To Human Trials

Apr 18 2025 | comment(s)

The cochlear implant has helped many regain hearing functionality and a new study shows a potential roadmap for those whose cochlear nerve is too damaged; the auditory brainstem implant.

The current auditory brainstem implant and its rigid structure does not allow for good tissue contact, which means a majority of the electrodes must be switched off due to unwanted side effects such as dizziness or facial twitching. A soft, thin-film version with electrodes embedded in silicone leads to a pliable array less than a millimeter thick.

Superior conformity means patients will no longer get vague sounds and little speech intelligibility - and fewer side effects.