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Black Mental Health Is Basically Ignored By AI Models

Posted by on Mar 29, 2024 in Technology | Comments Off on Black Mental Health Is Basically Ignored By AI Models

Large Language Models, colloquially called Artificial Intelligence by companies selling rebranded autocomplete tools to other companies and the public, can automate a lot of entry-level projects but when it comes to anything more complex the flaws are quickly seen.

When Black people using social media exhibit possible depression in their prose, a paper claims LLM/AI tools don't detect it as easily as they do other skin colors.

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Plank It: Meta-Analysis Shows Isometric Exercises Help Lower Blood Pressure The Most, By A Lot

Posted by on Mar 15, 2024 in Sports Science | Comments Off on Plank It: Meta-Analysis Shows Isometric Exercises Help Lower Blood Pressure The Most, By A Lot

Risk factors like salt and sugar intake and high blood pressure for heart attacks and disease need constant rethink if they are going to be more than folk wisdom.

Low-salt and sugar-free have too many vested interests to get critical thinking on how valid population-level statistics are for individuals, and 'high' blood pressure rarely gets questions about how reliable the correlation was that picked 130/85 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) as high blood pressure for everyone. Thosa blood pressure numbers are the clunkily-named systolic on top over the diastolic below. The top is the pressure in arteries as the heart beats while the bottom is the pressure at rest.(1)

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What Will It Take For Real Farming In Space?

Posted by on Mar 14, 2024 in Atmospheric | Comments Off on What Will It Take For Real Farming In Space?

If humans in space are happening any time soon, it will be despite government involvement rather than because of it. NASA couldn't even build a telescope without going 25 years and 1,000 percent over budget. By the time all cultural parties pick away at a manned space program, it will be so expensive and time-costly it won't be worthwhile, and the private sector will throw all that baggage out and just do it.

The James Webb Space Telescope program showed NASA is incapable of doing Big Engineering now, but they can put cute robots on other planets, and fund smaller projects, like how we might grow plants. Early results for how monitors that plants can wear and will stretch as plants grow are due to a NASA grant, and that is a very good thing.

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Social Media Brings Out Our Baser Natures – Anger Is Rising In Democracies

Posted by on Mar 12, 2024 in Anthropology | Comments Off on Social Media Brings Out Our Baser Natures – Anger Is Rising In Democracies

Like old media such as newspapers and televisions, content on social media is tailored toward audience engagement. Television and newspapers have long known that 'dead bodies sell' but in social media it can be sold in real-time. It has sped up information - and cynicism. Fifteen years ago Reuters was caught augmenting photos of an Israeli attack on terrorists so it looked like more smoke and destruction than actually occurred and few in media were bothered, more recently outlets pulled a photo of British Princess Kate of Wales because it had been retouched. Only after the audience flagged it, though.

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Carbon Offsets Won’t Work Until There Is Science In How Trees Are Planted

Posted by on Feb 26, 2024 in Atmospheric | Comments Off on Carbon Offsets Won’t Work Until There Is Science In How Trees Are Planted

Former Vice-President Al Gore has a giant mansion but buys carbon offsets to mitigate the damage. Do they work?

It depends, and that means it is unlikely. Lots of corporations dove into the carbon offset market, Mr. Gore made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in them, but there is no standard beyond 'we will plant this many trees.' The story is certainly compelling. There is no guilt about a mansion or private plane if you pay someone to plant trees that absorb carbon dioxide emissions equal to what you burned and create wildlife habitats and nice views for humans in the process.

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Did Environmental Working Group Manufacture A Study Just To Sue Quaker Oats?

Posted by on Feb 21, 2024 in Chemistry | Comments Off on Did Environmental Working Group Manufacture A Study Just To Sue Quaker Oats?

On February 15th, the litigation outfit known as Environmental Working Group, most famous for using public USDA data (although excluding pesticides from the organic food companies which fund them) to compile a 'Dirty Dozen list' of foods which contain pesticide residues (100 percent of them) but that is nonetheless reliably rewritten by allied journalists in progressive newspapers, paid to publish a

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New Analysis Adds To The Heat Pump Controversy

Posted by on Feb 13, 2024 in Energy | Comments Off on New Analysis Adds To The Heat Pump Controversy

Decades before solar and wind took over green marketing dollars, back when environmentalists still promoted natural gas and hydroelectric power, heat pumps became an energy-saving fad.

The problem with them became evident nearly as fast as that electric car range you think you'll get - it is only under ideal conditions in a lab. So if you bought one because you were told it is "400 percent efficient", you probably also bought organic food because someone told you it doesn't have pesticides. In other words, you were just believing in magic.

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Minorities Don’t Buy Populist Rhetoric Of Either US Party As Much As Whites Do

Posted by on Jan 31, 2024 in Anthropology | Comments Off on Minorities Don’t Buy Populist Rhetoric Of Either US Party As Much As Whites Do

America is one of the most religiously, racially and ethnically diverse countries in the world, but that doesn't mean Latinos, Asians or Blacks believe that Democrats and Republicans want them as anything more than reliable voting blocs.

A new analysis finds that though Asians were up 35 percent between 2010 and 2020, Latinos increased 23 percent and the Black population increased by 6 percent even as Whites decreased 2 percent, minorities didn't vote in numbers similar to their eligible voter population.

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Science Denial: Alternatives To Medicine Like Acupuncture And Naturopathy Increased A Lot In 20 Years

Posted by on Jan 27, 2024 in Psychology | Comments Off on Science Denial: Alternatives To Medicine Like Acupuncture And Naturopathy Increased A Lot In 20 Years

Republicans joined the anti-vaccine movement in 2021 but you might not know it xisted prior to that. Academics and allied journalists would roll out surveys showing that the anti-vaccine movement was similar on both sides to rationalize the behavior of their tribe - while ignoring actual data.

Data like that that coast of California had more vaccine exemptions for school kids than the rest of the US combined. Some coastal schools had vaccine rates of just 26%. Fortunately, we had physicians like Dr. Richard Pan on our side, willing to defy his political party to save kids. We pressured the Governor to sign a law banning arbitrary exemptions and now California is nearly as high as Mississippi and Alabama in vaccine uptake.

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COVID-19: Healthcare Workers Exited At Dramatically Higher Rates

Posted by on Jan 26, 2024 in Public Health | Comments Off on COVID-19: Healthcare Workers Exited At Dramatically Higher Rates

Like some soldiers become conscientious objectors if they end up in an actual military situation, or when over 300 armed government union employees suddenly forgot they had guns while kids were being murdered in Uvalde, healthcare workers, 18.8 million strong just in the US, were more likely to exit the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike the first two, healthcare workers were right to be afraid. 

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