Category Archives: Science & Health
Science and health issues or matters. Find health items for virus COVID-19 in this category.
How to stop AI deepfakes from sinking society — and science
Deceptive videos and images created using generative AI could sway elections, crash stock markets and ruin reputations. Researchers are developing methods to limit their harm.
By Nicola Jones, September 27, 2023
This June, in the political battle leading up to the 2024 US presidential primaries, a series of images were released showing Donald Trump embracing one of his former medical advisers, Anthony Fauci. In a few of the shots, Trump is captured awkwardly kissing the face of Fauci, a health official reviled by some US conservatives for promoting masking and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was obvious” that they were fakes, says Hany Farid, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of many specialists who examined the pictures. On close inspection of three of the photos, Trump’s hair is strangely blurred, the text in the background is nonsensical, the arms and hands are unnaturally placed and the details of Trump’s visible ear are not right. All are hallmarks — for now — of generative artificial intelligence (AI), also called synthetic AI.
Did New York City Forget How to Teach Children to Read? This fall, Eric Adams is pivoting to phonics.
By Caitlin Moscatello, Sept. 13, 2023
The debate about the best way to help children learn to read goes back more than 100 years, but an overwhelming body of data has shown the benefit of having kids sound out letters and words.
One of the largest analyses of such studies is a 2000 report by the National Reading Panel, which found that phonemic-awareness instruction helps kids learn to read and boosts comprehension, while teaching systematic phonics “makes a bigger contribution to children’s growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction.”
President George W. Bush used the report as the foundation for his own reading initiative, which stressed phonics for early readers.
Even that report left the door open for proponents of balanced literacy, noting that phonics “should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program.”
Plenty of educators listened to this part loudly — despite the fact that those advocating for more phonics were never saying phonics only. “When I started on this journey, I was like, Phonics? That’s what George Bush wanted. Phonics? That’s what happens in red states,” says Danielle, a teacher in New York who, like many of the two dozen people interviewed for this article, requested we use her first name out of concern for professional consequences.
Source: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/09/new-york-city-schools-how-to-teach-children-to-read.html
Stephen King Knows Anti-Vaxxers Are Going to Hate His Latest Book: ‘Knock Yourself Out’ | Rolling Stone
The horror writer talks Holly and why he chose not to erase Covid from the detective’s world
By Brenna Ehrlich, September 5, 2023
THIS POST CONTAINS spoilers for Stephen King’s new book Holly, which comes out today.
Stephen King is readying himself for a flood of hate when his next book, Holly, drops on Sept. 5. “I think that a lot of people are not going to like it,” he says. “I think that a lot of people — particularly people on the other side of the Covid issue and the Trump issue — are going to give it one-star reviews on Amazon.
But all I can say to those people is, ‘Knock yourself out.’”
While inviting bad reviews before publication may seem like an odd sentiment from one of the most prolific, acclaimed horror writers of all time, well… a lot of things are topsy-turvy these days.
And unlike many writers who have released books over these past few years, King — as is his custom — doesn’t shy away from that discomfort in Holly, which follows the PI he introduced in the Mr. Mercedes series, as she attempts to solve a string of disappearances during the height of Covid.
Three Shots for Fall: What You Need to Know | The New York Times
The F.D.A. approved a new shot to protect infants from a deadly respiratory virus. And here’s what we know about who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when.
By Apoorva Mandavilli, Sept. 6, 2023
Most Americans have had one or more shots of the flu and Covid vaccines. New this year is the first shots to protect older adults and infants from respiratory syncytial virus, a lesser-known threat whose toll in hospitalizations and deaths may rival that of flu.
Federal health officials are hoping that widespread adoption of these immunizations will head off another “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses, like the one seen last winter.
For people with insurance, all the vaccines should be available for free.
“This is an embarrassment of riches,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children’s Hospital and an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration. Here’s what he and other experts say about who should receive which immunizations, and when.
Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/flu-covid-rsv-vaccines.html
Conservative book ban push fuels library exodus from national association that stands up for books
By MEAD GRUVER, Updated 4:35 AM PDT, September 5, 2023
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — After parents in a rural and staunchly conservative Wyoming County joined nationwide pressure on librarians to pull books they considered harmful to youngsters, the local library board obliged with new policies making such books a higher priority for removal — and keeping out of collections.
But that’s not all the library board has done.
Campbell County also withdrew from the American Library Association, in what’s become a movement against the professional organization that has fought against book bans.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/library-book-ban-association-withdraw-7f5743a9e464433a745697f9111d7f6b
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