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Recently Meta decided to end their fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram. The move has been both hailed and criticized. They are replacing the fact-checkers with an X-style “community notes”. Mark Zuckerberg summed up the move this way: “It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

That is the essential tradeoff- whether you think false positives are more of a problem or false negatives. Are you concerned more with enabling free speech or minimizing hate speech and misinformation? Obviously both are important, and an ideal platform would maximize both freedom and content quality. It is becoming increasingly apparent that it matters. The major social media platforms are not mere vanity projects, they are increasingly the main source of news and information, and foster ideological communities. They affect the functioning of our democracy.

Let’s at least be clear about the choice that “we” are making (meaning that Zuckerberg is making for us). Maximal freedom without even basic fact-checking will significantly increase the amount of misinformation and disinformation on these platforms, as well as hate-speech. Community notes is a mostly impotent method of dealing with this. Essentially this leads to crowd-sourcing our collective perception of reality.

Free-speech optimists argue that this is all good, and that we should let the marketplace of ideas sort everything out. I do somewhat agree with this, and the free marketplace of ideas is an essential element of any free and open society. It is a source of strength. I also am concerned about giving any kind of censorship power to any centralized authority. So I buy the argument that this may be the lesser of two evils – but it still comes with some significant downsides that should not be minimized.

What I think the optimists are missing (whether out of ignorance or intention) is that a completely open platform is not a free marketplace of ideas. The free marketplace assumes that everyone is playing fair and everyone is acting in good faith. This is 2005 level of naivete. This leaves the platform open to people who are deliberately exploiting it and using it as a tool of political disinformation. This also leaves it open to motivated and dedicated ideological groups that can flood the zone with extreme views. Corporations can use the platform for their own influence campaigns and self-serving propaganda. This is not a free and fair marketplace – it means people with money, resources, and motivation can dominate the narrative. We are simply taking control away from fact-checkers and handing it over to shadowy groups with nefarious motivations. And don’t think that authoritarian governments won’t find a way to thrive in this environment also.

So we have ourselves a Catch-22. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. This does not mean, however, that some policies are not better than others. There is a compromise in the middle that allows for the free marketplace of idea without making it trivially easy to spread disinformation, to radicalize innocent users of the platform, and allow for ideological capture. I don’t know exactly what those policies are, we need to continue to experiment and find them. But I don’t think we should throw up our hands in defeat (and acquiescence).

I think we should approach the issue like an editorial policy. Having editorial standards is not censorship. But who makes and enforces the editorial standards? Independent, transparent, and diverse groups with diffuse power and appeals processes is a place to start. No such process will be perfect, but it is likely better than having no filter at all. Such a process should have a light touch, err on the side of tolerance, and focus on the worst blatant disinformation.

I also think that we need to take a serious look at social media algorithms. This also is not censorship, but Facebook, for example, gets to decide how to recommend new content to you. They tweak the algorithms to maximize engagement. How about tweaking the algorithms to maximize quality of content and diverse perspectives instead?

We may need to also address the question of whether or not giant social media platforms represent a monopoly. Let’s face it, they do, and they also concentrate a lot of media into a few hands. We have laws to protect against such things because we have long recognized the potential harm of so much concentrated power. Social media giants have simply side-stepped these laws because they are relatively new and exist in a gray zone. Our representatives have failed to really address these issues, and the public is conflicted so there isn’t a clear political will. I think the public is conflicted partly because this is all still relatively new, but also as a result of a deliberate ideological campaign to sow doubt and confusion. The tech giants are influencing the narrative on how we should deal with tech giants.

I know there is an inherent problem here – social media outlets work best when everyone is using them, i.e. they have a monopoly. But perhaps we need to find a way to maintain the advantage of an interconnected platform while breaking up the management of that platform into smaller pieces run independently. The other option is to just have a lot of smaller platforms, but what is happening there is that different platforms are becoming their own ideological echochambers. We seem to have a knack for screwing up every option.

Right now there does not seem to be anyway for any of these things to happen. The tech giants are in control and have little incentive to give up their power and monopoly. Government has been essentially hapless on this issue. And the public is divided. Many have a vague sense that something is wrong, but there is no clear consensus on what exactly the problem is and what to do about it.

 

The post What Kind of Social Media Do We Want? first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

The extent to which parents feel disgust appears to come and go, which could be important for their children's health

The BepiColombo spacecraft is due to start orbiting Mercury next year, but a recent flyby has captured breathtaking images of its pockmarked surface

I am leaving for a week. The bad news is that I am going to Los Angeles, where wildfires are running rampant.

The wildfire that raced across the Hollywood Hills early Thursday, threatening a wealthy area indelibly tied to the American film industry, put additional strain on millions of Los Angeles residents already stressed by catastrophic blazes that have erased entire neighborhoods and streaked the sky with smoke and embers.

The fires have killed at least five people and burned more than 27,000 acres, equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields. The largest ones, the Palisades and Eaton fires, have destroyed at least 2,000 structures and are already the two most destructive to ever hit Los Angeles.

Tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents were under mandatory evacuation orders or warnings on Thursday. Overnight, there was a palpable sense of anxiety as firefighting helicopters swept across a dark sky where orange embers were floating like lightning bugs.

There were traffic jams after a wildfire broke out in the Hollywood Hills near streets — Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard — whose names evoke the grandeur of Hollywood movies. An evacuation order for that area was mostly lifted just before midnight.

A fire also reared up in the nearby Studio City neighborhood, burning several homes and prompting warnings of a potential evacuation. But it was quickly extinguished and no injuries were reported.

Residents feel vulnerable partly because strong desert winds and dangerously dry conditions — it hasn’t rained much in Los Angeles for months — are making it easier for more fires to start and spread. A shortage of water in local reservoirs makes it harder for crews to put fires out.

More than 16 million people in Southern California, from Malibu down to San Diego County, were under a red flag warning early Thursday morning. Forecasters warned that extreme fire danger would continue for at least another day.

There are three big ones.

From the Free Press newsletter:

Southern California is burning. Thousands have been forced to evacuate as wildfires rip through the area. There are five so far and not enough firefighters to deal with them, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said yesterday, telling reporters his department was “prepared for one or two major fires… This is not a normal red flag alert.”

So far, five people have been killed. Over 130,000 residents have been told to evacuate. Hundreds of schools have been closed, as tens of thousands of acres go up in smoke. Not even the rich and famous have been spared. Actor James Woods lost his home. The Malibu mansion of hotel heiress Paris Hilton went up in flames. Palisades Charter High School, among the most iconic public secondary schools in America and which educated J.J. Abrams, will.i.am, and Katey Sagal, has turned to ash.

Late yesterday morning, on Truth Social, our president-elect railed against California’s “Governor Gavin Newscum,” blaming him for the wildfires currently ravaging the state. According to Donald Trump, Newsom blocked a water restoration project because “he wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt,” and that’s why California is burning. It’s not entirely clear what Trump’s trying to claim here—and believe me, I spent some time trying to figure it out. But the basic elements seem to be fire=bad, water=good, fish=tangentially related and controversial.

I am told that my conference, at the University of Southern California, is out of the fire zone and will go on. But I am also told that one friend whom I was going to visit has lost his home and everything in the fire. That is ineffably sad; the person was an artist and lost his studio as well. I cannot imagine losing everything you own, all at once.

I will report on the meeting and post when I can (I do my best). I am off to Midway Airport, where I hope to procure a giant coffee and a couple of sinkers at Dunkin Donuts.

 

A tiny quantum “refrigerator” can ensure that a quantum computer’s calculations start off error-free – without requiring oversight or even new hardware

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili has specific reading choices:

Hili: Are you looking for a detective novel on the shelf?
A: You guessed it.
Hili: Take the one I haven’t read yet.

In Polish:

Hili: Szukasz jakiegoś kryminału na półce?
Ja: Zgadłaś.
Hili: Weź taki, którego ja jeszcze nie czytałam.

Facing high employee turnover and an aging population, nursing homes have increasingly turned to robots to complete a variety of care tasks, but few researchers have explored how these technologies impact workers and the quality of care. A new study on the future of work finds that robot use is associated with increased employment and employee retention, improved productivity and a higher quality of care.

Facing high employee turnover and an aging population, nursing homes have increasingly turned to robots to complete a variety of care tasks, but few researchers have explored how these technologies impact workers and the quality of care. A new study on the future of work finds that robot use is associated with increased employment and employee retention, improved productivity and a higher quality of care.

A new artificial intelligence tool combines data from medical images with text to predict cancer prognoses and treatment responses.

Nations must better safeguard health and reduce childhood diseases linked to exposures to toxic chemicals, according to researchers. Governments need to test and regulate chemicals and chemical products as closely as they safeguard prescription drugs, the researchers write.

We reported before about a NIAC-funded project known as the Lofted Environment and Atmospheric Venues Sensors (LEAVES) mission to study Venus’ atmosphere. While the technology behind the idea is still under development, it has already inspired a team of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) undergraduates to develop a supporting satellite mission to launch and communicate with the leaves. Their paper, part of their B.S. Thesis, details how to use these new sensors and the challenges ahead.

As a refresher – the main unique selling point of LEAVES is that they are inexpensive ways to collect data about Venus’ atmosphere – at least from the height of about 100km down to 30km, where a lot of interesting atmospheric physics is taking place. They are designed without a propulsion system and, as such, glide down on their own accord, sending back data about the local pressure, temperature, atmospheric composition, and the probe’s orientation via an inertial measurement unit like those used on drones.

They aren’t intended to last long, but the short time they will be present in the atmosphere could provide insights into several outstanding questions about Venus, such as what compound is absorbing near-ultraviolet light in the upper atmosphere or the local carbon monoxide concentration. However, their distribution over the planetary surface is a critical part of any such effort – which is where the mission design from the team at WPI comes in.

Venus’ environment is harsh on technology, as Fraser discusses in this video.

Their mission design revolves around two spacecraft joined together for launch and approach to Venus but then breaking apart into wildly different orbits. One of them, Demeter, is responsible for launching the LEAVES. The other, Persephone, is named after Demeter’s daughter, whom Venus’ Greek equivalent had taken away to the underworld. It is left at a higher orbit and responsible for transmitting the data collected by the LEAVES back to Earth.

Demeter had two important design decisions—one was where to deploy the LEAVES, and the second was how to. The team came up with a deployment strategy of eight LEAVES every 20 meters of latitude the entire way around the planet, for a total of 144 probes. Importantly, these would be deployed on the day/night light to examine how the difference between day and night might play a role in the sulfur dioxide cycle on Venus. 

How to deploy them offered a different challenge – the team settled on 18 miniature housings, each attached to a small solid rocket booster using hydrazine. Demeter would orbit around the planet at an altitude of about 235km and would launch eight LEAVES every 20 degrees around the planet. Those LEAVES would descend through the atmosphere – some around the equator, some around the poles – and would deploy their glide form at about 150km from the surface. At around 100 km, they would start sending back data to Persephone, waiting overhead. After its deployment mission was complete, Demeter itself would deorbit and start burning up in Venus’ atmosphere.

Cosmic Voyages discusses the LEAVES project.
Credit – Cosmic Voyages YouTube Channel

Persephone has a much simpler job—it uses a rocket booster to reach a 2000km orbit and patiently waits until the LEAVES are deployed. It then uses a high-gain antenna to pick up signals from the LEAVES’ relatively weak communications systems and stores them on its local hard drive. Once all the data has been gathered, Persephone transmits it back to Earth.

All the components except one on both satellites have very high Technology Readiness Levels (TRL-9). The single exception is the deployment tubes for the LEAVES, which have an expected TRL of 1-2, meaning they would require more development and testing before being ready for prime time.

There is no deadline for that development and testing for now as LEAVES is still just a NIAC project and has not been selected for a mission opportunity to Venus. Given the increasing interest in exploring our sister planet, it seems likely that a similar mission will someday launch – and maybe some of the team that spent so much of their senior year working on this project will have a hand in working on the version that finally does make it there.

Learn More:
Baxter et al. – Design and Analysis of a SmallSat as a Communication Relay for Venus Atmospheric Probes
UT – Floating LEAVES Could Characterize Venus’s Atmosphere
UT – Atmosphere of Venus
UT – Venus has Clouds of Concentrated Sulfuric Acid, but Life Could Still Survive

Lead Image:
Mockup of the Demeter spacecraft, including the deployment tubes for the LEAVES.
Credit – Baxter et al.

The post How to Deploy and Talk To LEAVES on Venus appeared first on Universe Today.

The InSight Lander arrived on Mars in 2018 to study the planet’s interior. Its mission ended prematurely in December 2022 after its solar panels were covered in the planet’s ubiquitous dust. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of InSight recently and will continue to do so as the Martian dust slowly and inexorably reclaims the lander.

NASA and the DLR sent the InSight lander to Mars to study the planet’s interior. Though the lander’s mole instrument wasn’t able to complete its work, the mission is still considered a success. It detected more than 1,000 Marsquakes, which helped scientists understand Mars’ crust, mantle, and core. It also measured the frequency of meteoroid impacts and uncovered some information on the planet’s thermal evolution.

While the mission was pronounced finished in December 2022, mission personnel continued listening for signals from InSight in case the wind cleared dust from its panels. That effort will also soon end.

Now, the 358-kilogram (789 lb) spacecraft sits in its final resting place in Elysium Planitia. Barring some hyper-futuristic, impossible-to-foresee archaeological rescue expedition, the lander will never move. It’s stranded there, waiting to be imaged repeatedly by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and its HiRISE camera.

However, perhaps unexpectedly, InSight still has more to offer. Researchers say that by monitoring the way dust collects on the lander and moves around it, they can learn about Mars’ ubiquitous dust. That will help researchers better understand the planet and prepare more thoroughly for future missions.

“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now.”

Ingrid Daubar, InSight Science Team Member, Brown University This image was taken shortly before the end of the mission. It shows InSight’s landing spot and its SEIS instrument, covered with its protective windshield. Note the layer of dust accumulating on SEIS’s shield. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

“Even though we’re no longer hearing from InSight, it’s still teaching us about Mars,” said science team member Ingrid Daubar of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. “By monitoring how much dust collects on the surface — and how much gets vacuumed away by wind and dust devils — we learn more about the wind, dust cycle, and other processes that shape the planet.”

Martian dust is full of iron oxides, which give the planet its red appearance. It’s very fine and can be lifted high into the atmosphere during Mars’ global dust storms. It affects the planet’s weather and climate.

It’s a hazard for landers and rovers. InSight isn’t the only mission to succumb to it. Spirit and Opportunity also struggled with Martian dust before being defeated by it. Landers and rovers need to be protected from it. It can cover solar panels, rendering them ineffective. It can foul unprotected moving parts, contaminate science instruments, and cause problems with electronics and thermal control.

Martian dust is slightly magnetic due to its iron content, making it quite different from Earth dust. Scientists are concerned that its electrostatic properties might make it stick to surfaces and be difficult to remove. It could cling to some components in unanticipated ways.

There are unanswered questions about Mars’ dust. For instance, scientists don’t know exactly how it all formed or when. Are we seeing only ancient dust? Or is some of it newly created? Scientists aren’t certain how it becomes electrically charged during storms, whether it’s toxic and to what degree, or how exactly it’s transported around the planet during storms.

While monitoring InSight from space likely won’t answer all these questions, it can still teach scientists some things. One of the things they can observe is dust devil tracks. Back when the lander was still active, scientists matched MRO images of dust tracks near the lander with its wind data. They found that the whirling wind patterns that produce the dust devils subside in the winter and pick up again in the summer.

via GIPHY

InSight is also helping scientists understand how quickly surface craters can be obscured by dust. When the lander touched down in 2018, its retrorockets left marks on the surface akin to craters. By knowing exactly when they were created and watching from orbit as they’re obscured by dust, researchers can learn how quickly impact craters can be erased.

These HiRISE images from MRO show the InSight lander after it landed with obvious rocket blast marks (L). The blast marks are becoming obscured in the image on the right, taken in 2022. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

The people behind missions like InSight put a lot of time and energy into them. They’re not only career-defining; each mission advances our collective understanding of nature, including other planets in our Solar System. InSight ended because of dust, not because we had learned all we could from it. So even though watching it from orbit and learning what they can is somewhat satisfying, it no doubt reminds the mission personnel of what went left undiscovered.

“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now. It was a successful mission that produced lots of great science. Of course, it would have been nice if it kept going forever, but we knew that wouldn’t happen,” Daubar said.

The post NASA is Keeping an Eye on InSight from Space appeared first on Universe Today.

A breakthrough in decoding the growth process of Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN), a 2D material, and its nanostructures on metal substrates could pave the way for more efficient electronics, cleaner energy solutions and greener chemical manufacturing, according to new research.

Scientists have invented compact wearable devices that deliver rich, expressive, and pleasant tactile sensations that go far beyond the buzzing vibrations of today's consumer devices.

Scientists have invented compact wearable devices that deliver rich, expressive, and pleasant tactile sensations that go far beyond the buzzing vibrations of today's consumer devices.

Researchers used computer simulations to determine the mechanisms that control the temperature dependence of molecular dynamics in a glassy supercooled liquid. This work may lead to higher-quality glass production at lower cost.

Research demonstrates that AI can determine the course and severity of aggressive skin cancers, such as Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), to enhance clinical decision making by generating personalzsed predictions of treatment specific outcomes for patients and their doctors.

Wearing a red outfit in combat sports has been believed to provide an advantage for athletes, but a new study suggests there is no longer any truth in the claim.

An academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3000-year-old 'mega fortress' in the Caucasus mountains, revealing details that re-shape understanding of the site and contribute to a global reassessment of ancient settlement growth and urbanism.

Researchers have found a low-power, inexpensive way for large numbers of devices, such as machines in factories and equipment in labs, to share information by efficiently using signals at untapped high frequencies. The technology is an advanced version of a device that transmits data in a wireless system, commonly known as a tag.