BIG Media is big on humour, so we are grateful to Amanda Kooser of CNET for compiling this highlight package of corporate April foolery.
https://www.cnet.com/news/april-fools-day-2021-duolingo-toilet-paper-velveeta-skincare-and-more-pranks/
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Facebook Inc will let users customize their feed and give them control over who can comment on their public posts, Reuters reports. The social media giant has been under fire for allegedly amplifying hate speech and misinformation. Users can manage the comments for any public post by choosing from options such as anyone who can view the post can comment, or only people and pages they tag, Facebook said. This is excellent news –...
A team of researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University has designed a "smart" device to harvest daylight and relay it to underground spaces, Tech Xplore reports. Authorities in Singapore are looking at digging deeper underground to create space for infrastructure, storage, and utilities, so demand for round-the-clock underground lighting is expected to rise. The scientists used an off-the-shelf acrylic ball, a single plastic optical fibre, and computer chip-assisted motors.
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-03-scientists-smart-device-harvest-daylight.html
In its fourth test of the Starship rocket that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes will take humans to the moon or Mars, the 50-metre rocket SN11 exploded, CBC reports. It reached a planned altitude of 10 kilometres, then began its descent. A few seconds after its engines fired to put the rocket in a vertical position, a loud boom was heard and debris was seen falling from the sky. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has launched a search...
Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) looked at 10 major datasets that have been cited over 100,000 times and found a 3.4% average error rate across all datasets, including 6% for ImageNet, which is arguably the most widely used dataset for popular image recognition systems developed by the likes of Google and Facebook, reports Tech Xplore.
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-03-major-machine-datasets-tens-thousands.html
In case you are looking for another reason to take that next hike through the forest, a new paper in the journal PNAS uses meta-analysis of dozens of studies to show that natural sounds can have wide-ranging positive effects. Listening to natural soundscapes can increase your feelings of tranquillity while decreasing your feelings of annoyance, reduce stress, decrease your heart rate, improve mood cognitive functions and even reduce pain, scientists say in the paper.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-27-covid-pandemic-origins-nature-sounds-good-why-humans-have-such-big-brains-and-more-1.5965083/nature-s-sounds-improve-well-being-reducing-stress-and-even-pain-1.5965089
Researchers studying cultures of brain cells from humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees have uncovered why human brains grow so much larger than those of other primates, CBC reports. The team found that in early development, as the brain is developing from what are called neural progenitors — which are the cells that will eventually make neurons — human tissue cultures spend more time making more of these progenitor cells, thanks to a gene called ZEB2.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-27-covid-pandemic-origins-nature-sounds-good-why-humans-have-such-big-brains-and-more-1.5965083/researchers-use-mini-brains-to-find-out-why-ours-grow-so-large-1.5965088
The explosion of COVID-19 around the world had a longer fuse than early indications suggested, according to a new study published in the journal Science. "That was definitely connected to a lot of the early cases, but it's now clear that the epidemic started well before that," said researcher Michael Worobey. "Rather than being the source of early infections from animals to humans in that market, it was probably really a human-to-human amplifier of outbreak."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-27-covid-pandemic-origins-nature-sounds-good-why-humans-have-such-big-brains-and-more-1.5965083/covid-fuse-may-have-been-lit-weeks-or-months-before-the-wuhan-market-bomb-1.5965090
A team of researchers at the University of Georgia has created a backpack equipped with AI gear aimed at being an alternative to guide dogs and canes for the blind, Tech Xplore reports. The group designed an AI system that could give visually impaired people better clues about their environment.
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-03-ai-equipped-backpack-dogs-cane.html
