Obama Calls Out Facebook’s Fake News Problem

Posted on November 8, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

After a fake story once again made the rounds on Facebook over the weekend, Barack Obama today name-checked the social network while talking about the spread of lies this election season.

“The way campaigns have unfolded, we just start accepting crazy stuff as normal and people if they just repeat attacks enough and outright lies over and over again,” Obama said at a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “As long as it’s on Facebook, and people can see it, as long as its on social media, people start believing it, and it creates this dust cloud of nonsense.”

Obama’s statement underscores something that’s been clear for years and that doesn’t have an obvious solution: Facebook has a fake news problem. False things being spread on the internet isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, but The Social Network’s share-thirsty algorithm has made it much easier for blatantly made-up stories from invented publications to spread faster and wider than ever before.
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How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News – BuzzFeed News

Posted on November 8, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

 

“This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.

“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline.

For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.

Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US. Continue reading →

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Watch How the World’s Population Has Grown Over the Years

Posted on November 4, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

It took a long time to get going. But once we did, damn, we kind of got out of control didn’t we?It took us 200,000 years to reach our first billion humans but only 200 years to hit seven billion. Watch as this map tracks how the world’s population grew and shows how we spread across the globe and highlights the empires and historic events that have helped us take over all of Earth like a pandemic on the planet.

Source: Watch How the World’s Population Has Grown Over the Years

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Now – HowStuffWorks

Posted on October 28, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

Beer and crisp, salty potato chips are a pretty obvious culinary match, but one brewery has taken it to a seriously pricey level. A Swedish brewery called St. Eriks has paired its craft-brewed pale ale with specially formulated potato chips — a set of five that cost $56.

No, not five bags of chips for 499 Swedish krona, equivalent to $56. Five single chips. Five! And that doesn’t even include shipping! And get this: The brewery completely sold out of all 100 boxes of the expensive spud slices. The recipe was created by chef Pi Le, who made each chip by hand.

The hefty price tag doesn’t just come about because of the notoriously high prices of the Scandinavian countries — nor is this some sort of government scheme to have snack food pay for universal health care and parental leave. The recipe for the aforementioned five chipsincorporates potatoes that grow only on a certain hillside in Sweden’s Ammarnäs region. The chips are seasoned with rare ingredients like matsutake mushrooms, truffle seaweed, India pale ale wort, and come served in an individually partitioned wooden container.

According to the company’s website, all proceeds from the sale of the chips will go to charity.

You may still feel a little peckish after your potato chip snack, but luckily there are plenty of other treats to drain your bank account and fill your belly. The restaurant Fleur by Hubert Keller in Las Vegas serves a $5,000 burger made from wagyu beef, which is intensely marbled and flavorful, and topped with foie gras and truffles.

For dessert, be sure to check out the $25,000 ice cream sundae served at Serendipity 3 in New York City. The dessert includes a blend of some of the world’s most expensive cocoas, and is decorated with edible 23-karat gold before being served in a goblet lined with edible gold (detecting a theme here?). Other decorations include an 18-karat gold bracelet studded with white diamonds and a gold spoon … also lined with diamonds. Kind of makes $56 for five chips seem like a bargain, doesn’t it?

Source: Now – HowStuffWorks

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Master the Six Qs to Make an Impression In Job Interviews

Posted on October 20, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

When you’re looking for a new job, you want to present yourself as a strong candidate. Showcase how you have mastered the “six Q’s”, basically six key skill areas, and you’ll come across as a better applicant.

Try to include specific examples for each of the following skill areas.

  • IQ: This includes skills like critical or strategic thinking, problem solving, and being able to keep an eye on the overall picture.
  • EQ: Social skills that lead to success in the workplace, like being able to communicate well, resolve conflict while preserving relationships, and empathy for your colleagues or clients.
  • PQ: Your passion for working at a company or in a specific industry. Often this can mean aligning with the mission of the company or having ambition.
  • CQ: Cultural fit is key to working well with your team or other departments in the organization.
  • CRQ: Your ability to deal with tough situations, like giving feedback or working with difficult colleagues.
  • IMQ: Flexibility and being able to adapt when things don’t go smoothly, including proposing solutions and having successful projects even when they get off track.

The concept of “six Qs” is definitely jargony and over the top, but no matter what they’re called, by touching on each of these areas, you show that you’re a well-rounded candidate with many skills.

Source: Master the Six Qs to Make an Impression In Job Interviews

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Tasmanian Devil Milk Could Be a Magic Bullet Against Superbugs

Posted on October 17, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

Researchers from Australia have discovered that chemical compounds found in the milk of Tasmanian devils are capable of killing some of the most deadly bacterial infections—a surprising finding that could introduce a new class of weapons in the war against superbugs.

Marsupials, unlike placental mammals, have to seek shelter in their mother’s pouches soon after birth. This cozy environment offers protection and a steady source of food for the premature joey, but it’s not the cleanest place in the world. What’s more, most marsupials emerge after just few weeks of gestation, so their immune systems are grossly underdeveloped. To protect their offspring from pathogens, and to help them grow, marsupial mothers are capable of producing milk with life-preserving compounds built right in.

 Analysis of the devil’s genome revealed six naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides, which the researchers were able to synthesize in the lab. These peptides were then tested against some of the most harmful bacteria known to humans, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (a.k.a. golden staph) and Enterococci. “We showed that these devil peptides kill multi-drug resistant bacteria,” study co-author Emma Peel told The Sydney Morning Herald, “which is really cool.”

The devil’s milk contains antimicrobial compounds called cathelicidins. Humans have one of these natural antibiotics, but Tasmanian devils have six. Some marsupials have even more, including the wallaby’s eight and the opossum’s twelve. So in addition to searching for antibacterial substances in the soil, the bottom of the ocean, and even in our noses, we’d do well to consider our marsupial cousins as well.

Source: Tasmanian Devil Milk Could Be a Magic Bullet Against Superbugs

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How to Make Your Windows 10 Computer Work Like New Again

Posted on October 13, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

Reinstalling Windows is an easy way to fix a PC that’s been giving you problems. It can resolve most common issues including lagging to mysterious app crashes. With Windows 10, it’s easier to do than ever before. Here’s how to get that brand new PC feeling on your machine.

Microsoft went ahead and made it insanely easy to reinstall Windows 10 by building the option right into the operating system. Some of you probably remember the old days, when it was much harder and required system discs, hard drive reformatting, tedious backup processes, and service packs. Luckily for us, Microsoft realized reinstalling Windows is a great way to fix a broken PC.

In modern Windows parlance, a reinstall is usually called a reset. Back in the distant days of Windows 8, there was another option called refresh, that put Windows back to square one, but kept all of your personal files and Windows Store apps in place.

In Windows 10, there’s only a reset option, and you get the opportunity along the way to decide whether or not to keep your documents and other files. It’s a bit simpler to understand, but there are still a few different routes to take. Continue reading →

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Uncrate

Posted on October 3, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

You won’t see it at your local dealership anytime soon, but some of the tech being tested in the Chevrolet Colorado ZH2 might just make it into your ride someday. GM worked with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center to develop the off-road, fuel cell-powered vehicle in under a year. The truck sits on a stretched midsize pickup chassis, stands over 6½ feet tall, is more than seven feet wide, and rides on 37-inch tires capable of tackling any terrain. The fuel cell allows it to be almost silent, reducing both the acoustic and thermal signatures and making it ideal for stealth operations, the Exportable Power Take-Off unit lets it power equipment away from the vehicle, and the water by-product can come in handy in dry conditions.

Source: Uncrate

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Infant is world’s first to have three biological parents

Posted on September 27, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

It sounds like the setup of a wacky science fiction comedy, but this is actually real life. A five-month old baby boy was just revealed to be the first kid in the world with three biological parents, according to New Scientist. The infant was created by a technique that has only been legally approved in the UK, and it lets parents with genetic disorders have healthy babies. The study is believed to fast track progress in the field, and is the latest in a series of advances in genetic science we’ve seen recently.

The method used in this case was slightly different from the one legalized in the UK. Instead of fertilizing both the mother’s and a donor’s eggs with the father’s sperm and then replacing the donor’s nucleus with the mom’s, this scenario first swapped out the nucleus of a donor egg for the mother’s, then fertilized the resulting egg with the dad’s sperm. This prevented the destruction of two embryos, which the family involved were not supportive of for religious reasons.

Neither of the above techniques are allowed in the US, so the New York City-based doctor and his team went to Mexico to carry out the procedure. Five embryos were created, but only one developed normally and was implanted in the mother, who carries the genes for Leigh’s disease. Around a quarter of her mitochondria have the disease-causing mutation, according to New Scientist, and she had already lost her first two children to Leigh’s.

The three-parent technique was banned after it was last tried out in the 1990s, since the children born from that went on to develop genetic disorders. According to the Independent, critics have described the method as tantamount to playing God.

In this case, the team used a male embryo to avoid passing on any inherited mitochondrial DNA. They tested the baby’s mitochondria and found less than 1 percent of it to carry the mutation. The team plans to describe its findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City in October. Embryologists believe this case should fast-forward progress in the field, according to New Scientist.

Source: Infant is world’s first to have three biological parents

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This is how SpaceX plans to send people to Mars

Posted on September 27, 2016 by StevenTorresRamos

paceX plans to send humans to Mars with on a ship called the Interplanetary Transport System, and in a video published today, the company revealed how the ITS will actually perform. The ITS is capable of carrying up to 100 tons of cargo (that’s supplies and people) and it will rely on a few different power sources to make it all the way to Mars.

Liftoff requires 28,730,000 pounds of thrust, which suggests the ITS will use roughly 40 Raptor rocket engines, which each generate 680,000 pounds of thrust. Once the ship reaches orbit, its booster will return to Earth and immediately re-launch with a refueling pod, which matches up with the ITS to top off its propellant. Then, the ITS deploys its solar arrays, two wing-like panels that fold out from the base of the ship and provide 200 kW of power, and it sets off.

Once humans on the ITS actually make it to Mars and successfully land, SpaceX teases that the planet will be terraformed, transitioning from classic red to lush greens and blues.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will outline the company’s plans to colonize Mars in a talk at 2:30 PM ET called “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species.”

Source: This is how SpaceX plans to send people to Mars

Posted in Breaking News, History, Interesting, MARS, Tech | Leave a comment
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