Harmful

Move over, TikTok, Ofcom, the U.K. regulator enforcing the now official Online Safety Act, is gearing up to size up an even bigger target: search engines like Google and Bing and the role that they play in presenting self-injury, suicide and other harmful content at the click of a button, particularly to underage users. A report commissioned by Ofcom and produced by the Network Contagion Research Institute found that major search engines, including Google, Microsoft’s Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and AOL become “one-click…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The images used by charities and NGOs can become deeply ingrained in the memories of supporters, donors, development partners and the "beneficiaries" themselves. These stories color what is generally known about global poverty and the developing world. One of the most notorious examples was the media and charity…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain While there has been much public scrutiny and research on police interactions and violence towards sexual minorities in the United States, there is a gap in the current literature on how sexual minorities fare with law enforcement contact in Canada. A new study published in the Annals of Epidemiology aims to fill this…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain An analysis of data from 42 police forces across England and Wales has found that over half of the 106,984 child sexual abuse cases in 2022 involved reported offenses by young people aged between ten and 17. This is a rise of 7.6% from 2021. The report, published by the National Policing Vulnerability Knowledge and…

The average litre of bottled water has nearly a quarter million pieces of ever-so-tiny nanoplastics, detected and categorized for the first time by a microscope using dual lasers.Scientists long figured there were lots of these microscopic plastic pieces, but until researchers at Columbia and Rutgers universities did their calculations they never knew how many or what kind.Looking at five samples each of three common bottled water brands, researchers found particle levels ranged from 110,000 to 400,000 per litre,…

A new compound, discovered through extensive screening of 27 million potential drugs, has shown efficacy in reversing chronic pain in animal studies, with minimal side effects. This research represents a significant advancement in pain management. The compound, CBD3063, targets the Cav2.2 calcium channel in a novel way and has outperformed existing drugs like gabapentin. Ongoing research aims to refine this compound and bring it to clinical trials as a safer, more effective pain relief medication.Researchers have…

Too Long; Didn't ReadOpenAI introduces a safety-oriented "Preparedness Framework," empowering the board with veto power. Meanwhile, Apple navigates a potential sales halt for Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches due to a patent dispute with Masimo, prompting the tech giant to work on preemptive measures. Too Long; Didn't ReadOpenAI introduces a safety-oriented "Preparedness Framework," empowering the board with veto power. Meanwhile, Apple navigates a potential sales halt for Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches due to a…

There are differing opinions on cats' personalities and behaviour: They're affectionate, they're aloof, they love you, they hate you.Then there's the undeniable fact of what they become when left to roam free outside: indiscriminate, stone-cold killers.A new study has found cats roaming free prey upon almost any animal, reptile, insect, and amphibian around the world – their hunting so prolific and so successful, the authors found, that it poses a legitimate threat to global biodiversity."What's shocking is just the…

A study on nematodes shows that smell aversion triggers a response that could extend their lifespan and offers insights into potential treatments for human neurodegenerative diseases. Credit: SciTechDaily In a study involving nematode worms, scientists found that when these worms were exposed to a specific compound released by harmful bacteria, it triggered the activation of a neural pathway. This activation led to an increase in the lifespan of the worms and a reduction in protein aggregation, which is known to be a…

Employee violations of an organisation's information security policies are as dangerous as external hacker attacks, a report warned on Friday.In terms of individual employee behaviour, the most common problem is that employees deliberately do what is forbidden and, conversely, they fail to perform what's required.Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill CoursesOffering CollegeCourseWebsiteMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIIT DelhiIITD Certificate Programme in Data Science & Machine…