Category Archives: Science & Health

Science and health issues or matters. Find health items for virus COVID-19 in this category.

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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

Illustration by Señor Salme

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.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02990-y

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Politics, Science & Health

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

Illustration: Erin Jang

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

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Love & Relationships, Pleasures, Politics, Science & Health

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

Author Stephen King wrote his latest book during the pandemic — and Patrick Semansky/AP

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.

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/stephen-king-interview-holly-anti-vaxxers-1234816605/

Current Affairs, Nevada, Politics, Science & Health

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

This fall, in addition to the flu and Covid vaccines, older Americans will be able to get a shot for respiratory syncytial virus.Credit…Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Pleasures, Politics, Science & Health

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

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Food & Drink, Memories & History, Pleasures, Religion & Spirit, Science & Health

Here’s what lucid dreamers might tell us about our sleeping minds | Science News

Dreams are one of the most universal yet elusive human experiences

By Maria Temming, August 27, 2023 at 9:00 am

From article…

When Christopher Mazurek realizes he’s dreaming, it’s always the small stuff that tips him off.

The first time it happened, Mazurek was a freshman at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. In the dream, he found himself in a campus dining hall. It was winter, but Mazurek wasn’t wearing his favorite coat.“I realized that, OK, if I don’t have the coat, I must be dreaming,” Mazurek says. That epiphany rocked the dream like an earthquake. “Gravity shifted, and I was flung down a hallway that seemed to go on for miles,” he says. “My left arm disappeared, and then I woke up.”

Most people rarely if ever realize that they’re dreaming while it’s happening, what’s known as lucid dreaming. But some enthusiasts have cultivated techniques to become self-aware in their sleep and even wrest some control over their dream selves and settings. Mazurek, 24, says that he’s gotten better at molding his lucid dreams since that first whirlwind experience, sometimes taking them as opportunities to try flying or say hi to deceased family members.

Other lucid dreamers have used their personal virtual realities to plumb their subconscious minds for insights or feast on junk food without real-world consequences. But now, scientists have a new job for lucid dreamers: to explore their dreamscapes and report out in real time.

Source: Here’s what lucid dreamers might tell us about our sleeping minds