From concerns over blue light to digital strain and dryness, headlines today often worry how smartphones and computer screens might be affecting the health of our eyes.  But while the technology may be new, this concern certainly isn't.

Since Victorian time people have been concerned about how new innovations might damage eyesight.  In the 1800s, the rise of mass print was both blamed for an increase in eye problems and was responsible for dramatising the fallibility of vision too.  As the amount of known eye problems increased, the Victorians predicted that without appropriate care and attention Britain's population would become blind.

In 1884, an article in The Morning Post newspaper proposed that: 'The culture of the eyes and efforts to improve the faculty of seeing must become matters of attentive consideration and practice, unless the deterioration is to continue and future generations are to grope about the world purblind.'

The 19th century was the time when opthamology became a more prominent field of healthcare.  New diagnostic technologies, such as test charts were introduced and spectacles became a more viable treatment method for a range of vision errors.  Though more sight problems were being treated effectively, this very increase created alarm, and a subsequent perceived need to curtail any growth.

In 1889 the Illustrated London News questioned: 'To what are we coming? … Now we are informed by men of science that the eyes used so effectively by our forefathers will not suffice for us, and that there is a prospect of England becoming purblind.'

The article continued, considering potential causes for this acceleration, and concluded that it could be partly explained by evolution and inheritance.

Urban myopia 

Other commentators looked to 'modern life' for explanation, and attributed the so-called 'deterioration of vision' to the built environment, the rise of print, compulsory education, and a range of new innovations such as steam power.

In 1892, an article, published in The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, reflected that the changing space of Victorian towns and lighting conditions were an 'inestimable benefit' that needed to be set against a 'decidedly lower sight average'.  Similarly, a number of other newspapers reported on this phenomenon, headlining it as 'urban myopia'.

In 1898, a feature published in The Scottish Review – ironically entitled 'The Vaunts of Modern Progress' – proposed that defective eyesight was 'exclusively the consequence of the present conditions of civilised life'.

It highlighted that many advances being discussed in the context of 'progress' – including material prosperity, expansion of industry and the rise of commerce – had a detrimental effect on the body's nervous system and visual health.

Another concern of the time – sedentariness – was also linked to the rise in eye problems.  Better transport links and new leisure activities that required the person to be seated meant people had more time to read.

Work changed as well, with lower-class jobs moving away from manual labour and the written word thought to have superseded the spoken one.  While we now focus on 'screen time', newspapers and periodicals emphasised the negative effects of a 'reading age' (the spread of the book and popular print).

Education to blame

In a similar manner to today, schools were blamed for the problem too.  Reading materials, lighting conditions, desk space, and the advent of compulsory education were all linked to the rise in diagnosed conditions.

English ophthalmologist Robert Brudenell Carter, in his government-led study, Eyesight in Schools, reached the balanced conclusion that while schooling conditions may be a problem, more statistics were required to fully assess the situation.

Though Carter did not wish to 'play the part of an alarmist', a number of periodicals dramatised their coverage with phrases such as 'The Evils of Our School System'.

The problem with all of these new environmental conditions was that they were considered 'artificial'.  To emphasise this point, medical men frequently compared their findings of poor eye health against the superior vision of 'savages' and the effect of captivity on the vision of animals.

This in turn gave a more negative interpretation of the relationship between civilisation and 'progress', and conclusions were used to support the idea that deteriorating vision was an accompaniment of the urban environment and modern leisure pursuits – specific characteristics of the Western world.

And yet the Victorians were undeterred, and continued with the very modern progress that they blamed for eyesight problems.  Instead, new protective eyewear was developed that sought to protect the eye from dust and flying particles, as well as from the bright lights at seaside resorts, and artificial lighting in the home.

Despite their fears, the country did not become 'purblind'.  Neither is Britain now an 'island full of round-backed, blear-eyed book worms' as predicted.

While stories reported today tend to rely on more rigorous research when it comes to screen time and eye health, it just goes to show that 'modernity' has long been a cause for concern.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Your face is now your passport.  American Airlines is joining a growing list of companies that are beginning to offer facial recognition as a means of identification.  The world's largest airline will now let some passengers simply scan their face to board their flight at the Los Angeles International Airport.

American Airlines is rolling out facial recognition cameras as part of a 90-day test to identify people before they get on board their flights from LAX's Terminal 4.  The pilot program, which launched on Wednesday, 5 December, came about as a result of partnership with digital security company Gemalto.

The technology works by matching users' face scans against a database created by the Department of Homeland Security.  The photos are then deleted from the facial recognition system's database after they're matched, according to Fast Company.

American Airlines' facial recognition system is opt-in only, however, so for those with privacy fears, they can continue to board and move through the airport using standard verification methods, such as passports.  Airport employees will also continue to check passports and other IDs.

Neville Pattinson, senior vice president of Government Programs at Gemalto, told the Associated Press: 'Being able to use your face instead of your boarding pass will not only enhance security but allow passengers to board more easily and quickly.  The passenger process is changing globally and we are pleased to be on the leading edge of this change enabling our partners to offer improved service and security with our biometric capabilities.'

It comes as Delta Air Lines last month launched what it's calling the first 'biometric terminal' in the US at the international terminal in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport.  Customers use facial recognition to verify their identity as they check in at self-service kiosks, move through security and board their flight.

The facial recognition system is opt-in only, meaning that passengers aren't required to have their face scanned to verify their identity.  To use it, customers click 'Look' on the screen at the kiosks located in the lobby, or approach the camera at the ticket counter, when boarding or going through security.  Passengers' face scans are matched to passport or visa photos that are in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's database.  After a green check mark appears, they're able to proceed.

So far, Delta says the majority of travelers at the Atlanta airport are taking advantage of the facial recognition features.  Of the 25,000 customers who travel through Hartsfield-Jackson's international terminal, only 2 per cent have opted out of the technology, according to the airline.  Not only that, the airline says the system has helped reduce the long lines and traffic jams that have become customary at many airports.

'Based on initial data, the facial recognition option is saving an average of two seconds for each customer at boarding, or nine minutes when boarding a wide body aircraft,' Delta said.

Delta launched the system with the idea that passengers will no longer need to use their passport to get through checkpoints around the airport.  However, customers will still need to keep their passport on hand for use in other airports without biometric security systems.

'We’re removing the need for a customer checking a bag to present their passport up to four times per departure – which means we’re giving customers the option of moving through the airport with one less thing to worry about, while empowering our employees with more time for meaningful interactions with customers,' Gil West, Delta's chief operating officer, said in a statement.

While it's limited to the international terminal in Atlanta for now, Delta hopes to bring the technology to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in 2019.

Delta has been testing its biometric security technology at several airports over the past several years, including the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.  The firm has also tested a 'biometric bag drop' system at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and biometric boarding at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Unsurprisingly, privacy advocates have raised concerns about how data collected by the biometric security systems could be misused.   Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the facial recognition systems are a threat to individual privacy.  In particular, it threatens 'our constitutional "right to travel" and right to anonymous association,' Lynch said.

Importantly, Delta's facial recognition software uses U.S. Customs and Border Protection's traveler verification service.  What's more, it relies on software by NEC Corp.  Customs, which is required by Congress to collect biometric information from foreign visitors as they leave the U.S., according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

It comes as the Transportation Security Administration recently published a roadmap for how it plans to integrate new biometric data systems into airports across the country.  This includes plans to use fingerprints and facial scans at airport checkpoints, potentially leading to shorter lines.  It could also mean travelers may be able to leave their passports at home in the future.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Warming oceans are changing the way sharks swim - and making them right handed, researchers have found.

Australian scientists incubated eggs in tanks heated to simulate temperature changes at the end of the century.  They found half died within a month, and those who survived became 'right handed', preferring to swim to the right, a process known as lateralization.  The researchers found the rising temperatures developed the trait far more quickly than they expected.

'We incubated and reared Port Jackson sharks at current and projected end-of-century temperatures and measured preferential detour responses to left or right,' the researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Symmetry.

To test whether the sharks had developed lateralization, the team placed them in a long tank with a Y-shaped partition at one end.  Behind the partition was a food reward; sharks just had to decide whether to swim to the right or left side of the Y to reach their snack.  The researchers say the changes show that climate change could have a far greater, and faster, effect on marine brains than thought.

They wrote: 'Sharks incubated at elevated temperature showed stronger absolute laterality and were significantly biased towards the right relative to sharks reared at current temperature.  Climate change is warming the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate.  Under predicted end-of-century temperatures, many teleosts show impaired development and altered critical behaviors, including behavioral lateralisation.  Since laterality is an expression of brain functional asymmetries, changes in the strength and direction of lateralisation suggest that rapid climate warming might impact brain development and function.'

Researchers collected a clutch of Port Jackson shark eggs from the waters off of eastern Australia.  They incubated 12 eggs in a tank warmed to the current ambient temperature of the bay (about 20.6 degrees Celsius) and 12 others in a tank that was gradually warmed to 23.6 degrees C to simulate those predicted end-of-century ocean temperatures.

Five sharks incubated in the elevated temperatures died within a month of hatching.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A radical new 'city battery' is capable of storing excess heat in molten silicon.  MIT researchers say their 'sun in a box' could store excess energy from solar and wind power, and deliver it back into an electric grid on demand.  This would allow cities to be powered not just when the sun is up or the wind is high, but around the clock.

The new design stores heat in large tanks of white-hot molten silicon.  It can then convert the light from the glowing metal back into electricity when it's needed.  The researchers estimate that a single storage system could enable a small city of about 100,000 homes to be powered entirely by renewable energy.

'One of the affectionate names people have started calling our concept, is 'sun in a box,' which was coined by my colleague Shannon Yee at Georgia Tech,' Asegun Henry, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who is leading the project, said.

It would be vastly more affordable than lithium-ion batteries, which have been proposed as a viable, though expensive, method to store renewable energy.  They also estimate that the system would cost about half as much as pumped hydroelectric storage — the cheapest form of grid-scale energy storage to date.

The new storage system stems from researcher into concentrated solar power, which uses vast fields of huge mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a central tower, where the light is converted into heat that is eventually turned into electricity.

'The reason that technology is interesting is, once you do this process of focusing the light to get heat, you can store heat much more cheaply than you can store electricity,' Henry said.

Concentrated solar plants store solar heat in large tanks filled with molten salt, which is heated to high temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  When electricity is needed, the hot salt is pumped through a heat exchanger, which transfers the salt's heat into steam.  A turbine then turns that steam into electricity.

Henry's team looked for a medium other than salt that might store heat at much higher temperatures, and settled on silicon — the most abundant metal on Earth, which can withstand incredibly high temperatures of over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Last year, the team developed a pump that could withstand such blistering heat, and could conceivably pump liquid silicon through a renewable storage system, and they have also fabricated a miniature graphite tank and filled it with liquid silicon to test the plan.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Narcissists believe democracy is bad for society, and prefer a strong leader or military rule, researchers have found.  Researchers say they 'tend to feel entitled and superior to others, which results in lower tolerance of diverse political opinions.'

In contrast, people who take a positive, non-defensive self-view and trust others are more likely to show support for democracy, the research found.

'Support for democracy requires the ability to respect the views and opinions of others, even if one disagrees with them,' the researchers wrote.  They said the results could have major implications for the future of society, as many believe new  generations are becoming more narcissistic.

Excessive use of social media – in particular the posting of images and selfies – has been linked to a subsequent increase in narcissism, research has found.  One study warned findings could mean up to a fifth of the population could be at risk of developing such narcissistic traits associated with their excessive visual social media use.

Dr Aleksandra Cichocka, of Kent's School of Psychology, who led the study with Dr Marta Marchlewska, of the Polish Academy of Sciences said: 'The jury is out on whether the new generations are becoming more narcissistic than previous ones, but it is important to monitor how societal changes can affect the self.  We need to make sure we are not fostering feelings of entitlement or expectations of special treatment.  In the end, these processes may have important implications for our social and political attitudes.'

The study, the findings of which are published as My way or the highway: high narcissism and low self-esteem predict decreased support for democracy, consisted of two parts that analysed the relationship between different types of self-evaluation - narcissism and self-esteem - and support for democracy in the US and Poland.

The team set out to understand the psychological mechanisms driving support for democracy.  They built on previous research which demonstrated that basic personality traits can predict broader opinions about the organisation of the social world.

Researchers from Swansea University and Milan University studied the personality changes of 74 individuals aged 18 to 34 over a four-month period.  They also assessed the participants' usage of social media – including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat – during the period.  Those who used social media excessively, through visual postings, displayed an average 25% increase in such narcissistic traits over the four months of the study.  This increase took many of these participants above the clinical cut-off for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, according to the measurement scale used.

Narcissism is a personality characteristic that can involve grandiose exhibitionism, beliefs relating to entitlement, and exploiting others.  The study found that those who primarily used social media for verbal postings, such as Twitter, did not show these effects.

However, in this group of participants, their initial levels of narcissism predicted a growth in this form of social media usage over time.  The more narcissistic they were to begin with, the more verbal postings they made later.

All but one of the people in the study used social media, and their average use was around three hours a day, excluding usage for work.  Some reported using social media for as much as eight hours a day for non-work related purposes.  Facebook was used by 60% of participants, while 25% used Instagram, and 13% used Twitter and Snapchat each.  More than two-thirds of the participants primarily used social media for posting images.

Professor Phil Reed, from Swansea University's Department of Psychology, led the research.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A NASA scientist has claimed intelligent alien life may have already visited Earth.  Silvano P. Colombano, who works in NASA's Intelligent Systems Division, believes we may have missed it, as it could be very different from the traditional carbon based life humanity is used to.  He believes that current thinking about extraterrestrial life is far too narrow.

'I simply want to point out the fact that the intelligence we might find and that might choose to find us (if it hasn't already) might not be at all be produced by carbon based organisms like us,' Colombano wrote in a paper first presented at a 'Decoding Alien Intelligence Workshop' in March organized by the Search for Extraterrestiral Intelligence.

He believes that alien life may have gone far beyond human technology, and may even have mastered interstellar travel.

'We need to re-visit even our most cherished assumptions.  How might that change the above assumptions about interstellar travel?  Our typical life-spans would no longer be a limitation (although even these could be dealt with multi-generational missions or suspended animation), and the size of the 'explorer' might be that of an extremely tiny super-intelligent entity.  Considering further that technological development in our civilization started only about 10K years ago and has seen the rise of scientific methodologies only in the past 500 years, we can surmise that we might have a real problem in predicting technological evolution even for the next thousand years, let alone 6 Million times that amount!' he wrote.

He also warned that radio waves could be out of date.  He called for physicists to take part in 'speculative physics', grounded in our most solid theories but 'with some willingness to stretch possibilities as to the nature of space-time and energy' and to 'consider the UFO phenomenon worthy of study'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Rare gold coins and a golden earring have been discovered in the ancient Mediterranean port of Caesarea in northern Israel - possibly left and never recovered as Crusaders conquered the city 900 years ago.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the find on 3 December of a small bronze pot holding 24 gold coins and the earring.  According to the authority, it was found between two stones in the side of a well in a house in a neighbourhood that dates back some 900 years, during the Abbasid and Fatimid periods.

The directors of the excavation, the IAA's Peter Gendelman and Mohammed Hatar, said the coins in the cache date to the end of the 11th century.  That makes it possible 'to link the treasure to the Crusader conquest of the city in the year 1101, one of the most dramatic events in the medieval history of the city', an IAA statement said.

According to the Antiquities Authority, most inhabitants of the city were massacred by Baldwin I's army between 1100 to 1118 CE.  Baldwin I served as the king of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.  The authority said it can be presumed that the treasure's owner and his family likely died in the massacre or were sold into slavery.

The bronze pot in which the trove was held for the past millennium, which is itself a valuable item, was secreted between stones in a 1.5 meter-deep well.   The discovery was made during an excavation and conservation project at the Caesarea World Heritage site.  It was located in a house in a neighborhood dating to the Abbasid and Fatimid period, 900 years ago.  This bronze pot, which shows indications of once having an original metal lid, was given a makeshift ceramic stopper before being placed into the watering hole, according to The Times of Israel.

'The people broke a piece of ceramic and put it in as a stop-gap lid so the coins wouldn't fall out,' Dr. Robert Kool, coin expert at the authority, told the paper.  'It really seems to add up to the Crusader conquest, which was a pretty dramatic event.'  They would have been unable to return to the site of the cache and retrieve their hidden gold.

The cache is of a unique combination of coins not yet seen in Israel consisting of two types of coins: 18 Fatimid dinars, well known from previous excavations in Caesarea, where it was the standard local currency of the time; and a small and extremely rare group of six Byzantine imperial gold coins.  Five of the coins are concave and belong to the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071-1079 CE),' said Dr. Robert Kool, coin expert at the authority.

Caesarea was constructed in the first century BC by King Herod at a time that Judea was part of the Roman Empire.  Through the centuries, Caesarea was conquered several times.   First built by Herod the Great between 20 and 11 BC, Caesarea proved an important port city to several conquerers, including the Roman and Byzantine empires.

Archaeologists think the pot of gold was stashed as invaders ransacked the city, some 900 years ago.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

There are ten digital STIs that can harm your device when you're looking at adult content, according to computer security firm Kaspersky Lab.

These are:

1.   Trojans – They might masquerade as innocent programs, but they carry a harmful payload.

2.   Drive-by downloads - Cyber-criminals look for insecure web sites and plant a malicious script into the code on the pages.  These take advantage of any unpatched applications on your computer and infect them automatically

3.   Click-jacking – Click-jacking involves tricking someone into clicking on one object on a web page while they think they are clicking on another.  Clickjacking can be used to install malware, gain access to a victim's online accounts or to enable their webcam.

4.   Tinder bots – These are automatic programs designed to masquerade as real people on a dating site to lure users into clicking on them, with the aim of tricking the victim into disclosing confidential data.

5.   Cat-Phishing - This is when cyber-criminals pose on dating sites or chat rooms, encouraging people to click on links for live sex chat or adult images.

6.   Ransomware - Cyber-criminals use 'blockers' to stop the victim accessing their device, often telling them this is due to 'illegal pornographic content' being identified on their device.  Anyone who has accessed porn online is probably less likely to take the matter up with law enforcement.

7.   Worm - This is a program that replicates, but does not write its code to other files: instead, it installs itself once on a victim's device and then looks for a way to spread to other devices.

8.   Pornware – This could be a legitimate program, but might be adware installed by another malicious program, designed to deliver inappropriate content to the victim's device.

9.   Spyware - Software that enables an attacker to secretly obtain information about the victim's online activities and transmit it covertly from their device.

10.  Fake Anti-virus - Fake anti-virus programs prey on people's fear of malicious software which they believe may have been installed whilst looking at porn.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Nielsen could be spying on what you watch to deliver personalized ads during live TV.

The TV ratings and data company will study demographic information like consumers' age and gender to determine which advertising spots would be most effective.  After looking at that information, Nielsen would insert targeted ads between live programming on smart televisions, replacing generic cable TV ads in the process.

For now, it's functioning as a pilot program that'll be limited to five U.S. markets, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Tampa, according to AdWeek.

The program uses a process referred to by those in the advertising industry as 'dynamic ad insertion.'  It relies on a combination of technologies to serve up the targeted ads, including chips in smart TVs and content recognition software.  In this case, Nielsen says it has partnered with chipmaker MediaTek, which the company said are in half of the world's smart TVs.

Nielsen is also taking advantage of the automatic content recognition technology created by Gracenote, which it acquired in 2017.  Content recognition technology involves using algorithms to analyze and identify when an advertisement might be playing on a certain television.  When the algorithm detects that an advertisement is playing, it would replace the cable TV ad with one that's been selected to fit the viewer's specific demographic.

Nielsen first announced that it would be running dynamic ad insertion pilots in May.  At the time, it said the trial would be limited to CBS, which planned to run the ads during live national broadcasts.  Now, Nielsen is adding A+E Networks to the dynamic ad insertion trial as well.

The firm has couched the technology as a way for advertisers to get the most out of their ad inventory, while marketers deliver more personalized ads and potentially generate a higher return on investment.  It also claims it will result in a better experience for consumers while they watch TV.

'Nielsen recognizes the huge opportunity addressable TV presents for our clients.  Marketers will be able to better realize the value of their advertising inventory, achieve maximum return on their ad spend and viewers will see messages that are most relevant to them,' Kelly Abcarian, senior vice president of product leadership for Nielsen, said in a statement.

It's not the first time smart television makers have been found to spy on consumers.  Many smart TV sets have apps and other technology installed in them that can track what shows people are watching, how long they're watching ads for and whether or not that lead to them purchasing something.

U.S. lawmakers have increasingly pushed back on these practices, however, as they argue that consumers don't necessarily want their TV watching habits to be fair game for advertisers.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

The U.S. Army has awarded a $6.9m contract to develop an 'Iron Man' exoskeleton to give soldiers superhuman strength and endurance.

Called Onyx, the battery-operated exoskeleton uses a suite of sensors, artificial intelligence and other technology to aid natural movements.  It is being built by Lockheed Martin, and was originally designed to help people with mobility problems.

Lockheed Martin said: 'It supports and boosts leg capacity for physically demanding tasks that require lifting or dragging heavy loads, holding tools or equipment, repetitive or continuous kneeling or squatting, crawling, walking long distances, walking with load, walking up or down hills, or carrying loads on stairs.  When human strength is challenged, ONYX makes the difference, reducing muscle fatigue, increasing endurance, and reducing injury.'

For the U.S. military, the appeal of such technology is clear: Soldiers now deploy into war zones bogged down by heavy but critical gear like body armor, night-vision goggles and advanced radios.  Altogether, that can weigh anywhere from 90 to 40-64 kg, when the recommended limit is just 50 pounds 23 kg.

'That means when people do show up to the fight, they're fatigued.  The fundamental challenge we're facing with infantry troops is they're carrying too much weight,' said Paul Scharre at the Center for a New American Security, who helped lead a series of studies on exoskeletons and other advanced gear.

The $6.9 million award from the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center is to research and develop the exoskeleton, called ONYX, under a two-year, sole-source agreement.

Keith Maxwell, the exoskeleton technologies manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said people in his company's trials who wore the exoskeletons showed far more endurance.  'You get to the fight fresh.  You're not worn out,' Maxwell said.

Maxwell, who demonstrated a prototype, said each exoskelelton was expected to cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.  Early tests of a previous version showed that the exoskeleton has increased productivity anywhere from two to 27 times.

The United States is not the only country looking at exoskeleton technology.

B-TEMIA's medically focused system, called Keeogo, is sold in Canada for about C$39,000 ($30,000), company spokeswoman Pamela Borges said.

Samuel Bendett at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNAS), a federally funded U.S. research and development center, said Russia and China were also investing in exoskeleton technologies, 'in parallel' to the U.S. advances.  Russia, in particular, was working on several versions of exoskeletons, including one that it tested recently in Syria, Bendett said.

The CNAS analysis of the exoskeleton was part of a larger look by the Washington-based think tank at next-generation technologies that can aid soldiers, from better helmets to shield them from blast injuries to the introduction of robotic 'teammates' to help resupply them in war zones.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk