Science & Technology News

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SailOar

A rather scary AI developement.

Deepfakes Are Going To Wreak Havoc On Society. We Are Not Prepared.

I can only guess what the article says. The site won't let me in since it insists I open myself to all their advertising and tracking -- something I will not do.

So I guess this supports Jim's criticism.

[SailOar]

Mike, some random excerpts

Several deepfake videos have gone viral recently, giving millions around the world their first taste of this new technology: President Obama using an expletive to describe President Trump, Mark Zuckerberg admitting that Facebook's true goal is to manipulate and exploit its users, Bill Hader morphing into Al Pacino on a late-night talk show.

The amount of deepfake content online is growing at a rapid rate. At the beginning of 2019 there were 7,964 deepfake videos online, according to a report from startup Deeptrace; just nine months later, that figure had jumped to 14,678. It has no doubt continued to balloon since then.

In a recent report, The Brookings Institution grimly summed up the range of political and social dangers that deepfakes pose: “distorting democratic discourse; manipulating elections; eroding trust in institutions; weakening journalism; exacerbating social divisions; undermining public safety; and inflicting hard-to-repair damage on the reputation of prominent individuals, including elected officials and candidates for office.”

“In the old days, if you wanted to threaten the United States, you needed 10 aircraft carriers, and nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles,” U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said recently. “Today....all you need is the ability to produce a very realistic fake video that could undermine our elections, that could throw our country into tremendous crisis internally and weaken us deeply.”

“People are already using the fact that deepfakes exist to discredit genuine video evidence,” said USC professor Hao Li. “Even though there’s footage of you doing or saying something, you can say it was a deepfake and it's very hard to prove otherwise.”

Researcher Aviv Ovadya warns of what she terms “reality apathy”: “It’s too much effort to figure out what’s real and what’s not, so you’re more willing to just go with whatever your previous affiliations are.”

The recent rise of fake news has led to fears that we are entering a “post-truth” world. Deepfakes threaten to intensify and accelerate this trajectory. The next major chapter in this drama is likely just around the corner: the 2020 elections. The stakes could hardly be higher.

[Mike OReilly]

Thanks SailOar, that's very helpful. It is indeed a serious concern, although I'm old enough to recall a similar panic around digital manipulation of photos. The 'photoshop effect' produced a similar crisis in the public and the media, and challenged our notions of "truth."

Personally, I see this as one aspect of a much broader attack on the very notions of an objective reality. Truth is being hijacked by powers whose interests often lie in opposition to the many. Many thinkers now suggest we live in a post-truth world. I agree.

[Centix]

Recently stumbled upon an article about security vulnerabilities in Zoom. Unfortunately I didn't save the link but you can easily google it. The point is that one should be really careful with video conferencing because if you use some apps with weak security level then your secrets are at risk.

[Centix]

Originally Posted by Centix

Recently stumbled upon an article about security vulnerabilities in Zoom. Unfortunately I didn't save the link but you can easily google it. The point is that one should be really careful with video conferencing because if you use some apps with weak security level then your secrets are at risk.

Not long ago a fellow programmer told me that it is becoming usual for IT companies to make their own VOIP networks. Here is a nice article https://voximplant.com/blog/voice-over-ip-voip about types of VOIP, its advantages and disadvantages, and the best uses for VoIP.

[GordMay]

Astronomers have detected a chemical signature - Phosphine (PH3) - in the atmosphere of Venus, that may be associated with life.
While the signature isn't robust enough to definitively declare that there's life on our nearest planetary neighbour, in a new paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, the international team says they have ruled out any other known sources that could have produced the chemical compound, phosphine,though there could be unknown photochemical or chemical processes to explain it’s presence.

"Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus”
~ by Jane S. Greaves et al
From the Abstract:
“... The presence of PH3 is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. PH3 could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH3 on Earth, from the presence of life. Other PH3 spectral features should be sought, while in situ cloud and surface sampling could examine sources of this gas ...”

Nature Astronomy paper ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4

[Mike OReilly]

Yes, pretty cool either way (life or new process to create PH3).

[GordMay]

“What we didn’t model for is that people would choose to go to a party if they knew that they were positive.”
Chemist Martin Burke developed a pioneering coronavirus test for the University of Illinois — but it didn’t stop a spike in student infections on campus.
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) has a mass-testing programme that has been touted as a model system. Students have to get tested twice a week, or risk losing their academic standing. But the institute has seen a spike in infections in recent weeks. Martin Burke, a chemist at UIUC who helped to develop the university’s RNA-based saliva test, spoke to Nature about the challenges and lessons of mass testing on campus.
Nature | 6 min read ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02611-y

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Astronomers have detected a chemical signature - Phosphine (PH3) - in the atmosphere of Venus, that may be associated with life.

Ah, that explains why Randall picked the topic for his latest XKCD

[GordMay]

Levitating upside-down boats flip the law of buoyancy:
In a new study*, physicists have managed to float tiny boats on the underside of a layer of liquid levitating in midair. Besides opening up some unusual nautical possibilities, the discovery quite literally flips our understanding of buoyancy on its head.

*“Floating under a levitating liquid” ~ by Benjamin Apffel et al.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2643-8

"Vibration overcomes gravity on a levitating fluid" ~ by Vladislav Sorokin & Iliya I. Blekhman
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02451-w

[GordMay]

The biggest fish in the sea are girls
Male and female whale sharks (filter-feeding marine behemoths) grow at different rates, with females doing so more slowly, but getting much larger than the males.
The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the world’s largest fish, growing to maximum known sizes of 18 m (59 feet) total length.

A new study*, led by University of Western Australia marine biologists, has found that male whale sharks grow quickly, before plateauing at an average adult length of about 8-9 m (26.2-29.5 feet) after reaching sexual maturity at about 30 years old; and that female whale sharks grow more slowly but eventually overtake the males, reaching an average adult length of about 14 m (46 feet), when they reached sexual maturity at about age 50.

*“Asymptotic Growth of Whale Sharks Suggests Sex-Specific Life-History Strategies” ~ by Mark G. Meekan et al
➥ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...20.575683/full

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GordMay

A new study*, led by University of Western Australia marine biologists, has found that male whale sharks grow quickly, before plateauing at an average adult length of about 8-9 m (26.2-29.5 feet) after reaching sexual maturity at about 30 years old; and that female whale sharks grow more slowly but eventually overtake the males, reaching an average adult length of about 14 m (46 feet), when they reached sexual maturity at about age 50.

Hah!, That's nothing!


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/n...ology-anatomy/

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by StuM

Hah!, That's nothing!
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/n...ology-anatomy/

"Bigger females can produce a larger number of offspring,"
Exactly the case, with Whale Sharks.
From the Study:
“... For females, very large maximum body sizes could be advantageous given the potential need to provision and brood a multitude of pups–up to 300 at one time (Joung et al., 1996)...”

[GordMay]

Nature’s daily briefing:

Genes map how the Vikings spread across Europe (Podcast)
Genetics reveals which Vikings went where during the influential Viking Age.

Plus, how to get a COVID-19 vaccine to those who need it most, and what happens when you read a paper every single day.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02693-8

Podcast ➥ https://media.nature.com/original/ma..._18385072.mpga

[GordMay]

Robert W. Gore, inventor of the technology (expanded polytetrafluoroethylene - ePTFE) that spawned the waterproof Gore-Tex fabric , died Thursday, Sept 17, according to the family company, W. L. Gore & Associates. Gore, commonly known as "Bob," was 83 years old.
➥ https://www.gore.com/news-events/pre...t-gore-passing