South America
ChatGPT shares data on how many users exhibit psychosis or suicidal thoughts
OpenAI has released new estimates of the number of ChatGPT users who exhibit possible signs of mental health emergencies, including mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts. The company said that around 0.07% of ChatGPT users active in a given week exhibited such signs, adding that its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot recognizes and responds to these sensitive conversations. While OpenAI maintains these cases are extremely rare, critics said even a small percentage may amount to hundreds of thousands of people, as ChatGPT recently reached 800 million weekly active users, per boss Sam Altman. As scrutiny mounts, the company said it built a network of experts around the world to advise it. Those experts include more than 170 psychiatrists, psychologists, and primary care physicians who have practiced in 60 countries, the company said. They have devised a series of responses in ChatGPT to encourage users to seek help in the real world, according to OpenAI.
Hamas hands over remains of captive as Israeli drone strike kills two
Can Israel annex the West Bank if the US says no? Will the US plan for Gaza fail? 'We survived the war, we may not survive the ceasefire' Who are the 95 healthcare workers held by Israel? Hamas has handed over the remains of another dead captive to Israel, hours after an Israeli drone attack in southern Gaza killed two Palestinians amid a fragile ceasefire. The Israeli military said on Monday that the Red Cross had taken custody of the coffin and was in the process of transporting it to the army's troops in Gaza. The remains of 16 had been handed over as of Monday.
UN slams Israel after attack on peacekeepers in Lebanon
Can Israel annex the West Bank if the US says no? Will the US plan for Gaza fail? 'We survived the war, we may not survive the ceasefire' Who are the 95 healthcare workers held by Israel? The United Nations and France have condemned an Israeli attack that hit UN peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that the previous day's attack on UNIFIL troops, which he said involved an Israeli drone dropping a grenade in the vicinity of a patrol, as well as a tank opening fire on peacekeepers near the border town of Kfar Kila, was "very, very dangerous". Israel has violated the truce on a near-daily basis.
Dolphins may be getting an Alzheimer's-like disease due to this neurotoxin
Environment Conservation Ocean Dolphins may be getting an Alzheimer's-like disease due to this neurotoxin The neurotoxins, found in algal blooms, primarily affect the body's nervous system. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. For marine biologists, dolphins are often viewed as sentinel species, or animals that shed light on the health of the ocean . Along with whales, porpoises, and other cetacean species, dolphins are one way that researchers know to sound the alarm about environmental hazards that might affect the ocean as a whole and potentially humans. In this context, researchers have connected neurotoxins from algal blooms to brain changes associated with an Alzheimer's-like disease in dolphins in Florida.
US Dept of Energy partners with AMD to build two supercomputers: Report
The United States has formed a $1bn partnership with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to construct two supercomputers that will tackle large scientific problems ranging from nuclear power to cancer treatments to national security. The Reuters news agency first reported the new partnership, citing Energy Secretary Chris Wright and AMD CEO Lisa Su. The machines can accelerate the process of making scientific discoveries in areas the US is focused on. Energy Secretary Wright said the systems would "supercharge" advances in nuclear power and fusion energy, technologies for defence and national security, and the development of drugs. Scientists and companies are trying to replicate fusion, the reaction that fuels the sun, by jamming light atoms in a plasma gas under intense heat and pressure to release massive amounts of energy.
Tesla chair warns Musk may quit if trillion-dollar pay deal is rejected
Elon Musk could leave Tesla as CEO if his proposed $1 trillion pay package is not approved, Board Chair Robyn Denholm has warned. The appeal was sent in a letter to shareholders of the electric car company on Monday. It comes ahead of Tesla's November 6 annual meeting, when shareholders are expected to vote on the proposed pay package, the largest of its kind. The proposed performance-based plan was designed to retain and motivate Musk to continue leading Tesla for at least another seven and a half years, Denholm said in the letter. Musk's leadership is "critical" to Tesla's success, she said, and warned that without a plan that properly incentivises him, the company could lose his "time, talent and vision".
Half of all uncontacted Indigenous tribes may disappear by 2036
Survival International's new report illustrates the dangers they face--and their resilience. This photo of an Awa Guajรก couple was taken only five days before their first contact with outsiders in 1992. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Half of the world's remaining uncontacted Indigenous groups may disappear within a decade without concerted conservation efforts . The dire assessment is detailed in a new report published on October 27 by the nonprofit advocacy group Survival International, and is based on years of field research, interviews, and information gathering expeditions.
Europe lacks coordination as Russia 'prepares for war with NATO': Experts
Is Trump losing patience with Putin? Will sanctions against Russian oil giants hurt Putin? How much of Europe's oil still comes from Russia? Europe lacks coordination as Russia'prepares for war with NATO': Experts Europe is unprepared to counteract a new chapter of Russian military and intelligence activities in the Baltic and North Seas, experts have told Al Jazeera. At the same time, they said, a growing rift between European and United States intelligence services is leaving the continent unsupported.
Some People Can't See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound
Ebeyer published posts about famous people who had realized that they were aphantasic: Glen Keane, one of the leading Disney animators on "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast"; John Green, the author of "The Fault in Our Stars," whose books had sold more than fifty million copies; J. Craig Venter, the biologist who led the first team to sequence the human genome; Blake Ross, who co-created the Mozilla-Firefox web browser when he was nineteen. Ebeyer also wanted the Aphantasia Network to be a place where aphantasics could find recent scientific research. For instance, estimating the strength of a person's imagery had been thoroughly subjective until Joel Pearson, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, devised tests to measure it more precisely. In a paper from 2022, Pearson reported that when people with imagery visualized a bright object their pupils contracted, as though they were seeing a bright object in real life, but the pupils of aphantasics imagining a bright object stayed the same. Another study of his had shown that, although aphantasics had the same fear response (sweating) as typical imagers to a frightening image shown on a screen, when exposed to a frightening story they barely responded at all.
Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School's Promise. Then They Wanted Out
In Brownsville, Texas, some families found a buzzy new school's methods--surveillance of kids, software in lieu of teachers--to be an education in and of itself. At Alpha School's campus in Brownsville, Texas, a student works on exercises in a learning app. One day last fall, Kristine Barrios' 9-year-old daughter got stuck on a lesson in IXL, the personalized learning software that served as her math teacher. She had to multiply three three-digit numbers without using a calculator. Then she had to do it again, her mom says, more than 20 times, without making mistakes. At Alpha School, the private microschool the girl and her younger brother attended in Brownsville, Texas, she had been working a grade level ahead of her age in math, Barrios says. She could do three-digit multiplication correctly most of the time. But whenever she made an error in IXL, the software would determine she needed more practice and assign her more questions. She told her mom that she had asked her "guide," the adult who supervised her classroom in lieu of a teacher, to make an exception and let her move on. She said the guide's reply was that she needed to get it done, that it was expected of her. The adult guides in Alpha's classrooms "don't do any teaching," says the current head of the Brownsville school.