If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties‚ subscribe to Reclaim The Net. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is in Davos these days for the annual World Economic Summit (WEF)‚ and his address at one of the panels has been in keeping with the meeting’s agenda(s) – but also‚ clearly‚ those recently forcefully pushed by the world organization. Among the schemes Guterres spoke about are the UN’s Global Digital Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals. The first consists of several proposals‚ including digital ID that is linked to people’s bank accounts‚ while the second‚ overarching one‚ that enjoys the support of some of the world’s most powerful countries‚ also involves digital ID‚ and UN’s “vision” of disinformation moderation (also known as censorship). Guterres said that Global Digital Compact would be a major contributor to what he called “the digital connectivity gap.” Referring to the overall project as multi-stakeholder‚ the UN chief noted that “AI” would play a role in building the public and private sector’s capability of a “networked governance model.” More data sharing seems to be at the heart of all this‚ while in order to keep control over the way “AI” is used in the future‚ Guterres and his team want to see governments and (private) tech companies work together. All these initiatives will feature at the “Summit for the Future” this coming September. One idea voiced by Guterres is to make globalist organizations – such as G20‚ international financial institutions‚ and the UN itself‚ even closer. A recent UN Policy Brief discusses the complex “pyramid” of initiatives‚ where until now something called “Our Common Agenda” (of which Global Digital Compact is one mechanism) was designed to accelerate Sustainable Development Goals. Now‚ there is also the move to bring G20 and others into this play – likened in some reports as an economy-oriented counterpart to UN’s Security Council. And the fear here becomes the effect it may have on the international banking system – and in the process‚ of people’s financial liberties. As for the Global Digital Compact‚ it looks like yet another dystopian iteration of an idea that is cropping up all over the world in different forms. With digital ID as an unavoidable component‚ it would create a centralized – therefore easily controlled – network of citizens. The post UN Chief António Guterres Advocates for “Sustainable Development Goals” (Including Digital ID) and Enhanced Data Sharing at WEF 2024 appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

An animal shelter in Krakow‚ Poland cannot express with words how thankful they are after launching a temporary dog adoption project on Friday‚ January 05 and getting an overwhelming response.

Amazon Prime Video: Satan and His Lover Are the Good Guys

Snake fangs get a lot of attention‚ from their use in creating anti-venom to figuring out how they evolved. One area of research has now gone beyond just the fangs‚ looking at the way that all of the teeth and their morphology are related to the whole of the snake as it moves in response to prey.Researcher Bill Ryerson found that looking closely at the form of the teeth could tell him more about the different feeding strategies different snakes were using. And by closely‚ we mean really closely. Ryerson took CT scans of nearly 70 snakes belonging to 13 species to look at the tooth morphology of not just the fangs‚ but the rest of the teeth within the mouth too. Using snazzy high-speed video cameras‚ he also collected footage of the different species attacking prey items. "I think the other teeth have been overlooked for a few reasons. First was that because venom is such an interesting development for vertebrates‚ the fangs naturally drew a lot of attention. The second is that the differences in the non-fang teeth are not as obvious at first glance‚" Ryerson told IFLScience. This information helped Ryerson sort the snakes – which included northern copperheads‚ reticulated pythons‚ boa constrictors‚ Kenyan sand boas‚ California kingsnakes‚ Brook's kingsnakes‚ Arizona mountain kingsnakes‚ and Brazilian rainbow boas – into two categories. Boa constrictors and pythons‚ for instance‚ were categorized as “strikers”‚ with lightning-fast attacks that typically came from above their prey. King snakes‚ on the other hand‚ were classed as “lungers” and attacked much more straight on. They attacked much more slowly‚ however‚ at 1.5 meters per second compared to the speedy strikes of the pythons at 2.7 meters per second.                          The lungers "strike more slowly and don't open their mouths as wide‚” said Ryerson in a statement sent to LiveScience. "They make contact with both jaws simultaneously."The teeth of lungers were broad and curved along the lengths of the jaws and during the attacks‚ the lower teeth impaled the prey first to help the snake secure it. The strikers had more variation in their dentition‚ with tall teeth at the front of the lower part of their mouth and short‚ broad‚ and curved teeth at the back; this curvature helps the snake swallow its prey.  "The main difference between the two groups is that 'strikers' have very narrow‚ upright teeth in their lower jaws‚ related to how that part makes first contact and acts as a pivot point for the rest of the head to rotate over‚" Ryerson told IFLScience. "The "lungers" have shorter‚ more curved teeth that work to grip the prey so it can't escape. They typically aren't venomous or use constriction."                         “I was surprised at well the different strike types separated out‚ and how well the tooth morphology could predict the different types of strikes‚" said Ryerson‚ who plans to investigate more species‚ speaking to LiveScience. Those investigations aim to see if the pattern continues or if‚ by looking at snake species that live in trees or underground‚ a whole new category could emerge.Ryerson recently presented the research at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The work was also published in a book‚ Snakes: Morphology‚ Function‚ and Ecology‚ edited by David Penning.

It must be tough being a kid these days. Born too late to actually enjoy the internet‚ too early to declare yourself god-emperor of a desert wasteland run on water scarcity and guzzoline – and should you try to numb the pain with a little light math‚ you’ll most likely have to put up with coming second to a robot.“The International Mathematical Olympiad is a modern-day arena for the world's brightest high-school mathematicians‚” write Trieu Trinh and Thang Luong‚ research scientists at Google DeepMind‚ in a new blog post about their breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) system‚ AlphaGeometry.AlphaGeometry is "an AI system that solves complex geometry problems at a level approaching a human Olympiad gold-medalist – a breakthrough in AI performance‚” they announce. “In a benchmarking test of 30 Olympiad geometry problems‚ AlphaGeometry solved 25 within the standard Olympiad time limit. For comparison […] the average human gold medalist solved 25.9 problems.”It’s not just the system’s score in the contest that’s impressive. It’s been almost 50 years since the first ever mathematical proof by computer – essentially a brute-force workthrough of the four-color theorem – and since then‚ the admittedly controversial realm of computer-assisted proofs has come on leaps and bounds. But very recently‚ with the dawn of things like big data and advanced machine learning techniques‚ we’ve started to see a shift – however slight – away from using computers as simple number-crunchers‚ and towards artificial intelligence that can produce genuinely creative proofs.The fact that AlphaGeometry can tackle the kinds of complex mathematical problems faced by Olympiad mathletes may signal a key milestone in AI research‚ Trinh and Luong believe. Until now‚ such a program would face at least two major hurdles. Firstly‚ computers are‚ well‚ computers; as anybody who’s ever written out 50 pages of code only to have the whole thing foiled by one mistyped semicolon in line 337 can tell you‚ they’re not great at things like reasoning or deduction. Secondly‚ math is kind of difficult to teach even the most cutting-edge machine learning system.“Learning systems like neural networks are quite bad at doing ‘algebraic reasoning’‚” David Saxton‚ also of DeepMind‚ told New Scientist back in 2019.“Humans are good at [math]‚” he added‚ “but they are using general reasoning skills that current artificial learning systems don’t possess.”AlphaGeometry‚ however‚ takes on these challenges by combining a neural language model – good at making quick predictions‚ but rubbish at making actual sense – with a symbolic deduction engine. These latter machines are “based on formal logic and use clear rules to arrive at conclusions‚” Trinh and Luong write‚ making them better at rational deduction‚ but also slow and inflexible – “especially when dealing with large‚ complex problems on their own.”Together‚ the two systems worked in a sort of loop: the symbolic deduction engine would chug away at the problem until it got stuck‚ at which point the language model would suggest a tweak to the argument. It was a great theory – there was just one problem. What would they train the language model on? Ideally‚ the program would be fed millions if not billions of human-made geometric proofs‚ which it could then chew up and spit back out in varying levels of gobbledegook. But “human-made” and “geometric” don’t exactly work well with “computer program” – “[AlphaGeometry] does not ‘see’ anything about the problems that it solves‚” Stanislas Dehaene‚ a cognitive neuroscientist at the College de France who studies foundational geometric knowledge‚ told the New York Times. “There is absolutely no spatial perception of the circles‚ lines and triangles that the system learns to manipulate.”So the team had to come up with a different solution. “Using highly parallelized computing‚ the system started by generating one billion random diagrams of geometric objects and exhaustively derived all the relationships between the points and lines in each diagram‚” Trinh and Luong explain. “AlphaGeometry found all the proofs contained in each diagram‚ then worked backwards to find out what additional constructs‚ if any‚ were needed to arrive at those proofs‚” they continue. They call this process "symbolic deduction and traceback".And it was evidently successful: not only was the AI nearly as good as the average human IMO gold medalist‚ but it was 2.5 times as successful as the previous state-of-the-art system to attempt the challenge. “Its geometry capability alone makes it the first AI model in the world capable of passing the bronze medal threshold of the IMO in 2000 and 2015‚” the pair note.While the system is currently confined to geometry problems‚ Trinh and Luong hope to expand the capabilities of math AI across far more disciplines. “We’re not making incremental improvement‚” Trinh told the Times. “We’re making a big jump‚ a big breakthrough in terms of the result.”“Just don’t overhype it‚” he added.

This week‚ water flows freely down the Klamath River for the first time in 100 years‚ the oldest known supermassive black hole was found at the center of GN-z11‚ and a 14‚000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk tells the tale of the animal's huge journey. Finally‚ we ask what will be happening on the surface of the Moon in 2075.Subscribe to the IFLScience newsletter for all the biggest science news delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Saturday. Astronauts Heading To Mars Will Experience The Effects Of Time DilationWhen astronauts head to Mars‚ they will experience time dilation. That's to be expected. In fact‚ your feet and your head experience time dilation‚ with your head aging ever so slightly faster than your feet. But how much time dilation will they experience (relative to Earth observers)? Read the full story hereWater Is Freely Flowing Down The Klamath River For First Time In 100 YearsThe Klamath River‚ which trails for 414 kilometers (257 miles) between Oregon and northwestern California‚ was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. Now‚ following years of activism from Indigenous communities and environmentalists‚ the removal of dams along the Klamath River is allowing water to flow freely once again‚ marking a new hope for the region’s iconic salmon. Read the full story hereOldest Black Hole Found Gobbling Gas Just 400 Million Years After The Big BangAstronomers have estimated the size and activity of a supermassive black hole discovered in one of the most distant galaxies we have ever seen. Because the speed of light is finite‚ looking farther into the universe is like looking farther back in time. The light from this galaxy comes from just 400 million years after the Big Bang‚ making this the oldest known supermassive black hole found yet. Read the full story hereTusk Tells The Tale Of Huge Journey Made By A Woolly Mammoth 14‚000 Years AgoUsing little more than a tusk‚ scientists have pieced together the lifetime travels of a single woolly mammoth that wandered North America more than 14‚000 years ago. Starting life in the western Yukon‚ the mammoth traveled hundreds of kilometers through northwestern Canada before arriving at her final resting place‚ an early human settlement in present-day Alaska. Read the full story hereHow Worried Should We Be About The New COVID-19 Variant JN.1?It’s almost four years since COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. Although the state of emergency has now passed‚ and vaccines and treatment advances have helped turn the tide‚ the virus is very much still out there. The latest variant‚ JN.1‚ has brought with it some unexpected new symptoms – but how worried should we be? Read the full story hereTWIS is published weekly on our Linkedin page‚ join us there for even more content.Feature of the week: It’s The Year 2075. This Is What It Looks Like On The Moon NowThe year is 2075. The place: the Neil Armstrong International Lunar Base in Henson Crater. Two astronauts sit side by side inside a pressurized‚ six-wheeled‚ lunar transporter. They have just exited the station’s car airlock and are rolling down the Moon highway. The Earth’s natural satellite is no longer just a desolate celestial sphere. Read the full story here More content:Have you seen our free e-magazine‚ CURIOUS? Issue 18‚ January 2023‚ is out now. Check it out for exclusive interviews‚ book excerpts‚ long reads‚ and more.PLUS‚ the entire season 3 of IFLScience's The Big Questions Podcast is available now.

New research has revealed a grave historical error at Palacio de Cortés in Mexico. It was long assumed that a skeleton on display at the palace was that of a Spanish monk – but a new analysis has shown that it actually likely belonged to an Aztec woman.Palacio de Cortés in the city of Cuernavaca was damaged by the deadly Puebla earthquake in September 2017‚ sparking a renovation project to restore the building to its former glory. During the restoration work‚ anthropologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) took a fresh look at the supposed monk buried in the palace.While most believed the body belonged to a Spanish “man of the cloth” named Juan Leyva‚ the identity of this person was never certain. Excavations of the Palacio de Cortés skeleton in the early 1970s.Image credit: Juan Dubernard Chauveau/INAHThe label that has been accompanying the remains for almost 50 years reads as so: “Burial found in situ of a man with deformed vertebrae. Traditionally it is stated that it may be the monk Juan Leyva‚ who served the Marchioness Doña Juana de Zúñiga de Arellano‚ wife of Hernán Cortés and resident of this palace‚ however‚ due to the type of posture it may be an indigenous burial.” To settle the mystery once and for all‚ INAH researchers launched a detailed archeological analysis of the remains and its setting. A more recent image of the skeleton.Image credit: INAHWear-and-tear on their teeth indicates the person was 30 and 40 years old when they died. Despite their “deformed vertebrae”‚ they found no evidence of disease in the skeleton‚ leaving it uncertain how the person died. Based on the size of their humerus (an upper arm bone)‚ the researchers suggest they were around 147 centimeters (under 4 foot 10 inches) tall. The wider shape of the pelvis also clearly shows that the skeleton was feminine.Crucially‚ the study suggests the body dates to an era spanning 1450 to 1500 CE. Since European colonizers did not arrive in modern-day Mexico until 1511 CE‚ we can safely assume this is not the body of a Spanish man. Instead‚ the researchers argue that the people belonged to a pre-Hispanic group‚ most likely the Tlahuica people of Central Mexico. The Palace of Cortés was only constructed by the Spanish in the 1520s‚ so it appears the structure was built around this pre-existing grave from a previous era.“It is more related to a pre-Hispanic burial‚ which could belong to the contact period or earlier‚” Jorge Angulo‚ an archaeologist with the INAH‚ said in a statement. He added that the previous theory didn’t make sense because it was very strange “that a clergyman was buried outside his community‚ even more so that his burial system was not associated with the Catholic canons of the time.”In light of this work‚ the archaeological display has recently been reopened with a new certificate‚ which states that the burial belonged to a “Tlahuica Woman.”

What are the best Palworld settings for max fps? Getting the best performance out of Palworld is a surprisingly simple task‚ provided you've got an Nvidia RTX GPU. The graphical settings aren't overwhelming‚ but they also don't strip away control‚ creating a perfect balance to find what works for your gaming rig. The Palworld system requirements already painted a picture of a game that wouldn't cause problems for most modern gaming PCs. Palworld even runs on the Steam Deck‚ but if you want to truly maximize your performance‚ we have the settings you need to use. Continue reading Best Palworld settings for max fps and performance MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card‚ Best gaming PC‚ Best SSD for gaming

What is the best TAQ Evolvere loadout? This hard-hitting LMG arrived with the Season 1 Reloaded update‚ giving players another option if they favor damage and magazine count over all else. The TAQ Evolvere is an excellent primary weapon‚ and taking it pays dividends when the game tightens into mid-range skirmishes. The TAQ Evolvere is quickly finding its way into our best Warzone loadout list; with huge ammo reserves and controllable recoil‚ as well as decent stopping power‚ this LMG is a jack-of-all-trades‚ proving to be a weapon you can rely on in the battle royale game. Here is our best Warzone TAQ Evolvere loadout. Continue reading Best TAQ Evolvere loadout for Warzone and MW3 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Warzone loadouts‚ Best AR in Warzone ‚ The best guns in Warzone