In case 2020 wasn’t dystopian enough, hackers on July 15 hijacked the Twitter accounts of former President Barack Obama, presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Apple, among others. Each hijacked account posted a similar fake message. The high-profile individual or company wanted to philanthropically give back to the community during...
New York City students and teachers from diverse backgrounds and all five boroughs are gathering virtually this summer for the eighth annual initiative by NYU Tandon’s Center for K12 STEM Education, one of the largest and most comprehensive university-based programs of free STEM summer workshops, classes, and labs in the region. As part of its focus...
Astronomers studying galaxy evolution have long struggled to understand what causes star formation to shut down in massive galaxies. Although many theories have been proposed to explain this process, known as “quenching,” there is still no consensus on a satisfactory model. Now, an international team led by Sandra Faber, professor emerita of astronomy and astrophysics...
It lacks the drama of a shape-shifting alien creature, but another threat looms over the prospect of generations-long, interstellar space travel: Explorers arriving on Xanadu could face problems communicating with previous and subsequent arrivals, their spoken language having changed in isolation along the way. Therefore, a new paper co-authored by a University of Kansas professor of linguistics...
There’s a fairly large flaw in the way that programmers are currently addressing ethical concerns related to artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles (AVs). Namely, existing approaches don’t account for the fact that people might try to use the AVs to do something bad. For example, let’s say that there is an autonomous vehicle with...
Internet trackers are more likely to follow people who visit popular health sites, such as WebMD.com and mayoclinic.org, to other types of sites, a Cornell Tech study has found – suggesting that advertisers might be more likely to target people based on sensitive health information than previously understood. The study examined how the order in...
Faculty and students at Purdue University now have access to cybersecurity research software developed at Sandia National Laboratories. This marks the first time Sandia has collaborated with an academic community to make its cyber software widely available. Sandia has previously invited academic collaborators to use cyber research software at the labs or by connecting to...
As lockdown requirements ease, COVID-19 is changing the way we use indoor spaces. That presents challenges for those who manage those spaces, from homes to offices and factories. Not least among these challenges is heating and cooling, which is the largest consumer of energy in American homes and commercial buildings. There’s a need for smarter,...
When two scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) brought black lights and glow powder into the Maryland State Police crime lab, they weren’t setting up a laser tag studio or nightclub. Instead, their aim was to study the way drug particles get spread around crime labs when analysts test suspected drug...
Scientists have created a new database to help track the impacts of climate change on fish living in rivers, lakes and other inland waters throughout the world. The Fish and Climate Change Database — or FiCli (pronounced “fick-lee”) — is a searchable directory of peer-reviewed journal publications that describe projected or documented effects of climate change on...