Daily Archives: October 3, 2021

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A woman who gave birth at a hospital that had been brought to its knees by a ransomware hack is now suing over the death of her newborn daughter. The death appears tomark the first official casualty of a ransomware hack, in which hackers seize control of a computer network and demand payment, usually in cryptocurrency, to restore it a crime that, clearly, can be lifethreatening when directed at critical infrastructure like hospitals.

When the hackers took control of Springhill Medical Center in Alabama in 2019, the hospital refused to pay the ransom or acknowledge the attack, The Wall Street Journal reports, opting instead to mitigate the damage by shutting off its network and attempting to carry on as usual. Jobs that used to be automated suddenly fell on junior staffers, and doctors and nurses suddenly had to treat patients without access to crucial digital records or computer equipment.

A week after the attack, Teiranni Kidd went to Springhill Medical Center to deliver her daughter, Nicko Silar, according to the WSJ. Without the monitors that doctors and nurses use to keep an eye on the vitals of patients and their soon-to-be born children, the staff missed that Nicko had a dangerously accelerated heartbeat a sign that Nickos umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Nicko was born unresponsive and with severe brain damage, and died nine months later.

Since then, Kidd has sued the hospital, and documents revealed that the medical staff texted one another about how the death would have been easily preventable. Had they been able to see the warning signs its unclear if anyone did at the time they would have safely delivered Nicko via caesarian section.

The hacker hasnt been publicly identified, but the WSJ reports that its likely the Russian Ryuk gang, which has targeted at least 235 hospitals and dozens of other healthcare facilities with ransomware attacks since 2018.

Outside of this case, there hasnt been a recorded death caused by a ransomware attack, though Joshua Corman, a senior advisor for the Department of Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told the WSJ that the hacks could make healthcare workers perform worse overall.

We can see that a cyberattack can strain you enough to contribute to excess deaths, he said.

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Hackers Attacked a Hospital and Allegedly Killed a Newborn Baby - Futurism

Some of these floating palaces showcase out-of-the-ordinary ideas that we might actually see one day in superyachts. And with how fast technology is advancing, chances are that this might happen sooner than we might think.

Feadship is known for its custom superyachts that meet its clients every desire. The shipyard was officially formed in 1949 when six yards and De Voogt Naval Architects agreed to pitch their high-quality products on the American market under the Feadship name.

Since then, generations of craftsmen who launched iconic boats have grown to be known the world over for their work. Now, Feadship's designers are envisioning a new yacht that blends the experience over the years with the boldest visions of the owners. The result? A 268-foot (81,75-meter) megayacht called Pure.

However, the essence of this futuristic superyacht contains much more than what meets the eye. The shipyard's technical key to make the design work were the two central elements around which the rest of the structure was constructed. These components will also house the main deck bar and staircase and provide separate staff routing.

With five decks in total and a tank deck counting as a fully functioning part, Pure has embraced the idea of openness. An elliptical glass atrium, half inside, half out, links all lines of sight over three decks. The way the massive glass facade crosses through contributes to this feeling of open space.

Moving on to the sun deck, you'll see a large jacuzzi with fire pits surrounding it, a bar space, and a dining area with seating surrounding a massive elliptical skylight. From there, you can directly access the owners' deck, which is right below the sun deck.

What makes Pure stand out is that it lacks a bridge deck. That's because it doesn't need one. The yacht is controlled from a hidden pilothouse where everything is simulated and displayed on screens.

As you might have guessed from the title of this article, the vessel uses smart augmented reality to navigate between locations. Precisely, the information needed is provided by radar, AIS, maps, depth sounders, and cameras, all of which are strategically placed around the vessel. Using all of the data collected, the captain will be provided with situational awareness, motion prediction, routing, and finding the most fuel-efficient way to travel.

Because the market for renewable diesel is growing and is projected to be a viable option in the near future, the first Pure model would be a diesel-electric energy hybrid, with the battery pack and generators powered by either fossil or renewable diesel. The battery pack would be large enough to allow Pure to navigate for 139 miles (222 km) on a single charge.

Then, in 2027, technological advancements should allow for a hybrid of battery packs and methanol-powered generators. Even if methanol engines are already being developed, there is a need for infrastructure that will make it possible to deliver methanol in yachting hotspots. Feadship anticipates that this type of engine will be available within a few years.

Finally, the megayacht will have all-methanol fuel cells with batteries by 2030, but the battery capacity may be reduced to a range of 69 miles (111 km). This will provide room for the fuel cell installation, which is projected to be larger than diesel engines.

These ideas presented by the shipyard's new concept design and many more are set to be addressed in the next edition of Feadship's UnIQ series of live broadcasts, which will take place on October 13th.

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This Futuristic Megayacht Concept Relies on Smart Augmented Reality to Navigate - autoevolution

"People dare not to have children due to increasing economic pressure."Half-Life 30

If a new study is to be believed, China could face a disastrous drop in its population within just 30 years.

Chinas aging population and decreasing birth rate have had its government on high alarm lately, with new census data revealing an even more significant drop in new births than expected, the South China Morning Post reports. Based on that data and an overall reluctance to have more kids, the countrys population could be cut in half as soon as the year 2050, according to research published in the Journal of Xian University of Finance and Economics.

Its an alarming projection that would have grave implications for Chinas stature as a global superpower though,to be fair, the research does involve a fair amount of speculation.

In order to motivate couples to have larger families, China recently expanded its two-child policy up to three. But the researchers behind the new study found that the main impediments preventing couples from forming larger families seem to be economic concerns and a lack of social support systems not the state telling them no.

People dare not to have children due to increasing economic pressure, the researchers wrote in their paper. There are also severe shortages in supporting services for childbearing and care.

The Chinese government has also tried to make housing and education more affordable, but the researchers say the new measures dont go far enough.

Meanwhile, the new census data which SCMP says is likely the most accurate in history thanks to new methodology and cross-referencing practices says that children now make up 17 percent of Chinas population, while people over the age of 60 make up 18 percent.

The researchers say this is the first time in known history that the older group outnumbered the younger, thanks to a declining rate of new births that, according to all available data, is continuing to decline.

READ MORE: Chinas population could halve within the next 45 years, new study warns [South China Morning Post]

More on demographics: Chinas Population Is About To Start Declining, and Its Leaders Are Worried

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China's Population Projected to Fall by Half Within 30 Years - Futurism

Cloud kitchen start-up Rebel Foods, which runs some 350 internet kitchens housing 10-12 restaurant brands each, has turned to IoT-enabled smart cookware to ace the taste consistency test.

Imagine a wok that can cook, control temperatures, add ingredients and understand the speed of toss, all by itself. The employee managing the machine just has to choose the dish he wants it to cook. Thats Wokie, the IoT- enabled smart wok developed in-house by Rebel Foods, which owns brands including Faasos, Oven Story, Behrouz Biryani, Firangi Bake, Sweet Truth, and Mandarin Oak.

Raghav Joshi, Co-founder and CEO (India BU), Rebel Foods, told BusinessLine, Finding the right staff with the right skill-set across 350 locations and managing that skill level for consistency becomes an inherent challenge. This is where our investment in hardware is going in, to build capabilities like this wok, which can automatically regulate temperatures and the speed of the toss so that you get that perfect bowl of noodles.

Joshi says the company has also developed a fryer that knows how to maintain the temperature of the oil, how long to fry an item and then to bring it.

The company has applied for patents for these even as it is creating a few more such smart cooking utensils.

Not just the hardware, Rebel has been strengthening its play on the software side as well. It has created its own operating system and allows third party brands to use its OS and scale their business across the country using its cloud kitchen network.

Some time the chef isnt always 100 per cent sure about a particular recipe. The software, at a click of a button, lets the chef access the recipe and its video. The food gets bar-coded and scanned to ensure nothing gets missed out. The customer can also track the delivery boy, see his temperature in the EatSure app, he adds, describing how the companys technology team doubled in the last one year, and there are plans to hire more.

Including India, Rebel Foods operates in 10 countries across Europe, West and South-East Asia. Countries like Indonesia have emerged one of its top markets outside India. In the next 6-8 months, the company is looking to expand to another 10 countries with over 150 internet kitchens.

In the past 3-4 months, the company had expanded to 15 cities in India, taking the total to 50, and it wants to expand its footprint to 50 more cities in 6-8 months.

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Dont worry about taste, this futuristic wok will take care - BusinessLine

LONDON Some court rulings are an example of justices not wanting to set precedent. Often when they overrule a decision they try to avoid calling into question the competence of the lower court by framing their decision upon technical reasons, procedural grounds, or by emphasizing that the ruling applies to this one case alone (like the Supreme Court did in Masterpiece Cake Shop) to avoid assigning blame to lower courts.

The UK Court of Appeal didnt bother with any of these niceties in their decision overturning Bell vs. Tavistock.

In December 2020, the UK High Court ruled that transgender youth under the age of 16 were not competent to consent to treatment with puberty blockers. This was shocking, because in the UK previous case law had established that people under that age of 16 were capable of giving medical informed consent, under what is known as Gillick Competence.

The Gillick case was decided in 1985, and found that people under 16 could consent to taking birth control in the UK.

The UK High Court decided in Bell, however, that trans youth were the only class of people (aside from those with profound developmental delays) incapable of giving medical consent.

The decision was appealed immediately, but the harm was done. Professionals who work with trans youth in the UK described their patients internalizing a message that the world hates them, and the anger they felt at being treated as mental defectives incapable of knowing themselves. Some had puberty blocker treatment discontinued; others waiting on treatment were placed in limbo while the appeals process played out.

Transgender people (rightly) pointed out that Keira Bell had been 17 when she received blockers, and that the ruling would have had no effect on her (people 16 and over dont fall under Gillick Competence). It was also noted that the panel of experts brought in by Bells legal team didnt include anyone who actually works with trans youth, but did include a veterinarian, two doctors who work with the American anti-LGBT hate group Alliance defending freedom, and two Australian proponents of conversion therapy.

Additionally, Bells legal team was led by Paul Conrathe, who has spearheaded the religious right push in the UK to roll back abortion rights and ban LGBT content from schools. Trans people also pointed out that correlation is not causation when Bells team made the accusation that going on blockers causes youth to later go on to hormones.

The Court of Appeal took note of these things, and more. The decision handed down on Friday, September 17th 2021 was a stinging rebuke of the lower court, finding that the original decision should be overturned for at least nine different reasons.

First, the Appeals Court noted that the case should never have been taken up in the first place, given that the treatment was always lawful. It also noted Bells age, pointed out that she was never a patient of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service, and that they doesnt administer blockers either.

The Appeals Court also found that Tavistock was providing sufficient information for informed consent under Gillick Competence and that this by itself was sufficient to overturn the original decision. They also found that the lower court overstepped its bounds by involving itself in medical matters it wasnt equipped to understand, nor legally allowed to intervene on. It found that blockers are not dangerous (based on actual expert testimony),that correlation is not causation, and noted that its likely clinicians have gotten better at diagnosis over the past 20 years.

The Court of Appeal notes that under UK law, it is not the place of the court to come between a patient and their doctor, and that they have no intention of overturning Gillick, which clearly applies to transgender people being offered these treatments. They essentially conclude that the case should have been thrown out day one, and the High Court had overstepped its bounds in ways that strain credulity.

The original Bell decision was so bad that the Appeals Court literally gave up after describing the 9th reason it was wrong, noting that they hadnt even gotten to the civil rights implications of the original decision, and that Bell would probably lose on those grounds too.

Essentially, the Appeals Court invoked the mercy rule usually reserved for lopsided T-ball games where one side is being so badly beaten the referees stop the game to prevent one side from being further humiliated. The effect is that the UK Supreme Court is highly unlikely to take up this case on further appeal.

Bells team recognized this was the end, and promptly announced that they would appeal because, The Gillick competency test is no longer fit for purpose. Gillick underlies much of UK law on reproductive rights, and undermining it is a holy grail of the religious right there, the same way overturning Roe v. Wade is in the US. Given the ties Bells team has to the global religious conservative movement, this development is unsurprising.

The Court of Appeals decision is great news for trans youth in the US. As Chase Strangio of the ACLU noted on Twitter:

State legislatures repeatedly cited to the decision in Bell v. Tavistock in support of bans on care for trans minors here in the US. In defense of their law banning care, Arkansas repeatedly cited to the High Court decision in court.

Efforts to ban health care for trans youth in the US are ongoing, including in Texas. However, the complete overturning of Bell v. Tavistock by the Court of Appeal undermines one of the key talking points used by anti-LGBTQ organizations in both the UK and the U.S.

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Amazon is selling books that promote violence from a neo-Nazi publisher - Los Angeles Blade

An experimental gene therapy that involves injectingCRISPR therapy directly into visually impaired patients eyeballs has vastly improved most volunteers vision even allowing some to see color more vividly than ever before.

Multiple study participants, all of whom had a severe type of genetic vision impairment called Leber congenital amaurosis, told NPR that they were thrilled with their improved vision. While their eyesight is still far from perfect, they can now safely navigate their surroundings with less assistance and find smaller objects.And one, Michael Kalberer, said that the treatment gave him the ability to see color for the first time in years.

In addition to now being able to navigate and discern food on a plate, Kalberer shared a story of getting dinner with a friend and being shocked by the sight of the color pink in the sky.

She goes, Yeah, you see the sunset. Thats the sunset,' he told NPR. And we both smiled at each other. It was a great moment.

Another patient, Carlene Knight, said she can now see colors far more vividly and feels safer walking around at work.

I was bumping into the cubicles and really scaring people that were sitting at them, patient Carlene Knight told NPR about working prior to the treatment. Its nice. I dont scare people and I dont have as many bruises on my body.

Knight has since dyed her hair green to celebrate her newfound ability to see her favorite color.

Most gene therapies being tested are less direct. Researchers will remove cells from a volunteers body, treat them, and then reintroduce them into their system. But thats not possible with the retina, so the patients had to be treated with eye injections, NPR reports. But the treatment seems to work, as researchers announced at the International Symposium on Retinal Degeneration on Wednesday that most of their patients, who had a severe type of genetic vision impairment called Leber congenital amaurosis, were able to see far better than before.

Were thrilled about this, Harvard Medical School ophthalmologist Eric Pierce, whos helping run the experiment, told NPR. Were thrilled to see early signs of efficacy because that means gene editing is working. This is the first time were having evidence that gene editing is functioning inside somebody and its improving in this case their visual function.

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Gene Therapy Restored Vision To Patient Who Hadn't Seen Colors in Years - Futurism

A Russian actress will play a surgeon who, much like herself, is suddenly dispatched to space.Movie Magic

The director and lead actress of what will become the first feature-length fictional film shot in space are set to blast off next week, on October 5.

The movie, titled The Challenge, is about a surgeon who finds herself dispatched to the International Space Station in order to save a cosmonauts life, according to the NYT.

The plan, as it stands right now, is to send actress Yukia Peresild, who plays the doctor, and director Klim Shipenko to the Russian portion of the space station for 10 days, according to the NYT. There, Peresilds lack of real-world experience in spaceflightis expected to convey the horror, challenges, and awe-inspiring experience of an everyday person having to suddenly journey to space.

The impromptu mission will also put Russia ahead of the US when it comes to each countrys goals to shoot a film in orbit, and its not clear how much of the motivation for the mission came from wanting to claim that distinction.

Turning the real space station into a film set will certainly create a more authentic portrayal of life in orbit than other science-fiction movies, but as Flinders University space studies expert Alice Gorman points out in IFLScience, there will still be some elements of the film that push the boundaries of real science.

Namely, Peresilds character will need to perform surgery, which is something thats only ever been conducted on animals for the sake of experimentation while in orbit. Its not clear what the fictional surgery setup will look like or if those scenes will filmed on the space station versus a set back on Earth but it will be interesting to see how fictionalized medicine blends with the ordeals of actually shooting in space.

READ MORE: Russia to Open New Frontier in Space, Shooting First Full-Length Movie [The New York Times]

More on the International Space Station: Russia Wants To Be the First To Shoot a Movie in Space

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A Film Crew Is Launching to the International Space Station Next Week - Futurism

The 32-metre high wheel, on the site of the former Futurist Theatre on Foreshore Road, has been giving visitors birds-eye views of the South Bay and North Sea.

Hull Fair is Europe's largest travelling fair and returns to the city on Friday, October 8 after being cancelled due to the pandemic last year.

After Hull Fair, the wheel will be moved to Liverpool for Christmas, outside of St George's Hall.

The wheel is operated by Observation Wheel UK and is capable of carrying a maximum of 144 passengers with six people seated in each of its 24 enclosed gondolas.

In 2020, Scarborough Council granted permission for the wheel to operate on the site of the former Futurist Theatre for the next three summers.

Last year, the wheel had been due to leave Scarborough in October, but instead it was given permission to remain in the town over the winter period after Christmas activities in its next destination, Liverpool, were cancelled because of the pandemic.

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Scarborough's controversial seafront observation wheel dismantled to head to Hull Fair - The Yorkshire Post

One of them soared through the upper atmosphere at 32,000 mph.Fireball Alert

NASAs Meteor Watch confirmed sightings of at least five fireballs soaring through the evening sky over the US last Friday night.

In a Facebook post, the Meteor Watch noted that there were at least 80 eyewitness accounts of a massive fireball soaring over the North Carolina coast, becoming visible at around 7:40 pm.

The giant space rock eventually disintegrated after covering 26 miles through the upper atmosphere at an estimated 32,000 mph. Its unclear from the Facebook post whether a single meteor broke up to form multiple smaller fireballs during its descent, or if multiple fireballs blazed through the upper atmosphere a spectacular sight nonetheless for those lucky enough to be staring at the night sky at the right time.

The fireballs trajectories remain ambiguous.

There is more than the usual amount of uncertainty in the trajectory solution due to all the observers being located to the west of the fireball, reads NASAs post.

There were up to 150 reports of the fireballs across Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virgina.

A video linked by Meteor Watch shows one of the massive fireballs burning bright in the distant sky. Several other videos were shared by the American Meteor Society as well.

Fireballs are exceptionally bright meteors, burning brighter than the planet Venus in the night sky, according to the American Meteor Society.

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earths atmosphere each day, the American Meteor Societys FAQ on fireballs reads. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight.

READ MORE: NASA reports multiple fireballs hurtling through the sky over US [The Hill]

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NASA Puzzled by Five Fireballs Over America in One Night - Futurism

Researchers warn of an earth that's "alien to humans."Planning Ahead

With climate change, we tend to worry about the present (are hurricanes getting worse?) and the medium-term future (what will the planet be like in the year 2100?)

Look a few hundred more years down the road, though, and the world will likely appear totally alien.

By the year 2500, the Amazon may become a barren hellscape and the midwestern United States could turn into a tropical jungle, according to a new set of far-reaching climate projections that a team of climate scientists from several Canadian and British universities published in the journal Global Change Biology on Friday. Its alarming research and, to be fair, by no means authoritative as well as a bleak look into the long-term repercussions of human industrialization.

Many climate models predict environmental change up to the year 2100, so it makes sense that we try and understand what the world will look like farther down the road, the researchers argued in an essay in The Conversation.

This is surprising because people born now will only be in their 70s by 2100, the scientists wrote. What will the world look like for their children and grandchildren?

Looking that far into the future is a fairly speculative affair, the scientists noted. But they did find that their projections align with existing, robust models for the nearer future, lending more credibility to their predictions.

As temperatures continue to rise, the scientists found, much of the planet will become inhospitable to humans and coastlines will continue to be reshaped by rising sea levels, causing huge changes in terms of both geography and human society.

Further, we found heat stress may reach fatal levels for humans in tropical regions which are currently highly populated, the team wrote. Such areas might become uninhabitable.

Ultimately, the researchers hope theyre proven wrong. They ended their Conversation essay with a plea to drastically reduce carbon emissions or face the consequences.

The Earth of our high-end projections is alien to humans, they wrote. The choice we face is to urgently reduce emissions, while continuing to adapt to the warming we cannot escape as a result of emissions up to now, or begin to consider life on an Earth very different to this one.

READ MORE: Our climate projections for 2500 show an Earth that is alien to humans [The Conversation]

More on climate projections: UN Says Its Code Red for Humanity in Alarming Climate Change Report

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The Climate Projection for 500 Years From Now Is Unbelievably Bad - Futurism