Photodiode covers wide wavelength range

Kyoto Semiconductor’s two-tone photodiode offers a wide sensitivity wavelength range of 400 to 1,700 nm.

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Optoelectronics/Photodiode_covers_wide_wavelength_range.aspx

Cirrus Logic: A new way to deliver advanced haptics

 Cirrus Logic’s new advanced low-latency haptic IC solutions, including hardware, firmware, and tools, enable greater functionality and faster designs for strong haptic effects in a variety of applications.

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Analog_Mixed_Signal_ICs/Drivers_Displays_LED_etc_/Cirrus_Logic_A_new_way_to_deliver_advanced_haptics.aspx

Monday CoronaBuzz, June 1, 2020: 34 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Monday CoronaBuzz, June 1, 2020: 34 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

Notre Dame News: Online tool created to track development of coronavirus vaccines. “The COVID-19 pandemic has led an unprecedented number of groups to begin developing coronavirus vaccines. To track this response, researchers from the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Research Computing are recording details about the coronavirus vaccine candidates currently in development as well as the progress of those candidates via a new interactive online tool. Dubbed the Vaccine Mapper, the free tool allows visitors to visualize everything from where the different vaccines are being developed around the world to the pre-clinical or clinical stages of development the vaccine candidates are currently in.”

University of Missouri: New COVID-19 tracking tool monitors continuous 14-day trends as nation, states reopen. “A new tracking tool developed at the University of Missouri provides a continuously updated 14-day snapshot of new cases of COVID-19 in every county in the nation, helping the public monitor trends in cases as local stay-at-home restrictions are lifted and other measures are gradually repealed.”

Yale News: Yale doctors design tool to predict rapid COVID-19 decline. “The tool, which uses predictive modeling, is called the COVID-19 severity index and is available online. To use it, emergency room doctors input just three patient parameters: rate of breathing, oxygen level, and the amount of oxygen required from a nasal cannula, a device used to deliver supplemental oxygen. A study describing the development and validation of the COVID severity index is available as a preprint on MedRxiv and has been submitted for peer review.”

NEW RESOURCES – LEGAL / SECURITY / PRIVACY / FINANCIAL

Jerusalem Post: New website acts as database of coronavirus rules in 84 countries. “Developed by David Tabznikov, an Israeli ‘digital nomad’ currently based in Serbia, the website will allow users to see the policies of each country; whether its borders are fully or partially open, and if mandatory self-isolation rule is required as well as where that self-isolation should take place. In addition, municipal or regional restrictions within countries can also examined by users, which may include the status of public transportation in the area and police roadblocks.”

USEFUL STUFF

Yale News: Fishy Facebook science? Yale ‘Methods Man’ gives tools to interpret data. “[Dr. F. Perry Wilson] is the instructor behind a free, online course called ‘Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend Is Wrong,’ developed before the onset of the pandemic but especially relevant in the current onslaught of science and medical news. In the seven-week Coursera course, designed to be entertaining as well as instructive, Wilson explains how medical research works and how misinformation happens through faulty study designs and bad reporting. He covers topics like medical jargon, statistics, and bias. He gives people the basic knowledge to go back to the original study and interpret it themselves, and to look at media reports about those studies with a critical eye.”

UPDATES

WBTV: N.C. reports 916 new COVID-19 cases as death toll nears 900. “North Carolina reported nearly 1,000 additional COVID-19 cases on Sunday. The state says there are 916 confirmed new cases, bringing the state’s total to 28,859. The state also reported nine additional deaths, as the death toll has increased to 886.”

KY3: A positive COVID-19 case from out of the area visited the Lake of the Ozarks pool bars on Memorial Day Weekend. “The Camden County Health Department said Friday a Boone County resident who has tested positive for COVID-19 visited the Lake of the Ozarks during Memorial Day Weekend. According to Health Director Bee Dampier, the case arrived at the Lake on Saturday and started showing symptoms on Sunday. Dampier said it is likely COVID-19 was incubating illness during that person’s visit.”

Kurdistan24: Kurdistan reports all-time high 104 new COVID-19 infections. “The Kurdistan Region’s health ministry on Sunday announced 104 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours, the highest daily count since the virus first crossed into the region’s borders. A ministry statement said that the new cases came after health workers carried out 1,718 tests across the region. The total number of tests conducted so far has reached 76,478, per official data.” The population of Kurdistan is a little over five million.

Washington Post: VA says it has ‘ratcheted down’ use of hydroxychloroquine to treat veterans. “The Department of Veterans Affairs has drastically scaled back the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat veterans with coronavirus infections after a major study raised questions about its efficacy and linked it to serious side effects, including higher risks of death. Testifying before the House Appropriations subcommittee on military construction, Veterans Affairs and related agencies, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie defended the continued use of the unproven drug but said it was used just three times last week.”

FACT CHECKS

AFP: Hoax circulates online that Taiwanese doctors have discovered COVID-19 is a ‘combination of SARS and AIDS’. “Multiple Facebook posts shared hundreds of times claim doctors from the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) in Taipei have found that COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is a combination of AIDS and SARS. The claim is false; according to a spokesperson from the hospital, the statement was not authored by its doctors; as of May 20, 2020, advisories from global health organisations have not characterised COVID-19 as a disease that is AIDS and SARS combined.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Scientific American: COVID Has Changed Soundscapes Worldwide. “The Silent Cities project is collecting sound from cities around the planet during the coronavirus pandemic to give researchers a database of natural sound in areas usually filled with human-generated noise.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

The Daily Beast: Florida’s Seen a ‘Statistically Significant’ Uptick in Pneumonia Deaths. The CDC Says It’s Likely COVID.. “Since the beginning of this year, Florida has experienced an uptick in the number of pneumonia and influenza deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Control. Experts and Trump administration officials responsible for keeping tabs on mortality rates across the country believe that many of those individuals had likely contracted and died from COVID-19.”

BDN Politics: Advocates want Maine to form task force combating racial disparity in virus cases. “Black Mainers accounted for 20 percent of the cases in which racial data is disclosed as of Wednesday’s data from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, while they represent only 1.6 percent of the state’s population, in an increase from the past week. White Mainers make up 75 percent of cases while comprising 94.6 percent of the population.”

NBC News: ICE keeps transferring detainees around the country, leading to COVID-19 outbreaks. “In the past several months, while most Americans have been ordered to shelter at home, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has shuffled hundreds of people in its custody around the country. Immigrants have been transferred from California to Florida, Florida to New Mexico, Arizona to Washington State, Pennsylvania to Texas. These transfers, which ICE says were sometimes done to curb the spread of coronavirus, have led to outbreaks in facilities in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to attorneys, news reports and ICE declarations filed in federal courts.”

Washington Post: South Korea closes schools again amid coronavirus spike, days after reopening. “The country had started to stage the opening of schools in the last week, instituting social distancing and prevention measures in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus. But according to the Korea Times, hundreds of schools were closed again because of high infection rates in their communities. It cited the Ministry of Education as saying that 838 schools of the 20,902 nationwide that were supposed to reopen on Wednesday did not, including in Seoul, and hundreds closed on Thursday in Seoul, Bucheon and other cities.”

Entertainment Weekly: Stormtroopers are enforcing social distancing at Disney World. “‘Stay in your sector!’ one stormtrooper warns the other when he gets too close. Then she draws an imaginary line to separate them and he backs off. Later, one stormtrooper notes that male banthas (those large hairy creatures ridden by stormtroopers on the planet Tatooine in A New Hope) can reach 3.9 meters long, and the other warns again about getting too close.”

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: How an Online Yarn Seller Kept Dozens of Businesses Alive. “Luigi Boccia and Jared Flood ran their online yarn business, Brooklyn Tweed, for nearly a decade of ups and downs before the novel coronavirus upended life. Convinced that they needed to do something to buoy their network of suppliers and retailers, as well as their own venture, they raced to develop an idea that would make a difference.”

HEALTH

AP: DC mayor: We have to be concerned about virus rebound. “As more beaches, churches, mosques, schools and businesses reopened worldwide, civil unrest in the United States over repeated racial injustice is raising fears of new virus outbreaks in a country that has more infections and deaths than anywhere else in the world. And it’s not just in the U.S. — London hosted a large anti-racism protest Sunday that certainly violated government social distancing rules.”

The Guardian (SaltWire): More than 1,100 surgeries cancelled in P.E.I. because of coronavirus. “More than 1,100 surgeries have been cancelled in P.E.I. as the province continues to deal with the fallout of the coronavirus (COVID-19). On Friday, Health Minister James Aylward presented the numbers in the legislature after several days of questioning from O’Leary-Inverness MLA Robert Henderson. Aylward said Health P.E.I.’s service reinstatement team is assessing the situation daily as it makes plans to address the backlog.”

Asia Times: US declares a vaccine war on the world. “The United States and the UK were the only two holdouts in the World Health Assembly from the declaration that vaccines and medicines for Covid-19 should be available as public goods, and not under exclusive patent rights. The United States explicitly dissociated itself from the call for a patent pool, talking instead of ‘the critical role that intellectual property plays” – in other words, patents for vaccines and medicines.’

New York Times: It’s Not Whether You Were Exposed to the Virus. It’s How Much.. “When experts recommend wearing masks, staying at least six feet away from others, washing your hands frequently and avoiding crowded spaces, what they’re really saying is: Try to minimize the amount of virus you encounter. A few viral particles cannot make you sick — the immune system would vanquish the intruders before they could. But how much virus is needed for an infection to take root? What is the minimum effective dose?”

ProPublica: Nursing Homes Fought Federal Emergency Plan Requirements for Years. Now, They’re Coronavirus Hot Spots.. “The long-term care industry resisted a federal mandate to plan for disasters including pandemics. About 43% of nursing homes have been caught violating the requirement, including facilities that have now had deadly COVID-19 outbreaks.”

Politico: Rising ICU bed use ‘a big red flag’. “ICU beds are also starting to fill up in places like Minnesota’s Twin Cities; Omaha, Neb.; and the entire state of Rhode Island, according to local health officials and epidemiologists tracking such data, a warning sign of possible health care problems down the road. The availability of ICU beds is one measure of a hospital’s ability to care for its most vulnerable patients — people with severe illness who require more staff to treat them and may need life-support equipment such as a ventilator to breathe. And it’s served as a metric for whether the local health care system is able to handle a coronavirus outbreak, albeit a constantly shifting one.”

TECHNOLOGY

ABC News (Australia): Queensland researchers analysing coronavirus conspiracy theories warn of social media danger. “It’s one of the major conspiracy theories to flourish during the global pandemic — that coronavirus is a biological weapon. Now, a new Australian report suggests that theory has been amplified on Twitter through the ‘coordinated’ efforts of clusters of Pro-Trump, QAnon and Republican partisan accounts.”

Bloomberg: Google Helps Place Ads on Sites Amplifying Covid-19 Conspiracies. “Google has taken aggressive action to scrub coronavirus conspiracies from its news service and YouTube, at a time when social media companies have come under intense scrutiny for their potential to spread dangerous disinformation about the global pandemic. It has begun labeling misleading videos aimed at U.S. audiences, and has joined with other major internet companies to coordinate a response against what the World Health Organization has described as an ‘infodemic.’ But Google is also placing advertisements on websites that publish the theories, helping their owners generate revenue and continue their operations. In at least one instance, Google has run ads featuring a conspiracist it has already banned.”

NewsTalk: ‘Social media overload’ makes people more likely to believe COVID-19 misinformation, study finds. “Researchers in NUI Galway and the University of Turku in Finland say that when people search through too much content, it impairs their ability to critically assess if the information is true. They’re also then more likely to share that content throughout their social network, which in turn amplifies the misinformation problem.”

NBC News: Troll farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook. “One of the largest publishers of coronavirus disinformation on Facebook has been banned from the platform for using content farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines, Facebook said on Friday.”

RESEARCH

Case Western Reserve University: National Science Foundation awards grant to team developing COVID-19 mapping tool. “The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded an $84,000, one-year grant to the team behind the online mapping tool designed to provide users with a real-time, location-based risk assessment for transmission of the novel coronavirus that leads to COVID-19.”

National Geographic: A COVID-19 vaccine has passed its first human trial. But is it the frontrunner?. “A PROMISING CORONAVIRUS vaccine candidate cleared a key hurdle this week, when Moderna Therapeutics entered phase two of clinical trials. The move signals that the company’s mRNA vaccine has passed its initial safety checks and has met an important milestone in bringing this drug closer to the public and commercial markets.”

SECURITY / LEGAL

The Asian Age: Google detects coronavirus-themed phishing attacks by firms in India posing as WHO, banks. “Hack-for-hire firms, many of them based in India, are creating accounts spoofing the World Health Organisation (WHO) and targeting business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations in the US, the UK and Bahrain among other countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by Google.”

Mother Jones: When $10,000 Is the Difference Between Contracting COVID-19 in Detention and Getting the Hell Out. “…a majority of ICE detainees are eligible for release on bond while their cases move through the courts. Less than half of those who get bond hearings, however, are actually granted bond; as of March of this year, the national median granted bond was $8,000, but that number can easily go up to $40,000 in individual cases—an impossible sum for many immigrants to raise.”

POLITICS

CNBC: North Carolina, GOP convention planners at an impasse over social distancing. “Republican National Convention organizers appear to have hit an impasse with the state of North Carolina over social distancing at the party’s nominating convention, scheduled to be held in Charlotte in late August. After weeks of trading strongly worded letters, punctuated by angry threats from President Donald Trump to move the convention to a more accommodating city, the GOP organizers appear no closer to getting their desired green light for a massive gathering than they were a month ago.”

Washington Post: White House and CDC remove coronavirus warnings about choirs in faith guidance. “Two White House officials said the first version posted by the CDC was not approved by the White House. Once West Wing officials saw it, they asked the CDC to post a different cleared document without the choir references and other parts. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about policy discussions, said there have long been concerns within the White House that there were too many restrictions on choirs. A CDC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the guideline change also said the updated Saturday guidance was approved by the White House.”

USA Today: Coronavirus postcard that featured Trump’s name cost struggling Postal Service $28 million. “A postcard mailed to every American household that included coronavirus social distancing guidelines and also prominently featured President Donald Trump’s name cost the U.S. Postal Service $28 million, USA TODAY has learned. The coronavirus card, which began appearing in U.S. mailboxes in March, drew fire from good-government groups that said it applied a political veneer to the administration’s effort to inform Americans about the pandemic. The cost comes as the U.S. mail service – which Trump has described as ‘a joke’ – is struggling financially.”

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June 1, 2020 at 06:35PM
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New Zealand Fashion, Scientific Literature Search, Palestine Photography, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, June 1, 2020

New Zealand Fashion, Scientific Literature Search, Palestine Photography, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, June 1, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Canterbury Museum: Twentieth Century Fashion Goes Online. “From fabulous frocks to everyday garments, Invercargill-born Mollie Rodie Mackenzie amassed one of New Zealand’s most comprehensive collections of twentieth century fashion. Almost half of the 2,000 collection items can now be seen online, as a tribute to Mollie who died last month in Queensland aged 100. The collection includes nearly 800 accessories such as hats, shoes, handbags, gloves, necklaces, scarves, belts and neckties that complement the hundreds of dresses, jackets and shirts – women’s, men’s and children’s – that Mollie collected in her lifetime.

Emory University: Rollins Launches CoCites, a Radical New Scientific Search Tool. “Searching scientific literature is inefficient and ineffective. A complete search on a topic requires an extensive query that combines all relevant keywords and their synonyms. A simple search retrieves only part of the relevant literature depending on the keywords that are searched. With CoCites, users don’t enter keywords, they enter or select the title of the article for which they would like to find related content. The tool retrieves these other articles through co-citations. Articles that are frequently cited together with the selected paper appear at the top of the search results.”

The National: 13 insightful photos of early 1900s Palestine taken by engineer Nasri Fuleihan. “The Nasri Fuleihan Collection comprises more than 350 photographs by Nasri Fuleihan, who worked as an engineer in Palestine and helped exploring for oil in the Middle East. His photographs, taken between 1912 and 1924, can be viewed online thanks to Akkasah, NYU Abu Dhabi’s (NYUAD) Centre for Photography, which digitises photos from the region that documents day-to-day life. The collections are shared on the centre’s website for the public to browse and for researchers to use as resources.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AP: Google Affiliate Scraps Plan for Toronto Smart City Project. “Google abandoned its smart-city development in Toronto…after more than two years of controversy over privacy concerns and amid economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic. A unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet had been proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto’s waterfront into a wired community, but Sidewalk Labs chief executive Dan Doctoroff said in a statement that it is no longer financially viable.” This is somewhat old news — I am still catching up from my focusing more exclusively on coronavirus news — but I’m still shocked.

Zee Business: Google postpones Android 11 unveiling amid US protests. “Alphabet Inc`s Google on Saturday said it has postponed next week`s planned unveiling of the beta version of its latest Android 11 mobile operating system in light of protests and unrest in the United States.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NBC12: Digital map provides access to historic African-American cemetery online. “A digital map will be providing online access to East End Cemetery, a historic African-American burial ground in Henrico. Built by the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, Department of Geography and the Environment, and Spatial Analysis Lab, the map features drone-captured imagery and GPS data points collected by hundreds of students and volunteers organized by the Friends of East End.”

FAD Magazine: World’s first virtual museum VOMA to launch next month – with your help. “VOMA – the Virtual Online Museum of Art – is the world’s first virtual museum. Opening next month, it will present exquisitely curated exhibitions to feature seminal works on loan from major institutions around the world, alongside those by our most celebrated contemporary artists.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Secret Service Sends FOIA Requester A Redacted Version Of A Public DOJ Press Release. “Emma Best — someone the government feels is a ‘vexatious’ FOIA filer — just received a completely stupid set of redactions from the Secret Service. Best requested documents mentioning darknet market Hansa, which was shut down (along with Alpha Bay) following an investigation by US and Dutch law enforcement agencies. The documents returned to Best contained redactions. This is unsurprising given the nature of the investigation. What’s surprising is what the Secret Service decided to redact. As Best pointed out on Twitter, the Secret Service decided public press releases by the DOJ were too sensitive to be released to the general public.”

CNET: How the FCC got involved in Trump’s war against Twitter. “With a stroke of his pen, President Donald Trump asked the Federal Communications Commission to regulate Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies. That would be a new task for the independent agency, and it’s unclear if its Republican leadership will take on the role. After all, the agency repealed net neutrality protections in 2017 so that it wouldn’t have to regulate broadband companies, like Comcast and Verizon.”

CNN: The ACLU sues Clearview AI, calling the tool an ‘unprecedented violation’ of privacy rights. “The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Clearview AI, the maker of a facial-recognition tool used by law enforcement agencies across the country. The ACLU alleges that Clearview’s technology runs afoul of the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, according to the complaint, filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Forbes: New Art Scanning Method Offers 3-D Image Of Painting’s Brush Strokes . “As tempting as it may be, you can’t touch a painting in a museum. And now that many museums are closed, you’re even further from seeing the close-up detail in brush strokes that can tell you so much about how the art was created. But now, a collaboration between artists and researchers at Penn State and the New Jersey Institute of Technology have come closer to developing a method that makes it possible to scan a sizeable section of a painting and turn it into a 3-D model that maintains the fine brush stroke pattern details.”

Daily Express (Malaysia): UMS students build whale shark database. “Marine biology students at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) have been taking advantage of the Movement Control Order (MCO) to start building a database of whale shark sightings in Malaysia including using divers’ posts on social media. The travel restrictions brought on by the outbreak of coronavirus left the students unable to travel to survey sites such as Pulau Gaya where they recorded and identified their first official whale shark of the project, MY-065, on a survey just five days before the MCO was declared on Mar 13.” Good morning, Internet…

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June 1, 2020 at 04:48PM
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Sunday CoronaBuzz, May 31, 2020: 31 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Sunday CoronaBuzz, May 31, 2020: 31 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

UCLA: UCLA creates multilingual website for coronavirus information. “It’s abundantly clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has not hit all people equally, and part of that disparity is informational. Many communities have an increased vulnerability because of a lack access to official news, public health information and safety recommendations in a language other than English. To help remedy that, faculty from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the Asian American Studies Center quickly came together recently to launch TranslateCovid.org. This new website presents health and safety recommendations and other information in more than 40 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Armenian, Japanese and Vietnamese.”

Daily Hive: GrocerCheck allows you to monitor grocery store lineups. “A new website, GrocerCheck, allows users to determine how busy a grocery store is by viewing a map with color-coded bubbles that represent how many people are inside each store. It analyzes location data from Google servers to show real-time data and weekly crowd averages for each grocery store.” Currently only available for specific cities, including Vancouver, Seattle, the Greater Toronto Area, Silicon Valley, and Las Vegas. More cities are planned for the future development.

Galway Bay FM: Researchers at NUI Galway co-create new online Coivd-19 tracing tool. “Researchers from NUIG have co- created a new tool that calculates a person’s risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19. The group of behavioural science experts from NUIG, Trinity College Dublin, UL and Queen’s University Belfast have collaborated with an international team of experts to develop ‘Your Covid-19 Risk’ – a website that aims to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on communities while providing researchers with valuable information.”

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

Lifehacker: Learn How to Make Pretzels from Auntie Anne Herself on Facebook Live. “Whether you got your Auntie Anne’s pretzel fix at the mall or the airport (do they exist anywhere else?), you may be missing those salty, buttery treats now that we’re not spending much time in either place. If this is the case, mark your calendar for Sunday, May 31 at 4 p.m. EST, when THE Auntie Anne herself (the chain’s founder Anne Beiler) will be doing a Facebook Live pretzel-making tutorial.”

The Guardian: Guardian to stream Unicorn theatre’s new Saturday morning family shows. “Three tales about the mischievous folkloric webspinner, designed for audiences aged three to eight, will be streamed on Saturday mornings on the Guardian website and the Unicorn’s YouTube channel in May and June. The episodes, which will then be available on demand for three weeks, reunite the original cast of the production, Afia Abusham, Juliet Okotie and Sapphire Joy, who filmed themselves performing in their homes.”

Crunchyroll: Anime Expo Goes Online with Anime Expo Lite Livestream. “Head’s up, anime fans! Anime Expo Lite, a ‘Virtual Japanese Pop Culture Event’, will be livestreamed on July 03 – 04, 2020, and the newly announced virtual convention will feature industry panels as well as an appearance by illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D, the Final Fantasy video game series).”

Beyond the Joke: News: Amnesty Goes Online For Shows With Eddie Izzard, Nish Kumar, Guilty Feminist & Goodness Gracious Me Reunion. “Amnesty International is to put classic comedy moments online alongside new live Q&As with a week of Secret Policeman’s Ball Unlocked, which will include a special reunion with the Goodness Gracious Me team.” Starts tomorrow, June 1.

WTOP: Livestream concert calendar for May 30-June 13. “What’s a live music lover to do? Live concert streams! There is something for everyone, from national acts playing in their homes for charity to local faves with a guitar and iPhone trying to keep the money flow coming in through PayPal and Venmo.”

State of Delaware: Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs launches At Home Concert Series. “As part of a growing effort to bring Delaware’s historic places, stories and artifacts to life online, the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs (HCA) has introduced a new digital feature highlighting local music and historic sites across the First State: The At Home Concert Series, now live on HCA’s YouTube channel. The first concert in the series, a solo, half-hour performance by singer/guitarist Mike Miller, was recorded live in the historic courtroom of The Old State House in Dover. The series will continue with additional concerts featuring artists from around the region performing in historic venues across the state.”

IBC: BBC Launches Corona Bot To Tackle Covid-19 Questions. “The Corona Bot will try to answer questions on these issues typed in by a user. It uses experimental AI technology to draw on the BBC News archives to respond with an answer to the specific question where possible. It will also redirect users to other services, such as the NHS, where necessary, while providing access to articles and broadcast content from BBC News.”

NEW RESOURCES – LEGAL / SECURITY / PRIVACY / FINANCIAL

The Star: Fighting ‘the essence of scapegoating’: Facing racist violence during COVID-19, Chinese Canadians launch new website. “Chinese Canadians have launched a website they hope can help track and flatten the curve of anti-Asian racism during the coronavirus pandemic. The public can go to the website, Fight COVID Racism, to file incident reports, trace documented cases through an interactive timeline and map, and find support to tackle the wave of hate crimes that has been targeting the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

CNET: As jails and prisons face coronavirus, a new app tries to bridge the mail gap. “More than half of all Americans have had a family member in jail or prison, according to a 2018 survey. Yet the cost of making phone calls with prisoners has skyrocketed, leaving families to bear the burden of hefty fees to get critical information past prison walls. Even sending mail to a prisoner can become expensive to families in need. Amid the urgent COVID-19 crisis in jails and prisons, a nonprofit tech company is stepping up to help bridge the communications gap between those behind bars and their loved ones outside.”

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

Bangor Daily News: New campaign helps Maine residents plan local outdoor adventures this summer. “The new website… offers listings of local guides, public lands and camping options, as well as discounts on guided trips, rentals and outdoor gear, featuring local businesses that have committed to COVID-19 prevention checklists. The website also provides updated tips and resources for safely exploring the Maine outdoors.”

Public News Service: Consumers Can Go Online to Find Missouri Meats. “There’s a new tool to help both Missouri consumers and farmers affected by recent meat shortages. The Missouri Farm Bureau has launched a new database of farmers who sell their meat products directly to consumers.”

KVVU: Nevada Health Response adds COVID-19 testing locator map to site. “Nevada Health Response, the healthcare team assembled by the governor’s office, has added a new COVID-19 testing locator map to its website, according to a release sent Friday.”

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

ABC 7: Job Hunting With Jobina: Glassdoor creates new tool to find open jobs during COVID-19. “Are you feeling like you’ve been searching for the right job, but no luck? It’s possible you may not be looking in the right place. ‘Things have changed so quickly,’ Sarah Stoddard, Glassdoor career expert said. ‘It might be difficult to understand who has open jobs.’ Glassdoor has launched a new tool called the ‘hiring surge explorer.’ It identifies employers that are actively and aggressively hiring.”

UPDATES

BBC: Coronavirus: Brazil now fourth-highest nation in Covid-19 deaths. “The number of coronavirus fatalities in Brazil has risen by almost 1,000 in a day, making the country’s overall death toll the world’s fourth highest. Its figure of 28,834 has now surpassed France, and only the US, the UK and Italy have recorded more deaths. President Jair Bolsonaro has consistently played down the outbreak, although the country has the world’s second-highest number of cases.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

The Next Web: How coronavirus is reshaping the mobility industry, from EVs to supply chains. “The following anticipation of the likely winners and losers of the Covid-19 crisis is based on the drivers behind the various segments that constitute the future of mobility. Overall, I do not foresee any aspects of the pre-crisis future being completely absent from the post-crisis future. I rather anticipate an acceleration for some segments and deceleration for others. Likewise, programs with a long term benefit will trigger more collaboration to share costs and risks.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

Lonely Planet: Japanese zoo employs stuffed animals to help with social distancing. “After the end of the Japanese lockdown, the Izu Shaboten Zoo in Itō had to make sure all safety measures were respected – from giving out masks and installing hand sanitizer dispensers to ensuring social distancing was respected everywhere, including the zoo’s restaurants. In its ‘GIBBONTEI Forest Animal’ restaurant, the Zoo made sure that guests would sit the appropriate distance from one another by deploying an army of stuffed animals to occupy seats that weren’t meant to be used.”

Reuters: Exclusive: India may need to pump $20 billion into coronavirus-hit state banks – sources. “India may need to inject up to 1.5 trillion rupees ($19.81 billion) into its state-owned lenders as their pile of soured assets is expected to double during the coronavirus pandemic, three government and banking sources told Reuters.”

Reuters: Exclusive: KKR raises $4 billion to invest in coronavirus-stricken credit – sources. “KKR & Co Inc (KKR.N) has raised close to $4 billion from investors to snap up corporate debt at significant discounts, as the coronavirus outbreak weighs on big swathes of the corporate world, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.”

The Next Web: This German town replicated itself in VR to keep its tourism alive. “Tourists may soon be able to explore the picturesque cross-timbered houses and historic churches of Herrenberg via virtual reality (VR), thanks to a digital twin developed with the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS).”

HEALTH

South Florida SunSentinel: These cleaners mopped up crime scenes. Now they’re killing the coronavirus.. “Wiping counters with disinfectant is one thing, but showing up with a team of people covered head to toe in protective gear to blast away the coronavirus? Many things stand out about how specialists do extensive cleaning at restaurants, hotels and hospitals across South Florida. Some even resemble Ghostbusters as they lug cleaning backpacks to spray every surface. Here are some key details that may surprise you about the lucrative, largely unregulated coronavirus disinfection industry.”

Houston Chronicle: Report: Head of $295M contract awarded by Texas leaders falsified degree. “The CEO of a technology company that has been entrusted with state contact tracing efforts for Texans exposed to the coronavirus has claimed a doctorate he never got, according to a Houston-based podcast. Das Nobel, CEO of MTX Group Inc., says in an online profile on LinkedIn that he has a ‘Doctorate of Management, Organizational Development and Leadership’ from Colorado Technical University, and that he attended the school from 2008-2012.”

TECHNOLOGY

WRAL Tech Wire: Google rolls out ‘Scam Spotter,’ a new tool to combat online fraud. “Google is teaming with the Cybercrime Support Network in an effort to crack down on internet and phone fraud – which has surged during COVID-19 – with a new initiative called ‘Scam Spotter.’ Unveiled today, the program provides advice to help people identify and protect themselves from scams.”

RESEARCH

Phys .org: Scientists develop method to help epidemiologists map spread of COVID-19. “Rochester Institute of Technology scientists have developed a method they believe will help epidemiologists more efficiently predict the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their new study, published in Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, outlines a solution to the SIR epidemic model, which is commonly used to predict how many people are susceptible to, infected by, and recovered from viral epidemics.”

Phys .org: Researchers develop experimental rapid COVID-19 test using nanoparticle technique. “Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) developed an experimental diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can visually detect the presence of the virus in 10 minutes. It uses a simple assay containing plasmonic gold nanoparticles to detect a color change when the virus is present. The test does not require the use of any advanced laboratory techniques, such as those commonly used to amplify DNA, for analysis. The authors published their work last week in the American Chemical Society’s nanotechnology journal ACS Nano.”

Seattle PI: As mental illness rates rise, 68% of Americans say social media, news cause anxiety during pandemic. “As social media has increasingly become a source of information about the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study from Digital Third Coast is giving insight into how much news Americans are consuming during the virus and how it’s affecting mental health. By analyzing a survey of over 2,000 Americans, the study illuminated how news consumption has dramatically increased during the pandemic. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they are consuming more news than usual, and 40% said their social media use has increased since the start of the pandemic.”

Axios: Coronavirus accelerates AI in health care. “While machine learning algorithms were already becoming a part of health care, COVID-19 is likely to accelerate their adoption. But lack of data and testing time could hinder their effectiveness — for this pandemic, at least.”

WEHT: Ford invents tool to neutralize COVID-19 in police vehicles. “Ford has developed a new tool to help neutralize COVID-19 inside police vehicles. The heated software enhancement temporarily raises the interior temperature of the car to at least 133 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.”

POLITICS

BBC: Coronavirus: Belgian Prince Joachim tests positive after lockdown party. “Prince Joachim, 28, travelled from Belgium to Spain for an internship on 26 May, the palace said. Two days later, he went to a party in the southern city of Córdoba, before testing positive for Covid-19. Spanish reports suggest the prince, a nephew of Belgium’s King Philippe, was among 27 people at the party. Under Córdoba’s lockdown rules, a party of this size would be a breach of regulations, as gatherings of no more than 15 people are currently permitted.”

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June 1, 2020 at 01:06AM
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Illuminated Manuscript, 2003 Chicago Murders, Olympics Statistics, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2020

Illuminated Manuscript, 2003 Chicago Murders, Olympics Statistics, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cambridge Independent: St John’s College digitises 13th-century Robert de Lindsay manuscript. “A 13th-century illuminated manuscript that has been in St John’s College for nearly 400 years has been digitised to reach a new audience. The 377-page manuscript is a psalter – the most common medieval religious text known as devotionals – that belonged to Robert de Lindsay, the Abbot of Peterborough from 1214 to 1222.”

Northwestern University: Legal scholar’s new website offers a picture of the criminal justice system. “Leigh Bienen, a senior lecturer at Northwestern Law, recently launched ‘2003 Chicago Murders,’ a compendium of numbers, system identifiers, dates and other information about 140 death-eligible murders in Cook County, all cases where an indictment for murder was returned during the period of Jan. 1, 2003, to June 30, 2003. The cases are divided into three subgroups based on the length of the sentence imposed. All of the data on the website, which comes from public records, includes names of the defendants and victims, defendants’ zip code and age at offense, method of killing and many more details. The data can be downloaded and analyzed by the user.”

Team USA: Olympic Encyclopedia Up And Running Thanks To Partnership With International Olympic Committee. “Anything you’ve ever wanted to know about the athletes and events in the Olympic Games – as well as things you had no idea to even ask – are now at your fingertips…. While baseball has long been considered the gold standard as far as comprehensive statistics, Olympians outnumber major league baseball players nearly 4 to 1.”

CNET: Turn Grandma’s memories into a podcast with the Saga app. “The new Saga audio app is a way for families to record and save the life stories of loved ones. The app, released generally Tuesday, sends weekly prompts to the people you choose, asking a question like ‘How did you meet grandpa?’ or ‘What was your journey to America like?’ From there, the family member records answers by dialing a special phone number. The stories are automatically shared with you and your family on the app, regardless of location. The best part? No smartphone needed.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: New Google ‘Rising Retail Categories’ tool exposes fast-growing product searches. “In the current crisis, product search is an area that is dynamic and rapidly evolving, according to Google. So the company is introducing what it’s calling Rising Retail Categories, within the ThinkWithGoogle domain.”

CNET: Facebook’s Zuckerberg will leave up ‘inflammatory’ Trump post about Minnesota protests. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out Friday evening after pressure from inside and outside his company to respond to a post by President Donald Trump that seemed to threaten that the National Guard would shoot what he called ‘thugs’ protesting the death of George Floyd, who died while in police custody.”

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Texas Digital Archive Makes More Than Five Million Records Accessible Online. “In January 2015, TSLAC received approximately 7 terabytes of electronic records, along with 4,000 cubic feet of paper records, from the administration of outgoing Governor Rick Perry (2000-2015). Many thousands of state government records have been added in the past five years. At the same time, TSLAC has had a robust digitization program for the last decade, generating more than 150,000 digital files, including historical photographs, audio recordings, reformatted film from Texas agencies, along with the thousands of paper documents now accessible online.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: How to Use Formulas with Google Form Responses in Sheets. “When people submit your Google Form, a new row is inserted in the Google Sheet that is storing the form responses. This spreadsheet row contains a Timestamp column, the actual date when the form was submitted, and the other columns in the sheet contain all the user’s answers, one per column. You can extend the Google Forms sheet to also include formula fields and the cell values are automatically calculated whenever a new row is added to the sheet by the Google Form.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BusinessWire: SPIE Digital Library to Reduce Institutional Subscription Prices by 10% for 2021 (PRESS RELEASE). “SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, today announced a 10% price reduction for 2021 SPIE Digital Library and SPIE Journal institutional subscriptions….The SPIE Digital Library, the world’s largest collection of optics and photonics applied research, comprises more than 525,000 publications. SPIE is committed to enabling the broadest possible dissemination of information to researchers, engineers, and academics worldwide.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Taiwan News: Taiwan government database leaked on dark web. “It was reported on Friday (May 29) that a government database of more than 20 million Taiwanese citizens was leaked on the dark web. According to researchers at Cyble Inc., Toogod, a ‘known and reputable actor’ was found to have released the data titled, ‘Taiwan Whole Country Home Registry DB,’ onto the dark web. It is unusual for an entire nation’s database to be leaked, Cyble reported. The data is from the Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Household Registration.”

BetaNews: Massive amounts of corporate data now stored on employee USB devices. “There has been a 123 percent increase in the volume of data downloaded to USB devices by employees since working from home has become widespread due to coronavirus. What’s more, according to a report from SaaS data protection company Digital Guardian, 74 percent of that data is subject to organisation data governance policies.”

The Register: Twitter, Reddit and pals super unhappy US visa hopefuls have to declare their online handles to Uncle Sam. “Twitter, Reddit, and the Internet Association on Thursday filed a legal brief in support of a challenge to the US State Department’s policy of requiring visa applicants to disclose their social media handles and profiles.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Does posting edited self photos on social media increase risk of eating disorders?. “New research revealed a consistent and direct link between posting edited photos on Instagram and risk factors for eating disorders. Specifically, digitally editing pictures to improve personal appearance before posting photos to Instagram increased weight and shape concerns in college students.” Good morning, Internet…

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May 31, 2020 at 07:22PM
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Saturday CoronaBuzz, May 30, 2020: 31 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Saturday CoronaBuzz, May 30, 2020: 31 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

Food Integrity Campaign: Does The Need For Truth Ever Stop? Check Out The New Instagram Story Series From Food Integrity Campaign.. “We are excited to announce our new Instagram story series. Throughout these unprecedented times, we will be sharing updates from FIC whistleblowers and how the pandemic has impacted their lives and food integrity advocacy. The work of a whistleblower never stops, even in a pandemic. As you know, Covid-19 has exposed serious flaws in our food system across several sectors. Whistleblowers have never been more needed and necessary. The FIC team is working closely with whistleblower farmers, federal inspectors, plant workers and many others to keep track of what is happening in our supply chains. We will be keeping you informed as we work to rebuild a more resilient, just and sustainable food system!”

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

Creative Loafing Tampa: Here’s how to stay connected to more than 30 Tampa Bay theater companies during coronavirus. “Whether livestreaming to Facebook and YouTube or live and prerecorded performances streamed live on Zoom, theaters are thinking outside of the box to continue their mission statements to entertain. Creative Loafing Tampa Bay caught up with over 30 local theaters, who despite living with uncertainty, remain hopeful and positive. We wanted to find out how they’ve been staying connected and what their plans are for summer and beyond.”

NEW RESOURCES – LEGAL / SECURITY / PRIVACY / FINANCIAL

USDA: USDA Now Accepting Applications for Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. “You can now apply for USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which provides direct payments to farmers and ranchers to offset impacts from the coronavirus pandemic. Applications will be accepted through August 28, 2020. We now have the application form and a payment calculator available on farmers.gov/cfap. And we have a call center (877-508-8364) set up to help you with your questions.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNBC: How to stop friends and relatives from spreading misinformation about Covid-19. “False claims have become so widespread during the pandemic that the World Health Organization has been referring to an ‘infodemic.’ So what should you do if you spot people sharing falsehoods on social media? And is there a way to convince them otherwise? CNBC spoke to a range of experts to get their advice on how to call out misinformation, ideally without alienating friends or family members in the process. They all agreed that the exercise is absolutely worth trying — and numerous studies support that — but to recognize that you might not always be successful.”

CBC: ‘Zoom fatigue’ is setting in: What it is and how to prevent it. “Although the term may not be found in psychology textbooks, some psychologists say the condition has become all too common in the COVID-19 era, with so many people working from home and holding meetings through video conferencing applications such as Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Cisco Webex. The fatigue can stem from any such software.”

New York Times: How to Recover From Covid-19 at Home. “My husband and I got sick from the coronavirus in late March. We had so-called mild cases, meaning only that we weren’t hospitalized: In fact, we were sicker than we had ever been. Because we could breathe fine, we knew we weren’t supposed to go to the hospital. But what were we supposed to do? The standard advice — rest, fluids and fever reducers — was and is essential, but at times it felt inadequate to the severity of the illness. As we recovered, I spoke with many friends, colleagues and internet strangers going through similar ordeals. Here is some collective wisdom on how to manage noncritical cases of Covid-19.”

NPR: How To Make A Mini-Zine About Life During The Pandemic. “Check the hashtag #quaranzine on social media and you’ll see thousands of mini books — called zines — that people are making to document their lives in the pandemic. Read the comic to find out how you can make one yourself — including how to fold your zine and what to write about. All you’ll need is a sheet of paper, a pen, 30 minutes and a little creativity.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Bill Gates ‘microchip’ conspiracy theory and other vaccine claims fact-checked. “Speculation about a future coronavirus vaccine is ramping up and social-media posts from anti-vaccination campaigners are gaining more traction online. We’ve been debunking a few recent claims.”

New York Times: Hire a D.J. and Turn the Music Up. “In real life, the people who have the most fun are the people who just let themselves go. So, in your apartment, do the same thing. Set up a private event on Zoom or another platform with your friends, and then livestream a D.J.’s set, so you’re all sharing the same music. Then, just groove. Here are some tips to find the vibe, no matter what age you are.”

UPDATES

AZ Central: Arizona saw highest single-day ER visits; Yuma sees spike in cases related to COVID-19 over weekend. “The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at Yuma Regional Medical Center has tripled over the past two weeks, at least 14 have died, and Arizona emergency room visits related to the new coronavirus pandemic reached a new one-day high over Memorial Day weekend. A spike in cases at the Yuma hospital contributed to record-high levels of hospitalizations and ER visits related to the coronavirus statewide over the weekend.”

New York Times: Its Coronavirus Caseload Soaring, India Is Reopening Anyway. “Its coronavirus cases are skyrocketing, putting it among the world’s most worrisome pandemic zones in recent weeks. Nonetheless, India is reopening, lifting its lockdown at what experts fear may be the worst time. Migrant workers are becoming infected at an alarmingly high rate, leading to fresh outbreaks in villages across northern India. Public hospitals in Mumbai are so overwhelmed that patients have taken to sleeping on cardboard in the hallways.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

NPR: Memorializing Those Who Died In The Time Of COVID-19. “Virtual vigils, streamed live on Facebook. Websites that collate the names and photos of the dead. Video projections of those we have lost, shining onto building facades. In the absence of collective public gatherings, people are coming up with new ways to memorialize those who have died from COVID-19. Perhaps the simplest, most essential gesture is to say their names.”

EdTech Magazine: How to Plan a Virtual Graduation Celebration Like No Other. “As colleges and universities across the U.S. virtually send off the class of 2020, the University of Missouri (Mizzou) went the extra mile by helping families plan virtual celebrations for their newly minted graduates. With the ongoing pandemic hindering traditional graduation festivities, the university’s staff was forced to be creative as they brainstormed different ways to honor the big day for students and families. From designing animated graduation-themed social media stickers to publishing popular dining hall recipes, the university was thinking outside of the box when it came to 2020’s virtual celebrations.”

Arizona State University: New study reveals how COVID-19 is shifting our public, private behaviors. “Whether or not you wear a face mask in public probably has a lot to do with your political affiliation. And if you’re wearing a mask to show consideration to others, your motivation is likely related to your race. Those were just a few of the findings in a recent study partially sponsored by Arizona State University that looked at how Americans are behaving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Edward D. Vargas, an assistant professor with ASU’s School of Transborder Studies, was a principal investigator on a seven-member interdisciplinary team that pooled its research funds together to start the National Panel Study of COVID-19.”

Edinburgh News: Glasgow woman, 94, rescued after not eating for five days during lockdown because she was ‘too scared’ to leave flat. “The Glasgow woman, who lived on the top floor of a tenement block, was discovered on March 23rd by a mobile food support project of the Salvation Army, a Christian Church and charity, and by Govan housing association. Tracy Bearcroft, a major in the Govan Salvation Army, told the Guardian she had ‘no one to get anything for her’ and was ‘too frightened to go out,’ adding: ‘At first it was very scary for a lot of old folk, who didn’t want to go out because they thought they would catch (Covid-19) immediately and have to go to hospital.'”

USDA Blog: Another Look at Availability and Prices of Food Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. “Last month I discussed the impact of COVID-19 on availability and prices of food based on data and information we had available at the time. Since then, USDA released its first assessment of U.S. and world crop supply and demand prospects and U.S. prices for 2020/21, and more data on market prices, production, and trade flows during the crisis became available. Of particular note, temporary closures of some meat packing plants have affected meat supply and prices seen by consumers and farmers. Hence, I want to take another look at food availability and prices in light of the new data and information we have and share with you some insights on market conditions.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

New York Times: Google Rescinds Offers to Thousands of Contract Workers. “Google, facing an advertising slump caused by the pandemic, has rescinded offers to several thousand people who had agreed to work at the company as temporary and contract workers.”

Slate: Roberts Upholds COVID-19 Restrictions on Churches, Scolds Kavanaugh. “Friday at midnight, the Supreme Court rejected a church’s challenge to California’s COVID-19 restrictions by a 5–4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals. In a pointed opinion, Roberts indicated that he will not join conservative judges’ escalating efforts to override public health measures in the name of religious freedom. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent, by contrast, falsely accused the state of religious discrimination in an extremely misleading opinion that omits the most important facts of the case. Roberts went out of his way to scold Kavanaugh’s dishonest vilification of the state.”

International Business Times: After Silencing Coronavirus Whistleblowers, China Now Detains Citizens Documenting Outbreak. “Doriane Lau, from Hong Kong, is a researcher for Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy organization that was formed in 1961. She told the Financial Times about the Chinese Communist government, ‘The [Chinese] government has been trying to control the circulation of information and build a narrative that hides the wrongdoing of the government. Curbing freedom of expression and press . . . only fuels frustration and blocks people’s access to information that can be crucial for fighting COVID-19.'”

HEALTH

The Guardian: Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England – Sage advisers. “Government advisers have voiced unease over the decision to lift England’s lockdown while thousands of people a day are still becoming infected with the coronavirus, warning that loosening restrictions could easily lead to a second wave. ‘We cannot relax our guard by very much at all,’ said John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who attends meetings of Sage, the scientific advisory group on emergencies.”

TECHNOLOGY

BetaNews: You need to take action if you want to avoid being cut off from Zoom. “Zoom 5.0 came out of Zoom’s 90-day focus on security updates, and one of the key improvements was the addition of GCM encryption. But to take advantage of this security feature, and others, people need to be using the latest version of the software. As such, it is important that you update your Zoom client, or you risk being cut out of meetings completely.”

Fast Company: This new Twitter bot has Asian front-line workers responding directly to COVID-19 racism. “The First Responder Twitter Bot responds to COVID-19-inspired racist tweets with videos that aim both to educate the perpetrators and uplift Asian front-line workers. It also responds to those tweeting in support of Asians, with tips on how to be first responders to racism when you witness it in person.”

Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Slap them down’ or hear them out: How to handle misinformation ‘superspreaders’?. “Almost as disturbing as the heat maps showing official death rates from COVID-19 every night on the news are those starting to circulate showing vast networks of influence of the global anti-vaccination movement, some of them run from Australia. At a time when trust in science and gratitude for modern medicine should be high, it’s been terrifying to watch traction gained recently by vaccination conspiracy theorists, some with (opportunistic) Australian celebrity support.”

ZDNet: Social distancing: Google’s new tool lets you see a two metre gap with AR. “Sodar draws a two-metre radius around you by placing markers in AR onto your real-world environment. Through your phone screen, you can visualize exactly where your two-metre bubble starts and ends, so that you can immediately see if someone dares come in a little too close.” This is experimental, and getting to use it seems a little Byzantine.

OH THAT’S SO NICE

USA Today: 103-year-old Massachusetts woman beats coronavirus, celebrates with Bud Light. “Shelley Gunn describes her Polish grandmother, Jennie Stejna, as having a feisty spirit. Stejna certainly displayed that spirit as the 103-year-old woman recently survived a bout with the coronavirus.”

Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Farm Bureau helps deliver 500 live sheep, 16,000 pounds of lamb to the Navajo Nation. “Looking at the twin problems of food insecurity caused by the economic crises and a drop in market demand for food products, a coalition of groups including the Utah Farm Bureau formed Farmers Feeding Utah, a new effort designed to address both issues at once. In less than three weeks, the initiative raised enough money, mostly from grassroots donors, to pursue its first project: purchasing 16,000 pounds of lamb and 500 live sheep from Utah ranchers and donating them to families on the Navajo Nation.”

FUNNY

New York Times: Trump Said, ‘I Have the Best Words.’ Now They’re Hers.. “Donald Trump has some ideas about fighting the coronavirus. ‘We hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light,’ the president says, to the bafflement of nearby aides. ‘Supposing, I said, you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or … in some other way,’ continues the president, gesturing toward her — Her? I should explain. The words are 100 percent Donald J. Trump’s. The actions belong to the comedian Sarah Cooper, whose homemade lip-syncs of the president’s rambling pandemic-related statements have become the most effective impression of Mr. Trump yet.”

POLITICS

BuzzFeed News: The Trump Administration Wants To Cut Back A Billion-Dollar Healthcare Program. Hospitals Say Now Is A Really Bad Time.. “Park Ridge and other hospitals have been battling with the administration in court for three years over a plan to slash by nearly 30% the reimbursement rate that hospitals get for certain drugs prescribed to Medicare patients. The hospitals won the first round. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard arguments in November and has yet to rule, and for now the cut is still in effect. In the meantime, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is exploring another way to make the cut if they lose the case, over the objection of hospitals. The litigation predates the coronavirus pandemic, but the stakes are higher as hospitals nationwide lose tens of billions of dollars weekly while nonessential services and elective surgeries are on hold because of the ongoing crisis.”

Washington Post: Trump’s mockery of wearing masks divides Republicans. “A growing chorus of Republicans are pushing back against President Trump’s suggestion that wearing cloth masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus is a sign of personal weakness or political correctness. They include governors seeking to prevent a rebound in coronavirus cases and federal lawmakers who face tough reelection fights this fall, as national polling shows lopsided support for wearing masks in public.”

Voice of America: New York Governor Pushes Trump for Infrastructure Spending. “New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed President Donald Trump on Wednesday to embrace a massive infrastructure spending plan to get Americans back to work in the face of the coronavirus commerce shutdowns.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Backlash after Trump signals US exit from WHO. “President Donald Trump has been criticised at home and abroad after announcing he is ending US ties with the World Health Organization (WHO). The EU urged him to reconsider the decision, while Germany’s health minister called it a ‘disappointing setback for international health’. The head of the US Senate’s health committee, a Republican like Mr Trump, said now was not the time to leave.”

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May 31, 2020 at 01:41AM
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