ReHacked #123: Crows may be Sweden's litter pickers, We have jetpacks and we do not care, In Second Largest DeFi Hack Ever, Blockchain Bridge Loses $320M Ether and more

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Crows may soon be Sweden's newest litter pickers - The Local #nature #urbanism

A Swedish startup is training wild crows to pick up cigarette butts and other small pieces of litter. Their method will soon be ready for testing in the city of Södertälje.

The wild crows can be trained through a step-by-step learning process. The birds can learn to pick up litter by placing it in to a machine which dispenses food.

“They’re wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis,” said Christian Günther-Hanssen, founder of the company behind the method, Corvid Cleaning, to Swedish newswire TT.

The company chose to use crows as they are the most intelligent bird, Günther-Hanssen told TT.

‘It’s a glorified backpack of tubes and turbines’: Dave Eggers on jetpacks and the enigma of solo flight | Dave Eggers | The Guardian #technology #futurism

We have jetpacks and we do not care. An Australian named David Mayman has invented a functioning jetpack and has flown it all over the world – once in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty – yet few people know his name. His jetpacks can be bought but no one is clamouring for one. For decades, humans have said they want jetpacks, and for thousands of years we have said we want to fly, but do we really? Look up. The sky is empty.

In Second Largest DeFi Hack Ever, Blockchain Bridge Loses $320M Ether - Blockworks #blockchain

Wormhole, one of the largest bridges between Solana and other blockchains, has been hacked for about $320 million, or 120,000 ether — making it the second largest DeFi hack to date.

The interoperability protocol confirmed the exploit in a tweet Wednesday evening.

Lights (at sea) - lighthouse map #fun

DARPA’s RACER Program Sends High-Speed Autonomous Vehicles Off-Road - IEEE Spectrum #technology #engineering #futurism

DARPA has announced the first phase of a shiny new program called RACER, which stands for Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have just left it at RACE, but that’s government backronyms for you. Anyway, the RACER program is all about high-speed driving in unstructured environments, which is a problem that has not been addressed by the commercial-vehicle-autonomy industry, because we have, you know, roads. But where DARPA is going there are no roads, and the agency wants autonomous vehicles to be able to explore on their own as well as keep up with vehicles driven by humans.

China’s fully cashless society a step closer after two private banks end services for banknotes and coins | South China Morning Post #economy #futurism

Two small private Chinese banks announced last month that they would no longer provide services involving banknotes or coins, in the latest sign that the country is accelerating its march towards a totally cashless society.

Zhongguancun Bank, which serves customers in the capital of Beijing, said it would suspend cash services, including over-the-counter deposits and withdrawals as well as cash services on ATM machines, starting from April.

Its decision comes after a similar move by another regional bank, NewUp Bank of Liaoning, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, which will stop cash services from March.

A Military-Funded Biosensor Could Be the Future of Pandemic Detection - Defense One #health #engineering #futurism

Why are pandemics so hard to stop? Often it’s because the disease moves faster than people can be tested for it. The Defense Department is helping to fund a new study to determine whether an under-the-skin biosensor can help trackers keep up — by detecting flu-like infections even before their symptoms begin to show. Its maker, Profusa, says the sensor is on track to try for FDA approval by early next year.

The sensor has two parts. One is a 3mm string of hydrogel, a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants. Inserted under the skin with a syringe, the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection. The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin. It sends light through the skin, detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor, website, etc. It’s like a blood lab on the skin that can pick up the body’s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms, like coughing.

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Unlearning Perfectionism | Arun Prasad #psychology #productivity

TL;DR Done is better than perfect.

Cerebrospinal Fluid "Brain Washing" During Sleep | The Brink | Boston University #health

New research from Boston University suggests that tonight while you sleep, something amazing will happen within your brain. Your neurons will go quiet. A few seconds later, blood will flow out of your head. Then, a watery liquid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) will flow in, washing through your brain in rhythmic, pulsing waves.

The study, published on October 31 in Science, is the first to illustrate that the brain’s CSF pulses during sleep, and that these motions are closely tied with brain wave activity and blood flow.

DNA has a 521-year half-life | Nature #nature

By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of −5 ºC, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier — perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.

Google Graveyard - Killed by Google #software #internet

‘Carbon footprint gap’ between rich and poor expanding, study finds | Carbon footprints | The Guardian #economy #society

Wealthy people have disproportionately large carbon footprints and the percentage of the world’s emissions they are responsible for is growing, a study has found.

In 2010, the most affluent 10% of households emitted 34% of global CO2, while the 50% of the global population in lower income brackets accounted for just 15%. By 2015, the richest 10% were responsible for 49% of emissions against 7% produced by the poorest half of the world’s population.

Get a Bird's-Eye View of UNESCO World Heritage Sites Across the Globe #history #culture

Since 1972, UNESCO has been working to preserve monuments around the world by assigning destinations the status of World Heritage Site. As of today, there are 1,121 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include both natural and cultural areas. In some cases, entire cities are named to the list for their cultural significance. With so many places in the program, it can be difficult to keep track, but luckily Overview is taking us on a unique tour.

Overview seeks to share the world as seen from above by generating incredible aerial photos. The community primarily uses high-resolution satellite imagery to composite overhead images. They've put together a collection of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as seen from above, and the results are astounding. From well-known places like the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Grand Canyon to lesser-known areas like the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, the photos are an excellent opportunity to discover new places and revisit old favorites.

Do Things, Tell People. #career

These are the only things you need to do to be successful. You can get away with just doing one of the two, but that's rare, and usually someone else is doing the other part for you.

Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study | Science | AAAS #health

The trillions of bacteria in and on our bodies can bolster our health and contribute to disease, but just which microbes are the key actors has been elusive. Now, a study involving thousands of people in Finland has identified a potential microbial culprit in some cases of depression.

The finding, which emerged from a study of how genetics and diet affect the microbiome, “is really solid proof that this association could have major clinical importance,” says Jack Gilbert, a microbial ecologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the work.

Researchers are finding ever more links between brain conditions and gut microbes. People with autism and mood disorders, for example, have deficits of certain key bacteria in their guts. Whether those microbial deficits actually help cause the disorders is unclear, but the findings have spawned a rush to harness gut microbes and the substances they produce as possible treatments for a variety of brain disorders. Indeed, researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients.

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