Friday, June 25, 2021

Rainfall Reports, Global Storm Database, Sean Wall, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, June 25, 2021

Rainfall Reports, Global Storm Database, Sean Wall, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, June 25, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wired: Citizen Scientists Digitized Centuries of Handwritten Rain Data. “IN MARCH 2020, as the United Kingdom went into pandemic lockdown, climate scientist Ed Hawkins put out a call to people with time on their hands: He needed help turning nearly 350 years’ worth of archival rainfall reports into digital documents that modern researchers could easily use. To his surprise, 16,000 people volunteered…. Now, just over a year later, his group has released their work, a massive data set of upwards of 5 million observations extracted from the UK Meteorological Office’s paper records—the oldest dating to 1677.”

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: Building a Global Storm Database. “A new global database built by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) captures characteristics and rainfall data of strong thunderstorms from the past 20 years. Including storms in both midlatitude and tropical zones is key to capturing how contrasting storm behavior and corresponding precipitation could affect populated regions of the globe.”

RTE: Archive of Limerick East Brigade leader Sean Wall online. “The Sean Wall Family Archive is a valuable collection of material relating to the Limerick East Brigade leader and his extended family, in particular the roles played by his brothers Fr Tom Wall and Bill Wall, who were also very active in republican circles during those years.”

British Library Endangered Archives Blog: New online – April/May 2021. “We have another four completed digitisation projects that have recently gone online. These four projects represent both the global breadth of EAP projects and the wide variety of content types.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Colorado Virtual Library: Next Draft: A Monthly Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion digest from EDIT. “This month we launched a monthly Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion digest from EDIT, the Colorado Virtual Library EDI Team. In it you’ll find recent EDI-related posts and events. This digest is sent to Libnet subscribers, but we will also be sharing here on the Colorado Virtual Library.”

Gizmodo: A Google Drive Update Might Break All Your Links. “Now that Google has opened up its business-focused Workspace suite to everyone, there are some new Google Drive features. But as with every move, sometimes things get busted along the way.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Digital Library of Georgia: How I Built A Funeral Program Collection for African Americans in Atlanta. “What started as a friendly competitive thought has now become another resource for researchers as well as scholars (I am one of the latter) who are interested in the individuals and local communities represented in the individual documents. The Atlanta funeral programs collection could possibly provide the information needed by a family historian (like myself) working to piece together their family’s story. This collection will always mean a lot to me, not only because I helped to start it but also because members of my own family are featured in the collection.”

TechCrunch: Kayak co-founder Paul English just launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app. “Today, [Paul] English launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app that blends machine learning and human curation to present personalized recommendations. This might sound like what Podz is doing, creating a newsfeed-style stream of content that users might like. But Moonbeam ups the ante by creating a creator-friendly platform, allowing podcast hosts to select clips of their show to feature on the app, too. The app also lets fans send a tip to the creator if they like their show enough (Moonbeam won’t take a cut, but there’s still that pesky in-app purchase fee for podcasters to consider).”

Digital Camera World: Shutterstock nabs LIFE magazine photo archive from Getty. “It was only last February that Getty Images announced it had added 75,000 images from The LIFE Picture Collection to GettyImages.com, and planned to add a further 400,000 Images between 2020 and 2025. Well, we’re not sure what happened there, but that’s clearly no longer the case. Because its rival Shutterstock has just announced an editorial partnership with media company Meredith Corporation to exclusively represent The LIFE Picture Collection.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wall Street Journal: App Taps Unwitting Users Abroad to Gather Open-Source Intelligence. “A consumer app has assembled a workforce of hundreds of thousands of smartphone users world-wide, some of whom are being unwittingly tasked with basic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the U.S. military.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Indiana University: New center for AI, machine-learning research dedicated at IU Bloomington. “The initial focus of the Luddy Center for AI, which will open in August, will include robotics, complex networks, health and social media. The center will draw upon the strength of researchers at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, as well as collaborators from IU’s extensive range of health and life science schools, departments and programs.”

New York Times: The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think. “From 2010 to 2018, the data workloads hosted by the cloud data centers increased 2,600 percent and energy consumption increased 500 percent. But energy consumption for all data centers rose less than 10 percent. What happened, the authors explain, was mainly a huge shift of workloads to the bigger, more efficient cloud data centers — and away from traditional computer centers, largely owned and run by non-tech companies.” Good morning, Internet…

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June 25, 2021 at 06:29PM
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Thursday, June 24, 2021

Georgia Bulletin, Ireland Women’s History, Robocalls, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2021

Georgia Bulletin, Ireland Women’s History, Robocalls, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: Issues of the Georgia Bulletin, the weekly newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, are now available freely online on the Georgia Historic Newspapers website. “In conjunction with our partners at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Georgia Bulletin (1963-1980) is now available for viewing at the Georgia Historic Newspapers website. These newspapers will contribute to a broader scholarship about Catholicism in Atlanta as well as in Georgia.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Extra (Ireland): Mná 100: New podcast series launched to highlight contribution of women to Irish independence struggle. “A new podcast series entitled Mná 100 has been launched to highlight the contribution made by women to Ireland’s struggle for independence a century ago. The podcast was developed as part of the Decade of Centenaries programme instigated to commemorate the momentous events that led to the foundation of the Irish state between 1912 and 1923.”

CNET: Hate robocalls? You’ll love what’s coming as of June 30. “A big deadline in the fight to beat back those annoying robocalls is coming June 30. As of that date, every major voice provider in the US, including phone companies AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile and cable provider Comcast, will have to implement a technology called Stir/Shaken.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

SupChina: The people who work for TikTok are workaholics and they want more!. “In a gutting blow to increasingly feverish calls for a better work-life balance in China’s tech sector, a sizable portion of the workforce at ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok and Douyin, has voiced opposition to a policy change proposed by the company that would discourage employees from working regularly on weekends.”

The Register: Euro court rules YouTube not automatically liable for users illegally uploading copyright-protected material . “Europe’s leading court has partly sided with YouTube regarding copyrighted works posted illegally online in a case that touches on ‘profound divisions’ in how the internet is used. The case, Frank Peterson and Elsevier Inc. v Google LLC and Others, was first brought by German music producer Peterson against the YouTube platform in the German courts in 2009.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Times of India: Social media companies to shut fake a/cs within 24 hours of complaint. “In a major decision that is likely to end the menace of impersonation on social media in India, the government has mandated that top companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have to remove accounts with fake profile pictures of known personalities and businesses, and even the general subscriber, within 24 hours of being notified of the same by the user or someone on his/her behalf.”

Mexico News Daily: International organizations launch website to aid identification of human remains. “Three international organizations launched an online platform on Tuesday to aid the identification of human remains found in Mexico. The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Mexico and Central America delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the German development agency GIZ launched the website…”

RESEARCH & OPINION

EurekAlert: Machine learning aids earthquake risk prediction. “An upside of the Christchurch quake was that it was one of the most well-documented in history. Because New Zealand is seismically active, the city was instrumented with numerous sensors for monitoring earthquakes. Post-event reconnaissance provided a wealth of additional data on how the soil responded across the city.”

Techdirt: Changing Section 230 Won’t Make The Internet A Kinder, Gentler Place. “Users dedicated to spreading lies or hateful content are a tiny minority, but weakening Section 230 will make their job easier. When content moderation doesn’t go their way—and it usually doesn’t—they’re willing to sue. As the cases below show, Section 230 is rightfully used to quickly dismiss their lawsuits. If lawmakers weaken Section 230, these meritless suits will linger in court longer, costing online services more and making them leery of moderate the speech of known litigious users. That result could make it easier for these users to spread lies online.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

The Verge: Listen to Spotify on this nostalgic iPod-style web music player. “In an era before multitouch displays, the iPod’s click wheel was the king of music playback control. Now, a new project from frontend software developer Tanner Villarete has attempted to emulate its classic controls as a web app, complete with support for your Spotify and Apple Music library.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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June 25, 2021 at 12:09AM
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Tennessee Supreme Court, North Virginia Newspapers, Instagram, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2021

Tennessee Supreme Court, North Virginia Newspapers, Instagram, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 24, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

AP: Tennessee Supreme Court Full Case Records Now Online. “The opinions have long been available electronically, but the associated case files were stored in more than 10,000 boxes in the attic of the Capitol building, according to a news release from the Administrative Office of the Courts. For more than a decade, Library and Archive staff has been cleaning and indexing these records. Today, around 85% of the collection is available online.”

Inside NoVa: Vintage Arlington newspapers digitized, placed online. “As part of a partnership that includes the Library of Virginia, the Center for Local History of the Arlington library system and the Sun Gazette, archive materials from a number of Arlington newspapers can now be found online. Editions of the Northern Virginia Sun from 1935 to 1978 have been digitized and made available through the Virginia Chronicle, a free online resource tool. Copies of the Columbia News also were digitized as part of the effort.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Instagram tests putting suggested posts ahead of your friends’. “Instagram says reception to its ‘suggested posts’ feature has been so positive that it’s launching a new test: this time, suggested posts will be mixed throughout your primary feed, sometimes ahead of photos and videos from people you follow.” How dare you choose what you want to look at.

TimesColonist: First Nations win access to archives of Sisters of St. Ann. “First Nations have won access to the private archives of the Sisters of St. Ann, an order of Catholic nuns that ran four residential schools, including the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The Royal B.C. Museum said Wednesday it had signed a memorandum of agreement with the Sisters of St. Ann to provide access to the order’s archives to the museum and to the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at UBC.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Cointelegraph: Activists archive Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper on blockchain. “Hong Kong cyber-activists are not giving up on the freedom of speech and are backing up articles from the pro-democracy tabloid newspaper Apple Daily using blockchain technology. Following a national security probe, Apple Daily printed its last edition on Thursday. But Hong Kong activists took it from there and uploaded the publication’s articles on a distributed network, Reuters reported.”

Yonhap News Agency: S. Korea to inject 50 bln won into animation industry . 50 billion won is a little more than $44 million US. “In addition to injecting more funds into the industry, the five-year plan also includes plans to diversify animations, which are currently largely concentrated on films for toddlers and children. The government also plans to beef up commercial support by expanding channels for animation distribution and helping companies make merchandise based on animations. The plan also includes setting up a digital archive for animation sources.”

The Register: Syria and Sudan turn off the internet to suppress … cheating by kids sitting exams. “Access Now reports as a part of its #KeepItOn campaign that there were 115 internet shutdowns in 2019, 60 in 2020 and 50 between January and May of 2021. Of those so far in 2021, 24 affected a whole country or region, 11 took in more than one city or area, and 13 cut off only one city, county or village.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: US cheerleader wins free speech case against her former school. “The US Supreme Court has ruled in favour of a teenager who was kicked off her school cheerleading squad over a profane social media post. In an 8-1 ruling, it concluded that the Mahanoy Area School District had violated Brandi Levy’s freedom of speech under the First Amendment.”

Meduza: Russia’s censorship agency asks Google to shut down ‘Smart Vote’ website. “Following a complaint from a Yekaterinburg lawyer, Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor (RKN), has sent a letter to Google asking the company to halt technical support for the website of Alexey Navalny’s ‘Smart Vote’ initiative.”

Los Angeles Times: He tried to commemorate erased history. China detained him, then erased that too. “Thousands of politically sensitive cases disappeared last month from China Judgments Online, the public archive. The deletions were first noticed by a Chinese activist with the Twitter handle @SpeechFreedomCN, who has been keeping an archive of speech crime cases. He has tracked more than 2,040 cases, dating to 2013, based on official documentation in China Judgments Online or public security bureaus’ reports on the social media apps Weibo and WeChat.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Alliance on Mental Illness: How To Navigate the Overwhelming Volume of Mental Health Apps. “Research and our initiatives at the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School suggest that there are issues and limitations that app users need to be aware of. However, certain apps have the potential to be a successful supplement to mental health treatment if users find the right program to fit their individual needs.”

Gizmodo: Google Glass Was Ugly, but Facebook’s AR Baseball Hat Might Actually Be Worse. “One of the biggest hurdles for augmented reality devices is design: No one wants to wear an obvious gadget on their face. Realising the issues Google Glass had with gaining consumer traction, it seems Facebook may embrace a unique design for a future wearable. Folks, it’s a baseball hat.” Good morning, Internet…

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June 24, 2021 at 05:29PM
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Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Banana-Related Research, NARA, OpenDocument Format, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Banana-Related Research, NARA, OpenDocument Format, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EurekAlert: A new site for banana-related research. “MusaNet, the global collaborative network for Musa-related research, was created in 2011 to implement the Global Musa Strategy established with the banana research community. MusaNet is excited to announce the launch of a new website that collects and shares information on all aspects of banana, be it diversity, conservation or current threats.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

National Archives: National Archives Releases Recommendations from Internal Task Force on Racism. “Last year, as our nation was confronting ongoing issues related to racial justice, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero established a task force of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) employees to identify issues of racial inequality in both our customer-facing operations and internally within our workplaces, in pursuit of an equitable and inclusive environment for all employees and customers.”

Neowin: OpenDocument Format 1.3 becomes approved as an OASIS Standard format. “The Document Foundation, the body behind the popular LibreOffice suite, has announced that Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF, also known as OpenDocument Format) 1.3 has been approved as an OASIS Standard after receiving 14 affirmative consents and no objections. With the standardisation of the format, other office suites, including Microsoft Office, can add support for the format according to defined specifications that boost compatibility between different suites.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: What are regular expressions — and how to use them in Google Sheets to get data from text . “In an extract from a new chapter in the ebook Finding Stories in Spreadsheets, I explain what regular expressions are — and how they can be used to extract information from spreadsheets. The ebook version of this tutorial includes a dataset and exercise to employ these techniques.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying. “Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen groups paid by Big Tech have tried to head off bipartisan support for six bills meant to undo the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.”

NDTV Education: National Library To Upload Books On Indian Culture On Web. “As part of its outreach drive for young generation readers, the National Library plans to upload on the web a select part of its voluminous collection, including books on Indian culture, a top official said Tuesday. Of the 20 lakh odd books in its possession, 5,000 titles under the Indian Culture section will be uploaded on the web in the coming months, the new officiating director general told reporters here.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: House Judiciary Committee debates antitrust legislation to rein in Big Tech. “The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday began debate on a series of bills aimed at reining in the power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and other tech giants. The first of the five bills advanced out of committee by early afternoon on Wednesday.”

Reuters: Brazilian Senate to hear Google, Facebook, Twitter in pandemic probe. “A Brazilian Senate committee on Wednesday formally approved a request to call representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter to testify in an ongoing probe into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senators want to look into what role the companies had in helping to spread potentially dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: AI helps restore Rembrandt’s Night Watch masterpiece. “For the first time in more than 300 years, Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch can again be seen in its entirety in the Netherlands. Created in 1642 by the Dutch master, the huge picture was trimmed on all four sides in 1715 to fit between two doors in Amsterdam town hall. The city’s Rijksmuseum has now added the missing scenes from a small, early copy of the original. It used artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic Rembrandt’s style.”

Open Access Government: Big data: With great data comes great responsibility. “Personal data stored within large repositories of companies are regularly exfiltrated in data breaches. Almost every individual in Western society has been subject to their data being exposed in almost always multiple data breaches. Nation-state actors have been exposed to conduct cyber-espionage on individuals and companies. Although it is 2021, George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a distinct possibility nowadays. So, we must ask ourselves: How do we combine Western civil liberties with the advance of ubiquitous data collection technologies?” Good evening, Internet…

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June 24, 2021 at 05:09AM
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Invasive Plants, New York Times, Instagram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Invasive Plants, New York Times, Instagram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Green Blog: UC launches WeedCUT, a new online tool to manage invasive weeds in wildlands without herbicides. “Cal-IPC and the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM), with funding from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) Alliance Grants Program, developed two resources that provide land managers access to the latest information on non-herbicide practices for managing weeds in wildlands. Best Management Practices for Non-Chemical Weed Control is a free downloadable manual. The same information has been incorporated into an interactive online tool called WeedCUT.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Introducing Gift Articles, a New Way for Times Subscribers to Share Articles. “New York Times news subscribers can now share up to 10 gift articles with nonsubscribers each month on NYTimes.com and soon, on iOS and Android.”

Bloomberg: Facebook’s Instagram Adds Shopping Via Images, Virtual Try-On. “Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is adding new shopping tools, like letting people search for products using an image, as it expands e-commerce offerings across its family of apps.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reclaim the Net: Patreon deplatforms censored video archive altCensored for “hate speech”. “altCensored, a platform that archives videos that have been censored or limited by YouTube, has been booted by the fan-funding platform Patreon for ‘hate speech.’ The platform has received around 500,000 unique monthly visitors over the last year, according to estimates based on web analytics company SimilarWeb and altCensored’s server logs.” Platforms like altCensored do important work. YouTube content removal often leads to unintended consequences like removing evidence of war crimes.

San Antonio Express-News: Black history preserved in collection donated to San Antonio African American Community Archive. “The largest known San Antonio African American history collection now resides with the San Antonio African American Community Archive Museum. Laura Thompson, CEO and creator of The African American Network, has donated her collection of biographies to the museum, located in La Villita. The collection, called 300 Voices in 300 Days, was part of the city’s tricentennial celebration.”

The Globe and Mail: How families are building a digital archive to commemorate the Air India bombing. “Air India Flight 182 was flying from Toronto to London, England. A bomb caused it to crash into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace. All 329 people on board were killed, including 280 citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The disaster was followed by long trials (which ended in acquittal), a public inquiry and an apology from the Canadian government. However, to Dr. [Chandrima] Chakraborty and many others, including victims’ families, this event was never truly perceived as a Canadian tragedy.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Egypt detains female TikTok star after human trafficking conviction. “The verdict came five months after another court overturned prison sentences that [Haneen] Hossam and [Mawada] Adham were given for ‘violating family values’ with videos they posted on TikTok. Human rights activists say the two women have been prosecuted as part of a crackdown by Egyptian authorities targeting female social media influencers on charges that violate their rights to privacy, freedom of expression, non-discrimination and bodily autonomy.”

National Law Review: State Laws Hinder Progress of Non-Bias AI. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) relies on oceans of data, most people know this. But many people do not yet understand how data shapes AI before the AI is functional, or how data is used by AI in production. Each raises its own set of practical, technical and social issues. This lack of understanding can lead people to conflate data used in AI formation with the data AI uses as it operates.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature: Ancient oaks of Europe are archives — protect them. “Fennoscandia and the United Kingdom could better safeguard their oaks using mechanisms such as those offered by the European Union’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas, or the protections conferred by UNESCO World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom. Otherwise, unsustainable management practices, deforestation, air pollution and climate change could leave these ancient species vulnerable to disease and extinction, with the loss of irreplaceable scientific information and cultural heritage.” Clueless about Fennoscandia? Me too. WorldAtlas helped me out.

EurekAlert: Using virtual populations for clinical trials. “A study involving virtual rather than real patients was as effective as traditional clinical trials in evaluating a medical device used to treat brain aneurysms, according to new research. The findings are proof of concept for what are called in-silico trials, where instead of recruiting people to a real-life clinical trial, researchers build digital simulations of patient groups, loosely akin to the way virtual populations are built in The Sims computer game.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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June 24, 2021 at 02:53AM
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Europe Cycling Incentives, Food Labels, Sperm Length, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Europe Cycling Incentives, Food Labels, Sperm Length, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cycling Industry News: New tool lists nearly 300 EU subsidy and tax incentives for bike firms. “A new tool developed by the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and the City Changer Cargo Bike project (CCCB) has curated a list of nearly 300 tax and subsidy benefits available in Europe. The national, regional and local incentives have been compiled in a first of its kind directory in the hope of giving bike firms and cycling groups a clear view on perks that may help them both in business and to subsequently grow cycling numbers in Europe.”

Vermont Law School: New “Labels Unwrapped” Website Breaks Down The Confusing Laws Behind Food Labels . “The website explains many of the common terms and claims found on labels through a series of interactive illustrated labels spanning different product categories: protein, dairy, grains, produce, fats and oils, sweets, and supplements. Users can hover over the various claims on each to learn more about common marketing terms like ‘gluten free,’ ‘all natural,’ ‘USDA organic,’ ‘grass-fed,’ and dozens more. Straightforward explanations outline what each claim means, as well as how (and if) it is regulated, and by whom. A ‘Labels 101’ section provides a breakdown of the general law of food labels and frequently asked questions.”

Inverse: Is Bigger Always Better? Scientists Explain The Evolution Of Sperm Size. “The researchers searched the scientific literature for data on sperm size, ultimately creating a database of sperm records from more than 3,000 species from 21 different animal groups known as ‘phyla.’ This is the largest known database on sperm length and fertilization methods, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. The study focuses on three classes of animals, depending on where and how their sperm fertilizes eggs during reproduction.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Screen Rant: How To Try Twitter’s New Super Follows & Ticketed Spaces. “On June 22, 2021, Twitter formally unveiled Super Follows and Ticked Spaces. Both have been leaked and teased leading up to this, but they’ve now been fully unveiled in all of their glory. Super Follows stands to be the most game-changing of the two, as it reimagines the idea of following other users.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Rights group: Facebook amplified Myanmar military propaganda. “Facebook’s recommendation algorithm amplifies military propaganda and other material that breaches the company’s own policies in Myanmar following a military takeover in February, a new report by the rights group Global Witness says. A month after the military seized power in Myanmar and imprisoned elected leaders, Facebook’s algorithms were still prompting users to view and ‘like’ pro-military pages with posts that incited and threatened violence, pushed misinformation that could lead to physical harm, praised the military and glorified its abuses, Global Witness said in the report, published late Tuesday.”

New York Times: The Inequality of the GoFundMe Economy. “Turning to the internet for financial help didn’t work very well in a pandemic. That was among the discouraging conclusions of a new academic research paper that examined efforts on the fund-raising website GoFundMe to collect money for health care bills, groceries, funeral costs and other needs that resulted from the coronavirus crisis.”

ProPublica: How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life for Uyghurs. “Thousands of videos of Uyghurs denying abuses against their community are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. They’re part of an elaborate influence campaign by Chinese officials to counter reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Ninth Circuit Revives Suit Against Social Media Giants Over Nightclub Terror Attack. “A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday largely answered the question of whether social media networks can be held liable for terror attacks around the world: they can’t. Unless the families of victims can show — as they may have in one case — that the tech giants knowingly allow terrorist groups to create and maintain public accounts and turning a deaf ear to complaints. But the panel also said it’s time for either the executive or legislative branches to do something about unregulated social media networks and the broad immunity provided them under the Communications Decency Act of 1996.”

WFLA: New law creates Florida database for teacher firings, resignations over sexual misconduct. “HB 131 requires the Florida Department of Education to create and maintain a list of people who are disqualified from teaching in the state. Included in the database would be reasons for termination as well as a list of teachers who resigned rather than be fired for sexual misconduct.”

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Announces Copyright Public Modernization Committee . “The Library of Congress announced today the membership of the new Copyright Public Modernization Committee (CPMC), which is being convened to enhance communication and provide a public forum for the technology-related aspects of the U.S. Copyright Office’s modernization initiative. The first CPMC meeting will be hosted by the Library on July 22, 2021.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AP: Virginia hopes to remove time capsule along with Lee statue. “If a court clears the way, the state of Virginia expects to remove not just a soaring statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue but also a little-known piece of history tucked inside the massive sculpture’s base: a 134-year-old time capsule.”

Florida Museum of Natural History: iDigBio receives $20 million from NSF to sustain U.S. museum digitization efforts. “The National Science Foundation has awarded iDigBio nearly $20 million to continue its mission of digitizing natural history collections nationwide, making them available online to researchers, educators and community scientists around the world.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



June 23, 2021 at 07:13PM
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Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, Brave Search, NetNewsWire, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021

Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, Brave Search, NetNewsWire, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

MIT: Online hub for research and teaching brings digital humanities to the fore. “… a new collaboration between the MIT Programs in Digital Humanities (DH Lab) and the MIT Libraries is helping foster relationships among scholars with intersecting interests in computational culture. Since September 2020, the DH Lab has partnered with the libraries to present Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, a weekly series of virtual events that provide a regular, informal space for faculty and researchers to connect with DH Lab staff, MIT librarians, and with one another. Recordings of these sessions are now available on the MIT Libraries’ YouTube channel.”

CNET: Google gets a new rival as Brave Search opens to the public. “Unlike other new search engines, which generally repackage results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing, Brave is building an independent index of the web. Brave Search will rely on Bing in some areas, like images, where its own results aren’t yet good enough. And for ordinary searches, Brave can blend in Google results for people who enable the feature when prompted.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Mac: NetNewsWire for iPhone and iPad adds iCloud sync, Twitter and Reddit integration, more. “NetNewsWire is one of the most powerful RSS readers for iPhone and iPad, and it’s getting even better with a new update rolling out today. NetNewsWire 6 is now available on the App Store with new features including iCloud syncing, home screen widgets, and more.”

Bloomberg Quint: YouTube Shorts Is Taking on TikTok and Minting a New Constellation of Concise Video Stars. “Shorts is YouTube’s answer to ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok. That service has been wooing YouTube’s young audience, challenging its role as the primary platform for aspiring amateurs and inspiring copycat features from major social media networks, including Snapchat and Facebook’s Instagram. While YouTube is still the king of web video, its gargantuan size can be intimidating to newbies, many of whom see TikTok as a faster path to fame.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Conversation: How the bulletin board systems, email lists and Geocities pages of the early internet created a place for trans youth to find one another and explore coming out. “As I’ve found in my research on early digital trans communities, trans youths have been online since the late 1980s. They weren’t seeking out information and community because their friends were all doing it. They were doing it of their own accord.”

KSL: Board grants $25K to digitize pieces of Utah history. Here’s what is getting preserved. “Ever wanted to watch a jazz legend perform in Cedar City or read what Salt Lake County commissioners met about back in 1852? You may soon be in luck. The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board, under the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service, last week approved a little more than $25,000 in grants that will go toward six organizations working to digitize pieces of Utah history and make it more accessible.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

South Florida SunSentinel: Florida urges judge to reject tech industry arguments against crackdown on social media. “Accusing social-media platforms of censorship, Florida attorneys late Monday pushed back against an attempt to block a new state law that would put restrictions on companies such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The state, in a 61-page court filing, argued that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle should reject a request by online-industry groups for a preliminary injunction against the law, a top priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

National Post (Canada): Liberals pass Bill C-10 to regulate social media, streaming. “Canadian lawmakers passed a controversial bill that aims to regulate programming distributed by media streaming services and social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, a measure that critics warn could infringe on individual speech.”

CNN: US government seizes dozens of US website domains connected to Iran. “The United States government has seized dozens of US website domains connected to Iran, linked to what the US says are disinformation efforts, a US national security official told CNN.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Space: Huge new catalog of ultrabright ‘fast radio bursts’ may shed light on the structure of the universe. “If human eyes could see radio waves, the night sky would periodically light up with flashes thanks to fast radio bursts (FRBs). It would, that is, if we looked quick: These pulses last less than a blink of an eye and then vanish without a trace…. This new catalog of FRBs, which was described on June 9 during a presentation at the 238th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), is allowing scientists to ask big-picture questions about the structure of the universe.” Good evening, Internet…

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June 23, 2021 at 05:03AM
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