If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties‚ subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský is in Davos‚ for the World Economic Forum (WEF). There‚ he offered his two-euro-cents about “misinformation” and democracy – albeit referring to the former as “false content.” Davos is just the right place for the minister to try to press home the “mantra” of “global solutions.” In this case – “a global solution (…) and to have a global discussion about the way [sic] how we communicate.” “How we communicate?” There may be a bit of a language barrier here‚ but is Mr. Lipavský actually talking up the merits of speech control‚ by any other name? Doesn’t seem unlikely‚ because some of the other phrases that came out of his mouth included “government accountability” and quite directly‚ a mention of “control” of technology that is made possible through government intervention‚ that is‚ “regulation.” (It’s not inconceivable that somewhere in the WEF corridors‚ China’s representatives were nodding approvingly…) Meanwhile‚ let’s see how it should work‚ according to the government in Prague and its rep. They certainly have a lot on their plate right now‚ but apparently‚ elections in various countries around the world seem to be top of agenda‚ and who better to talk about that‚ than a foreign minister. But even if they tend to talk about “4 million people across the globe” going to the polls‚ and how to gently‚ or not so gently‚ nudge them to pick “the proper” candidates – it always comes back to the one election that really matters‚ especially to outfits like the WEF – the US presidential vote. But gatherings like this will go out of their way not to always focus on that election‚ and will talk in circles‚ warning that “what is happening in one country today might happen in another country tomorrow” thanks to (or because of) globally available internet platforms. And so‚ perhaps test “regulation” in one – to then implement it in another. What taxpayers (around the world) should perhaps be even more worried about than the by now customary attacks on speech is just how little original idea or even turn of phrase those they push it have to offer‚ sounding instead like they’re all reading from the same playbook. Case in point‚ Lipavský: “We need a really global solution and to have a global discussion about the way how we communicate as people‚ which content and how are we presented”; (…) And definitely we will see more and more false content being used as something which will disturb the election process‚ which will disturb the way how the society makes decisions.” “So…the kind of regulation or possession or control of those technologies needs to be developed‚ (so) that the governments will be sure that it is not going against the interests of the governments‚” the minister also said. https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/wef-2024-jan-lipavsky-3.mp4 The post Czech Republic’s Jan Lipavský Calls for Global Solution Against “False Content” at World Economic Forum appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties‚ subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Rumble‚ a rising competitor in the video sharing platform space‚ has been facing significant hurdles due to actions taken by YouTube‚ a subsidiary of Google. This issue revolves around the YouTube Sync feature‚ a tool designed to streamline the transfer of content from YouTube to Rumble. This feature is critical for content creators seeking flexibility and broader audience reach by sharing their videos on multiple platforms. Originally‚ Rumble approached YouTube in the summer of 2021 to discuss the implementation of an automated synchronization feature. This initiative aimed to facilitate the transfer of large content libraries from YouTube to Rumble‚ eliminating the need for a tedious manual process. Rumble has been offering a similar feature for transferring videos from its platform to YouTube‚ emphasizing its commitment to creator convenience and platform interoperability. Despite ongoing antitrust litigation with Google‚ Rumble was able to communicate with YouTube through legal channels‚ resulting in an agreement to implement the synchronization feature. This agreement was seen as a positive step towards enhancing the experience for creators on both platforms. However‚ in a recent and unexpected turn of events‚ YouTube began to impede the automated syncing process. This was done either by outright blocking these syncs or by reducing the process to an extremely slow pace. Rumble noted that this change occurred without any prior notice or communication from YouTube. This intervention by Google has been detrimental to content creators’ ability to efficiently add their videos to Rumble. Rumble has re-engaged with YouTube’s legal team in an effort to restore the functionality of the YouTube Sync feature‚ which is vital for creators who wish to leverage multiple platforms for content distribution. However‚ weeks of discussions have yet to yield a clear response from YouTube regarding the resumption of these automatic syncs. The situation has forced creators and users‚ who prefer a multi-platform presence‚ to revert to the laborious task of uploading their videos individually to each platform. This ongoing challenge shows the broader issue of the impact of dominant platforms on content creators’ freedom and choice. The post YouTube Blocks Auto-Sync With Rumble‚ Preventing Creators From Mirroring to the Alternative Video Platform appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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Most of us experience some sort of trauma during our lifetime‚ yet only about 25 to 35 percent of people who are exposed to severely disturbing events go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to a new study‚ a person’s vulnerability to the condition may be determined by their responsiveness to stress hormones‚ thus offering a potential explanation for this discrepancy.People with PTSD typically display fear extinction deficits‚ whereby their conditioned responses to stimuli associated with traumatic events don’t soften over time. Other hallmarks of the condition include a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus - a brain region that plays a key role in memory and emotion - as well as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep disturbances.Because REM sleep is crucial for memory consolidation‚ disruptions to this key sleep phase are likely to impede any attempts to overcome one’s trauma. Interestingly‚ however‚ studies have also shown that PTSD sufferers tend to have lower levels of glucocorticoids – or stress hormones – such as cortisol.“There are considerable differences in the levels of glucocorticoids that individuals release to the bloodstream when stressed‚” explained study author Carmen Sandi in a statement. “Low glucocorticoid levels are frequently observed in PTSD patients following trauma exposure and were initially suspected to be a consequence of trauma exposure.”“The possibility that this could be a trait constituting a preexisting PTSD risk factor has been an outstanding open question for many years‚” she said. To provide an answer‚ the study authors conducted experiments on mice that had been genetically engineered to display a blunted response to stress hormones. Brain scans revealed that these rodents had reduced hippocampi‚ while recordings of brain activity also revealed deficits in REM sleep. Furthermore‚ after the mice had been conditioned to associate a noise with receiving an electric shock‚ mice with dampened cortisol responses were less able to un-learn this association‚ and continued to freeze in fear whenever they heard the noise.These findings suggest that fear extinction deficits‚ hippocampal reductions‚ and REM disturbances may all be mediated by glucocorticoids‚ and that people with low levels of these hormones might therefore be more vulnerable to PTSD.To confirm the robustness of this conclusion‚ the study authors injected the mice with the stress hormone corticosterone‚ and found that this ameliorated the animals’ excessive fear and REM disturbances.The researchers therefore assert that “blunted glucocorticoids were associated with PTSD-related features such as impaired fear extinction‚ reduced hippocampal volume‚ and REMS disturbances.” As such‚ they propose that dampened sensitivity to stress hormones “not only predicts but may also contribute causally to core PTSD symptoms.”Obviously‚ these findings will need to be replicated in humans before such hypotheses can be confirmed‚ although the authors suggest that glucocorticoid treatments may be effective for some people suffering from PTSD.The study is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

If you are someone who has a child‚ plays some other role in a child's life‚ or are simply near one at a bus stop‚ at some point you are going to be asked how clouds stay in the sky by a toddler.Science lessons from your youth fade pretty quickly‚ we get it. There's also the chance you have been told the incorrect explanation at some point‚ that clouds float because they are less dense than the air beneath them. As air near the Earth's surface heats up it does indeed begin to rise‚ carrying water vapor with it‚ being less dense than the surrounding (mostly) nitrogen and oxygen. This is the same principle that lifts hot air balloons off the ground. Think of how a balloon held underwater will rise to the surface‚ where it stops‚ as the air within it is roughly as dense as the air around it. Or at least‚ it is not dense enough to sink in water‚ and not sparse enough to keep on flying upwards. If you filled it with the less dense helium‚ it would continue to float upwards.But air – and the water vapor contained within it – does not forever fly upwards and out of our atmosphere like helium‚ reaching a height where it is roughly the same density as the air around it. As air cools‚ water and ice droplets are formed within it in big enough volumes to make the clouds we see‚ as sunlight reflects off the large numbers of water droplets.Droplets of water within clouds‚ though‚ make up only a tiny proportion of the cloud's volume. A common cumulus cloud‚ for example‚ has approximately 0.5 grams (0.018 ounces) of water per cubic meter. This adds up quite quickly given the enormous volume of clouds. A 1-cubic-kilometer (0.24-cubic-mile) cloud would weigh 500‚000 kilograms (1.1 million pounds).So‚ how does something that heavy stay up there‚ when throwing a truck out the window of an airplane would result in a truck smashing to the ground and probably a few lawsuits?Water droplets inside the clouds are not concerned with how heavy the air around them is in total. The numerous droplets within a cloud may make a huge total‚ but that doesn't matter for the individual droplet. These stay aloft (until they don't) due to their large surface area. The upwards force of air resistance (aka buoyant force) on small droplets of water is enough to keep their terminal velocity – where the drag force of the air an object is moving through is equal to the downward force of gravity – low‚ for small droplets. The result is that the smaller droplets are constantly falling‚ but easily pushed upwards by the air below them.This doesn't last forever – just ask anyone who lives in the UK. The droplets within the cloud collide and become larger droplets. As this happens‚ the weight of the droplets compared to the surface area increases‚ and the droplets fall‚ the air resistance no longer enough to slow them."A droplet of 10-micron radius falls at a speed of 1 cm/sec [0.02 mph]‚" Louis J. Battan explains in the book Cloud Physics‚ "while droplets of 50-micron radius fall at a speed of 26 cm/sec [0.6 mph]."As soon as the radius of the raindrop goes above 0.1 millimeters‚ the air resistance of upward-flowing air isn't enough to counter gravity‚ and it's time to fetch an umbrella.All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text‚ images‚ and links may be edited‚ removed‚ or added to at a later date to keep information current. 

In 2017‚ researchers used a virtual telescope the size of our planet to image the shadow of a supermassive black hole for the first time. The image was of M87*‚ the black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87‚ and was the first image of the shadow of the event horizon and bright accretion disk around a black hole ever taken. Now the team has released a new image of M87* from observations conducted a year later that show the shadow is not only a persistent feature‚ as predicted‚ but that the brightness of the ring has changed.The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team used eight independent imaging and modeling techniques to analyze the data from the April 2018 observations and found the brightness peak of the orange disk has shifted by about 30 degrees counterclockwise – now at the 5 o'clock position‚ which can be seen in the image above on the right – compared to that seen in 2017‚ while the size of the ring and the shadow are unchanged‚ as general relativity predicted."Confirmation of the ring in a completely new data set is a huge milestone for our collaboration and a strong indication that we are looking at a black hole shadow and the material orbiting around it‚" Dr Keiichi Asada of the Academia Sinica Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan said in a statement.M87* weighs 6.5 billion times the mass of our Sun and is located 53.5 million light-years away. The shift in the brightness spot seen in the new observations was predicted‚ the idea being that the emission from the turbulent‚ messy accretion disk around the supermassive black hole – full of material that couldn't escape the black hole's gravitational pull – will cause the brightest part to wobble. The wobble can be used to test our theories about the behavior of the magnetic field and plasma around the black hole.The EHT images of these incredible objects are possible thanks to a fantastic property of light. Observations from radio telescopes that are a certain distance apart can be combined in a way that is equivalent to a telescope the size of their distance. By combining radio telescopes around the world‚ the initial 2017 EHT was the size of our planet. For the 2018 observations‚ new telescopes in Greenland and Mexico had been added‚ and even more have been added since."The inclusion of the Greenland Telescope in our array filled critical gaps in our earth-sized telescope‚" Rohan Dahale‚ a PhD candidate at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía. "The 2021‚ 2022‚ and the forthcoming 2024 observations witness improvements to the array‚ fuelling our enthusiasm to push the frontiers of black hole astrophysics."In 2022 we got the first image of our own galaxy's supermasive black hole‚ Sagitarrius A*‚ and in 2023 the first direct image of a black hole launching its jets‚ as well as an AI-sharpened M87* glow up. With every new image or details revealed‚ and more telescopes adding to the size and capabilities of the EHT‚ the question is: what are we zooming in on next?The study is published in the journal Astronomy &; Astrophysics.

This is the computer that helped secure the Allied victory in the Second World War and sent the Third Reich to the trash can of history.GCHQ‚ the UK’s intelligence agency‚ has unveiled never-before-seen images of the code-cracking computers that played a crucial role in the Second World War. They’ve been released to mark the 80th anniversary of the machine arriving at Bletchley Park‚ where it began to work its wonders. The Colossus computer was the world's first programmable‚ electronic‚ digital computer. It was created by the British during World War Two to decipher messages between Adolf Hitler‚ his entourage of leading Nazis‚ and senior German generals. The computer’s sole job was to decipher German radio messages that had been encrypted by a Lorenz cipher. Using around 2‚500 valves‚ Colossus would recognize patterns and perform statistical analysis that worked out the settings of the cipher machine's 12 wheels‚ thereby allowing them to read the coded message.Another shot of Colossus.Image credit: Crown Copyright – reproduced by kind permissions of Director GCHQOne of its most significant achievements was revealing that Hitler had been successfully dubbed into thinking that the Allies would be launching their D-Day invasion of mainland Europe from Pas De Calais‚ not Normandy. This sneaky act of deception helped to ensure the Normandy Landings were a success for the Allies (albeit a very costly one).“Colossus was perhaps the most important of the wartime code breaking machines because it enabled the Allies to read strategic messages passing between the main German headquarters across Europe‚” Andrew Herbert OBE FREng‚ Chairman of Trustees at The National Museum of Computing‚ said in a statement.Along with its role in World War Two‚ the pioneering device paved the way for the development of modern electronic digital computers. Experts who worked on the war-winning computer went on to develop “the Manchester Baby” in 1948‚ which was the world’s first electronic stored-program computer.Colossus was developed by a team of engineers led by British General Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers. The work of Alan Turing helped inspire parts of its design‚ although this computer engineering legend did not work directly with the Colossus project. We owe you one‚ Colossus.Image credit: Crown Copyright – reproduced by kind permissions of Director GCHQThe gigantic device was stationed at Bletchley Park‚ a quiet country house in Milton Keynes that became the powerhouse of the Allied code-breaking effort during World War Two. Despite this huge historical importance‚ Colossus remained a highly classified state secret for decades. Its existence was revealed in 1975‚ but it was not until the early 2000s that substantial information about the project was released to the public.“I worked as an engineer on Colossus for a year during the 1960s. I had just signed the Official Secrets Act and knew nothing about GCHQ but was offered ‘interesting work’ which I believed would be dealing with telegrams for a government department‚” explained Bill Marshall‚ a former GCHQ engineer.“I was told very little about the machine I was working on – what the machine was actually doing was not for me to know. My job was to repair it as necessary‚ using just a few circuit diagrams and no detailed user handbook. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that the several of the systems and detailed design information were supposedly destroyed at the end of WWII‚” Marshall added.Sadly‚ the original machine is no more. Following the end of the war‚ Cold War paranoia quickly sunk in. Eight out of the ten Colossus machines at Bletchley Park were promptly dismantled to ensure the technology did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. The remaining two‚ which were kept by British Intelligence‚ were later destroyed in the 1960s.There is‚ however‚ a fully working reconstruction of a Colossus computer that you can see at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

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. The 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. It supported a healthy population of Chinook salmon‚ coho salmon‚ and steelhead trout‚ which served as a vital source of nutrition for the Yurok‚ the Karuk‚ and other Indigenous tribal groups that live in the river basin.However‚ the construction of PacifiCorp’s hydroelectric dams along the river between 1911 and 1962 led to a major decline in wild fish stocks. The dam effectively stopped the strong flows of water needed to “flush out” toxic algae‚ worms‚ and other organisms that can cause disease in fish. Now‚ the dams are reaching the end of their lifetime‚ signaling an ideal time to remove them and attempt to revive the river’s once-thriving ecosystem. The dams have caused severe headaches for the Yurok Tribe who had relied on the rivers for decades. Salmon from the Klamath River wasn’t just a key food source for the community but also played a significant role in their culture and identity. After an especially severe die-off of Chinook salmon in 2002‚ Indigenous groups and environmentalists ramped up their efforts to push for the removal of the dams. A map showing the Klamath River and its numerous dams.Image credit: USGS; public domainAgainst the odds‚ their effort paid off. In 2022‚ the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officially announced they would be decommissioning and removing the dams from the Lower Klamath Hydroelectric Project. “It fills my heart to know that salmon will migrate through this river reach on their way to spawn in the upper basin‚” Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said in a statement last year. “For the last century‚ we have watched the dams suffocate the life out of the river and it has negatively impacted every member of our tribe‚" Myers added.The dam removal project is now reaching a key stage. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle‚ water behind three of the dams was released last week‚ allowing water to flow freely through the Klamath River for the first time in a century.“We’re now pulling the plug and throwing it away‚” Myers told the newspaper. “Not to get too mushy about it but being able to look at the river flow for the first time in more than 100 years‚ it’s incredibly important to us. It’s what we’ve been fighting for: to see the river for itself‚” he added. However‚ the river’s salmon will now face a new challenge: climate change. Recent years have seen record droughts and intense wildfire activity in this pocket of North America‚ which could hamper the recovery of wild fish populations. While the dam removal is set to boost their numbers‚ the salmon of the Klamath River aren’t out of the woods yet.