As Facebook faces relentless PR crises (privacy, misinformation, Russian interference, hate speech, monopolization, etc), it plans to promote positive stories about Facebook in its users’ news feeds.
The initiative, code-named Project Amplify, aims to improve the company’s image among its users. When it was created in an internal January meeting, it reportedly surprised some executives. Still, Mark Zuckerberg signed off on the plan last month. The New York Times:
The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items — some of them written by the company — would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.
“They’re realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director.
Once again, more scheißberg than zuckerberg
Samoa scraps daylight saving time, it’s time for the rest of the world to follow suit | Boing Boing
Daylight saving wasn’t implemented to trick farmers into getting up early, as popular myth suggests. It was first proposed in 1895 for a much more important reason — so entomologist and astronomer George Hudson could study insects at night.
Hudson is dead, so daylight saving is no longer necessary. Japan, India, and China don’t observe it, and now the South Pacific island nation of Samoa is joining them in scrapping the confusing, accident-causing, useless-to-all-but-bug-watchers ritual of mass delusion.
On Sunday, November 7 at 2 am local time, Samoa will do the right thing by doing nothing. It’s time for the rest of the world to wake up and do the same.
From the website Time and Date, which covers breaking news about the time and the date:
“The Ministry hereby advises that the Daylight Saving Time (DST) policy has ceased as per Cabinet Decision […]. There will be no activation of the Daylight Saving Time policy for this year.” The announcement came from the Government of Samoa on September 20, 2021, following a decision made by Samoa’s new Government Cabinet on September 15, 2021.
DST was implemented in 2010 by the previous Government of Samoa to give more time after work to tend to their plantations, promote public health, and save fuel. Instead, it “[…] defeated its own goals by being used by people to socialise more,” according to the Samoa Observer.
To hell with DST. However, any measure which would end children’s walking to school in freezing pitch darkness, and folks riding/driving to work in same would be most beneficial. Besides, why TF would a tropical paradise, with like 20 hrs of sunlight/day need DST?!
NASA’s InSight Mars lander detects 3 biggest marsquakes to date | Space
NASA’s InSight Mars lander snapped this image of its seismometer suite, which is protected by a wind and thermal shield, on July 20, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The new detections are a triumph over adversity for InSight, which has battled declining power levels.
NASA’s InSight lander has detected its three most powerful marsquakes yet, potentially giving scientists an even clearer picture of the Red Planet’s interior.
InSight spotted 4.2- and 4.1-magnitude temblors on Aug. 25, then picked up another roughly 4.2-magnitude quake on Sept. 18 that lasted for nearly 90 minutes, NASA officials announced on Wednesday (Sept. 22).
The previous record holder, which InSight measured in 2019, clocked in at magnitude 3.7 — about five times less powerful than a 4.2-magnitude quake. …
U.S. Special Envoy To Haiti Daniel Foote Quits Over Deportations Of Refugees : NPR
U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote has handed his resignation to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, saying he “will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti” from the U.S. border.
Foote, a career diplomat, said the U.S. policy approach to the country is deeply flawed, and that Haitians shouldn’t be sent back to “a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life.”
The letter’s contents were confirmed to NPR’s Michele Kelemen by a Democratic congressional aide who asked not to be identified further.
In his letter, Foote, who has been the special envoy since July 22, wrote that his recommendations “have been ignored and dismissed.” The State Department responded in a statement, saying it was “unfortunate” that Foote had “mischaracterized the circumstances of his resignation.“ …
In the months before Mary Johnson disappeared, her sister said she wasn’t herself.
Johnson and her husband, who had been living in the home of her sister Gerry Davis in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, abruptly left and moved to Marysville about 40 miles away, Davis said. She rarely answered her phone when Davis called, and only occasionally responded to texts. Then one day, Johnson’s estranged husband contacted Davis to say he hadn’t seen his wife in weeks.The last time anyone said they saw Mary Johnson – also known as Mary Davis – was on November 25, 2020. Johnson, an enrolled citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and then 39 years old, was walking on a road in Western Washington, en route to the house of some friends in a nearby town. She never made it there.
It’s been nearly 10 months since Johnson was reported missing. A billboard on Interstate 5 and local media coverage have yielded few credible tips, and tribal police have yet to make an arrest in the case. Only last week did the FBI announce it would offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information about Johnson’s disappearance. While family members and advocates welcome the move, they also wonder what took so long.
“If that was a little white girl out there or a white woman, I’m sure they would have had helicopters, airplanes and dogs and searches – a lot of manpower out there – scouring where that person was lost,” Nona Blouin, Johnson’s older sister, said. “None of that has happened for our sister.”
Those feelings ring especially true this week, as the case of missing 22-year-old Gabby Petito captured the attention of the internet. Meanwhile, at least 710 Indigenous people – more than half of them women or girls – were reported missing between 2011 and September 2020 in Wyoming, where Petito’s remains were found this week, according to a University of Wyoming report. While about half were usually found within a week of going missing, as per the report, family members and advocates said none received the same level of media coverage nor the same urgency in law enforcement’s response as missing white people. …
Johnson refuses to say if he could live on basic universal credit pay
Questioned during his trip to the US, prime minister declined to say if he could survive on £118 a week
Boris Johnson has defended the government’s plans to cut universal credit while refusing to say whether he could live on the basic payment it provides of £118 a week.
Questioned by reporters during his trip to the US this week, the prime minister declined three times to answer whether he could survive on the UC payment.
Asked if he could live on £118 a week, and whether the cut, coming into force on 6 October, risked becoming a political problem, Johnson said: “I have every sympathy for people who are finding it tough, I really, really do.” …
I really, really don’t believe that, bojo, and neither do you, you floppy haired, snobby twunt.
Equalities minister under fire for writing she does not ‘care about colonialism’
Warnings issued that Kemi Badenoch’s messages could drive black supporters away from Tory party
The equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, has been criticised after leaked messages revealed she claimed not to “care about colonialism”, amid warnings that Conservatives could haemorrhage support from the black community.
Badenoch, whose brief was recently expanded to include a junior ministerial position in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, reportedly wrote: “I don’t care about colonialism because [I] know what we were doing before colonialism got there. They came in and just made a different bunch of winners and losers.
“There was never any concept of ‘rights’, so [the] people who lost out were old elites not everyday people.”
The leaked WhatsApp messages were revealed by VICE World News this week, and were posted on a group chat called Conservative Friends of Nigeria.
Funmi Adebayo, a former member of the WhatsApp group, said she leaked the messages following Badenoch’s promotion, which includes an additional portfolio in the Foreign Office.
Adebayo, the founder and chief executive of Olorun, which produces the Black Monologues podcasts, warned that “dangerous” comments such as Badenoch’s would drive black supporters away from the [tory] party and government. …
Self-loathing and heritage-denying much? She’s quite an equalities minister! This oreo’s about on a par with stephen miller, Jewish nazi. SMH
Human footprints thought to be oldest in North America discovered | Archaeology | The Guardian
Ancient tracks found in New Mexico are believed to be between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, study says
New scientific research conducted by archaeologists has uncovered what they believe are the oldest known human footprints in North America.
Research done at the White Sands national park in New Mexico discovered the ancient footprints, with researchers estimating that the tracks were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, reported Science.
The prints were buried in layers of soil in the national park, with scientists from the US Geological Survey analyzing seeds embedded in the tracks to calculate the age of the fossils. Researchers also determined that the dozen footprints found belonged to a variety of people, mostly children and teenagers.
Previously, scientists had widely assumed that the earliest appearance of humans in the Americas was 11,000 to 13,000 years ago because of stone spears found throughout North America and associated with what is known as the Clovis culture.
“The evidence is very convincing and extremely exciting,” says Tom Higham, an archaeological scientist and radiocarbon-dating expert at the University of Vienna to Nature. “I am convinced that these footprints genuinely are of the age claimed.”
The new research was conducted by experts from White Sands national park, the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, Bournemouth University, University of Arizona and Cornell University.
“The paper makes a very compelling case that these footprints are not only human, but they’re older than 20,000 years,” said Spencer Lucas, a palaeontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque to Nature. “That’s a gamechanger.”
I absolutely love it! Every time a major new discovery is made, the presumed date of the Americas’ peopling is pushed much further back, often by thousands and thousands of years!
An emergency department doctor says he has developed a simple new way to help save the lives of shark attack victims in the crucial moments after a bite.
The technique is described in a paper published today in the journal of Emergency Medicine Australasia and works by closing off the femoral artery to prevent a person from rapidly bleeding out.
Applying the technique relies on a second person making a fist and pressing it into a person’s groin at the central point between the hip bone and the genitals.
From there they only need to lock their arm straight and use their bodyweight to apply pressure until blood flow from the wound stops.
Following these steps then buys the victim time while help can be sought.
Dr Nicholas Taylor, Associate Dean of the ANU Medical School, surfer and lead author on the study said he began to develop the idea after a family holiday to Western Australia at a time when there had been a spate of shark attacks.
“I was looking for a few ways to make myself a bit more shark proof,” he says.
After speaking to surf life savers and surfers he found most would instinctually react to a shark bite wound by placing direct pressure on it or attempting to make a tourniquet from material they had on hand.
Dr Taylor said his emergency room training told him that this would be a mistake.
“A shark bite is a terrible sawing motion and putting pressure on it wouldn’t work,” he said. “And it would be great if every surfer carried a tourniquet, but it isn’t going to happen.”
A better solution, he thought, would be to cut the blood flow from the femoral artery as taught in medical schools and performed in emergency departments.
To test the effectiveness of the technique, Dr Taylor helped organise a study of 34 healthy volunteers. While the sample size was small, it was more than double the 16 participants a pilot study recommended was required for it to be statistically significant.
Participants were given no prior training or instruction in how to apply the manoeuvre before attempting it, and the results were compared to the effects from using a makeshift tourniquet from surfboard leg rope.
Closing off the femoral artery stopped all blood flow to the leg in three out of four participants while using the tourniquet reduced blood flow by 43.8%. An ultrasound was used to gauge the rate of blood flow through the artery and into the limb.
The researchers also tested whether a wetsuit might make it more difficult but found it made no difference.
Now Dr Taylor says he wants to see the technique incorporated into first aid training – and to help he has developed a mnemonic for remembering the process: “push hard between the hip and the bits”.
However, for that to happen it would first need to be endorsed by the Australian Resuscitation Council and incorporated into their guidelines for managing bleeding wounds.
Dr Anthony Brown, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Queensland who was not involved in the study said the novel approach was “brilliant” and should be considered for inclusion in first aid training programs, particularly for surf-life saving and the surfing community at large.
“It’s a fantastic life-saving idea. Nothing else helps,” Dr Brown said. “By the time you need to give mouth-to-mouth or CPR during a shark attack, it’s too late. It means the person has exsanguinated [been drained of blood].”
Compared to applying pressure on the wound itself, Dr Brown said that this technique would be more effective as it would avoid potentially re-opening arteries that may have closed off by spasm.
“Your sole priority needs to be to stop the bleeding and wait for help,” he said. “You’re a bit buggered if you’re the only one there, but generally speaking there is someone else there to help. Nobody surfs alone.”
(via Dinosaur fossil with ‘totally weird’ spikes in skeleton stuns experts | Dinosaurs | The Guardian)
Fossil hunters have unearthed remnants of the oldest – and probably weirdest – ankylosaur known so far from a site in the Middle Atlas mountains in Morocco.
The remains of the heavily armoured animal are extraordinary in being the first to have defensive spikes that are fused to the skeleton, a feature researchers say is unprecedented in the animal kingdom.
“It’s totally, totally weird,” said Dr Susannah Maidment, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “Normally when we see armour in stegosaurus and ankylosaurs, the dermal armour is embedded in the skin, not attached to the skeleton. In this case, it’s not only in contact with the skeleton, it’s fused to the ribs.”
Researchers at the museum obtained the fossil from a private collector for an undisclosed sum. They originally suspected the bones might belong to a new species of stegosaur they identified from the same region in 2019, but microscopic analysis of thin sections of the fossil revealed distinctive patterns of fibres unique to ankylosaurs.
The discovery was so unusual that scientists wondered whether the fossil might be a fake, but further inspection using a CT scanner found no signs that it had been constructed or tampered with.
The fossil dates to the middle Jurassic, about 168m years ago, suggesting the animal was one of the earlier ankylosaurs to roam the Earth. Beyond ranking as the oldest ankylosaur fossil known so far, it is also the first to be found in Africa.
Maidment said the animal could be an early ankylosaur from which others evolved, or an entirely new lineage. Details are published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Ankylosaurs – the name means “stiff lizard” – were large, herbivorous relatives of the stegosaurs. They sported heavily armoured skulls, spiked bodies and clubbed tails. The animals, which could grow to seven metres long and weigh four tonnes, are mostly known from US and Canadian fossils dating from 74 to 67m years ago. The new fossil suggests that long before then, the creatures might have lived around the globe. …
