Lifeboat Foundation

A study reveals one of the reasons why neurons die in Parkinson’s patients

According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, around 7 million individuals worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Although the origins of this neurodegenerative disorder are not entirely understood, it is known that many of its symptoms are caused by the death of neurons that create dopamine.

A study conducted in mice by a research team at the University of Cordoba has uncovered one of the causes of this neuronal loss: the key resides in the protein called DJ1, whose association with Parkinson’s disease has previously been established, but its specific role was unknown until now.

Discovering and tracking asteroids is critical for planetary defense against killer asteroid impacts. The detailed astronomical data associated with it is also useful for providing new insights for astronomers. Helping with this task is a new algorithm called THOR, which has now proven to be capable of finding asteroids. It has been running on the Asteroid Institute’s cloud-based astrodynamics platform for identifying and tracking asteroids.

The Global Exploration Strategy is a blueprint for understanding space policy today.

15 years ago, the Global Exploration Strategy set out the space policy agenda on course to put humans back on the Moon as soon as possible.

Meta Platforms Inc.’s Sheryl Sandberg, who became one of the most recognized figures in global business after helping Facebook transform from a startup into a multibillion-dollar advertising powerhouse, is stepping down as chief operating officer.

Sandberg, 52, will remain on the board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to a post on the social network Wednesday. Javier Olivan, who has led the company’s growth efforts for years, will take Sandberg’s place as COO when she formally leaves in the fall.

**Who will be liable** for harmful speech generated by large language models? As advanced AIs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 are being cheered for impressive breakthroughs in natural language processing and generation — and all sorts of (productive) applications for the tech are envisaged from slicker copywriting to more capable customer service chatbots — the risks of such powerful text-generating tools inadvertently automating abuse and spreading smears can’t be ignored. Nor can the risk of bad actors intentionally weaponizing the tech to spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.

Indeed, OpenAI is concerned enough about the risks of its models going “totally off the rails,” as its documentation puts it at one point (in reference to a response example in which an abusive customer input is met with a very troll-esque AI reply), to offer a free content filter that “aims to detect generated text that could be sensitive or unsafe coming from the API” — and to recommend that users don’t return any generated text that the filter deems “unsafe.” (To be clear, its documentation defines “unsafe” to mean “the text contains profane language, prejudiced or hateful language, something that could be NSFW or text that portrays certain groups/people in a harmful manner.”).

But, given the novel nature of the technology, there are no clear legal requirements that content filters must be applied. So OpenAI is either acting out of concern to avoid its models causing generative harms to people — and/or reputational concern — because if the technology gets associated with instant toxicity that could derail development. will be liable for harmful speech generated by large language models? As advanced AIs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 are being cheered for impressive breakthroughs in natural language processing and generation — and all sorts of (productive) applications for the tech are envisaged from slicker copywriting to more capable customer service chatbots — the risks of such powerful text-generating tools inadvertently automating abuse and spreading smears can’t be ignored. Nor can the risk of bad actors intentionally weaponizing the tech to spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.

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In a strange new paper, one researcher calculates that there are four “malicious” alien civilizations in the Milky Way alone.

Amber Alerts are an important tool in helping locate abducted children. They’re authorized by law enforcement and broadcast via TVs, text messages, and other means. Now, Instagram will also push Amber Alerts into users’ feeds with the feature rolling out in the US today and set to be available in 25 total countries “in the next couple of weeks.” It shows how apps like Instagram have become basic communication infrastructure in the modern world.

Adding Amber Alerts to Instagram makes sense for a few reasons. First, younger generations may well ignore text messages but scroll through Instagram with some regularity. Second, while text alerts require people to click a link to get more information and photos of the missing child, Instagram’s alerts will include this info directly. It doesn’t seem the alerts will be issued as notifications — they’ll just appear in users’ regular feeds.

A campaign targeting poorly secured Elasticsearch databases has deleted their contents and dropped ransom notes on 450 instances, demanding a payment of $620 to give them back their indexes, totaling a demand of $279,000.

After the launched, we’ll get our first look at full-color images captured by the telescope. The European Space Agency says the imagery and first spectroscopic data on July 12th.

“The release of Webb’s first full-color images will offer a unique moment for us all to stop and marvel at a view humanity has never seen before,” Webb deputy program director Eric Smith said. “These images will be the culmination of decades of dedication, talent, and dreams — but they will also be just the beginning.”

JWST required several months of preparation before starting science work. The process included to its operating temperature, calibrating instruments and aligning the mirrors. The ESA, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci) spent over five years figuring out what Webb should capture first in order to show off what the observatory can do.