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17 Dec 12:27

Hyväntekeväisyysvinkki jouluun (ja muihinkin sesonkeihin): valitse lahjoituskohde tehokkuuden perusteella

by Ada-Maaria Hyvärinen
Kuvassa pehmonalle kahdenkympin seteli tassussaan.
Kuva: Pixabay

Viime vuosina Suomessakin on yleistynyt mahtava trendi antaa jouluna ja muina merkkipäivinä turhan tavaran sijaan lahjaksi lahjoitus hyväntekeväisyyteen. Lahjansaaja saa tiedon hänen puolestaan tehdystä rahalahjoituksesta, avustusjärjestö saa varoja toimintaansa, eikä kukaan joudu kärsimään tarpeettomasta tavarasta.

Sopivan lahjoituskohteen voi valita monella tapaa, vaikkapa lahjansaajan kiinnostuksenkohteiden mukaisesti. Useimpia kiinnostaa myös se, mitä avustusjärjestö todella tekee lahjoitetulla rahalla. Mitä enemmän apua rahalla saa, sen parempi – tästä on helppo olla samaa mieltä. Mutta mistä tietää, mihin kohteeseen annettuna raha auttaisi mahdollisimman paljon?

Kiinnostavaa kyllä, rahan lahjoituksen kohteiden vertailu on ihan oma taiteenlajinsa, joka ainakin minulle on muodostunut myös nörttimäiseksi kiinnostuksenkohteeksi. Avaan tässä lyhyesti joitakin juttuja, joita avustuskohteiden tehokkuudessa vertailussa käytetään.

Eniten väliä on lahjoituksen vaikutuksella

Monet järjestöt ilmoittavat sivuillaan, kuinka suuri osa lahjoituksesta menee hallinto- ja keräyskuluihin ja kuinka suuri osa perille kohteeseen. Tästä saa helposti vedettyä valitettavan väärän johtopäätöksen siitä, että pienet hallintokulut tarkoittavat automaattisesti tehokasta avustuskohdetta. Lahjoittajat eivät halua, että järjestö “vetää välistä”, vaan että annettu raha käytetään siihen tarkoitukseen, johon se on lahjoitettu: vaikkapa lääkkeisiin tai avustustarvikkeisiin. Toisaalta asiaa pohtimalla tajuaa, että jonkinlaiset hallintokulut ovat kuitenkin tarpeen: jos järjestöllä ei ole ketään palkattua työntekijää, kuka ottaa selvää siitä, mitä lääkkeitä minnekin tulisi toimittaa?

Loppujen lopuksi niin paljon väliä ei olekaan sillä, miten lahjoitetun rahan kulut jakautuvat hallinnon ja muiden osien välille. Tärkeintä on, mitä rahalla saadaan aikaan: terveitä ihmisiä, vähempiä hiilidioksidipäästöjä tai onnellisempia eläimiä. Tavoite riippuu siitä, millä tavoin järjestö yrittää parantaa maailmaa.

Suurinta vaikutusta etsimässä

Mistä sitten tietää, milloin jonkin järjestön toiminta on erityisen vaikuttavaa? Erilaisia maailmassa toimivia järjestöjähän on tuhansia! 

Yksittäisen lahjoittajan olisikin mahdotonta yksin tutkia kaikkia maailman järjestöjä ja etsiä niistä riittävästi tietoa saadakseen selville, mitkä niistä toimivat tehokkaimmin. Sen sijaan tehokkaiden kohteiden tunnistamiseen eteen työskentelee arviointijärjestöjä, kuten terveyden edistämiseen ja köyhyyden vähentämiseen erikoistunut GiveWell, ja eläinsuojeluun keskittyvä Animal Charity Evaluators.

Arvioijajärjestöt käyttävät avustushankkeiden vertailuun erilaisia kriteerejä, ja suosittelevat lahjoittamaan sellaisille järjestöille, jotka pärjäävät niiden vertailussa hyvin. Erityisen paljon vaikutusta saadaan puuttumalla ongelmiin, jotka ovat laajoja, laiminlyötyjä ja ratkaistavissa. 

Ongelman laajuus tarkoittaa, että se koskettaa monia. Esimerkiksi maailmanlaajuiset pandemiat ovat laajoja ja vakavia ongelmia, jotka koskettavat jollain tapaa lähes koko maapallon väestöä. Jos seuraava pandemia voidaan ehkäistä tai siihen voidaan reagoida paremmin, voidaan vaikuttaa positiivisesti hyvin moniin ihmisiin.

Laiminlyödyt ongelmat ovat sellaisia, joiden eteen tehdään vain vähän työtä: esimerkiksi eläinsuojelun saralla tehotuotettujen eläinten hyväksi työskentelee vain harva järjestö, vaikka tuotantoeläimiä on paljon. Laiminlyötyihin ongelmiin puuttumalla voidaan joskus auttaa sellaisissakin ongelmissa, joiden eteen kukaan muu ei tee mitään. Tällöin tuplatyötä ei tule, vaan kaikesta avusta on suoraan hyötyä.

Ongelman ratkaistavuus tarkoittaa, että keinot siihen puuttumiseen ovat jo tiedossa. Esimerkiksi se tiedetään, että malariatartuntoja voidaan vähentää tehokkaasti jakamalla hyttysmyrkyllä käsiteltyjä verkkoja sairauden leviämisalueella asuville. Tämän takia voidaan laskea aika tarkastikin, kuinka paljon rahaa tarvitaan, jotta voidaan ehkäistä yksi malariakuolema.

Tieteentekoa osana avustustoimintaa

Jotta voidaan tietää, auttaako jokin avustuskeino todella, sen vaikutusta täytyy seurata avustushankkeen aikana. Tällaisten tutkimusten tulokset voivat olla todella kiinnostavia. Esimerkiksi vastikkeetonta rahaa äärimmäisessä köyhyydessä eläville ihmisille toimittava GiveDirectly seuraa tarkasti varainsiirtojen vaikutuksia. 

Avustushankkeiden toimivuutta voidaankin tutkia satunnaistettujen vertailukokeiden avulla: sen lisäksi, että tarkkaillaan, miten hanke vaikutti saajiin, pidetään kirjaa siitä, miten sellaisten ihmisten elämä muuttui, jotka eivät olleet hankkeen kohteena. Näin saadaan tietoa siitä, mikä osa ihmisten elämänlaadun muutosta oli todella hankkeen ansiota, ja mikä olisi tapahtunut muutenkin.

Kuvassa tilasto, joka kertoo, kuinka vastikkeettomat rahansiirrot ovat vaikuttaneet autettavien eri elämän osa-alueisiin.
Vastikkeettomat rahansiirrot ovat vaikuttaneet tutkimusten mukaan eri tavalla eri elämänosa-alueisiin (taulukko: GiveDirectly Bastagli, Zanker, et al (2016) pohjalta)

Parhaimmillaan tieteellisesti orientoituneille avustushankkeille lahjoittamalla voi tuottaa maailmalle monenlaista hyötyä. Ensinnäkin hankkeen kohteena olevat ihmiset saavat apua. Toisekseen hankkeen järjestäjät saavat lisää tietoa siitä, mistä on oikeasti apua, ja pystyvät jatkossa tekemään yhä parempia avustushankkeita.

Tehokkaat lahjoituskohteet listattuna

Jos siis kiinnostuit tämän perusteella lahjoituskohteiden tehokkuudesta, voit tutustua sivuun, jonka kokosimme täksi jouluksi yhdessä muiden auttamisesta nörtteilevien eli efektiivisten altruistien kanssa: https://lahjoittaminen.fi/

Kaikkia maailman ongelma ei voi ratkaista lahjoittamalla rahaa. Mutta on myös sellaisia isoja ja vakavia ongelmia, joiden korjaamiseksi keinot ovat jo tiedossa, ja järjestöt pystyvät hyödyntämään kaiken saamansa rahoituksen niiden parissa työskentelemiseen.

Muut avustuskeinot lahjoittamisen lisäksi ansaitsevat jo aivan oman kirjoituksensa. Ehkä siitä lisää myöhemmin!

08 Oct 13:19

H. L. Mencken

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
29 Apr 12:26

Peliarvostelu: Detroit: Become Human

by Anniina Korpi

Alustat: PS4 (lähiaikoina myös PC:lle Epic Gamesin valikoimaan)
Kehittäjä: Quantic Dream
Julkaisija: SIEE
Genre: Seikkailu
Ikäraja: k18

Detroit: Become Human on ranskalaisen pelitalon Quantic Dreamin luoma tarinallinen seikkailupeli. Se sijoittuu 2038-vuoden Detroitiin, jossa androidit ovat kehitelty ihmisten avuksi kotitöihin, lastenhoitoon, viihdyttämään, tuomaan nautintoa ja mihin sen omista haluaakaan androidia käyttää. Mitä tapahtuu, kun androidi haluaakin toimia koodin vastaisesti ja alkaa tuntea kuin ihminen?

Katso traileri: https://youtu.be/YtPmIBqRwQU
Detroit: Become Human – PGW 2017 Gameplay Trailer | PS4  (Lähde: PlayStationin Youtube-kanava)

Pelaaja elää tarinaa eri androidihahmojen kautta. Pelaaja valitsee mitä hahmo tekee, millaisia valintoja hän tekee, miten tarina etenee ja millaiseen loppuratkaisuun tarina päättyy. Kuulostaako tutulta idealta? Kyllä, Heavy Rain ja Beyond: Two Souls ovat saman pelifirman tuotantoa. Tarinan vaihtoehtoisia polkuja ja loppuratkaisuja on useita, joihin jokainen valinta vaikuttaa. Jokaisen luvun jälkeen pelaaja näkee kaavion, minkä mukaan hänen valintansa meni ja mikä mielenkiintoisinta, pelaaja voi nähdä kuinka monta prosenttia muista pelaajista ja omista kavereista on valinnut saman polun. Oliko valintasi uniikki löytö vai hölmö ratkaisu? Pelin voi pelata myös uudestaan haluamastaan luvusta.

Ihmismäisiä androideja

Androidit ovat ihmisen näköisiä ja tuntuisia. Pelissä osa androideista alkavat kokea erilaisia tunnetiloja ja alkavat toimia niiden mukaisesti. Kun androidi rikkoo rationaalista koodiaan, hänestä tulee enemmän ihmisen kaltainen. Heistä tulee ajattelevia ja tuntevia yksilöitä, jotka pohtivat mikä on oikein ja väärin. He vaativat, että heitä kohdeltaisiin tasavertaisina ihmisten kanssa.

Peli on toteutettu taitavasti CGI-tekniikalla eli ammattinäyttelijät ovat näytelleet kohtaukset studiossa pisteet kasvoilla ja kokovartalopuvut päällä. Kuvausten jälkeen animaattorit ovat luoneet pelihahmot tietokoneella. Detroitin olisi voinut tehdä yhden tarinan animoiduilla hahmoilla peliksi tai kuvata elokuvaksi, mutta Quantic Dreams tunnetaankin intohimoisista peliprojekteistaan. Peli muistuttaa enemmän pelin ja elokuvan välimuotoa.

Katso CGI-tekniikasta: https://youtu.be/siA2-fLHl80
Detroit: Become Human | Cast Interview | PS4 (Lähde: PlayStationin Youtube-kanava)

Päähahmot

Eniten sykähdytti päähahmon Karan tarina. Hän työskentelee yksinhuoltaja isän ja hänen tyttärensä kotona. Hän hoitaa kotiaskareita kuten tiskaa, pyykkää, tekee ruokaa, vie roskat ja kaikkea sellaista mihin itsekin toivoisin teknologian kehittyvän. Tiskikone ei vielä täyty ja tyhjene itsestään. Kara on alustettu kertaalleen, mutta hänen muistinsa palautuu vähitellen ja perheen isän väkivaltaisuus paljastuu jo pelin trailerissa. Pelaajan tehtäväksi tuleekin valita, hyväksyykö Kara tilanteen kuin hänet on ohjelmoitu vai pelastaako hän perheen tyttären.

Kuva: PlayStation

Toinen päähahmo Markus hoitaa iäkästä ja varakasta miestä. Hänen tarinaansa en paljasta kuin alun verran, koska se täytyy kokea itse. Mutta ajatus ikäihmistä hoitavasta robotista houkuttelee. Hän kantaa isäntäänsä, hoitaa kotitöitä kuten Karakin, pitää isännälleen seuraa ja käy filosofisia keskusteluja. Robotit pitävät jo nyt jumppatuokioita vanhainkodeissa, mutta Markuksen kaltaiseksi niistä ei ole. Tekoäly kehittyy jatkuvasti ja automaatiolla saadaan hoidettua yksitoikkoisia työtehtäviä, jotta ihminen voi keskittyä tärkeämpiin ja mielekkäämpiin tehtäviin. Ihmistä ei vielä voi korvata robotilla tehtävissä, joissa vaaditaan tunneälyä ja ihmisen kohtaamiseen tarvittavia taitoja, mutta en väitä etteikö sekin voisi olla jossain määrin mahdollista tulevaisuudessa.

Empatia kasvaa

Pelin moraaliset kysymykset pistävät pelaajan pohtimaan omaa käsitystään robotiikasta, tekoälystä, etiikasta, tasavertaisuudesta ja empatiakyvystä. On siis kyse isommasta kuin pelkästään pelistä. Pelissä nousevat teemat sopisivat kaikenikäisten pohdittavaksi, mutta väkivaltaisuuden vuoksi peli on ikärajaltaan k18. Vaikka moraalisia kysymyksiä tulee vastaan muissakin tarinallisissa peleissä, en ole ennen kokenut pelin kasvattavan omaa empatiakykyä ja pistänyt pohtimaan ihmisyyttä näin vahvasti. Vaikuttava peli.

Tiivistelmä

Hyvää:
+ Pelin moraaliset kysymykset pistävät pelaajan pohtimaan omaa käsitystään robotiikasta, tekoälystä, etiikasta, tasavertaisuudesta ja empatiakyvystä.
+ Upea grafiikka
+ Vahvasti tarinallinen peli, joka on pelin ja elokuvan välimuoto

Huonoa:
– k18 Teemoiltaan soisi nuoremmillekkin pelattavaksi ja pohdittavaksi. PEGI on kuitenkin merkinnyt ikärajan aivan oikein eikä peli sovi muutenkaan herkimmille.
– Suomeksi käännetyt valintatekstit eivät aina vastaa sitä mitä pelaaja tavoittelee. Hyvää tarkoittava pelaaja voi vahingossa valita aggressiivisen vastausvaihtoehdon. Onneksi luvun voi pelata uudestaan, jos valinnat menevät ihan metsään. Muissa kohdissa kuten valikossa ja tekstityksessä suomen kieli toimii hyvin.

Mrs. Darth Vader

Peli on kirjoittajan hankkima.

25 Apr 16:47

New type of plastic is a recycling dream

by Scott K. Johnson
New type of plastic is a recycling dream

Enlarge (credit: Elliot Margolies)

Recycling sounds great in principle (because it is), but a frustrating number of devils lurk in the details. For example, while some materials like aluminum can readily be melted down and turned right back into new aluminum cans, recovered plastics tend to be lower quality than “virgin” material. That’s because recycled plastic retains some of its previous properties—like Lego bricks that can’t be separated. The next plastic you make won’t be exactly the same type, and the recycled material won’t fit perfectly into its new spot.

To improve this situation, plastics engineers want to create new materials that can cleanly and easily break down to the most basic components—individual Lego bricks that can be reassembled into absolutely anything. The difficulty of this task is increased by all the pigments, flame retardants, and other additives used in plastics. But a group led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Peter Christensen has developed a new plastics process that conquers these challenges.

The basic building block of a plastic is called a “monomer”—connect monomers together and you create “polymers” with the useful physical properties you’re after. In this case, the researchers are using triketones and amines as building-block monomers. The process for putting them together sounds like minor sorcery (as chemistry often does): combining chemical ingredients causes different building blocks to form, which then spontaneously assemble.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

15 Nov 12:35

Bertrand Russell

"This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities."
05 Nov 05:09

There are two people standing 1 m apart in space. If their electrons magically turned into positrons, how strong would the electromagnetic repulsion force between them be?

by matt

Short answer: About 1029 Newtons.

Long answer: Let’s suppose a wizard suddenly decides to curse two astronauts in orbit by magically switching all of the electrons in the atoms in their bodies with their antimatter counterpart, the positron. The positron is just like the electron in almost all ways, except it has a positive electric charge like a proton. Without the electrons, these people are no longer electrically neutral. They carry enormous positive charge, and as we know, like charges repel.

The force between the two, now incredibly positively charged, people is easily calculable from the Coulomb force law. All you need to calculate the force between two charged objects is the amount of charge they carry and the distance between them.

So, what’s these peoples’ charge? Again, normal neutral people like you and me have an equal number of protons and electrons in our body, which result in zero total charge and no long range electrostatic forces between us. But if all those electrons magically and inexplicably turned into positrons? Then the net charge becomes enormous.

The human body contains about 4×1028 nucleons (a science word meaning protons and neutrons). Only about half of those are protons (the other half are neutrons), but for every proton there is now a positron with equal charge, so the total charge of our people is about 4×1028 elementary charges.

To you give a sense of scale, an average lightning bolt carries about 100 Coulombs of charge, which is about 1020 elementary charges. These people contain the electric charge of nearly a billion lightning strikes. Move over, Thor.

So the force between them is enormous, about 1029 Newtons. That’s ten million times the force of gravity between the sun and the earth. The energy of the electric repulsion between them is a million times the energy of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. You might think that this means these people blast away from each other in a horrifically violent explosion, due to the enormous electric repulsion.

And you’d be right. But somehow, it gets worse.

The people themselves are packed densely with positive charge. All those protons and positrons don’t just want to push away the other person, they want to push away from every other particle around them. The positive
people explode too! … I’m now thinking ‘positive people’ wasn’t the best name of them.

The explosion sends protons and positrons streaming out at nearly the speed of light, forming a shell of expanding positive charge. At the end, every single one of these particles all carry the energy of a typical tennis ball. They spread through the universe as high energy cosmic rays.

In fact, their energy is incredibly close to that of the Oh My God particle, the fastest cosmic ray ever observed. Until now, the origin of that cosmic ray was not understood, but after working this out, I think I have a pretty good guess about where it came from.

 

 


asked by anonymous

cover image credit: Wikimedia Commons


 

Have a question? Send it to matt@quarksandcoffee.com

29 Jun 07:06

Hair to Stay

by The BPOD Team
Hair to Stay

Cyclosporine A (CsA), a fungal compound used to prevent rejection of organ transplants, has several serious side-effects but also one interesting consequence: it stimulates hair growth. As demand for products reducing hair loss increases, the effects of CsA are inspiring scientists to look for new solutions. CsA itself can’t be used in hair loss treatments as it affects the immune system, but safer compounds with some similar modes of action might also promote hair growth. Recent research reveals that treatment with CsA reduces the levels of the protein SFRP1, which plays a role in controlling hair growth in the hair follicles (pictured, with cell nuclei in blue and β-catenin, another signalling molecule involved in this process, in red). Treating human hair follicles with WAY-316606, a compound which inhibits SFRP1 without CsA’s unwanted side-effects, also leads to increased hair growth, suggesting a promising candidate for developing future hair loss treatments.

Hair to Stay
08 Jan 08:28

99 Reasons 2017 Was a Great Year

by Angus Hervey

If you’re feeling despair about the fate of humanity in the 21st century, you might want to reconsider.


In 2017, it felt like the global media picked up all of the problems, and none of the solutions.

To fix that, we spent the past 12 months searching for good news from every corner of the planet, and sent it to thousands of people on our Facebook feed, on Twitter, and via our email newsletter.

Here are 99 of the best stories from this year that you probably missed.

A village doctor examines a patient in Nanning, China. (Image credit:    Lu Boan/VCG   )

A village doctor examines a patient in Nanning, China. (Image credit: Lu Boan/VCG)

1. This year, the World Health Organisation unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. Zika all but disappeared in 2017. Cases plummeted in Latin America and the Caribbean, and most people in those places are now immune. Science Mag

4. A new report showed that the world’s assault on tropical diseases is working. A massive, five year international effort has saved millions of lives, and countries are now signing up for more. STAT

5. Soft drink sales in the United States dropped for the 12th year in a row, thanks to consumer education and new sugar taxes aimed at stemming obesity and diabetes. Reuters

6. Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, was eliminated as a public health problem in Oman and Morocco, and Mexico became the first country in the Americas to eliminate it. NBC

7. Meet Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin, two eye doctors responsible for helping restore sight to 4 million people in two dozen countries, including North Korea and Ethiopia. CBS

8. Premature deaths for the world’s four biggest noncommunicable diseases­ — cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory — have declined by 16% since 2000. World Bank

9. Global abortion rates have fallen from around 40 procedures per 1,000 women in the early 1990s, to 35 procedures per 1,000 women today. In the United States, abortion rates have reached their lowest level since 1973. Vox

10. In July, UNAIDS, revealed that for the first time in history, half of all people on the planet with HIV are now getting treatment, and that AIDS deaths have dropped by half since 2005. Science Mag

11. There were only 26 cases of Guinea worm in 2017, down from 3.5 million cases in 21 countries in Africa and Asia in 1986. Devex

12. The United Kingdom announced a 20% fall in the incidence of dementia over the past two decades, meaning 40,000 fewer people are being affected every year. iNews

13. Thanks to better access to clean water and sanitation, the number of children around the world who are dying from diarrhoea has fallen by a third since 2005. BBC

14. Leprosy is now easily treatable. The number of worldwide cases has dropped by 97% since 1985, and a new plan has set 2020 as the target for the end of the disease. New York Times

15. In October, new research from the Center for Disease Control revealed that between 2000 and 2016, the measles vaccine saved 20.4 million lives.

16. And on the 17th November, the WHO said that global deaths from tuberculosis have fallen by 37% since 2000, saving an estimated 53 million lives. These astonishing achievements were of course, reported by every media outlet on the planet.

A polar bear stands on sea ice as the sun sets on Repulse Bay, Canada (Image credit:  Paul Souders )

A polar bear stands on sea ice as the sun sets on Repulse Bay, Canada (Image credit: Paul Souders)

17. Chile set aside 11 million acres of land for national parks in Patagonia, following the largest ever private land donation from a private entity to a country. Smithsonian

18. China invested more than $100 billion into treating and preventing water pollution, and launched nearly 8,000 water clean-up projects in the first half of 2017. Reuters

19. The United States, Russia, China and the European Union reached a deal to make the Arctic off-limits to commercial fishers for the next 16 years. Science Mag

20. In July, 1.5 million people in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh set a new Guinness record for reforestation by planting more than 67 million trees in a 12 hour period. RT

21. A province in Pakistan announced it has planted 1 billion trees in two years, in response to the terrible floods of 2015. Independent

22. In August, the Canadian government and Inuit groups signed a deal to create the ‘Serengeti of the Arctic’ by far the largest marine reserve in the country’s history. Globe & Mail

23. A month later, one of the world’s largest marine parks was created off the coast of Easter Island, and will protect 142 species, including 27 threatened with extinction. Guardian

24. The EU imposed new, stricter limits on pollutants such as nitrogen, sulphur, mercury and particulates that will apply to all 2,900 of Europe’s large power plants. Reuters

25. China carried out its largest ever crackdown on pollution, reprimanding, fining or jailing officials in 80,000 factories, 40% of the country’s total. NPR

26. Indonesia pledged $1 billion to clean up its seas from plastic, Kenyaannounced a ban on plastic bags, and Chile said it will ban them in its coastal cities (30 countries now have existing or impending bans in place). ABC

27. Eleven countries continued their plan to build a wall of trees from east to west across Africa in order to push back the desert. In Senegal, it’s already working. BBC World Hacks

28. Cameroon committed to restoring over 12 million hectares of forest in the Congo Basin, and Brazil started a project to plan 73 million trees, the largest tropical reforestation project in history. Fast Co.

29. In November, Mexico’s government created a new 148,000 square kilometer ocean reserve, ‘the Galapagos of North America’ for the conservation of hundreds of species, including rays, humpback whales, sea turtles, lizards and migratory birds. Reuters

30. In 2017, the ozone hole shrunk to its smallest size since 1988, the year Bobby McFerrin topped the charts with ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy.’ CNET

‘Light for Hope,’ in West Bengal, India (Image credit:  Abhijit Dey )

‘Light for Hope,’ in West Bengal, India (Image credit: Abhijit Dey)

31. The International Energy Agency announced that nearly 1.2 billion people around the world have gained access to electricity in the last 16 years.

32. In February, the World Bank published new figures showing that 20 years ago, the average malnourished person on planet Earth consumed 155 fewer calories per day than they needed. Today, that number is down to 88.

33. Since 2000, life expectancy in Rwanda is up from 49 to 64, child mortalityis down more than two-thirds, maternal mortality is down nearly 80%, and HIV/AIDS prevalence is down from 13% to 3%. Mail & Guardian

34. In the last three years, the number of people in China living below the poverty line decreased from 99 million to 43.4 million. And since 2010, income inequality has been falling steadily. Quartz

35. 275 million Indians gained access to proper sanitation between 2014 and 2017. Gates Notes

36. In 1991 more than 40% of Bangladesh lived in extreme poverty. The World Bank said this year that the number has now dropped to 14% (equating to 50 million fewer people). Quartz

37. The United States’ official poverty rate reached 12.7%, the lowest level since the end of the global financial crisis. And the child-poverty rate reached an all time low, dropping to 15.6%. The Atlantic

38. Between 2005 and 2017, Afghanistan built 16,000 schools, the nation-wide literacy rate increased by 5%, and the youth literacy rate increased by more than 16%. USAID

39. In October, a new report by the International Labour Organisation revealed that global child labour has plummeted. In 2016, there were 98 million fewer boys and girls being exploited than in 2000. CS Monitor

Image still from Deepwater Horizon (Image credit:  Wallpaper Abyss )

Image still from Deepwater Horizon (Image credit: Wallpaper Abyss)

40. Sweden committed to phasing out all carbon emissions by 2045, and the country’s largest pension fund divested from six companies that violate the Paris Agreement, including Exxon, Gazprom and TransCanada.CleanTechnica

41. New figures at the beginning of the year showed that the global coal industry is taking a hammering. A 48% drop in pre-construction activity, a 62% drop in construction starts and a 19% drop in ongoing construction. CoalSwarm

42. In May, a shareholder rebellion forced ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, to start reporting on the effect of preventing climate change on its bottom line. Washington Post

43. France stopped granting all licences for oil and gas exploration, and said it will phase out all production by 2040, a major transition towards clean energy being driven by the new Macron government. Bloomberg

44. Deutsche Bank, one of the coal industry’s biggest financiers, announced it would stop financing all new coal projects. Ouch. Mining.com

45. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest pile of money on the planet, announced they were officially divesting from all fossil fuels, and the global insurance industry has pulled $20 billion. Telegraph

46. In 2017, the United KingdomFrance and Finland all agreed to ban the sale of any new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040.

47. China continued its all out war on coal, stopping construction on more than 150GW of coal plants, and laying off more than 700,000 coal workers since 2014. CleanTechnica

48. In one of the great climate change victories of our time, TransCanada terminated its tar sands pipeline, triggering a $1 billion loss and ending an epic 4 year battle between politicians, big oil, environmentalists and indigenous communities. Calgary Herald

49. On the eve of one of their major feast days, 40 Catholic institutions on five different continents announced the largest ever religious divestment from fossil fuels. Catholic Reporter

50. In the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, carbon emissions fell to the lowest levels since 1894, and on the 21st of April the country did not burn coal for the first time in 140 years. Independent UK

51. In November, a new global alliance of more than 20 countries, including the UK, France, Mexico, Canada and Finland, committed to ending their use of coal before 2030. BBC

Solar panels covering Blackfriars Bridge, London (Image credit:  Mayor of London Office )

Solar panels covering Blackfriars Bridge, London (Image credit: Mayor of London Office)

52. The cost of solar and wind plummeted by more than 25% in 2017, shifting the global clean energy industry on its axis. Think Progress

53. The cost of solar plants in the United States dropped by 30% in one year and in the United Kingdom, the price of offshore wind dropped by half in less than two years.

54. Solar energy is now responsible for one in every 50 new jobs created in the United States, and the clean energy sector is growing at 12 times the rate of the rest of the economy. CNBC

55. In June, South Korea announced a major U-turn on energy, shifting one of the world’s staunchest supporters of coal and nuclear power toward natural gas and renewables. Reuters

56. JP Morgan Chase said it will source 100% of its energy from renewables by 2020 and will facilitate $200 billion in clean financing through 2025. PV Tech

57. General Motors believes “the future is all-electric” Volkswagen announced it’s investing 70 billion euros and “putting its full force behind a shift into electric cars” and Volvo said that starting in 2019 it will only make fully electric or hybrid cars “the end of the combustion engine-powered car.” Atlantic

58. China is going to install 54GW of solar by the end of 2017, more than any country has ever previously deployed in a single year, and doubled their 2020 goal to 213 GW. PV Magazine

59. The world’s largest carbon emitter also announced that their Paris Agreement pledges will now be met a decade ahead of schedule, with emissions forecast to peak in 2018. Australian Financial Review

60. Following in China’s footsteps, India more than doubled its solar installations in 2017, accounting for more than 40% of new capacity, the largest addition to the grid of any energy source. Quartz

61. A new report from the European Union said that between 1990 and 2016 the continent cut its carbon emissions by 23% while the economy grew by 53%. So much for the propaganda of fossil fuel lobbyists... CleanTechnica

Hundreds of thousands of protesters converge on Washington, D.C. for the Women’s March (Image credit:  PBS )

Hundreds of thousands of protesters converge on Washington, D.C. for the Women’s March (Image credit: PBS)

62. On the 21st January 2017, the Women’s March became the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. Washington Post

63. On International Women’s Day 2017, Iceland became the first country in the world to make equal pay compulsory by law. Two days later, India passed a bill giving every working woman in the country 26 weeks of compulsory maternity leave. Economic Times

64. Thanks to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, suicide attempts by LGBT teenagers have decreased by 14% in US high schools since 2014. Guardian

65. In May, Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled in favour of allowing same-sex marriage, becoming the first Asian country to do so. SCMP

66. Saudi Arabia said women would no longer need male permission to travel or study. A few months later, women received the right to drive. BBC

67. New figures showed that the gender pay gap in the United States has narrowed from 36% in 1980 to 17% today. For young women the gap has narrowed even further, and now stands at 10%. Pew Research

68. Women now occupy 23% of parliamentary seats around the world, up from 12% in 1997. The Middle East and North Africa have seen a fourfold increase in that time. World Bank

69. As plunging crime closed prisons across the Netherlands, the government started turning them into housing and cultural hubs for ten of thousands of refugees instead. Fast Company

70. New data showed that young people are officially less racist than old people. The worldwide trend is towards towards less discrimination on the grounds of skin tone or caste. Quartz

71. 17% of newlyweds in the United States now marry someone of a different race or ethnicity, a fivefold increase since 1967, when interracial marriage was legalised. Pew Research

72. The immigrant population of the US (people born in another country) has now reached 43.7 million people, one out of every eight residents, the highestproportion in 106 years. CIS

73. Canada became the 9th country to allow a third gender, rather than male or female, on passports and government documents. That came two months after country number 8, Pakistan. Vox

74. India’s Supreme Court issued a historic ruling confirming the right of the country’s LGBTQ people to express their sexuality without discrimination. Independent UK

75. California became the first US state to legally recognise nonbinary genders, and Germany’s top court ruled that lawmakers must legally recognise a third gender from birth. CNN

76. In December, Australia became the 26th country to legalise same sex marriage. A wonderful victory, hard fought for by so many brave people. About bloody time. ABC

Syrian refugee children (Image credit:  Freedom House/Flickr )

Syrian refugee children (Image credit: Freedom House/Flickr)

77. Global deaths from terrorism dropped by 22% from their peak in 2014, thanks to significant declines in four of the five countries most impacted: Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. ReliefWeb

78. After quintupling between 1974 and 2007, the imprisonment rate in the United States is now dropping in a majority of states. New York Times

79. The number of executions recorded worldwide fell by 37% since 2015. The decline was largely driven by fewer deaths recorded in Iran and Pakistan.BBC

80. You didn’t see this story in the evening news — in June, we heard that the homicide rate in Australia has dropped to one victim per 100,000 people, the lowest ever recorded. Guardian

81. Rates of violent crime and property crime have dropped by around 50% in the United States since 1990, yet a majority of people still believe it’s gotten worse. Pew Research

82. A new report showed that incidents of bullying and the number of violent attacks in American public schools have decreased significantly since 2010. Associated Press

83. The European Union passed fresh rules that make it more difficult for armed groups to finance their activities through the sale of conflict minerals.Mining.com

84. Heckler & Koch, the world’s deadliest arms manufacturer, announced it would end gun sales to countries falling short of corruption and democracy standards. Deutsche Welle

85. Nepal passed a law criminalising an ancient Hindu practice called chhaupadi that banishes women from the home during menstruation and after childbirth. Al Jazeera

86. Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon repealed provisions in their penal codes that allow rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims. Al Jazeera

87. India’s Supreme Court outlawed non-consensual marital sex with child brides, and raised the age of sexual consent for all women to 18. CNN

Snow leopard in Southern China (Image credit:  Tambako/Flickr

Snow leopard in Southern China (Image credit: Tambako/Flickr

88. Snow leopards have been on the endangered list since 1972. In 2017, they were taken off, as the wild population has now increased to more than 10,000 animals. BBC

89. In March, in a big win for two of the world’s most endangered big cats, the Amur leopard and tiger, China approved a national park 60% larger than Yellowstone. HuffPost

90. Taiwan became the first Asian country to ban the eating of cats and dogs, with new laws imposing fines for consumption and jail time for killing and cruelty. National Geographic

91. A decrease in pollution in the Ganges brought Gangetic dolphins, one of the four freshwater dolphin species in the world, back from the brink of extinction. Hindustan Times

92. Germany banned fur farming. This followed similar decisions by Japan and Croatia within the last year. A victory that was two decades in the making. Well done PETA.

93. Vietnam agreed to end bear farming, and said it would work with Animals Asia to rescue 1,000 remaining caged animals.

94. The British government unveiled new plans to require compulsory CCTV cameras in all slaughterhouses, in order to enforce laws against animal cruelty. Guardian

95. In more than 60 regions across the globe, more populations of large sea turtles are improving than declining, a big change from a decade or two ago. Associated Press

96. China agreed to ban the domestic ivory trade in 2017. By mid year, the price of raw ivory in Asia had fallen by around half. And in October, the UK government banned the sale and export of all ivory items. BBC

97. Gucci announced it would go fur-free in 2018 and auction off all remaining fur items. It follows in the footsteps of Armani, which went fur free in 2016. Harper’s Bazaar

98. One of China’s richest women, He Qiaonv, announced a $2 billion donation for wildlife conservation, the largest environmental philanthropic pledge of all time. Bloomberg

99. The Indian government officially banned the use of all wild animals in circus performances. One month later, the Italian parliament did the same. 40 nations now have animal circus bans in place. 


If we want to change the story of the human race in the 21st century, we need to change the stories we tell ourselves.

12 Aug 10:14

Computers vs Humans

It's hard to train deep learning algorithms when most of the positive feedback they get is sarcastic.
22 May 07:48

Doctor Visit

According to these blood tests, you're like 30% cereal.
25 Apr 06:47

Ernest Benn

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."
21 Apr 11:58

Survivorship Bias

They say you can't argue with results, but what kind of defeatist attitude is that? If you stick with it, you can argue with ANYTHING.
19 Apr 05:02

04/17/17 PHD comic: 'The March'

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com
Click on the title below to read the comic
title: "The March" - originally published 4/17/2017

For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

11 Jan 10:12

Skin Tight

by The BPOD Team
Skin Tight

Our skin is vital – it’s a physical barrier against disease. One way it protects us is with a cell layer called the stratum granulosum in which the cells form connections called tight junctions to prevent liquids passing in or out. However, this barrier is only several cells thick and needs to be maintained. Scientists recently found that the cells of the stratum granulosum (pictured) in 3D are a 14-sided shape called Kelvin’s tetrakaidecahedron, formed of six rectangles and eight hexagons. It’s a very effective shape for filling space, so it could help the cells pack together to form the barrier. Using imaging and computer modelling, they also found that the tight junctions move between cells in a very precise way, to make sure that the barrier stays sealed when cells are joining or leaving it. Why this important barrier is only several cells thick, however, remains to be discovered.

Skin Tight
05 Feb 08:17

To Taste

Look, recipe, if I knew how much was gonna taste good, I wouldn't need you.
09 Oct 21:18

A cavalcade of indie games as IndieCade returns to the Weekly Bundle



The Humble Weekly Bundle: IndieCade 2 runs for one week and will party out on Thursday, October 16, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

29 Sep 09:00

iOS Keyboard

Hugo.pipping

I can't wait to get my new iPhone 6 so I too can try out the new iOS Leopard predictions.

More actual results: 'Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You [are the best. The best thing ever]', 'Revenge is a dish best served [by a group of people in my room]', and 'They may take our lives, but they'll never take our [money].'
18 Sep 09:56

Apple expands data encryption under iOS 8, making handover to cops moot

by Cyrus Farivar
Tim Cook unveils iOS 8 at WWDC 2014.
Megan Geuss

Apple has updated its privacy policy as part of the rollout of iOS 8, announcing that devices with the latest version of the operating system installed can no longer be accessed by the company itself.

Previously, as we reported in May 2014, if law enforcement came to Apple with a seized device and a valid warrant, it was able to access a substantial portion of the data already on an iPad or iPhone. But under the latest version of iOS, even that will be impossible.

"On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode," the company wrote on its website Wednesday evening. "Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8."

Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

09 Jul 13:49

Messaging Machinery

by The BPOD Team
Hugo.pipping

This is a really cool picture, and it's worth to check out the video too. It really gives you a glimpse of how jam packed and complex cells really are. And this is just a tiny bit of one!

Messaging Machinery

Inside the human brain, billions of neurons [nerve cells] communicate in an intricate network. To do this, they rely on chemical messengers, known as neurotransmitters, which propagate signals between cells across chemical synapses. Released by one cell, these molecules bind to specific receptors on a receiving neuron to transmit the signal. Pictured is a 3D representation of a synaptic bouton, the cellular compartment responsible for packaging neurotransmitters into membrane sacks, or vesicles, and exporting them out of the cell. Using microscopy and mass spectrometry, researchers have drawn up a detailed picture of this compartment. They identified 300,000 proteins found within the area, 60 of which are depicted in different colours in this diagram – the red tubes represent tubulin filaments, giving structure to the cell, while the white circles are vesicles. Providing new insights into neurotransmitter release, this study offers a tantalising glimpse into the exquisite complexity of the brain’s signalling machinery.

Messaging Machinery
25 Apr 08:16

Old Files

Hugo.pipping

Yeah, that's pretty much true, if I still had them :(

Wow, ANIMORPHS-NOVEL.RTF? Just gonna, uh, go through and delete that from all my archives real quick.
23 Apr 16:30

Habitable exoplanets are bad news for humanity

by Akshat Rathi
Let’s hope it’s barren.
NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-CalTech

Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Kepler-186f is special because it marks the first planet almost exactly the same size as Earth orbiting in the “habitable zone,” the distance from a star in which we might expect liquid water—and perhaps life.

What did not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how much credence we give to the possibility of our own near-term extinction. This is because of a concept known as the Great Filter.

The Great Filter is an argument that attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox: why have we not found aliens (or why have they not found us), despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve? As the namesake physicist Enrico Fermi noted, it seems rather extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has been detected (UFO conspiracy theorists notwithstanding).

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

12 Apr 10:09

Heartbleed Explanation

Are you still there, server? It's me, Margaret.
08 Apr 09:21

Biodegradable Battery

by The BPOD Team
Biodegradable Battery

Over the past few years, materials scientists have developed super-thin silicon chips that dissolve safely in the body. Such microchips could be used in medical implants that disintegrate once they’re no longer useful, rather than being surgically removed. Powering these devices has been tricky, but researchers have created a neat solution: a completely biodegradable battery. The miniature power pack contains metals like magnesium that dissolve in the body and whose ions, which are released in the process, are non-toxic in low concentrations. Pictured is a four-cell battery (top left) breaking down in water over three weeks until it’s completely dissolved (bottom right). With a few improvements, the researchers suggest, a one-micrometer thick, 0.25cm2 single-cell battery – roughly the size of a pinhead but much thinner – could power a wireless implantable device for a day or more. If so, doctors might one day deploy self-powered devices that deliver therapies and then vanish.

Biodegradable Battery
30 Mar 15:01

Before the Internet

We watched DAYTIME TV. Do you realize how soul-crushing it was? I'd rather eat an iPad than go back to watching daytime TV.
17 Mar 15:35

Detection of primordial gravitational waves announced (Updated)

by Matthew Francis
Hugo.pipping

Big News!

The BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) telescope at the South Pole, designed to measure polarized light from the early Universe.

When the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced a press conference for a "Major Discovery" (capital letters in the original e-mail) involving an unspecified experiment, rumors began to fly immediately. By Friday afternoon, the rumors had coalesced around one particular observatory: the BICEP microwave telescope located at the South Pole. Over the weekend, the chatter focused on a specific issue: polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background left over from the Big Bang. With the start of the press conference, it's now clear that we've detected the first direct evidence of the inflationary phase of the Big Bang, in which the Universe expanded rapidly in size.

BICEP, the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization experiment, was built specifically to measure the polarization of light left over from the early Universe. This light, known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), encodes a lot of information about the physical state of the cosmos from its earliest moments. Most observatories (such as Planck and WMAP) have mapped temperature fluctuations in the CMB, which are essential for determining the contents of the Universe.

Polarization is the orientation of the electric field of light, which conveys additional information not available from the temperature fluctuations. While much of CMB polarization is due to later density fluctuations that gave rise to galaxies, theory predicts that some of it came from primordial gravitational waves. Those waves are ripples in space-time left over from quantum fluctuations in the Universe's earliest moments.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

10 Mar 05:02

Unique Date

Hugo.pipping

It's also the only time I'll turn 29 in this system!

If our current civilization lasts another 8,000 years, it's probably fair to assume the Long Now Foundation got things right, and at some point we started listening to them and switched to five-digit years.
12 Feb 19:47

Big leap for fusion: more energy produced than spent igniting fuel

by Akshat Rathi
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratroy

Researchers in the US have overcome a key barrier to making nuclear fusion reactors a reality. In results published in Nature, scientists have shown that they can now produce more energy than put into igniting fuel, at least on an experimental scale. The use of fusion as a source of energy remains a long way off, but the latest development is an important step toward that goal.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and billions of other stars in the Universe. If mastered, it could provide an unlimited source of clean energy because the raw materials are plentiful and the operation produces no carbon emissions.

During the fusion process, smaller atoms fuse into larger ones, releasing huge amounts of energy. To achieve this on Earth, scientists have to create conditions similar to those at the center of the Sun, which involves creating very high pressures and temperatures.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

30 Jan 09:24

Randy K. Milholland

"Nothing like a lot of exercise to make you realize you'd rather be lazy and dead sooner."
13 Jan 21:48

INTEL introduces wearable devices and projects at CES

by Dr. Stefan Gruenwald
Hugo.pipping

Crazy!


Intel is introducing at CES several new products and projects focused on wearables:


  • Jarvis, a headset that can automatically integrate with a personal assistant app like Siri on a phone without touching it.
  • A smartwatch with “geo-fencing” to monitor the person who’s wearing it. For example: in case of an emergency and a person steps out of the geo-fence, the watch can send out an alert.
  • Wearable reference devices to accelerate wearable-device innovation, including smart earbuds that provide biometric and fitness capabilities, and a smart wireless charging bowl.
  • Collaborations with Barneys New York, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Opening Ceremony to explore and bring to market new smart wearable technologies, and to increase dialogue and cooperation between the fashion and technology industries.


Intel also introduced Intel Edison, a new Intel Quark technology-based computer housed in an SD card form factor with built-in wireless capabilities and support for multiple operating systems. Intel says it will “enable rapid innovation and product development by a range of inventors, entrepreneurs and consumer product designers when available this summer.”


Reference:


22 Nov 18:49

Telescope Names

Hugo.pipping

Brilliant!

The Thirty Meter Telescope will be renamed The Flesh-Searing Eye on the Volcano.