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Chinese investigators characterize the world of resistance gene exchange among bacteria

Certain antibiotic resistance genes are easily transferred from one bacterial species to another, and can move between farm animals and the human gut. A team led by Chinese researchers has characterized this "mobile resistome," which they say is largely to blame for the spread of antibiotic resistance. They found that many antibiotic resistance genes that are shared between the human and animal gut microbiome are also present in multiple human pathogens. These findings are published September 9 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

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  • Biology & Nature

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Linking RNA structure and function

Several years ago, biologists discovered a new type of genetic material known as long noncoding RNA. This RNA does not code for proteins and is copied from sections of the genome once believed to be "junk DNA."

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  • Biology & Nature

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Kill them with cuteness: The adorable thing bats do to catch prey

A Johns Hopkins University researcher noticed the bats he works with cocked their heads to the side, just like his pet Pug.

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  • Biology & Nature

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Training human antibodies to protect against HIV

During HIV infection, the virus mutates too rapidly for the immune system to combat, but some people produce antibodies that can recognize the virus even two years after infection. With an eye towards developing a vaccine, in four related papers from multiple groups publishing September 8 in Cell and Immunity, researchers describe a multi-step method for "training" the immune system to produce these antibodies in genetically engineered mice.

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  • Biology & Nature

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Hippo teeth reveal environmental change

Loss of megaherbivores such as elephants and hippos can allow woody plants and non-grassy herbs and flowering plants to encroach on grasslands in African national parks, according to a new University of Utah study, published Sept. 12 in Scientific Reports. The study used isotopes in hippopotamus teeth to find a shift in the diet of hippos over the course of a decade in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park following widespread elephant poaching in the 1970s.

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  • Biology & Nature

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Study reveals how ionising radiation damages DNA and causes cancer

For the first time, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have been able to identify in human cancers two characteristic patterns of DNA damage caused by ionising radiation. These fingerprint patterns may now enable doctors to identify which tumours have been caused by radiation, and investigate if they should be treated differently.

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  • Biology & Nature

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First accurate simulation of a virus invading a cell

For the first time, scientists know what happens to a virus' shape when it invades a host cell, thanks to an experiment by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Understanding how the virus shape changes could lead to more effective anti-viral therapies.

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  • Biology & Nature

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Microsoft says new computing service for chemicals can slash R&D time

The new offering uses a combination of existing quantum computers, artificial intelligence and conventional high-performance computing systems.




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Growing wearables production in India bleeds China units

Top wearables brands such as Boat and Gizmore are making most products locally in key categories audio and smartwatch through electronics contract manufacturers such as Dixon Technologies and Optiemus Electronics. Domestic shipments of wearables jumped 81% on-year in the first quarter of calendar year 2023 to 25 million units, with India surpassing China to become the largest market in the world, according to IDC India.




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Tesla charging technology put on fast track to become US standard

Tesla's charging technology has been gathering momentum for weeks. Volvo Car on Tuesday joined General Motors, Ford and Rivian in embracing Tesla's charging design, shunning earlier efforts by the Biden administration to make the Combined Charging System (CCS) the dominant charging standard in the United States.




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Zoox headcount grows as Amazon's self-driving unit expands testing in Vegas

Amazon's shares were 1.2% higher at $128.84 in early afternoon trading.




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Microsoft announces AI-powered shopping tools in Bing, Edge

The new tools help users to harness the power of AI "to make it easier to discover, research, and complete your purchase, all in one place with information you need from expert sources," the tech giant said in a blogpost on Thursday.




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Meta plans to challenge Apple and Google's dominance over apps

Social media giant Meta is looking to challenge Apple and Google's dominance in the app marketplace by considering the creation of its own app store. The move is motivated by the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which calls for tech giants to open their platforms and allow alternative methods of app downloading. Meta aims to allow users to download apps directly from Facebook ads, resulting in higher conversion rates for developers. Failure to comply with the DMA can result in fines and possible acquisition bans.




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US lawmaker urges labelling, restrictions on AI content

In the letter to the chief executives of OpenAI, which released ChatGPT, and its partner Microsoft among others, Bennet said it was especially important for Americans to know when AI was used to make political content. US senator Bennet noted that some companies - including OpenAI and Alphabet's Google - have begun marking some content as AI- generated but added that those companies' policies are "alarmingly reliant on voluntary compliance."




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Microsoft announces AI-powered shopping tools in Bing, Edge

The new tools help users to harness the power of AI "to make it easier to discover, research, and complete your purchase, all in one place with information you need from expert sources," the tech giant said in a blogpost on Thursday.




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Google training Bard on scraped web data: Here's what the company has to say

“Our privacy policy has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate,” The Verge quoted Google spokesperson Christa Muldoon as saying. This publically available data includes data available on the internet, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, and application version number.




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OpenKylin: China introduces indigenous computer operating system

China has developed OpenKylin, an operating system based on the open-source Linux platform, to reduce its dependence on US technology. OpenKylin 1.0, created by a community of approximately 4,000 developers, has been utilised in various sectors, such as finance, energy, and even in its space program. China's tech industry has prioritised developing an operating system that is not dependent on US technology, and OpenKylin is one of several under development that could replace Microsoft's Windows and Apple's MacOS. Notably, the system provides reliable fundamental software services and ensures security in critical areas such as government affairs and finance.




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Global IT hardware companies bat for lifting of import restrictions

In a meeting with IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, held earlier this week, the companies said the import licensing requirement puts "unnecessary pressure" since there is no ecosystem in place in India at present to manufacture these products such as laptops, tablets and servers, executives present at the meeting told ET.




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Samsung has a plan to stop Exynos chips from overheating

Samsung's FOWLP-HPB cooling tech for Exynos 2500 chipsets, set for Q4 2024, will enhance performance, modeled in Galaxy S25. Galaxy Z Fold 6, Z Flip 6 launching at Glaaxy Unpacked with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 4000mAh battery, 50MP sensor, and IP48 durability rating aims to combat Exynos 2400 throttling, offering better battery life and consistent performance.




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Digital payments show strong uptick buoyed by wider adoption of credit during festive season

During this year’s festive season sales, credit cards and credit-based payment instruments like pay-later products saw a significant increase, according to industry reports. Transactions rose by 35-50% compared to last year, with a large share being made through credit cards, EMIs, and pay-later options. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) remained the dominant payment method, with a 34% rise in transactions and over 500 million daily payments recorded.




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Echo templates aid mental mapping in bats

A study published in eLife provides new insights on how bats recognise their surroundings to help them build mental maps.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Online gaming can boost school scores

Teenagers who regularly play online video games tend to improve their school results, according to new research from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Stanford scientists combine satellite data and machine learning to map poverty

One of the biggest challenges in providing relief to people living in poverty is locating them. The availability of accurate and reliable information on the location of impoverished zones is surprisingly lacking for much of the world, particularly on the African continent. Aid groups and other international organizations often fill in the gaps with door-to-door surveys, but these can be expensive and time-consuming to conduct.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Edible food packaging made from milk proteins (video)

At the grocery store, most foods -- meats, breads, cheeses, snacks -- come wrapped in plastic packaging. Not only does this create a lot of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable waste, but thin plastic films are not great at preventing spoilage. And some plastics are suspected of leaching potentially harmful compounds into food. To address these issues, scientists are now developing a packaging film made of milk proteins -- and it is even edible.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Ramen noodles supplanting cigarettes as currency among prisoners

Ramen noodles are supplanting the once popular cigarettes as a form of currency among state prisoners, but not in response to bans on tobacco products within prison systems, finds a new study.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Researchers find vulnerabilities in iPhone, iPad operating system

An international team of computer science researchers has identified serious security vulnerabilities in the iOS - the operating system used in Apple's iPhone and iPad devices. The vulnerabilities make a variety of attacks possible.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Beat the stock market by satisfying customers

Satisfy your customers and win in the stock market, says a new study by a team of researchers from Michigan's University Research Corridor, who found positive stock returns on customer satisfaction far out-distance competitive market measures that have been in play for more than half a century.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Team of robots learns to work together, without colliding

When roboticists create behaviors for teams of robots, they first build algorithms that focus on the intended task. Then they wrap safety behaviors around those primary algorithms to keep the machines from running into each other. Each robot is essentially given an invisible bubble that other robots must stay away from. As long as nothing touches the bubble, the robots move around without any issues. But that's where the problems begin.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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Language delivers fourfold speedups on big-data problems

In today's computer chips, memory management is based on what computer scientists call the principle of locality: If a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it probably needs the neighboring chunks as well.

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  • Mathematics & Economics

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China drafts rules for using facial recognition technology

The use of the technology will also require individual's consent, the CAC said in a statement. It added that non-biometric identification solutions should be favored over facial recognition in cases where such methods are equally effective.




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Building the government-to-citizen (G2C) value chain with cloud-first-security-first approach

The government will need to start by assessing and uplifting the digital posture of each concerned department, further enabling an interconnected ecosystem of government, private, and peering parties, and offering seamless and secure last mile for government-to- citizen services and support. All this while keeping the citizen’s data and identity safe.




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Cybersecurity firms CrowdStrike, Okta shares jump after better-than-expected earnings

CrowdStrike beat estimates when it reported late on Wednesday that its revenue jumped 37% to $731.6 million while adjusted net income more than doubled to $180 million in the second quarter on strong growth in subscriptions to its cloud-based data and identity protection services.




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Encourage ethical data management amid rising concerns: Confluent’s Jay Kreps

Confluent chief Jay Kreps says compliance can be challenging and lead to scrutiny of data movements. “Streaming technology enables the real-time synchronization of data, connecting all these disparate sources. An apt analogy is that of a central nervous system. The capability to unify data streams from different organizational segments empowers better decision making and the creation of personalized customer experiences,” he said.




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Cisco launches Secure Networking approach in India

Organizations can apply controls to identify, set and enforce policy, and gain visibility across all users, devices, and entities on the network to empower and enable work from anywhere.




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Identity governance: Upgrading beyond AD and PIM solutions

Let us explore the limitations of traditional AD and PIM solutions, and why identity governance is essential.




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API integration: Fueling business the secure way

At the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2024, top IT leaders converged to discuss the critical topic of API integration. This gathering of minds explored how APIs are not only catalysts for digital transformation but also a cornerstone for enterprise security.




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First in UP, Agra police launches advanced digital court monitoring system

The Agra Police Commissionerate launched the Commissionerate Courts Monitoring System (CCMS) to enhance transparency and efficiency in judicial processes. The digital portal, developed under Commissioner J Ravinder Goud's supervision, provides real-time access to case information for citizens and police officers, aiming to streamline and digitize court case management.




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Global IT spending on banking, investment services to reach $652 billion in 2023: Gartner

Driven by the increased use of consulting services and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), IT services will be the largest spending category, forecast to reach almost $270 billion in 2023.




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IT industry needs guardrails to weed out graft: Staffing experts

This comes after the country’s largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services found senior executives breaching corporate code of conduct to give preferential treatment to some recruiters. The incident was discovered following a whistle-blower complaint. Initial reports suggested that TCS had blacklisted three staffing firms identified during an investigation.




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US considering new restrictions on AI chip exports to China: report

The Commerce Department will stop the shipments of chips made by Nvidia and other chip companies to customers in China as early as July, the report said.




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Indian consumers are spending 52% of their time on open internet: Report

The open internet — comprising news and general websites, over-the-top (OTT) and connected TV (CTV), music streaming and online gaming — reaches almost 600 million consumers, which equates to nearly every internet user in India.




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Data and analytics can be instrumental in shaping FMCG’s future: Nithya Subramanian, Kellogg Company

One of the primary ways data and analytics are influencing the FMCG industry is through demand forecasting and inventory management. By analyzing historical sales data, market trends, and external factors like seasonality and economic indicators, FMCG companies can optimize their production and supply chain processes.




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Data enabling agility to changes in healthcare landscape: Preetam Biswas, Aditya Birla Health Insurance

Hospitals and healthcare systems utilize data to streamline their operations. Through predictive analytics, they can forecast patient admissions, optimize staff scheduling, and manage inventory efficiently. These data-driven insights enhance resource allocation and ensure that healthcare facilities are prepared for fluctuations in demand.




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Search startup Perplexity AI valued at $520 mln in funding from Bezos, Nvidia

The round was led by venture capital firm IVP and valued the company at about $520 million, according to the company. NEA, NVIDIA, Databricks, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in the round.




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Tier-2 IT firms upstage sector leaders in talent poaching

Midcap companies in India are shifting away from hiring large numbers of freshers in the technology services sector, focusing on experienced and readily deployable talent from larger rivals for niche and emerging technologies.




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India's strong growth leading to trend of 'reverse flipping' for startups

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal stressed how India's growth rate is nearly double that of other emerging market economies. He was speaking at an event in Singapore organized by the commerce ministry to showcase various investment opportunities in India.




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Elevating financial services in digital age: Hybrid multicloud approach

While, traditionally, the financial services sector has taken a cautious approach to cloud adoption, the tide is turning, and adoption rates are accelerating across all cloud models.




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'AWS working with Indian startups to solve for world'

Cloud major looking to export ‘great ideas’ from here, says Gaurav Arora, director and head of startup business in Asia Pacific and Japan at AWS.




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Kapil Mahajan shares Allcargo Logistics' blueprint for automating operations

Kapil Mahajan unveils Allcargo Group's unwavering commitment to innovation. He is aiming to move 80% of operational workloads to the cloud by the end of 2025.




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Understanding industry cloud and its role as business innovation tool

Enterprises are leveraging cloud technology to innovate and deliver key business outcomes such as growth, customer loyalty, network effect creation, and profitability. However, the monolith core of their application portfolio often hinders meeting these goals.