1. Group Uses New Technology to Track Salamanders
LOUDONVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The group scanned the river, searching for signs of the slimy, dirt-colored salamanders from its muddy banks.
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To actually see an elusive Eastern hellbender salamander, though, they'd have to flip the large, flat boulders that shield their underwater living spaces and plunge into the murky water of the Mohican River.
The process is labor-intensive and unlikely to yield results in areas where the state-endangered salamanders haven't been spotted before.
But a new tool that tests water for tiny traces of animal DNA can help researchers figure out if they're on the right track before they begin searching. The emerging science is called environmental DNA, or "eDNA" for short. Earlier this month, a team from The Wilds piloted a new kind of equipment that transforms a smartphone into an on-site eDNA detector to determine if a particular animal has recently been living in a waterway.
The Wilds folks will compare results with traditional lab tests conducted on larger, more complex equipment to see if they're similar and to verify the accuracy of the new methodology. They're testing multiple sites this month in the Muskingum River watershed.
"It's cool, real-time technology for folks who maybe don't have a lab, or who have a narrow time frame to evaluate multiple sites," said Stephen Spear, director of wildlife ecology at The Wilds. "If they get a positive test, they can get right in the river and go do it."
While water samples are mostly tested for eDNA in labs, it can be challenging when those labs are located far from the bodies of water being examined.
That's the case for The Wilds, a 10,000-acre wildlife conservation center that the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium operates about 70 miles southeast of Columbus. Zoo staff members and other wildlife activists across Ohio have released hundreds of hand-reared hellbender salamanders into the state's waterways since 2012, hoping to reintroduce the species in areas where human impact has reduced their populations to near-extinction.
But surveying past or potential release sites requires some planning, especially when time and heat can degrade DNA before it gets back to their lab.
The "two3" technology tested recently could eliminate those obstacles. Biomeme, a Philadelphia-based company, makes the device, a one-pound box that attaches to a smartphone, which acts as an interface to run the test and send results to a digital storage cloud.
2. California Bill Limits Drinks Offered in Kids Meals
LOUDONVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The group scanned the river, searching for signs of the slimy, dirt-colored salamanders from its muddy banks.
RELATED CONTENT
UNITED STATES - 1999/01/01: USA, Kansas, Manhattan, Konza Prairie Research Natural Area, Landscape. (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Topeka Company Works to Rebuild the Kansas Prairie
To actually see an elusive Eastern hellbender salamander, though, they'd have to flip the large, flat boulders that shield their underwater living spaces and plunge into the murky water of the Mohican River.
The process is labor-intensive and unlikely to yield results in areas where the state-endangered salamanders haven't been spotted before.
But a new tool that tests water for tiny traces of animal DNA can help researchers figure out if they're on the right track before they begin searching. The emerging science is called environmental DNA, or "eDNA" for short. Earlier this month, a team from The Wilds piloted a new kind of equipment that transforms a smartphone into an on-site eDNA detector to determine if a particular animal has recently been living in a waterway.
The Wilds folks will compare results with traditional lab tests conducted on larger, more complex equipment to see if they're similar and to verify the accuracy of the new methodology. They're testing multiple sites this month in the Muskingum River watershed.
"It's cool, real-time technology for folks who maybe don't have a lab, or who have a narrow time frame to evaluate multiple sites," said Stephen Spear, director of wildlife ecology at The Wilds. "If they get a positive test, they can get right in the river and go do it."
While water samples are mostly tested for eDNA in labs, it can be challenging when those labs are located far from the bodies of water being examined.
That's the case for The Wilds, a 10,000-acre wildlife conservation center that the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium operates about 70 miles southeast of Columbus. Zoo staff members and other wildlife activists across Ohio have released hundreds of hand-reared hellbender salamanders into the state's waterways since 2012, hoping to reintroduce the species in areas where human impact has reduced their populations to near-extinction.
But surveying past or potential release sites requires some planning, especially when time and heat can degrade DNA before it gets back to their lab.
The "two3" technology tested recently could eliminate those obstacles. Biomeme, a Philadelphia-based company, makes the device, a one-pound box that attaches to a smartphone, which acts as an interface to run the test and send results to a digital storage cloud.
2. California Bill Limits Drinks Offered in Kids Meals
The bill restricts restaurants to offering only water and unflavored milk with kids meals
A BILL AIMING TO LIMIT what beverages restaurants can offer with children's meals has passed the California Assembly and is headed to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk.
Senate Bill 1192 would restrict restaurants to only offering water and unflavored milk with children's meals. However, it wouldn't prohibit children or their parents from ordering alternatives, such as soda or juice. According to The Hill, if Brown signs the bill into law, California will be the first state to have such a measure on the books.
The bill was introduced in response to a rise in obesity, which, according to the legislation, increased 250 percent in the state from 1990 to 2016. Lawmakers are hoping the provisions in the bill will address obesity and obesity-related medical conditions, such as diabetes, which "have serious economic costs."
"Many families lack adequate time to obtain and prepare healthy food, making dining out an appealing and often necessary option. As a result, more than one-half of food expenditures in the United States are spent outside the home," the bill states. "Nationwide, American children eat 25 percent of their calories at fast food and other restaurants. Children consume almost twice as many calories when they eat a meal at a restaurant as they do when they eat at home."
Senate Bill 1192 states that any restaurant offering a children's meal must offer water, sparkling water or flavored water with no added natural or artificial sweeteners, unflavored milk and a non-dairy alternative that is no more than 130 calories as the standard drink option.
The bill was overwhelmingly approved 32 to 7 in the California Senate in May and passed the Assembly 46 to 26.
3. Can Twitter change its 'core' and remain Twitter?
NEW YORK - After long resisting change, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wants to revamp the "core" of the service to fight rampant abuse and misinformation. But it's not clear if changing that essence — how it rewards interactions and values popularity — would even work.
Though Dorsey was scant on details, what is certain is that the move will require huge investments for a company that doesn't have the same resources that Google and Facebook have to throw at the problem. Any change is likely to affect how users engage with Twitter and hurt revenue, testing the patience of both users and investors.
"Social networks have a history of ... well-intentioned but badly designed efforts to fix this," said Nate Elliott, principal at marketing research firm Nineteen Insights.
Twitter isn't alone in having to deal with hate, abuse, misinformation and bad actors using the service for elections interference, targeted harassment and scams. And Twitter isn't alone in proposing fixes that don't get to the heart of the problems.
Case in point: Facebook. After Russian trolls were found to have used Facebook to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections, including by purchasing ads, the company spent a lot of time and energy building a tool that shows who's behind political advertisements. But Elliott said it's not even clear which ads on Facebook are the ones causing problems around foreign elections meddling. In 2016, Russian agents weren't so much running political ads for or against candidates but rather social ads on divisive such as gun control and immigration.
But like Facebook, Twitter has to try — or at least be seen as trying.
Dorsey told The Washington Post that Twitter had not considered changing the core of the service until now. Like Facebook and others, Twitter has been accused of tinkering around the edges, tweaking policies and hiring masses of moderators when what's really needed is a fundamental shift in how they work and how they make money in order to survive. While many former executives and other insiders have proposed radical shifts at major social networks, it's rare for a sitting CEO to propose something as drastic as revisiting the foundation that his company is built on.
"We often turn to policy to fix a lot of these issues, but I think that is only treating surface-level symptoms that we are seeing," Dorsey said.
Twitter confirmed Dorsey's comments to the Post, but declined further comment.
Revamping the core could mean changing the engagement and rewards designed to keep users coming back — in the form of seeing their tweets liked, responded to and retweeted, and seeing their follower counts grow. It's the tiny dopamine hits we get with each like that makes us feel better and keeps us returning for more. Take that away, and users might not want to return. In turn, advertisers might stay away, too, as they rely on monthly and daily user numbers, as well as user interactions, to gauge how well their ads work and how much to spend.
Unlike Facebook, Elliott said, Twitter doesn't have billions of users to absorb any hits on user growth. Even if the changes work, he said, "it's going to cost them so many users and so much money I can't imagine them sticking with these kinds of changes."
Paul Verna, an analyst with research firm eMarketer, also isn't "terribly optimistic" that Twitter can make its service safer without hurting its business. The same goes for Facebook, and YouTube.
"Because they rely on an advertising business model, they need to not only continue to reach audiences, but try to get them to spend as much time on platforms as possible," he said. "That creates an inherent tension between your business needs and being a good citizen."
That said, Twitter may not have to reinvent itself completely to improve. Elliott said better policies might go a long way toward reducing the abuse. For example, it's currently OK to harass someone on Twitter, as long as it's not harassment based on certain categories such as gender and sexual orientation. Elliott said Twitter may just need to prohibit all harassment.
4. AI Fueling Next Wave of 3D Printing and Robotics
The rise of 3D printing as a game-changing technology over the past decade has often been marked by some pretty grandiose plans, with talk of printing aircraft, boats, buildings, even entire cities. Those large-scale applications are still in the works, of course — you could have a 3D-printed superyacht by 2030, or drive the world’s first artificial intelligence-engineered car — but some of the most intriguing innovations in 3D printing these days are going small, often fueled by AI and machine learning.
Applying the same deep learning techniques that have led to great strides in improving speech recognition, image analysis, language translation and any number of gaming triumphs, with AI’s skills at processing vast amounts of data and recognizing patterns, could expand the field of 3D-printed designs to innovative robotics and medical applications, among other uses. Combined with 3D printing’s own innovations, AI and machine learning could create whole new avenues for relatively inexpensive, effective and on-demand devices.
Many of these innovations are starting small — flexible, but strong little robots that scurry across the floor like The Hand, devices powered by nothing more than a little light, and others that draw on the power of a popular movie snack. And while what the tiny devices can do on their own is impressive, the research going into them could open new doors for medical devices and robotics with broad applications.
Applying the same deep learning techniques that have led to great strides in improving speech recognition, image analysis, language translation and any number of gaming triumphs, with AI’s skills at processing vast amounts of data and recognizing patterns, could expand the field of 3D-printed designs to innovative robotics and medical applications, among other uses. Combined with 3D printing’s own innovations, AI and machine learning could create whole new avenues for relatively inexpensive, effective and on-demand devices.
Many of these innovations are starting small — flexible, but strong little robots that scurry across the floor like The Hand, devices powered by nothing more than a little light, and others that draw on the power of a popular movie snack. And while what the tiny devices can do on their own is impressive, the research going into them could open new doors for medical devices and robotics with broad applications.
5. Texas Shrimp Farmers Try New Technology to Prevent Disease
This July 18, 2018 photo, shows a salt water tank used to grow shrimp at NaturalShrimp Inc.'s Lacoste facility, in Lacoste, Texas. The company has created technology that will allow for multiple inland shrimp farms and allow the company to become a major supplier of sustainable shrimp as the global population grows and oceans continue to be over-fished. (Josie Norris/The San Antonio Express-News via AP) The Associated Press
6. Nvidia (NVDA) Guidance Miss Is Buying Opportunity
Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) investors aren’t used to disappointing earnings reports. However, NVDA stock dropped 4 percent Friday morning after a guidance miss on Thursday afternoon, but analysts say there’s still plenty to love about Nvidia.
NVDA earnings by the numbers. Nvidia reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.76 on revenue of $3.12 billion. Both numbers topped consensus expectations of $1.66 and $3.10 billion, respectively. Revenue was up 40 percent from a year ago.
Gross margin in the second quarter was 63.5 percent, down from 64.7 percent in the first quarter.
By segment, NVDA reported gaming revenue of $1.80 billion, ahead of analyst expectations of $1.75 billion. Data center revenue was $760 million compared to analyst expectations of $744 million. Professional visualization revenue was $281 million, above the $257 million consensus forecast. Nvidia’s automotive segment generated $161 million in revenue, above the $148 million consensus estimate.
The only major weakness in the quarter came from original equipment manufacturers and intellectual property, which includes Nvidia’s cryptocurrency mining products. Revenue was down 70 percent from a year ago to $116 million, well short of consensus estimates of $188 million.
7. Beyond the Wrist: Rethinking Wearable Technology for Mental Health
YOU MAY NOT REMEMBER 2014 as a particularly revolutionary year, but in the digital world, it was. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show that year, the smartwatch made its breakthrough, to the extent that there was a special Wrist Revolution section showcasing watches with the power and capacity of smartphones. A year later, Apple released the Apple Watch, which quickly became the market leader.
Since then so-called wearable technology for the wrist, including watches and fitness bands, has, well, grabbed Americans by the wrist. According to a 2016 essay in PLOS Medicine, 1 in 6 U.S. consumers used wearable technology, and it predicted that 110 million fitness devices were likely to be sold in 2018.
Indeed, the tech doctor has moved well beyond the wrist. Wearable devices that are able to track a growing number of medically important vital signs, risk factors and personal habits can be found in clothing, jewelry and monitors affixed to the skin. Even smartphones can track such information, and while not technically a "wearable," it's hard to find anyone who doesn't have a smartphone in his or her pocket, purse or hand nearly every waking hour of the day and on the nightstand every sleeping hour of the night.
Tracking Important Health Data
The data from wearable devices is being used to help physicians treat patients with a number of diseases, including mental illness. In one of many examples, researchers looked at people with serious mental illness, including schizophrenia spectrum and mood disorders. This population tends to be less physically active than the general population, and increased activity has been shown to improve symptoms of the diseases. The researchers enrolled participants with serious mental illness in a six-month intervention; some were given a Fitbit activity tracking device and smartphone to use. Those participants said the devices helped encourage them to be more physically active and reach daily step goals by allowing them to self-monitor their activity.
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