Criminal ransomware group busted, light pollution is hindering astronomy, will AI find alien life, and more!

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January 31, 2023

Privacy FBI Takes Down Hive Criminal Ransomware Group A cybersecurity expert explains how the FBI's operation against the ransomware group Hive will impact the rest of this criminal industry By Sophie Bushwick

Extraterrestrial Life Will an AI Be the First to Discover Alien Life? SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is deploying machine-learning algorithms that filter out Earthly interference and spot signals humans might miss By Alexandra Witze,Nature magazine

Animals A Famed Dolphin-Human Fishing Partnership Is in Danger of Disappearing A call for help sounds to ensure survival of a 140-year-old fishing partnership pairing cetaceans and humans By Rachel Nuwer

Astronomy Light Pollution Is Dimming Our View of the Sky, and It's Getting Worse Citizen scientists and researchers found that we are losing our view of the sky at an astonishing rate of almost 10 percent each year By Phil Plait

Water How Water Finally Became a Climate Change Priority A collaboration helped convince policy makers at COP27 to finally prioritize water as a critical resource affected by climate change. It was a win long in the making By Vidhisha Samarasekara

Astronomy Satellite Constellations Are an Existential Threat for Astronomy Growing swarms of spacecraft in orbit are outshining the stars, and scientists fear no one will do anything to stop it By Rebecca Boyle

Climate Change AI Predicts Warming Will Surpass 1.5 C in a Decade New research from artificial intelligence projects that global warming will hit the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius somewhere between 2033 and 2035 By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Anatomy The Clitoris Has Been Lost to Science for Centuries, but It's Making a Comeback The vulva has long been ignored in anatomical study. But scientists and doctors are making strides in mapping its pleasure center, the clitoris, and improving sensation for survivors of genital cutting. By Meghan McDonough

FROM THE STORE Technology vs. Truth: Deception in the Digital Age In the digital age, information, both true and false, spreads faster than ever. The same technology that provides access to data across the globe can abet the warping of truth and normalization of lies. In this eBook, we examine the intersection of truth, untruth and technology, including how social media manipulates behavior, technologies such as deepfakes that spread misinformation, the bias inherent in algorithms and more.

FROM THE ARCHIVE Clicks, Lies and Videotape Artificial intelligence is making it possible for anyone to manipulate audio and video. The biggest threat is that we stop trusting anything at all By Brooke Borel | October 2018

QUOTE OF THE DAY "A question we haven't touched on a lot is what happens when ransomware operators don't just encrypt a victim's system but also steal copies of all their data...that's a thing that's been growing in frequency for the past couple of years." Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University.

WHAT WE'RE READING Ukraine's Scientists Receive a Funding Lifeline From Abroad The Simons Foundation in New York is providing annual grants to the country's chemists, biologists, physicists and mathematicians. By William J. Broad | The New York Times | Jan. 25, 2023

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