2025-06-24 15:27:56
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, released its first large scale image of the Southern Hemisphere sky. It is a sample of the 500 petabytes of data scheduled to be collected over the next ten years.
2025-06-24 13:54:37
See also: ocean depth and height of the sky.
Tags: bomb, New York Times, scale
2025-06-24 06:36:45
Allen Frances, a psychiatrist who chaired the group to update the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the 1980s, explains how a change in definition led to a sudden rise in autism diagnoses.
Many large studies have come to the same conclusion: Vaccines don’t cause autism. The role, if any, of environmental toxins is still to be determined, but there is no known environmental factor that can explain the sudden jump in diagnoses. The changes we made to the diagnosis in the D.S.M.-IV can.
Why did autism-related diagnoses explode so far beyond what our task force had predicted? Two reasons. First, many school systems provide much more intensive services to children with the diagnosis of autism. While these services are extremely important for many children, whenever having a diagnosis carries a benefit, it will be overused. Second, overdiagnosis can happen whenever there’s a blurry line between normal behavior and disorder, or when symptoms overlap with other conditions. Classic severe autism had so tight a definition it was hard to confuse it with anything else; Asperger’s was easily confused with other mental disorders or with normal social avoidance and eccentricity. (We also, regrettably, named the condition after Hans Asperger, one of the first people to describe it, not realizing until later that he had collaborated with the Nazis.)
Please send to whom it may concern.
Tags: Allen Frances, autism, New York Times, vaccination
2025-06-24 01:48:37
Jonathan Tirone, reporting for Bloomberg:
Notably absent from the latest International Atomic Energy Agency’s damage report are three research reactors operating at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology and Research Center. One of the so-called miniature neutron source reactors, made by China in 1991, runs on 900 grams (2 pounds) of bomb-grade uranium.
It seems we’re going to see more satellite imagery in the coming weeks.
Tags: Bloomberg, Iran, nuclear, satellite imagery
2025-06-23 20:51:47
For Tom’s Guide, Jason England reviews smart glasses by Emteq, which are equipped with sensors to track micro facial movements and then pipe the data into AI.
Sporting sensors all around the rims, it can detect the subtlest of changes in your facial expressions (even those you aren’t consciously aware of doing). With this data, paired with AI, it can become a personalized life coach for your fitness, your diet and even your emotional health.
This will not end well.
While there is value in learning about yourself through data, the quantification of your life, in a quest to optimize every bit, is no way to live.
Tags: Emteq, glasses, Tom's Guide
2025-06-20 18:01:19
For the Pudding, Alvin Chang uses the CANDOR corpus to explore our feelings when we do the unthinkable: talk to strangers.
The story follows a sample of 30-minute conversations between strangers with transitions between anecdotes and patterns. Each square represents an individual as ASCII art, a timer on the right doubles as a progress marker, and in typical Chang style, he keeps you connected to what the data means on a personal level.
Tags: Alvin Chang, conversation, Pudding, strangers
