Augusteo.com Weekly Digest - Issue #17

More people were diagnosed with Covid-19 during the past seven days than any other week since the start of the pandemic – topping 5.2 million globally – with the worst outbreaks accelerating in many countries that are ill-equipped to deal with them.

A high daily dose of an omega-3 supplement may help slow the effects of aging by suppressing damage and boosting protection at the cellular level during and after a stressful event, new research suggests. Compared to the placebo group, participants taking omega-3 supplements produced less of the stress hormone cortisol and lower levels of a pro-inflammatory protein during a stressful event in the lab. And while levels of protective compounds sharply declined in the placebo group after the stressor, there were no such decreases detected in people taking omega-3s.

Children who were spanked exhibited greater activation in multiple regions of the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial PFC, bilateral frontal pole, and left middle frontal gyrus in response to fearful relative to neutral faces compared to children who were not spanked. These findings suggest that spanking may alter neural responses to environmental threats in a manner similar to more severe forms of maltreatment.

Explore the eye-opening science of LASIK: corrective laser eye surgery that focuses on reshaping the cornea to fix blurry vision. – In 1948, Spanish ophthalmologist Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner was fed up with glasses. He wanted a solution for blurry vision that fixed the eye itself, without relying on external aids. The surgery he eventually devised was called “keratomileusis,” and his technique focused on reshaping the cornea— what we now know as LASIK. So how does laser eye surgery actually work?

The research findings indicate that houses in flood zones in the United States are currently overvalued by a total of $43.8 billion (95% confidence interval: $32.6 to $55.6 billion) based on the information in publicly available flood hazard maps alone, raising concerns about the stability of real estate markets as climate risks become more salient and severe.

Informative report with lots of colorful charts. NFTs are the hot topic in town and have become the gateway drug to crypto. Cryptocurrency market capitalization reaches $2 trillion. Alternative Layer 1 tokens outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum – led by BNB. Bitcoin dominance continue to fall.

Of all the mysteries and injustices of the McDonald’s ice cream machine, the one that Jeremy O’Sullivan insists you understand first is its secret passcode. The food-equipment giant Taylor sells the McFlurry-squirting devices to McDonald’s restaurant owners for about $18,000 each, and yet it keeps the machines’ inner workings secret from them. What’s more, Taylor maintains a network of approved distributors that charge franchisees thousands of dollars a year for pricey maintenance contracts, with technicians on call to come and tap that secret passcode into the devices sitting on their counters.

On July 31 last year, three individuals were charged for their alleged roles in the July 15 Twitter hack. This article contains great visualization to show that Bitcoin is traceable. The authorities can trace coin flows through transactions even after using coin mixer/tumbler.

A new cryptocurrency called Chia could eliminate some of mining’s biggest problems, while creating a new one in the process. The likes of Bitcoin and Dogecoin use raw computational power to confirm transactions — a system known as a Proof of Work. These calculations are carried out by miners, who utilise the power of their GPUs and other hardware to earn rewards for verifying and securing the network in the process. In contrast, the Chia Network runs on Proof of Space and Time i.e. relies on using storage space (rather than processing power) to secure the network, rewarding users who give up their storage to Chia

SpaceX aims to take away the stigmas associated with satellite Internet by launching thousands of satellites into a much-closer (and thus lower-latency) Low Earth Orbit. It cost them $625 to get the necessary equipments. They are getting very respectable 106 Mbps down and 16.1 Mbps up.

Carbon Robotics has unveiled the third-generation of its Autonomous Weeder, a smart farming robot that identifies weeds and then destroys them with high-power lasers. As it drives itself down rows of crops, its 12 cameras scan the ground. An onboard computer, powered by AI, identifies weeds, and the robot’s carbon dioxide lasers then zap and kill the plants. 

The Autonomous Weeder can eliminate more than 100,000 weeds per hour and weed 15 to 20 acres of crops in one day — for comparison, a laborer can weed about one acre of his onions per day.

Every element the author used for the basic structure of a HTML document, with explanations why. Very basic stuff, but often overlooked. I certainly learned something.