fliptop writes:The vast majority of dog and cat owners will say their pets enrich their lives in countless ways and bring immeasurable levels of extra happiness, but researchers from Michigan State University suggest that most pet owners may just be telling themselves what they want to hear. Their new study found that despite owners claiming pets improve their lives, researchers did not see a reliable association between pet ownership and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic:
SomeGuy writes:The Verge reports that Google will remove Gmail's Basic HTML view effective January 2024.Though the vast majority of people use the Standard view on their PCs without question, the HTML version of Gmail has its perks. The stripped-down Gmail experience loads quickly, and users can access it even on older machines or with much slower connections.The change appears to have been announced around September 19th in a Google support article, and users of the Basic HTML view were shown warnings that it will be discontinued, after which time they will be switched to the current standard view.The removal of Gmail's basic HTML view is the latest in a long line of products, features, services, and more to be admitted to the Google graveyard. The company has also recently buried its Pixel Pass phone upgrade program, Google Currents, and Nest Secure.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee is scheduled for Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 15th, 2023 at 21:00 UTC (4pm Eastern) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when complete.The agenda for the upcoming meeting will also be published when available. Minutes and agenda, and other governance committee information are to be found on the SoylentNews Wiki at: https://wiki.staging.soylentnews.org/wiki/GovernanceHighlights expected in tomorrow's meeting are discussion of Draft 8 of the bylaws, and a statement from janrinok.The community is welcome to observe and participate, and is invited to the meeting.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
An Anonymous Coward writes:I have recently read many discussions in places like r/youtube where users who block ads are described as immature freeloaders or selfish for expecting others to watch ads so they don't have to. I believe most users understand that it's expensive to host a video streaming service, and that YouTube has to pay their bills somehow. However, at this point in time, there are very valid reasons for users to continue blocking YouTube ads. YouTube also has better solutions to increase revenue without resorting to their recent aggressive tactics.Many ads contain NSFW content or obvious scamsYouTube clearly has the ability to detect content that violates the platform's rules, and videos are regularly demonetized for doing so. Because YouTube can moderate user-submitted content in this manner, they also have the ability to moderate sponsor-submitted content. Users have a reasonable expectation to not be subjected to NSFW content without their consent. I have read many reports of ads with cartoon characters engaging in sexual acts, and that is inappropriate. YouTube also does not have the ability to detect who is actually watching a video at a specific time, meaning that they could be exposing children to this content.YouTube should not be sending content to users that is actively attempting to harm them, and scam ads are doing exactly that. Although many of these scams are obvious, which should make it easier to detect them using YouTube's moderation tools, there are still people who will be fooled. YouTube is not very responsive to user complaints about abusive ads, probably because they don't want to risk losing money from sponsors. One of the main reasons users block ads on other sites is because they are often deceptive or contain malicious payloads. At this time, that is also the best recourse users have to protect themselves from harmful ads on YouTube.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
hubie writes:NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems determined that the 462-MW project would likely not reach a sufficient subscription level to continue toward deployment:
Former U.S. astronaut Frank Borman has died at the age of 95, NASA said on Thursday.He commanded the 1968 Apollo 8 mission that carried three astronauts farther from Earth than anyone had ever travelled.I'm old enough to remember Apollo 8 (December 21-27, 1968, the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. Three astronauts-Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders-were the first humans to witness and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.Born in Gary, Indiana, on March 14, 1928, he was the oldest American astronaut still living; that mantle now passes to Jim Lovell, who is also 95 but eleven days younger.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
taylorvich writes:https://newatlas.com/space/outsize-black-hole-supermassive-james-webb/Astronomers have discovered evidence of a theorized type of black hole lurking in the distant universe. Known as an "Outsize Black Hole," this object could help explain some fundamental cosmic mysteries, including how supermassive monsters form.Black holes as we know them tend to fall into two categories: there's the stellar mass black holes, which as the name suggests have masses equivalent to a few stars. They form when large stars die in a supernova. Up the other end of the scale sits supermassive black holes, which contain the mass of millions or even billions of stars. These are found at the center of many galaxies, including our own.It was long thought that supermassive black holes form by growing out of stellar mass black holes as they slurp up matter over billions of years. This hypothesis was seemingly bolstered by recent observations of intermediate mass black holes, rare objects that slot in the middle of the mass range.But as astronomers peer farther away in space and time, they've increasingly spotted signs that the story isn't that simple. In 2017, a black hole with a mass of 800 million Suns was discovered in a distant corner of space that meant it grew that big just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang - a growth rate that should be impossible according to our models. And it's far from alone, with over 100 contemporary giants found since then.One possible explanation is that some black holes may form through other methods, giving them a larger starting mass than a regular old supernova would allow. If massive clouds of gas collapse, the hypothesis goes, they could form black holes with masses between about 10,000 and 100,000 Suns."There are physical limits on how quickly black holes can grow once they've formed, but ones that are born more massive have a head start," said Andy Goulding, co-author of the study. "It's like planting a sapling, which takes less time to grow into a full-size tree than if you started with only a seed."Now astronomers claim to have discovered the first evidence for just such an object, which they call an Outsize Black Hole. It's located in a galaxy called UHZ1, at the incredible distance of 13.2 billion light-years from Earth - which also means we're seeing it as it was 13.2 billion years ago, or less than 500 million years after the Big Bang.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
looorg writes:Letters confiscated by Britain's Royal Navy before they reached French sailors during the Seven Years' War [(1756-1763)] have been opened for the first time.
canopic jug writes:Last week, Professor Eugene "spaf" Spafford published an article, Reflecting on the Internet Worm at 35, on the Morris Internet worm which hit the net back on November 2, 1988 back when there were likely fewer than 100k systems connected to the Internet, though maybe even as few as 60k. Some estimates suggest that around 1 out of 10 of those systems were infected, due to several holes in the target systems. Those which were infected ground to a halt due to a mistake in the worm itself.
taylorvich writes:https://phys.org/news/2023-11-willow-bark-broad-spectrum-antiviral-effect.htmlFrom a seasonal cold to a stomach bug, nobody likes catching a virus-and epidemics can be devastating. We need safe, sustainable antiviral options to treat the outbreaks of the future. Scientists in Finland have now shown that an extract of willow bark-a plant that has already provided several medicines, including the precursor to modern aspirin-has a broad-spectrum antiviral effect in cell sample experiments.The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as COVID-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs that work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer."We need broadly acting and efficient tools to combat the virus load in our everyday life," said Prof Varpu Marjomaki of the University of Jyvaskyla, senior author of the study in Frontiers in Microbiology. "Vaccinations are important, but they cannot deal with many of the newly emerging serotypes early enough to be effective on their own."The scientists had previously tested willow bark extract on enteroviruses, and found it was highly successful. In this new study, they expanded the remit of their research to look at additional kinds of virus and to try to understand the mechanism of the extract's action.To make the extract, they harvested commercially grown willow branches. The bark was cut into pieces, frozen, ground, and then extracted using hot water. This produced the extract samples that the scientists tested against enteroviruses-strains of Coxsackievirus A and B-and coronaviruses-a seasonal coronavirus and COVID-19.More information: Willow (Salix spp.) bark hot extracts inhibit both enveloped and nonenveloped viruses: study on its anti-coronavirus and anti-enterovirus activities, Frontiers in Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1249794Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
looorg writes:So much for the temporary delay or ban on AI. Musk named his AI Grok. I'm surprised by the lack of X:es in the name. Perhaps it would have looked odd considering the name of the Musk AI Company is xAI.Somewhat unclear if the Grok is referring to Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy Grok or to Heinleins Stranger in a Strange Land. If you take inspiration from Hitchhikers then it shouldn't be that hard to program. If all else fails, the answer to a query is always 42. So I guess we'll know what it will default to when it starts looping hallucinations.Also Grok should apparently be really into sarcasm, so that will end well and not lead to any kind of misunderstandings or interpretations. None.https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/05/elon-musk-unveils-grok-an-ai-chatbot-with-a-rebellious-streakhttps://grok.x.ai/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GrokOriginal SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee is scheduled for Today, Wednesday, November 8th, 2023 at 21:00 UTC (4pm Eastern) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when complete. Note that due to the time change back to standard tine, this will be 4pm eastern time where it previously fell at 5pm eastern.The agenda for the upcoming meeting will also be published when available. Minutes and agenda, and other governance committee information are to be found on the SoylentNews Wiki at: https://wiki.staging.soylentnews.org/wiki/GovernanceThe community is welcome to observe and participate, and is invited to the meeting.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
taylorvich writes:https://phys.org/news/2023-10-sunflowers-sun-mechanism.htmlSunflowers famously turn their faces to follow the sun as it crosses the sky. But how do sunflowers "see" the sun to follow it? New work from plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, published Oct. 31 in PLOS Biology, shows that they use a different, novel mechanism from that previously thought."This was a total surprise for us," said Stacey Harmer, professor of plant biology at UC Davis and senior author on the paper.Most plants show phototropism-the ability to grow toward a light source. Plant scientists had assumed that sunflowers' heliotropism, the ability to follow the sun, would be based on the same basic mechanism, which is governed by molecule called phototropin and responds to light at the blue end of the spectrum.Sunflowers swing their heads by growing a little more on the east side of the stem-pushing the head west-during the day and a little more on the west side at night, so the head swings back toward the east. Harmer's lab at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences has previously shown how sunflowers use their internal circadian clock to anticipate the sunrise, and to coordinate the opening of florets with the appearance of pollinating insects in the morning.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.