Group items tagged

Here's some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can't. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have about nuclear power or genetically modified food or climate change? They are really no more than a jumble of facts, and how you feel about those facts. That's right. They're just your opinions. Which is bad news, because no matter how right you feel, you might be wrong. And being wrong about risk is risky, to you AND to others.

"Here's an issue we don't talk about enough. Every year, peer-reviewed research journals publish hundreds of thousands of scientific papers. But every year, several hundred of those are retracted - essentially, unpublished. There's a number of reasons retraction happens. Sometimes, the researchers (or another group of scientists) will notice honest mistakes. Sometimes, other people will prove that the paper's results were totally wrong. And sometimes, scientists misbehave, plagiarizing their own work, plagiarizing others, or engaging in outright fraud. Officially, fraud only accounts for a small proportion of all retractions. But the number of annual retractions is growing, fast. And there's good reason to think that fraud plays a bigger role in science then we like to think. In fact, a study published a couple of weeks ago found that there was misconduct happening in 3/4ths of all retracted papers. Meanwhile, previous research has shown that, while only about .02% of all papers are retracted, 1-2% of scientists admit to having invented, fudged, or manipulated data at least once in their careers."

"The issue of wealth inequality across the United States is well known, but this video shows you the extent of that imbalance in dramatic and graphic fashion. The video, which started going viral on Friday and whose traffic continues to climb on YouTube - reflects the facts as seen from many different sources. We present it without comment, letting you, our readers, be the judge."

"In the Harry Potter world, Ravenclaws are known for being the smart ones. That's their thing. In fact, that was really all they were known for. In the books, each house could be boiled down to one or two words: Gryffindors are brave, Ravenclaws are smart, Slytherins are evil and/or racist, and Hufflepuffs are pathetic loyal. (Giving rise to this hilarious Second City mockery.)"

"This system of burners, pipes, flasks and gauges looks like it came straight out of a laboratory. In fact, though, it's a prototype coffee machine-and it could satisfy the technical desires of even the biggest coffee nerd. The Laboratory Espresso Machine was dreamt up by israeli designers David Budzik and Adi Schlesinger. Its design aesthetic is clearly inspired by the contents of a chemistry lab, but it also uses science in the coffee-making process, too: it uses the Venturi effect to adjust pressures and relies on a bunch of complex thermodynamics to ensure water temperature and pressure are consistent."

At least since the followers of Ned Ludd smashed mechanized looms in 1811, workers have worried about automation destroying jobs. Economists have reassured them that new jobs would be created even as old ones were eliminated. For over 200 years, the economists were right. Despite massive automation of millions of jobs, more Americans had jobs at the end of each decade up through the end of the 20th century. However, this empirical fact conceals a dirty secret. There is no economic law that says that everyone, or even most people, automatically benefit from technological progress.

If you're taking a break from work to read this article, I've got one question for you: Are you crazy? I know you think no one will notice, and I know that everyone else does it. Perhaps your boss even approves of your Web surfing; maybe she's one of those new-age managers who believes the studies showing that short breaks improve workers' focus. But those studies shouldn't make you feel good about yourself. The fact that you need regular breaks only highlights how flawed you are as a worker. I don't mean to offend. It's just that I've seen your competition. Let me tell you: You are in peril.

Ever since his grad student days at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Amir Ronen, now a scientist at IBM Research -  Haifa, has been thinking about the intersection of game theory and computer science. In fact, he's one of the leaders in a sub-discipline, called algorithmic game theory, which lies at the intersection of the two fields.

Results from FIA Aalborg: The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most important fundaments for the smart cities, and is becoming slowly but steadily one of the core elements of the Future Internet (FI). In fact, various architectures and approaches from Future Internet such as Cloud Computing (Software as a Service - SaaS), which are being linked with the Web of Things, which is also allowing to define Sensors as a Service (SaaS) are clear examples of this relation between Future Internet and IoT architectures. At this particular point, where the IoT is a reality, where several IoT-based high scale deployments are being carried out such as Rome, and Santander. It is essential to discuss what are the IoT-specific aspects that the FI architecture has to take into account, in order to efficiently map the IoT architectures into an overall FI architecture, and particularly, how to manage rights of the individual (i.e. privacy) and its interaction with IoT objects taking into account aspects like delegation, access control as key aspects in the inclusion of the Internet of Things in the common lives with its total inclusion in the city of the future.

A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity.  The document, part of a program called "Communities Against Terrorism", lists the use of "anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address" as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity.  The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using "software to hide encrypted data in digital photos" or other media.  In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone "overly concerned about privacy" or attempting to "shield the screen from view of others" should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities.

A debate that has gone on for millennia has flared up again in recent years Is the fact you are reading this story a decision you arrived at it by your own free choice, or was your interest programmed into the universe from the moment of the big bang? What makes free will such a fun topic is not only that it dives deep into physics, neuroscience, and philosophy, but also that we all feel we have a direct stake in the answers.

UNU Media Centre head Brendan Barrett shares insights derived from a UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health conference that focused on K* (K-Star) - a spectrum of ideas that covers research communication, science push, knowledge translation, adaptation, transfer and exchange, knowledge brokering and mobilization, and policy pull. * * * To sum up the underlying need for the recent K* Conference 2012, I borrow the words of a co-participant who explained that "as we are seeing with the climate debate and other 'wicked problems', it is not sufficient to assume that scientific consensus about the facts will be influential in policy or the wider community".

In the past few years, digital technologies have revolutionized everything from the way we work to the way we educate, inform and entertain ourselves. In fact, millions of engaged citizens are using the Web to connect and collaborate around shared concerns and opportunities in their communities and in international forums and institutions. Now, as Canada readies itself to host the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT2012) in Montreal this October, we have a unique opportunity to mobilize large numbers of connected citizens to participate in a global, online conversation designed to elicit new ideas and innovations that could help address some of the world's most urgent challenges.

AT 7 years old, Gilad Elbaz wrote, "I want to be a rich mathematician and very smart." That, he figured, would help him "discover things like time machines, robots and machines that can answer any question."