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A bat specimen collected in France at the end of World War I, since housed in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural […]

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A team of astrophysicists and planetary scientists has predicted that Neptune-like planets located near the center of the Milky Way galaxy have been transformed into […]

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If you try to open a text file with UTF-16 or UTF-32 encoding, the Import Tool displays a warning message stating that the encoding is not supported.  If you continue to load the file anyways, it is opened with UTF-8 encoding, and the file may not be displayed or imported as expected.This bug exists in the following release(s):
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The Maya of Central America are thought to have been a kinder, gentler civilization, especially compared to the Aztecs of Mexico. At the peak of Mayan culture some 1,500 years ago, warfare seemed ritualistic, designed to extort ransom for captive royalty or to subjugate rival dynasties, with limited impact on the surrounding population. Only later, archeologists thought, did increasing drought and climate change lead to total warfare -- cities and dynasties were wiped off the map in so-called termination events -- and the collapse of the lowland Maya civilization around 1,000 A.D. (or C.E., current era). New evidence unearthed by National Science Foundation-funded researchers call all this into question, suggesting that the Maya engaged in scorched-earth military campaigns -- a strategy that aims to destroy anything of use, including cropland -- even at the height of their civilization, a time of prosperity and artistic sophistication. The finding also indicates that this increase in warfare, possibly associated with climate change and resource scarcity, was not the cause of the disintegration of the lowland Maya civilization.

Image credit: Francisco Estrada-Belli/Tulane

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys guideline for protecting the public from a toxic form of mercury is justifiable based on the latest scientific evidence, some children of women who consume large amounts of fish and seafood during pregnancy may be at special risk of neurological problems.

A preponderance of scientific evidence shows that even low doses of ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, are likely to pose some risk of adverse health effects, says a new report from the National Academies National Research Council.

The latest and final in a series of congressionally mandated biennial reviews of the evidence of health problems that may be linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War changed the categorization of health outcomes for bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and spina bifida and clarified the breadth of the previous finding for Parkinson’s disease.

A new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine takes a comprehensive look at evidence on the human health effects of e-cigarettes.

From April 28 to May 1 the National Academy of Sciences will hold its 155th annual meeting.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announces the appointment of May R. Berenbaum as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official journal of the Academy. Berenbaum will begin the editorship on January 1, 2019.

The first-ever Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future, will bring together Nobel Laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders to advance new insights into global sustainable development and explore actions that need to be taken to ensure humanity’s future on a prosperous, stable, and resilient planet.

“Reports & Events” is a monthly tip sheet for the news media that highlights selected meetings of interest and reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau will provide remarks on behalf of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board during a virtual event on May 4 to launch an online pledging effort, the Coronavirus Global Response.

"Deepfakes" are digitally altered images that make incidents appear real when they are not. Such altered files could have broad implications for politics.; Credit: /Marcus Marritt for NPR

Sophisticated fake media hasn't emerged as a factor in the disinformation wars in the ways once feared — and two specialists say it may have missed its moment.

Deceptive video and audio recordings, often nicknamed "deepfakes," have been the subject of sustained attention by legislators and technologists, but so far have not been employed to decisive effect, said two panelists at a video conference convened on Wednesday by NATO.

One speaker borrowed Sherlock Holmes' reasoning about the significance of something that didn't happen.

"We've already passed the stage at which they would have been most effective," said Keir Giles, a Russia specialist with the Conflict Studies Research Centre in the United Kingdom. "They're the dog that never barked."

The perils of deepfakes in political interference have been discussed too often and many people have become too familiar with them, Giles said during the online discussion, hosted by NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.

Following all the reports and revelations about election interference in the West since 2016, citizens know too much to be hoodwinked in the way a fake video might once have fooled large numbers of people, he argued: "They no longer have the power to shock."

Tim Hwang, director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, agreed that deepfakes haven't proven as dangerous as once feared, although for different reasons.

Hwang argued that users of "active measures" (efforts to sow misinformation and influence public opinion) can be much more effective with cheaper, simpler and just as devious types of fakes — mis-captioning a photo or turning it into a meme, for example.

Influence specialists working for Russia and other governments also imitate Americans on Facebook, for another example, worming their way into real Americans' political activities to amplify disagreements or, in some cases, try to persuade people not to vote.

Other researchers have suggested this work continues on social networks and has become more difficult to detect.

Defense is stronger than attack

Hwang also observed that the more deepfakes are made, the better machine learning becomes at detecting them.

A very sophisticated, real-looking fake video might still be effective in a political context, he acknowledged — and at a cost to create of around $10,000, it would be easily within the means of a government's active measures specialists.

But the risks of attempting a major disruption with such a video may outweigh an adversary's desire to use one. People may be too media literate, as Giles argued, and the technology to detect a fake may mean it can be deflated too swiftly to have an effect, as Hwang said.

"I tend to be skeptical these will have a large-scale impact over time," he said.

One technology boss told NPR in an interview last year that years' worth of work on corporate fraud protection systems has given an edge to detecting fake media.

"This is not a static field. Obviously, on our end we've performed all sorts of great advances over this year in advancing our technology, but these synthetic voices are advancing at a rapid pace," said Brett Beranek, head of security business for the technology firm Nuance. "So we need to keep up."

Beranek described how systems developed to detect telephone fraudsters could be applied to verify the speech in a fake clip of video or audio.

Corporate clients that rely on telephone voice systems must be wary about people attempting to pose as others with artificial or disguised voices. Beranek's company sells a product that helps to detect them and that countermeasure also works well in detecting fake audio or video.

Machines using neural networks can detect known types of synthetic voices. Nuance also says it can analyze a recording of a real known voice — say, that of a politician — and then contrast its characteristics against a suspicious recording.

Although the world of cybersecurity is often described as one in which attackers generally have an edge over defenders, Beranek said he thought the inverse was true in terms of this kind of fraud detection.

"For the technology today, the defense side is significantly ahead of the attack side," he said.

Shaping the battlefield

Hwang and Giles acknowledged in the NATO video conference that deepfakes likely will proliferate and become lower in cost to create, perhaps becoming simple enough to make with a smartphone app.

One prospective response is the creation of more of what Hwang called "radioactive data" — material earmarked in advance so that it might make a fake easier to detect.

If images of a political figure were so tagged beforehand, they could be spotted quickly if they were incorporated by computers into a deceptive video.

Also, the sheer popularity of new fakes, if that is what happens, might make them less valuable as a disinformation weapon. More people could become more familiar with them, as well as being detectable by automated systems — plus they may also have no popular medium on which to spread.

Big social media platforms already have declared affirmatively that they'll take down deceptive fakes, Hwang observed. That might make it more difficult for a scenario in which a politically charged fake video went viral just before Election Day.

"Although it might get easier and easier to create deepfakes, a lot of the places where they might spread most effectively, your Facebooks and Twitters of the world, are getting a lot more aggressive about taking them down," Hwang said.

That won't stop them, but it might mean they'll be relegated to sites with too few users to have a major effect, he said.

"They'll percolate in these more shady areas."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Can someone take control of your WhatsApp account by just knowing your phone number? We ran a small test to find out.

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Source: Streetwise Reports   04/28/2020

SmileDirectClub Inc. (SDC:NASDAQ) today announced "it has been issued a patent for its SmileShop intellectual property from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office which further strengthens the telehealth dentistry pioneer's efforts to bring affordable, accessible oral care to more people through its unique and innovative teledentistry platform and direct-to-consumer business model." The firm claimed that the patent will prevent other clear aligner competitors from duplicating its business model for the next 18 years.

The company's CEO David Katzman commented, "This patent designation is a significant validation of our unique customer-oriented care model, and expands our category ownership, including the manufacturing and retail experience...As the industry pioneer and inventor of the SmileShop concept, this patent is recognition that SmileDirectClub offers an innovative way for consumers to access oral care that is safe, doctor-directed and convenient. We look forward to welcoming customers back to our SmileShops at the earliest and safest possible time."

"We are focused on the entire teeth straightening and care process, and we now own the manufacturing process of our clear aligner products, the customer experience via our teledentistry platform, as well as the retail experience for clear aligner therapy. This patent is another step in our process as we continue to grow and protect our business," Katzman added.

The firm advised that "the patent encompasses the unique SmileShop concept and process" which includes appointment scheduling, conducting an intraoral scan, generating an approved treatment plan by a licensed dentist or orthodontist and then creating and shipping the aligners to the customer. The company noted that so far more than one million customers have used its clear aligner therapy platform.

The company stated that it is planning to slowly reopen its SmileShops in the U.S. and other markets starting in May as local governments begin to lift business restrictions. The firm indicated that it will be supplying all of its SmileShop team members with face shields and other PPE and will institute staggered appointment times, temperature scans and other social distancing and sanitary measures to provide a safe experience for all staff and customers.

SmileDirectClub is an oral care company headquartered in Nashville, Tenn. The firm stated that it is the creator of the first direct-to-consumer medtech platform for teeth straightening. The company has since expanded its business and now offers its products directly through dentist and orthodontists' offices. Some of the products offered by the company include aligners, impression kits, retainers and whitening gel. In addition to the U.S., the company also operates in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand and the U.K.

SmileDirectClub began the day with a market capitalization of around $2.1 billion with approximately 385 million shares outstanding and a short interest of about 10.4%. SDC shares opened more than 26% higher today at $6.76 (+$1.37, +26.42%) over yesterday's $5.39 closing price. The stock has traded today between $6.13 to $6.80 per share and is currently trading at $6.64 (+$1.25, +23.14%).

Disclosure:
1) Stephen Hytha compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an independent contractor. He or members of his household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. He or members of his household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None.
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5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases.
6) This article does not constitute medical advice. Officers, employees and contributors to Streetwise Reports are not licensed medical professionals. Readers should always contact their healthcare professionals for medical advice.

( Companies Mentioned: SDC:NASDAQ, )

City dwellers who grow their own fruit and vegetables may be consuming high levels of pollutants. In a recent study, researchers found that vegetables grown on plots in Berlin, Germany, often contained higher concentrations of some heavy metals than shop-bought vegetables, with those grown close to busy roads containing the greatest quantities.

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For more than 120 years the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex -- an ancient Mayan book containing astronomical data -- has been of great interest to scholars around the world. The accuracy of its observations, especially the calculation of a kind of 'leap year' in the Mayan Calendar, was deemed an impressive curiosity used primarily for astrology.

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