Labor gave the public one day to weigh in on teen social media ban. It got 15,000 responses
UTIs are extraordinarily common but kidney infections are not—now doctors know why.
“A multidisciplinary team at Cambridge University in England solved the conundrum in an elegant series of experiments. Dr. Andrew P. Stewart and colleagues found that highly specialized biological structures called neutrophil extracellular traps—NETs—are pivotal in protecting the kidneys from infection. NETs are sticky webs of wispy strands that quite literally serve as traps.
They ensnare bacteria that attempt to migrate northward to the kidneys from the lower urinary tract. NETs add to an array of antimicrobial activities mounted by the body to beat back infection.”
The world’s first AI street hawker
Newly identified chemical in drinking water is likely in many homes and could be toxic, study finds NBC
Giller Prize, Canada’s Top Literary Award, To Anne Michaels For “Held”
Lifehacker: “Bluesky Network Analyzer looks at the people you’re already following, and then looks at the people they’re following to give you personalized recommendations…As I’ve also previously noted, the value you’ll get out of Bluesky is wholly based on who you follow there, since it isn’t really powered by an algorithm trying desperately to keep you glued to your feed.
No, you’ll have to work a little harder if you want to tap into your latest font of dopamine, and that means populating your feed with posts you’ll find interesting and provocative and hopefully not enraging (but that’s what the “nuclear block” is for).
I’ve already written about Sky Follower Bridge, an extension that helps you track down people you once followed on X, and the Bluesky Directory, which offers a searchable index of more than 80,000 “starter packs” of people to follow based on your interests. Now I want to tell you about another tool that builds upon those: Bluesky Network Analyzer…”
The Register – “Significant uptick in visibility for Musk, Republican account posts from July 13 – A pair of researchers say they’ve determined that July 13 was likely the day that X, formerly known as Twitter, made platform-level algorithm changes that increased the visibility of posts made by Elon Musk and Republican-leaning accounts in the run-up to the US election. That date may stick out in the memory as when Elon Musk, now the owner of X, formally endorsed Donald Trump in the recent US presidential election.
Coincidence? Perhaps not, according to a working paper- A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on platform X during the 2024 US election– shared by Timothy Graham and Mark Andrejevic of Queensland University of Technology. The pair examined posts made by Musk, Republican-leaning accounts, and Democrat-leaning accounts between January 1 and October 25, noting that July 13 appeared to be the day the tide turned red on X.
Their research was split into two phases, one looking at the prominence of Musk’s posts pushed to users through features like the default “For You” feed, and the other comparing the prominence of Republican- or Democrat-aligned posts. Graham and Andrejevic observed an increase in all metrics for Musk’s posts on the platform from mid-July onward. These included views, retweets, and favorites…”
Craigslist founder is giving away $200 million to prevent cybercrimes against the US
Yahoo Finance: “Craig Newmark, the 71-year-old founder and former CEO of classifieds site Craigslist, is alarmed about potential cybersecurity risks in the US. “The deal is our country is under attack now,” he told Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi on the Opening Bid podcast (video above; listen in below). “It’s not like I’m in the recruiting line after Pearl Harbor because my dad volunteered in the ’40s, but I guess that’s what I should be doing.”
Newmark, who stepped down from the company in 2000 but kept a position answering customer complaints, has foregone reaping financial rewards in semi-retirement. Instead, he started Craig Newmark Philanthropies to primarily invest in projects to protect critical American infrastructure from cyberattacks. He told Sozzi he is now spending $200 million more to address the issue, on top of an initial $100 million pledge revealed in September of this year. He encouraged other wealthy people to join him in the fight against cyberattacks. “I tell people, ‘Hey, the people who protect us could use some help. The amounts of money comparatively are small, so why not help out,’” he said.
Cybersecurity has had a banner year in the spotlight, with issues going beyond past annoyances where consumers simply need to change passwords, call a credit bureau, or cancel an account after a breach. This past summer, a Microsoft (MSFT) Windows update containing a defect hit 8.5 million computers. It resulted in flight cancellations and hampered health and payment services. Concerns swirled about potential infrastructure attacks on a global scale, such as the Paris Olympics…”
