Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 27, 2019

in #rsslog • 5 years ago

Remember to be skeptical of AI hype; A 2018 Nature paper gets retracted; Plans for NASA's Artemis missions; Archaeologists identify ancient baby bottles; and a look over the history of mental health beliefs and treatments

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  1. You should be skeptical when it comes to hyped-up AI. Here’s why - In this youtube video, Gary Marcus discusses his book, Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust, that teaches people to cut through the AI hype in popular media and advertising. He suggests six questions to ask about AI in the press: (i) Is there a demo? (ii) How general is it? (iii) Strip away the rhetoric - does it really understanding what it's doing, or is just simulating a behavior? (iv) If something "works better than humans", ask "which humans"? (v) Is it truly AI, or is it just exploiting its ability to sift through large datasets fast? How specific is the problem it solves? and (vi) How robust is it?

  2. Nature paper on ocean warming retracted - The paper was published in Nature in 2018, but quickly revealed to be flawed because its uncertainty estimates were too small. At the time, the authors acknowledged the flaws with gratitude, saying they would correct it quickly, but 10 months later, no correction has been issued and Nature is pulling down the paper. When asked why it took 10 months, Nature Research's Lisa Boucher is quoted as saying, "These issues are often complex and as a result, it can take time for editors and authors to fully unravel them."

  3. NASA's $30 billion Artemis missions will attempt to set up a moon base - This link contains a video and transcript describing NASA's Artemis missions. The mission is named for Apollo's twin sister, from ancient Greek mythology. According to the video, the moon mission will help NASA to gain knowledge about deep space, and it will also serve as a dry run for a Mars mission. The planned budget is $30 billion, much of which will go to launching the next generation rocket, the gargantuan Space Launch System (SLS). Unfortunately, that rocket is behind schedule and over budget, and it is not reusable - though current plans call for building new rockets every year. NASA is not planning to partner with reusable rocket firms like SpaceX or Blue Horizons because of legal considerations, political considerations, and because the SLS needs to be larger than those firms' reusable rockets. The project also has plans to launch a lunar gateway that will orbit the moon, as well as a new lunar lander design. After landing on the moon in 2024, they plan to launch annual missions to build a base and create a permanent presence on the moon.

  4. Scientists identify ancient baby bottles - and some are cute - First author, Julie Dunn and her team reported in Nature that they examined three small ceramic vessels with narrow spouts that could have been used for babies to suck on. The containers are from the bronze age, aged between 2,800 and 3,200 years. The analysis found found that they contained milk from animals like cows, sheep and goats. Similar objects, dating back as far as 7,000 years, have been found in other locations. One of the coauthors, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury is quoted saying, "I find them incredibly cute. And prehistoric people may have thought so, too – they would certainly have a dual function of entertaining the children just like modern stuffed animals". h/t RealClear Science

  5. STEEM A Journey Through The History of Madness. - In this post, @abigail-dantes surveys the history of beliefs about mental illness and ways to treat it. Starting with the ancient Greeks, the post reports that mental illness stemmed from a "humour imbalance", which was the idea that the bodies fluids were out of balance. This belief led to treatment by draining blood in a process called "purging" or "blood-letting". Starting in the 17th century, behavioral disturbances came to be thought of as manifestations of a supernatural nature, which led to an absence of treatment. Instead, the afflicted were "locked away" (or worse) and kept out of site, often in deplorable conditions. Beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries, treatment switched to moral treatment which was a process of encouraging the afflicted to interact politely with one another, and increasingly to medical treatments such as "psycho-surgeries like lobotomy, ..., insulin coma therapy (ICT), and electro convulsive therapy (ECT)." As Freud's influence became more influential in the 20th century, "the talking cure" became more prominent. From the 1950s until today, Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (The DSM) and psychotropic drugs have gained influence and come to dominate treatment. (A 10% beneficiary has been assigned to this post for @abigail-dantes.)

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5 years ago in #rsslog by
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     5 years ago 

    As always, interesting links.

    I note that mental health 'therapy' is discussed only in relation to Western Civilization in the linked article. In various cultures, such maladies have been 'treated' differently, including venerating the deranged as prophets. Fortunately, it seems that treatment of the mentally ill has at least become less harmful generally in the West. People seem to have forgotten the origin of the word bedlam, and while I do not advocate forgetfulness, I am pleased that such circumstances are impacting folks far less nowadays.

    Thanks!

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     5 years ago 

    Thanks for the reply! You're right that the Steem post came from a western perspective. It actually did include brief but interesting coverage of Bedlam, but I didn't bring that forward into my summary because I had already written more words than I like to include for this series of posts. I agree that it's good that conditions have improved for many people who are impacted by behavioral issues, and I hope things will continue to improve.

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     5 years ago 


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