Lifeboat Foundation

From education to work and leisure, internet access is essential to modern life. Yet, since the first days of the world wide web, this access has been unequal. The US, France and the UK gained a headstart in the 1990s and developing countries have been seeking to catch up ever since.

One region where this process is now complete is the Arabian Peninsula. From relative obscurity in connectivity rankings three decades ago, countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar have leapfrogged their Western peers. Look at measures of internet speeds, in fact, and the UAE now leads the world.¹ Having delivered internet access at home, e& (etisalat and), the telecommunications giant and leading global technology group headquartered in the UAE, hopes to expand connectivity worldwide.

Following a signing ceremony Wednesday in Denmark’s capital city, Copenhagen, NASA embraced Denmark as the 48th nation to commit to the safe and responsible exploration of space that benefits humanity.

“We welcome Denmark’s signing of the Artemis Accords today,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Denmark, as a founding member of the European Space Agency (ESA), has contributed to space exploration for decades, including collaborating with NASA on Mars exploration. Denmark’s signing of the Artemis Accords will further international cooperation and the peaceful exploration of space.”

Christina Egelund, minister of higher education and science, signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of Denmark. Alan Leventhal, U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark also participated in the ceremony, and Nelson contributed recorded remarks.

YouTube videos on autism primarily provide educational content with balanced perspectives, reducing stigmatization, though viewer comments often remain negative. This highlights YouTube’s dual role in improving understanding while revealing persistent public misconceptions.

A recent study published in Communications Psychology reveals that individuals with higher psychopathic traits show reduced sensitivity to pain, which affects their ability to learn from painful consequences. The researchers found that people with elevated psychopathic traits tend to revert quickly to initial beliefs after experiencing pain. This new insight could help us understand why individuals with these traits often struggle to adapt their behavior despite negative consequences.

People with psychopathic traits frequently ignore the negative consequences of their actions, likely due to differences in how they process punishment. Past studies have indicated that psychopathy is associated with both an insensitivity to punishment and an excessive drive toward reward, but this study aimed to explore the computational learning processes specifically related to pain. Pain can serve as a powerful teaching signal, so understanding how reduced pain sensitivity influences learning in people with psychopathic traits could shed light on the mechanisms behind their often harmful decision-making.

“One of the hallmarks of psychopathy is aggressive, exploitative behavior with little regard for the wellbeing of others,” said study author Dimana Atanassova, a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University.

Author(s): Jesus Rodriguez Originally published on Towards AI. Created Using IdeogramI recently started an AI-focused educational newsletter, that already has over 170,000 subscribers. TheSequence is a no-BS (meaning no hype, no news, etc) ML-oriented newsletter that takes 5 minutes to read. The goal is to keep you up to date with machine learning projects, research papers, and concepts. Please give it a try by subscribing below:

Deep sleep could be key to forestalling slow declines in brain health that may one day lead to Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.

In their 2023 study of 62 older, cognitively healthy adults, researchers from the University of California (UC) Berkeley, Stanford University, and UC Irvine in the US found individuals with brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s performed better on memory function tests as they got more deep sleep.

This was irrespective of education and physical activity, two factors along with social connection known to contribute to cognitive resilience in older age.

The polarization of light finds practical application in physics and chemistry through the optical activity phenomenon, where polarimeters play a crucial role. This research builds on the improvised polarimeter designed by Kvittingen and Sjursnes, implemented with relevant modifications, to measure optical rotations of over-the-counter ascorbic acid samples. The study aims to assess the purity of two brands of ascorbic acid through polarimetry, comparing the calculated specific rotation with the literature values and supplementing the characterization with melting point determination. The constructed polarimeter, assembled using Lego bricks, provides an affordable alternative for educational purposes, addressing the challenges observed in the accessibility of commercial polarimeters for classroom demonstrations. The methodology encompasses pre-experiment steps involving polarimeter construction, the experiment utilizing polarimetry and complementary melting point determination, and post-experiment analysis to determine specific rotation from the measured optical rotations. Results indicate that Brand X exhibited specific rotations close to theoretical values, inferring high purity. Conversely, Brand Y shows significant deviations, suggesting potential impurities. These conclusions are supported by melting point data. The comprehensive approach combining polarimetry and melting point determination enhances the reliability of purity assessments, showcasing the effectiveness of the improvised polarimeter in practical applications.

R J M Felicidario and R M delos Santos 2024 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2,871 012009.

Individuals born before 37 weeks of gestation, considered to be preterm infants, have, on average, lower employment income, university enrollment and educational attainment through age 28, according to a study publishing November 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Petros Pechlivanoglou of The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada.

Preterm birth affects about 10% of all births worldwide and accounts for one in five deaths in children. Economic and lifestyle factors can affect a family’s access to therapies and supports, financial stability and quality of life.

Since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become a driving force in innovation and everyday life, sparking both excitement and concern. AI promises breakthroughs in fields like medicine, education, and energy, with the potential to solve some of society’s toughest challenges. But at the same time, fears around job displacement, privacy, and the spread of misinformation have led many to call for tighter government control.

Many are now seeking swift government intervention to regulate AI’s development in the waning “lame duck” session before the inauguration of the next Congress. These efforts have been led by tech giants, including OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, under the guise of securing “responsible development of advanced AI systems” from risks like misinformation and bias. Building on the Biden administration’s executive order to create the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (AISI) and mandate that AI “safety tests,” among other things, be reported to the government, the bipartisan negotiations would permanently authorize the AISI to act as the nation’s primary AI regulatory agency.

The problem is, the measures pushed by these lobbying campaigns favor large, entrenched corporations, sidelining smaller competitors and stifling innovation. If Congress moves forward with establishing a federal AI safety agency, even with the best of intentions, it risks cementing Big Tech’s dominance at the expense of startups. Rather than fostering competition, such regulation would likely serve the interests of the industry’s largest corporations, stifling entrepreneurship and limiting AI’s potential to transform America—and the world—for the better. The unintended consequences are serious: slower product improvement, fewer technological breakthroughs, and severe costs to the economy and consumers.