Google for Creators, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Archives Alive, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 21, 2021

Google for Creators, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Archives Alive, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 21, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Google for Creators: Helping creators learn and grow. “Google for Creators shows how the web can become part of your content mix. A quick quiz on the homepage provides personalized recommendations with topics most relevant to you. So if you’re just getting started, the quiz might recommend that you check out guides for finding a niche or creating a content strategy. Or if you’re a more seasoned creator, you might see recommendations for learning how to grow your audience and make more money.”

Engadget: The new Assassin’s Creed educational tour lets you explore the Viking Age. “Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tours can offer valuable educational insights into historical periods, and that may be particularly true for the latest instalment. Ubisoft has released a Discovery Tour: Viking Age update for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla that gives you the chance to explore Viking-era England and Norway without the usual conflicts. There’s a new format, however. Rather than go on guided tours and visit exhibits, you assume the roles of four Anglo-Saxon and Viking characters (such as Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great and a Viking merchant) as they undertake eight quests that illustrate their daily lives.” You do not have to buy the video game to get the educational tour; a stand-alone version is available for $20.

EVENTS

McMaster University: Rare texts on magic and the occult unearthed for Archives Alive event. “Leather-bound books with ancient alphabets, pentagrams outlined in red paint on a floor, and hooded figures chanting incantations by candlelight; these are among the depictions commonly conjured in popular culture around magic and the occult. But where do these concepts come from? This month’s must-see Archives Alive event will take audiences back in time to explore rare texts at McMaster University rooted in the very real tradition of magic and philosophy in western Europe.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Facebook to demote all Groups content from users who break its rules. “Facebook said Wednesday it will demote all content posted in Groups from users who have broken the site’s rules, making potentially problematic content harder for others to find. The social network will also let people who manage groups know when content from members has been flagged by Facebook and will offer administrators the ability to appeal before a post gets removed.”

Ubergizmo: Instagram Now Lets Users Post From Their Desktop. “The good news is that Instagram has since announced that you can now post photos and videos up to a minute long from your computer. If this sounds familiar, it is because the company had actually started testing out the feature earlier this year, and now it looks like it will be available to all users starting on the 21st of October.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Vice: Mastodon’s Founder Says Trump’s New Social Network Is Just Mastodon. “Mastodon is a piece of open-source software that people can use to create their own social networks. The platform has a timeline style similar to Twitter. Whereas some people have moved to Mastodon for a social network experience away from more established, Big Tech companies, Neo-Nazis and other extremists have also used the platform.”

Mashable: Nude art is getting censored on social media for a tourism board. So they went to OnlyFans.. “Vienna, Austria’s capital city, is known amongst other things for a rich history of art, measured by its many museums and infamous artistic revolt. But the tourist board found obstacles in its path to promote the city’s art, particularly the works that feature nudity. Turning to OnlyFans as a solution, Vienna has featured its ’18+ content’ on the site from artists known for ‘provocative’ portraits, some nude, like Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl, and Amedeo Modigliani, saying it is providing ‘these artworks the freedom they deserve’.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: YouTube Sued Over Animal Abuse Videos, Accused of Not Enforcing Ban. “Lady Freethinker, which has exposed dogfighting rings in Chile and dog meat auctions in South Korea, said YouTube had ignored the group’s repeated flagging of animal abuse videos. YouTube’s community guidelines, the rules for what is allowed on the site, say animal abuse content is not permitted. The ban includes videos in which humans inflict physical harm to an animal to cause suffering.” I saw no explicit content in the article, but just the descriptions of abuse were enough to make me nauseated. Click with caution.

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: Egypt detains artist robot Ai-Da before historic pyramid show. “Ai-Da is due to open and present her work at the Great Pyramid of Giza on Thursday, the first time contemporary art has been allowed next to the pyramid in thousands of years. But because of ‘security issues’ that may include concerns that she is part of a wider espionage plot, both Ai-Da and her sculpture were held in Egyptian customs for 10 days before being released on Wednesday, sparking a diplomatic fracas.”

Smithsonian Magazine: What’s Next for the 1.2 Million Prehistoric Fossils Now at Smithsonian. “Under the grass, gravel, soil and sand lies layers of rock containing a record of past life. In North America, paleontologists have been studying this record for over 150 years. Many of the fossils they unearthed were stored in the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Denver Fossil Collection…. Earlier this year, the last of the USGS collection’s 1.2 million fossils arrived at the museum, completing an acquisition that began back in 2018. But the acquisition was only one step in a bigger plan to systematize and digitize the USGS fossils for scientists everywhere to access for research.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 22, 2021 at 12:54AM
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Wednesday CoronaBuzz, October 20, 2021: 32 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Wednesday CoronaBuzz, October 20, 2021: 32 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please get vaccinated. Please wear a mask when you’re inside with a bunch of people. Much love.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

State of New York: Governor Hochul Announces New COVID-19 Data Hub Website to Expand Public Access, Centralize Information and Improve the User Experience. “Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the launch of a new centralized website for New York State COVID-19 data. This website includes new data as well as a reorganization of previously released data to make it easier for the public to access, read and understand. In addition, more COVID-19 data is now being made available on Health Data NY.”

UPDATES

Virginian-Pilot: Virginia’s new data tool fixed after vastly underreporting children hospitalized with COVID-19. “The Virginia Department of Health temporarily pulled down the COVID-19 dashboard Tuesday and updated it with over 500 more cases, after a Pilot reporter alerted staff to a vast discrepancy a day earlier. On Monday, the agency reported there had been just 380 children hospitalized with the disease since the onset of the pandemic statewide.”

BBC: Covid: Thousands of children left without parents in Iran. “More than 51,000 children in Iran have lost a parent to the Covid-19 pandemic, Iranian welfare authorities say. One such case is that of Eliza, aged four. Eliza was very attached to her father. They read together, sang together, and he was always there to put her to bed. But then one day he started coughing and was taken to hospital. Her father, who was 40, died of Covid.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Mashable: 8 TikTok accounts to follow if you’re tired of COVID misinformation. “TikTok: an app for music, memes, and medically-accurate vaccine information Increasingly, medical professionals are using the app to share myth-busting information about things like the COVID-19 vaccine, rates of infection, and COVID treatments, all through succinct, engaging videos that will hopefully reach the people who need them. At the very least, they offer a link for other viewers to send to their more stubborn friends and relatives.” Thoroughly annotated with everybody’s bona fides.

Washington Post: Meet the doctors’ group spreading covid conspiracy theories in plain sight on Facebook. “A group of health-care professionals known for spreading conspiracy theories about covid-19 has largely avoided restrictions on Facebook, where its members have reached millions of users with their messages of coronavirus denialism and vaccine skepticism, according to a new report shared exclusively with The Technology 202.”

The Guardian: Group that spread false Covid claims doubled Facebook interactions in six months. “An international pressure group that spread false and conspiratorial claims about Covid-19 more than doubled the average number of interactions it got on Facebook in the first six months of 2021 in spite of renewed efforts to curb misinformation on the platform, according to a report.”

Poynter: WHO database is not proof that COVID-19 vaccines are harmful. “Anti-vaccination groups and COVID-19 skeptics typically use the data from databases like the WHO’s as proof that the vaccines are harmful to people, according to The New York Times. In many cases, the unconfirmed reports are misinterpreted by the groups as fact. PolitiFact has checked similar claims that used the United States’ Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System and the European Union’s EudraVigilance database as evidence of the danger of COVID-19 vaccines.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Bloomberg: ‘People Are Hoarding’: Food Shortages Are The Next Supply-Chain Crunch. “More than a year and a half after the coronavirus pandemic upended daily life, the supply of basic goods at U.S. grocery stores and restaurants is once again falling victim to intermittent shortages and delays.”

DCist: 49 Out Of The 50 People Who Died Of COVID-19 In D.C. Since June Were Black. “Of the 50 people who died of the virus since June, 49 were Black. Sixty percent of those deaths occurred in just two wards: Wards 7 and 8. The grim numbers coincide with a dramatic rise in cases due to the Delta variant and the latest peak in infections, which came on Sept. 17 in the District.”

BBC: The Indian women widowed by Covid-19. “India has been one of the world’s worst Covid-hit nations, recording more than 440,000 official deaths so far. The pandemic has left tens of thousands of women newly widowed, struggling to adjust to a new life. Many of these women have never worked in a paying job before. According to the World Bank, India’s female labour force participation rate – which was less than 21% in 2019 – is one of the lowest in the world.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

BBC: Covid: Doctors call for Covid Plan B to start in England. “An ‘unacceptable’ level of Covid cases means ministers should trigger their Plan B for the pandemic in England, doctors say. The British Medical Association accused the government of being ‘wilfully negligent’ for not reimposing Covid rules such as mandatory face masks. Daily UK infections have been above 40,000 for eight days in a row.”

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

CNN: Pfizer vaccine is 93% effective in preventing Covid-19 hospitalization among adolescents, CDC study finds. “The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 93% effective in preventing hospitalization due to Covid-19 among children ages 12 to 18, according to a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccine effectiveness differed only slightly within that age group, with 91% effectiveness for children age 12 to 15 and 94% effectiveness for those age 16 to 18.”

Washington Post: White House unveils plans to roll out coronavirus vaccines for children ages 5 to 11. “The White House on Wednesday announced its plan to roll out coronavirus vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending the vaccine’s approval by federal health officials, which the Biden administration anticipates will happen within weeks. White House officials said they have secured enough doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine for the country’s 28 million children in that age group and have been working with local jurisdictions to make sure they will be ready to distribute and administer the shots for free.”

ProPublica: The Federal Government Gave Billions to America’s Schools for COVID-19 Relief. Where Did the Money Go?. “After the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the federal government provided about $190 billion in aid to help them reopen and respond to the effects of the pandemic. In the year and a half since millions of children were sent home, the Education Department has done only limited tracking of how the money has been spent. That has left officials in Washington largely in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students, especially those whose schools and communities were among the hardest hit by the pandemic.”

CNN: Booster shots could soon be recommended for people as young as 40, source says. “Booster protection in the US could soon expand to a much broader population, as a source says the US government likely will soon recommend additional doses to people as young as 40 who received a Moderna or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.”

CNET: FDA authorizes Moderna, Johnson & Johnson booster shots for many Americans. “The FDA now allows for a single booster dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to individuals at least six months after their initial two shots for those who are 65 years and older, those who are 18 to 64 years old at high risk of contracting a severe case of COVID-19, and those ages 18 to 64 ‘with frequent institutional or occupational exposure’ to the coronavirus, the administration said in a statement.”

WORLD/COUNTRY GOVERNMENT

Associated Press: Russians to stay off work for a week as virus deaths rise. “President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered most Russians to stay off work for a week later this month amid rising COVID-19 infections and deaths, and he strongly urged reluctant citizens to get vaccinated. The government coronavirus task force reported 1,028 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. That brought Russia’s death toll to 226,353, by far the highest in Europe.”

BBC: Covid: WHO warns pandemic will drag on deep into 2022. “The Covid pandemic will ‘go on for a year longer than it needs to’ because poorer countries are not getting the vaccines they need, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Dr Bruce Aylward, senior leader at the WHO, said it meant the Covid crisis could ‘easily drag on deep into 2022’. Less than 5% of Africa’s population have been vaccinated, compared to 40% on most other continents.”

New York Times: Brazilian Leader’s Pandemic Handling Draws Explosive Allegation: Homicide. “A Brazilian congressional panel is set to recommend mass homicide charges against President Jair Bolsonaro, asserting that he intentionally let the coronavirus rip through the country and kill hundreds of thousands in a failed bid to achieve herd immunity and revive Latin America’s largest economy.”

BBC: Get Covid jab or restrictions more likely, Sajid Javid says. “Sajid Javid said the government would not be bringing in its Plan B measures, which include mandatory face coverings and working from home, ‘at this point’. He added that he did not believe the current pressures on the NHS were unsustainable. But he warned cases could rise to 100,000 a day.”

Deutsche Welle: Germany: Pandemic state of emergency may end in November. “German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said that special rules relating to the coronavirus pandemic could end on November 25, the Bild newspaper reported on Monday. But many indoor rules requiring proof of negative test, vaccination and other hygiene measures would need to remain in place, the report added.”

STATE GOVERNMENT

New York Times: California Accounts for 12% of U.S. Students, but Only 1% of Covid School Closures. “Of the 2,321 nationwide school closures since August because of Covid-19, about 1 percent have been in California — even though the state accounts for 12 percent of the nation’s K-12 students, according to data from Burbio, a technology company that monitors outbreaks. So some parents may be wondering: If masking, testing and other prevention strategies are working so well, why is the state adding an immunization requirement?”

New York Times: Hawaii will reopen to vaccinated visitors in November.. “Hawaii Gov. David Ige announced Tuesday that the state will ‘safely open’ to fully vaccinated residents and visitors who are traveling domestically and between islands for business or pleasure, starting Nov. 1.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

New York Times: New York City Mandates Vaccines for Its Workers to ‘End the COVID Era’. “New York City took one of its most aggressive steps yet to increase vaccination rates in a city that was once the epicenter of the pandemic, requiring almost every member of the nation’s largest municipal workforce to get vaccinated by the end of the month or lose their paychecks.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS – CELEBRITIES/FAMOUS

CNN: Homeland Security secretary tests positive for Covid-19. “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is vaccinated, tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday morning, according to department spokesperson Marsha Espinosa.”

Tennessean: Travis Tritt cancels shows at venues that require COVID-19 vaccines, negative tests, masks. “Travis Tritt has canceled shows at venues requiring masks, proof of COVID-19 vaccinations or a negative test. The country singer and songwriter announced the move Monday, which triggered the cancellation of four upcoming shows in Muncie, Indiana; Philadelphia, Mississippi; Peoria, Illinois; and Louisville, Kentucky.”

CNN: Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto tests positive for Covid-19. “Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto has tested positive for Covid-19. Cavuto, who has been public about his health challenges over the years, including a nearly 25-year journey with multiple sclerosis, was off his afternoon Fox program on Tuesday as a result of the diagnosis.”

HEALTH

Associated Press: COVID-19 and pregnancy: Women regret not getting the vaccine. “Since the pandemic began, health officials have reported more than 125,000 cases and at least 161 deaths of pregnant women from COVID-19 in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And over the past several months, hospitals and doctors in virus hot spots have reported a sharp increase in the number of severely ill pregnant women. With just 31% of pregnant women nationwide vaccinated, the CDC issued an urgent advisory on Sept. 29 recommending that they get the shots.”

New York Times: Why Public Health Faces a Crisis Across the U.S.. “While the coronavirus has killed more than 700,000 in the United States in nearly two years, a more invisible casualty has been the nation’s public health system. Already underfunded and neglected even before the pandemic, public health has been further undermined in ways that could resound for decades to come. A New York Times review of hundreds of health departments in all 50 states indicates that local public health across the country is less equipped to confront a pandemic now than it was at the beginning of 2020.”

TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET

PsyPost: Negative perceptions of COVID-19 decreased intensively on Twitter after the vaccination campaign started. “An in-depth analysis of more than 120m Twitter posts across the globe has shown that users’ perception of the Covid-19 pandemic became less negative as it has progressed. In a paper published to Frontiers, its authors found a significant decrease in negativity in countries which rolled out extensive vaccination programs, such as the US, the UK, and Canada.”

RESEARCH

Route Fifty: Most Americans Resumed Risky Activities Before Covid-19 Vaccines Came Out. “A new study identifies various factors that played a role in the resumption of risky travel and leisure behaviors during the pandemic. After months of lockdowns and quarantines, many Americans were eager to return to normal activities, even as public health experts continued to warn the public that the Covid-19 pandemic was not over.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Orange County Register: Coronavirus: Woman who refused to wear mask in Costa Mesa grocery store goes on trial. “A jury will soon decide whether Marianne Campbell Smith is guilty of a pair of misdemeanor charges, including trespassing and obstructing a business or customers, for allegedly refusing to leave busy Mother’s Market near the Triangle Square during an anti-mask protest on Aug. 15, 2020.”

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October 21, 2021 at 08:08PM
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Open Source Cloud Guide, International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, Right-Of-Way Solar, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 21, 2021

Open Source Cloud Guide, International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, Right-Of-Way Solar, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 21, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

FOSS Force: IBM Unveils ‘Open Source Cloud Guide’ at All Things Open. “One of the announcements made at this year’s All Things Open conference in Raleigh came on Monday when IBM unveiled an Open Source Cloud Guide, which offers a vendor and cloud agnostic view of open source developer tools.”

Inside the Games: IMMAF launches athletes database and alumni records page. “The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) has launched two interactive databases featuring the organisation’s current athletes and alumni. The Athletes Database features approximately 2,200 IMMAF fighters across senior, junior and youth categories and lists the accolades of all medallists.”

BusinessWire: Esri Partners with The Ray to Map Solar Energy Hot Spots (PRESS RELEASE). “Research published by the Webber Energy Group (WEG) at the University of Texas at Austin, and by The Ray, a nonprofit studying technologies that can transform the transportation sector for a Vision Zero future, documented the efficiency and economic, societal, and environmental benefits of installing solar arrays on interstate right-of-way (ROW) land. The findings revealed that solar panels at these exits could generate up to 36 terawatt hours (TWh) a year—enough to power 12 million passenger electric vehicles—with the value of the energy generated by roadside solar panels estimated at $4 billion per year.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Popular Science: Google’s new data guidance takes a page from Apple’s privacy playbook. “Google launched a new “Data safety section” in its Google Play Store on Monday for app developers, building on a pledge the company made in May to increase transparency around how apps hosted on its platforms utilize user data. A video released along with the announcement shows this information will be prominently featured in a set of bullet points when users click on an app to install or update it, though it won’t be publicly available until next year.”

CNBC: PayPal is in late-stage talks to acquire Pinterest. “PayPal is in late-stage talks to buy social media company Pinterest, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC. Shares of Pinterest soared Wednesday after Bloomberg first reported that PayPal may acquire the social media company.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name. “The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be known for more than social media and all the ills that entail.” It’s not the name that’s the problem, of course…

Daily Beast: The Bizarre and Unsettling Rise of True-Crime Makeup Videos on YouTube and TikTok. “TikTok user @fatalfaye delicately brushes a hot pink eyeshadow in the shade ‘Emoji’ onto their eyelid. Over the primping plays an audio clip, crackling with feedback. ‘I just killed my mom and my sister,’ a teenager confesses. The combination of the jarring 911 call and an otherwise normal makeup video may seem bizarre, but the incongruous pairing belongs to a trend of true crime makeup videos that has been growing in popularity across social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Welcome to the weird world of true crime makeup videos.”

Paste Magazine: The Vibrant Online Community of College Football Videogames. “There’s hardly ever a reason to play an old sports game unless you’re pained with deep nostalgia. Yet it turns out nostalgia is easy to come by if they stop improving the game, or stop making a series altogether. The thirst and hunger created by the unfilled hole in the market sparks innovation among enthusiasts. Modding games is a pretty common process across genres, but the fans around NCAA Football have given the defunct franchise something most sports games don’t get: longevity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Wired: How Hackers Hijacked Thousands of High-Profile YouTube Accounts. “SINCE AT LEAST 2019, hackers have been hijacking high-profile YouTube channels. Sometimes they broadcast cryptocurrency scams, sometimes they simply auction off access to the account. Now, Google has detailed the technique that hackers-for-hire used to compromise thousands of YouTube creators in just the past couple of years.”

SecurityWeek: Banks Informed U.S. Treasury of $590 Million in Ransomware Payments. “The United States Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has identified a total of 177 cryptocurrency wallets associated with the top 10 most commonly reported ransomware variants during the first half of the year.”

New York Times: Mark Zuckerberg will be added to a Facebook privacy lawsuit.. ” The attorney general for the District of Columbia plans to add Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, to a consumer protection lawsuit, in one of the first efforts by a regulator to expose him personally to potential financial and other penalties. The attorney general, Karl Racine, said on Tuesday that continuing interviews and reviews of internal documents for the case had revealed that Mr. Zuckerberg played a much more active role in key decisions than prosecutors had known.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: The easy way to rein in Facebook and Google: stop them gobbling up competitors. “Their future is largely in our hands. For big tech companies able to use the weight of their networks (and only for those companies) we could ‘just say no’ to takeovers. It’s hard to think of a reason for one to proceed. If needed, we could change the law to make ‘no’ the default.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 21, 2021 at 05:26PM
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Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Elections, YouTube, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 20, 2021

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Elections, YouTube, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 20, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital Library of Georgia: Scrapbooks from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra documenting the Civil Rights Era are now available online. “In partnership with the Georgia State University Special Collections and Archives (Music and Broadcasting Collections) the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) has digitized 24 scrapbooks from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) Collection dating from 1945-1985 that are now available online as part of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Collection.”

13 News Now: Virginia launches website to help people stay informed about voting, elections process . “The Virginia Department of Elections launched a website to help people stay informed about voting and the elections process. The department said the ‘Vote with Confidence’ site has information about when and where people can vote, how Virginia conducts its elections, and key dates and deadlines.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Tubefilter: With A Year Of Shorts Under Its Belt, YouTube Is Still Figuring Out Creator Monetization. “One year ago, YouTube debuted the first public version of its TikTok copycat, Shorts. Between then and now, the platform expanded Shorts to all YouTube users around the globe, launched a $100 million fund to pay some of the users making content for it, and saw the average number of daily first-time creators uploading videos to Shorts more than double. So, what has it learned?”

BNN Bloomberg: Google Quietly Tweaks Image Search for Racially Diverse Results. “Google updated its algorithms in an effort to promote more racially diverse results in image searches — the tech giant’s latest attempt to excise biases from the world’s most popular search engine.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: Google Photos’ unlimited free storage is gone. Here’s how to get more space. “Google Photos ended its unlimited free storage policy for photos and videos as of June 1. Now any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15GB of storage that comes with every Google account. But don’t worry: The photos or videos you uploaded before then won’t be part of the cap. And Google has added a new free tool to help you manage your storage quota.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Foreign Affairs: The Technopolar Moment: How Digital Powers Will Reshape the Global Order. “The aftermath of the January 6 riot serves as the latest proof that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are no longer merely large companies; they have taken control of aspects of society, the economy, and national security that were long the exclusive preserve of the state. The same goes for Chinese technology companies, such as Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent. Nonstate actors are increasingly shaping geopolitics, with technology companies in the lead. And although Europe wants to play, its companies do not have the size or geopolitical influence to compete with their American and Chinese counterparts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: U.S. bill would stop Big Tech favoring its own products. “About a dozen U.S. senators from both parties on Monday formally introduced a bill that would bar Big Tech platforms, like Amazon AMZN.O and Alphabet’s GOOGL.O Google, from favoring their products and services.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New South Wales: Life’s a beach: finding trends in marine debris across Australia. “More than 2000 organisations and 150,000 citizen scientists have participated in the Australian Marine Debris Initiative [AMDI] by sorting and tallying up marine debris they have collected since it was set up by the not-for-profit Tangaroa Blue Foundation in 2004. Now a study led by UNSW Science has filtered and analysed 10 years of the AMDI Database and created a national map of patterns in marine debris.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

University of Toronto: From colour-changing lizards to ‘buff’ birds, U of T students create fun, science-focused trading cards . “Inspired by the Pokémon collectible trading cards of their childhood, University of Toronto biomedical communications students Shehryar (Shay) Saharan and Michie (Xingyu) Wu developed the BMC SciCard Collaborative project.”

Rock Paper Shotgun: Tweet2Doom lets you play Doom via Twitter. “Doom is now playable on Twitter – sort of. Thanks to Tweet2Doom bot, you can send replies to the account with a list of actions – move, turn, shoot, etc. – and get a video clip of Doom showing the results sent back to you.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 21, 2021 at 12:31AM
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Mars Soundscapes, Missouri Education, Scholarship Citations, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 20, 2021

Mars Soundscapes, Missouri Education, Scholarship Citations, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 20, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NASA: Hear Sounds From Mars Captured by NASA’s Perseverance Rover. “Thanks to two microphones aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, the mission has recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel, and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. These sounds allow scientists and engineers to experience the Red Planet in new ways – and everyone is invited to listen in.”

The Center Square: New website compiles Missouri school test scores, annual student improvement. “Parents and taxpayers can now review Missouri school and district data to evaluate a wide range of performance indicators, including whether students are improving year over year. [The site] by the Show-Me Institute launched last week to make data easily available and in a format understood by the public.”

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Releases Refcat, the IA Scholar Index of over 1.3 Billion Scholarly Citations. “As part of our ongoing efforts to archive and provide perpetual access to at-risk, open-access scholarship, we have released Refcat (‘reference’ + ‘catalog’), the citation index culled from the catalog that underpins our IA Scholar service for discovering the scholarly literature and research outputs within Internet Archive. This first release of the Refcat dataset contains over 1.3 billion citations extracted from over 60 million metadata records and over 120 million scholarly artifacts (articles, books, datasets, proceedings, code, etc) that IA Scholar has archived through web harvesting, digitization, integrations with other open knowledge services, and through partnerships and joint initiatives.”

State of Delaware: The Delaware Public Archives is Pleased to Announce the Digital Release of The Abram H. Draper Collection. “The Delaware Public Archives is pleased to announce the digital release of ‘The Abram H. Draper Collection.’ This unique collection consists of 34 pieces of correspondence including letters and poetry from Sergeant Abram H. Draper to his wife Anna M. Wiley Draper during the American Civil War.”

PRNewswire: FAIR Health Launches Interactive Maps Showing State-by-State COVID-19 Hospitalization and Treatment Costs (PRESS RELEASE). “Today FAIR Health is launching a set of free, online, interactive maps displaying typical costs for COVID-19 treatment and hospitalization state by state across the nation. Part of FAIR Health’s ‘States by the Numbers’ series, the COVID-19 Medical and Hospitalization Costs by State tool shows average and median costs, both in-network and out-of-network, for three different COVID-19 treatment pathways.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s Pixel 6 And 6 Pro Launch Event Live Blog . “This is easily the most important Pixel the company has launched in years, it’s a launch where the company says it is taking on flagships from Apple and Samsung at the high end. Google hasn’t really talked big game about its phones before, so even if we’ve seen a lot of rumors, how Google goes about making this launch happen will be interesting.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Hill: Facebook content moderators demand ‘living wage’. “An international group of Facebook content moderators are calling on subcontractor Accenture to raise their pay. The workers sent a letter Monday to Accenture CEO Julie Sweet making their demands clear. The letter was organized with support from the legal nonprofit Foxglove.”

UNC Libraries: UNC-Chapel Hill joins project to investigate slavery and U.S. universities through archival records. “In 2005, archivists at UNC-Chapel Hill developed “Slavery and the Making of the University.” The exhibition was one of the first systematic efforts on campus to examine the ways enslaved people enabled the University’s founding, growth and wealth. Sixteen years later, a new generation of archivists at the Wilson Special Collections Library is leading efforts to reconstruct the lived experiences of enslaved individuals at and around the University. Their efforts are part of On These Grounds: Slavery and the University.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechRadar: Cybercriminals are impersonating social media sites to steal your logins. “Cybercriminals have started impersonating social media companies in their phishing emails, new research has found. Cybersecurity experts from Check Point Research analyzed phishing emails sent out during the third quarter of 2021, and found that WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Facebook, made the top ten most impersonated brands list for the first time this year.”

AFP: Facebook to pay $14 mn in US worker discrimination suit. “Facebook has agreed to pay up to $14 million to settle a US government lawsuit accusing the tech giant of favoring immigrant applicants for thousands of high-paying jobs, authorities announced Tuesday. US prosecutors alleged Facebook “channeled” jobs to visa holders by avoiding advertising on its careers website, accepting only physically mailed applications for some posts, or refusing to consider US workers at all.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business Review: The Facebook Trap . “As the company moved from connecting existing friends online to making new global connections (both examples of direct network effects) and now to connecting users to professional creators (indirect network effects), it has come under fire for everything from violating individual privacy to bullying small companies as a monopoly to radicalizing its users. Now, it is struggling to find solutions that don’t undercut its mission. The author calls this ‘the Facebook Trap.'”

Alan Turing Institute: Clouds and blackberries: how web archives can help us to track the changing meaning of words. “The meaning of words changes all the time. Think of the word ‘blackberry’, for example, which has been used for centuries to refer to a fruit. In 1999, a new brand of mobile devices was launched with the name BlackBerry. Suddenly, there was a new way of using this old word. ‘Cloud’ is another example of a well-established word whose association with ‘cloud computing’ only emerged in the past couple of decades. Linguists call this phenomenon ‘semantic change’ and have studied its complex mechanisms for a long time. What has changed in recent years is that we now have access to huge collections of data which can be mined to find these changes automatically. Web archives are a great example of such collections, because they contain a record of the changing content of web pages.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 20, 2021 at 05:25PM
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VR Universe, Phoenix AZ Public Art, Brave Browser, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 19, 2021

VR Universe, Phoenix AZ Public Art, Brave Browser, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 19, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EPFL: Explore The Most Detailed Map Of The Universe. “Have you ever wanted to explore outer-space? Now you can, without leaving Earth, thanks to powerful, open-source beta software VIRUP that builds – in real-time – a virtual universe based on the most detailed contemporary astrophysical and cosmological data.”

City of Phoenix, Arizona: New Online Art Map Now Available. “The City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture’s new online Public Art Map is up and ready for self-guided tours. It features more than 200 major public art projects created throughout Phoenix by the city’s award-winning Public Art Program.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Brave web browser will add bounce tracking privacy protection. “Brave, the privacy-conscious web browser, has announced plans to introduce additional privacy protections against ‘bounce tracking,’ a newer form of tracking that is not currently blocked by the browser.”

CNET: Instagram focuses on creators with new tools, doubles down on video. “Instagram said it’s rolling out new features, including a way to co-author posts and short videos, underscoring the Facebook-owned social network’s effort to double down on retaining and attracting creators.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BBC: Facebook to hire 10,000 in EU to work on metaverse. “Facebook is planning to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to develop a so-called metaverse. A metaverse is an online world where people can game, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using VR headsets.”

New York Times: Roblox, the Gaming Site, Wants to Grow Up Without Sacrificing Child Safety. “Roblox’s effort to keep in touch with an older audience while maintaining a safe environment for its youngest users offers both a road map and a cautionary note for other internet companies attempting the opposite: engaging with a younger audience.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Details of alleged Google-Facebook collusion must be made public, judge orders. “Details of alleged collusion between Google and Facebook to squash competition in the online ad space are set to be made public this week, a federal judge has ordered.”

PRNewswire: The Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice Secures Commitment From Boy Scouts of America to Appoint a Survivor on National Executive Board (PRESS RELEASE). “Additionally, the Coalition announced the launch of its new website, scoutingabusesurvivors.com, to share critical information and updates to the survivor community as they vote from now until December 14, 2021 to approve the Reorganization Plan, which includes the largest sexual abuse settlement fund in history – $1.887 billion and growing.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Review: There’s Nothing Wrong with Section 230. “On Saturday, Nate Hochman argued in these pages that, in order to ‘secure a wider sphere of political liberty,’ the time has come for a ‘narrowing’ or ‘repealing’ of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Hochman is wrong on the merits, wrong on the detail, and wrong in his underlying implication, which is that the social-media companies he wishes to control are ‘state-sanctioned actor[s].'” I often hear people with lives ask what the big deal is about Section 230. This editorial is a decent overview of potential problems should it be revoked/narrowed. That said, Internet moderation is a complex and frustrating issue and if you change your mind about it ten times in fifteen minutes I don’t blame you.

Snopes: How Facebook’s Failures Line Up With Frances Haugen’s Whistleblower Docs. “We connected the dots between some of our own past investigations and the internal Facebook research that whistleblower Frances Haugen made public.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 20, 2021 at 12:53AM
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Monday CoronaBuzz, October 18, 2021: 33 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Monday CoronaBuzz, October 18, 2021: 33 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please get vaccinated. Please wear a mask when you’re inside with a bunch of people. Much love.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

Virginian-Pilot: Virginia’s new coronavirus data tool tracks children hospitalized. It could be off by hundreds or more.. “In its new dashboard for cases among children launched Monday, The Virginia Department of Health reported there have been nearly 128,000 pediatric cases of COVID-19, with 380 hospitalizations and nine deaths since March 2020 statewide. But the number of hospitalized patients seemed extremely low. The Virginian-Pilot had previously reported from the agency that young people under 20 had accounted for about 1,000 hospitalizations so far. That was in September.”

WBNG: State comptroller releases tool to track federal COVID-19 funding. “New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a new tool that people can use to monitor the spending of federal recovery aid and COVID-19 relief programs. The tool is available online. You can view the tracker by going to this link.”

UPDATES

Washington Post: Vaccine mandates stoked fears of labor shortages. But hospitals say they’re working.. “At Houston Methodist — one of the first American health-care institutions to require workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus — the backlash was short-lived. More than 150 employees were fired. There were legal battles and protests. But President and CEO Marc Boom has no regrets: 98 percent of staff have been vaccinated, and they and patients are safer as a result, he said.”

BBC: Covid: Russia’s daily deaths pass 1,000 for first time. “The figure had been rising all week, with the Kremlin blaming the Russian people for not taking up vaccination. Only about a third of the population has had a jab, amid wide distrust of the vaccines. Russia’s figure of 222,000 Covid deaths is the highest in Europe, with another 33,000 infections reported on Saturday.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Associated Press: Photo shows Swiss music festival, not recent Italian protest. “CLAIM: Photo shows a massive protest in Trieste, Italy, against a new requirement that all workers show a COVID-19 health pass. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The photo doesn’t show Italy, and was taken in 2018 at Street Parade, a music festival in Zurich, Switzerland.”

Reuters: Fourteen U.S. attorneys general press Facebook on vaccine disinformation. “The attorneys general of 14 U.S. states sent a letter to Facebook Inc FB.O Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg asking if the top disseminators of vaccine disinformation on the platform received special treatment from the company. The line of inquiry was generated after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen used internal documents to disclose that the social media platform has built a system that exempts high-profile users from some or all of its rules.”

Mother Jones: Utah Protesters Claim Hospitals Are Killing People Who Have COVID. “Greg Johnson is standing on the corner of State Street in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah, holding a neatly stenciled sign that says, ‘COVID-19 Protocols Killed My Uncle.’ Behind him looms the Intermountain Medical Center, the largest hospital in the region. Johnson is one of about 30 people who’ve come to protest Saturday because they believe that the hospital is murdering people with the coronavirus by putting them on ventilators, injecting them with the anti-viral Remdesivir, and refusing to give them intravenous vitamin C or the deworming drug Ivermectin.”

MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING – IVERMECTIN

Associated Press: Lawsuits demand unproven ivermectin for COVID patients. “Mask rules, vaccination mandates, and business shutdowns have all landed in the courts during the COVID-19 outbreak, confronting judges with questions of science and government authority. Now they are increasingly being asked to weigh in on the deworming drug ivermectin.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

BBC: The shortages hitting countries around the world. “Disruption caused by the Covid pandemic is mostly to blame – but there are many factors, and effects are being felt in different ways.”

The Guardian: Psychosis cases soar in England as pandemic hits mental health . “Cases of psychosis have soared over the past two years in England as an increasing number of people experience hallucinations and delusional thinking amid the stresses of the Covid-19 pandemic. There was a 75% increase in the number of people referred to mental health services for their first suspected episode of psychosis between April 2019 and April 2021, NHS data shows.”

ACTIVISM / PROTESTS

Cal Matters: Hospitals brace for strikes as California workers protest staff shortages. “As weary health care workers across California enter the 19th month of the pandemic, thousands are walking off the job and onto the picket line, demanding more staffing. The strikes and rallies threaten to cripple hospital operations that have been inundated by the COVID-19 Delta surge as well as patients seeking long-delayed care.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

New York Times: Will New Covid Treatments Be as Elusive for Poor Countries as Vaccines?. “Nearly a year after the first Covid-19 vaccination campaigns began, the vast majority of the shots have gone to people in wealthy nations, with no clear path toward resolving the disparity. News this month that an antiviral medication had proved effective against the coronavirus in a large clinical trial has brought new hope of a turning point in the pandemic: a not-too-distant future when a simple pill could keep infected people from dying or falling severely ill.”

INSTITUTIONS

Smithsonian: Lions and Tigers Continue To Recover From COVID-19 and First Vaccines Were Administered to Susceptible Species at Smithsonian’s National Zoo. “The lions and tigers who tested presumptive positive for COVID-19 at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo the week of Sept. 13 are recovering well. All lions and tigers are behaving, eating and drinking normally. Zoo animal care staff also administered the first round of animal-specific COVID vaccines Oct. 13. All seven orangutans, one western lowland gorilla, one white-eared titi monkey and two emperor tamarins received shots. Veterinarians and keepers are closely monitoring the vaccinated animals and have not observed any side effects.”

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

ProPublica: The Trump Administration Used Its Food Aid Program for Political Gain, Congressional Investigators Find. “A $6 billion federal program created to provide fresh produce to families affected by the pandemic was mismanaged and used by the Trump administration for political gain, a new congressional report has found. As a ProPublica investigation revealed last spring and as the new report further details, the Farmers to Families Food Box program gave contracts to companies that had no relevant experience and often lacked necessary licenses.”

Stars and Stripes: Navy announces discharge details for coronavirus vaccine refusers. “Active-duty sailors who are not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus after Nov. 28 without a pending or approved exemption request will be forced out of the Navy for failing to obey a lawful order, according to the statement. For Navy Reserve sailors, the deadline is Dec. 28.”

WORLD/COUNTRY GOVERNMENT

RTE: Covid-19 case surge: Pause for thought, but not panic. “Around 10 days ago, things were looking quite positive with the Covid-19 trends and then something happened to cause a rise in the key metrics. It has prompted experts and Government to consider ‘a go, no go’ decision on lifting most of the remaining restrictions from 22 October. It has been billed as something like a ‘freedom day’. However, full freedom may have to wait just a bit longer.”

STATE GOVERNMENT

Associated Press: There won’t be unemployment checks for Maine health care workers who refuse a COVID vaccine. “The Maine Department of Labor said Thursday that refusing to comply with an employer’s policies, including a health or safety policy, typically disqualifies a person from benefits.”

Tampa Bay Times: For 105 days, COVID’s death toll in Florida counties went missing. “For 105 days this summer, while COVID-19 deaths soared across the state, Floridians had no idea how many of their neighbors were dying. The Florida Department of Health knows how many people are dying in each county, but stopped telling the public on June 4. That’s when state officials stopped releasing daily pandemic data, switched to weekly reports and started withholding data once available to the public.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

WRAL: COVID-19 was cause of death for 2 of every 3 NC law enforcement officers in last 2 years. “The coronavirus is now the leading cause of death for police officers, sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers, data from the national Officer Down database show. Since January 2020, 21 law enforcement officers in North Carolina have died from COVID-19 – 68 percent of all officers statewide who have died in that time.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

Rappahannock News: Rep. Good encourages Rappahannock students to shed masks at school and rise up in opposition to mandates. “U.S. Rep. Bob Good on Thursday encouraged a group of Rappahannock County High School students to not wear masks in school, saying during his visit the administration ‘can’t stop everyone.'”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS – CELEBRITIES/FAMOUS

BuzzFeed News: Robert Durst Has Tested Positive For COVID-19, His Lawyer Says. “Robert Durst, the multimillionaire who was the focus of the HBO documentary The Jinx, has tested positive for COVID-19, his attorney told BuzzFeed News on Saturday, days after he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering his friend.”

INDIVIDUALS – HEROES

CBS: “There are no unimportant jobs”: This retired FBI boss became a school bus driver amid shortage. “If anyone has earned a coffee break, it’s 63-year-old Mike Mason of Midlothian, Virginia. He has served his country for decades — first as a captain in the Marines and later as the No. 4 man at the FBI. Mason left the bureau in 2007 and went to work as an executive at a Fortune 500 company, and then retired. But Mason said retirement did not sit well with him.”

INDIVIDUALS – DEATHS

NPR: Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, dies at 84. “Colin Powell, who served as secretary of state during the presidency of George W. Bush and led the first Gulf War as chairman of the joint chiefs, has died at age 84 of complications from COVID-19, his family confirmed. Powell, the first African American to serve in both of those senior posts, died Monday morning, they said, adding that ‘he was fully vaccinated.'”

NBC Washington: ‘Get the Shot’: Unvaccinated Virginia Parents of 4 Die of COVID-19. “A Virginia husband and wife in their 40s died of COVID-19 this month, leaving four children without parents. Their relatives had urged them to get vaccinated against the virus but they refused. The family now wants to try to help others. Kevin and Misty Mitchem met in high school and married 17 years ago. They were raising their four younger children in Stafford County. Kevin also had an adult daughter and his first grandson.”

SPORTS

BBC: Australian Open: Unvaccinated players ‘unlikely’ to be allowed to compete. “Players who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 are unlikely to be allowed into the country for the Australian Open, says the leader of the state in which the tournament is held. The Grand Slam event is due to start on 17 January in Melbourne, Victoria.”

K-12 EDUCATION

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta school district to hire epidemiologist among 26 new COVID positions. “The new roles include five help desk operators, who principals can call when they have questions about COVID-19 protocols; 20 case investigators, who will work with schools to conduct case investigations and help notify those who have been in contact with someone who tests positive; and a district epidemiologist.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

KGUN: University of Arizona to require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The University of Arizona — the largest employer in the city of Tucson — is requiring all its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the school announced Friday.”

HEALTH

CNN: New CDC data shows the risk of dying from Covid-19 is 11 times higher for unvaccinated adults than for fully vaccinated adults. “Throughout August, the risk of dying from Covid-19 was 11 times higher for unvaccinated adults than for fully vaccinated adults in the United States, according to new data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Miami Herald: Subject of Miami Herald PPP investigation charged with COVID-19 relief fraud. “A Texas man flagged in a 2020 Miami Herald investigation whose companies were approved for millions in suspicious loans through the Paycheck Protection Program has been charged with multiple counts of wire fraud and making false statements to a bank. The federal charges in the Eastern District of Texas stem from three loans received by companies tied to Sinoj Joseph that totaled more than $3 million.”

OPINION

New York Times: The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think. “As early as the end of April of this year, when vaccines were in dire short supply globally, almost every adult who wanted to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in the United States could do so, free of charge. By June, about 43 percent of the U.S. population had received two doses while that number was only about 6 percent in Canada and 3 percent in Japan. Now, just a few months later, these countries, along with 44 others, have surpassed U.S. vaccination rates. And our failure shows: America continues to have among the highest deaths per capita from Covid.”

Washington Post: Opinion: Covid-19 is the No. 1 killer of police officers. So why do their unions oppose mandating vaccines?. “Covid-19 has been the No. 1 killer of law enforcement officers in 2020 and 2021. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks the on-duty deaths of police officers in the United States, more than 470 have died as a result of contracting the virus in the line of duty since the start of the pandemic. That is more than four times as many officers who have died from gunfire.”

Washington Post: Opinion: Distinguished persons of the week: Defying anti-mandate nuttiness. “Companies as diverse as BlackRock, McDonald’s, Cisco, IBM, Citigroup, CVS and Goldman Sachs have instituted some form of vaccine mandate. So have Google and Walmart. Many universities have done so as well — even before Biden announced the federal directive. Businesses have received a lot of criticism lately for reneging on promises not to fund candidates who participated in the violent insurrection or for equivocating on voting rights. When they do act responsibly, risking the ire of state officials and vengeful MAGA politicians, they should be applauded. In defying the MAGA death cult, business leaders are demonstrating what ‘pro-life’ actually means.”

POLITICS

Politico: These Republicans torpedoed vaccine edicts — then slipped in the polls. “Republican governors crusading against vaccine mandates are facing significantly lower approval ratings on their handling of the coronavirus pandemic than their counterparts. But they’re not worried.”

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October 19, 2021 at 09:12PM
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