https://www.technologyreview.com

23andMe Is Making Its First Foray into At-Home Research, to Study Pain - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607928/23andme-is-making-its-first-foray-into-at-home-research-to-study-p
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/ice.jpg?cx=0&cy=0&cw=1500&ch=843&sw=1200

Une expérience médicale menée at home par les usagers de 23andMe. Une certaine conception de la médecine, dont l’entreprise est familière.

“It was uncomfortable and slightly painful, but nothing like wearing wet gloves and shoveling snow for an hour at 10 below zero,” says Pardy, who lives in northwest Vermont. Most people can stand to keep their hands in near-freezing water for at least 100 seconds, according to 23andMe.

The experiment Pardy did is known as a cold pressor test, and it’s one of many used to gauge a person’s tolerance to pain. It’s part of a new study 23andMe announced earlier this month to study the genetic links of pain tolerance, and it represents the company’s first foray into at-home research.

23andMe has previously launched studies on medical conditions like depression, fertility problems, and irritable bowel disease, using surveys to ask participants about things like their health history, lifestyle, and diet (see “23andMe Pulls Off Massive Crowdsourced Depression Study”). The new study also includes two surveys about pain tolerance and pain history, but this is the first time the company has asked people to do an experiment on their own and report the results.

Carrie Northover, director of research services for 23andMe, says the goal of the study is to “understand genetic factors associated with experiencing pain and response to medications that help alleviate pain.” Previous research has suggested that multiple genetic factors are at play in chronic pain, and that certain groups of people report pain more often than others.

Ajay Wasan, vice chair for pain medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says the cold pressor test is only one way to measure pain. There are a range of other tests, including ones that measure a person’s tolerance to heat, pin pricks, and pressure.

“The problem is no one single experimental pain test maps really well to overall pain sensitivity and doesn’t have high correlation to someone’s clinical chronic pain or their response to treatment,” he says.

#médecine #génétique #23andMe #génomique

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017 - MIT Technology Review
►https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2017
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/coverartsocialthumb_1.png?sw=1200

These technologies all have staying power. They will affect the economy and our politics, improve medicine, or influence our culture. Some are unfolding now; others will take a decade or more to develop. But you should know about all of them right now.

#futurologie

Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future - Wait But Why
▻http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html

http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Communications-hacks-timeline.png

#posthumanité

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2016 : Precise Gene Editing in Plants - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600765/10-breakthrough-technologies-2016-precise-gene-editing-in-plants
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/ma16-10plantsx2760.jpg?cx=1&cy=1193&cw=2147&ch=1207&sw=12

CRISPR offers an easy, exact way to alter genes to create traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance.

Availability: 5-10 years

#CRISPR #alimentation #Hubris_scientifique

Intel’s $15 Billion Mobileye Buyout Puts It in the Autonomous Car Driver’s Seat - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603850/intels-15-billion-mobileye-buyout-puts-it-in-the-autonomous-car-drivers-seat/?set=603851
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/mobileye.jpg?cx=196&cy=53&cw=1600&ch=900&sw=1200

Many car manufacturers already use Mobileye’s hardware to power their autonomous systems, giving the company a position of power throughout the industry. Intel will now hope to combine that with its own chip-making chops to capture a sizable chunk of the autonomous car market just as it takes off. If it can do that, it will become a formidable competitor to chip makers like Nvidia and Qualcomm, who are already in the robotic car space.

#automobile #économie_numérique

Monde moderne.
►https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2017
#technologies #futur #quantique

Facebook at a Crossroads
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603198/facebook-at-a-crossroads
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/fbfakenewsv1-01.jpg?cx=0&cy=0&cw=2000&ch=1125&sw=1200

In a video this week in which he reflected on 2016, Zuckerberg seemed to acknowledge for the first time that Facebook has similar responsibilities to a traditional media company. Such talk may pacify some critics but also motivate others by making it seem fair to hold the company responsible for how information spread on its platforms affects the world.

Concerns about Facebook’s power don’t seem to have scared off advertisers, but they will surely dog any future moves to expand its businesses. (The company’s plans to launch in China will be particularly fraught; see “Mark Zuckerberg’s Long March to China.”)

In 2017, Zuckerberg will have to manage the awkward adolescence of his existing business and try to show real progress on his aspirations for one day doing something larger.

#Facebook

The Internet Is Sick
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603392/mozilla
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/screen-shot-2017-01-19-at-1.46.31-pm.png?cx=116&cy=0&cw=7

Although Mozilla’s diagnosis also describes positives—such as the fact that nearly half of humanity is now online—Surman hopes to convince the public to think about the Internet like other endangered public resources. “Like the environment, the Internet is something all of us live in and are surrounded by and rely upon,” he says.

One thing Surman hopes to get is data about who benefits most from the online advertising that supports so many sites and online services. “Does advertising democratize or open up more diversity in publishing on the Internet, or does it reward well established large players?” he says.

But she also argues that Mozilla’s analysis sometimes falls into the common trap of comparing today’s Internet against the notional electronic Eden of the Web’s early days.

For example, Surman describes today’s mobile app stores and giant social networks as gatekeepers preventing the kind of freewheeling competition that was possible when the Web first got going. Biddle argues those gatekeepers have also helped get millions of people online by providing easy-to-use, safe spaces for people to communicate and explore. “I agree with many of the concerns about the walled gardens of Facebook and the like, but it’s more complicated than that,” says Biddle.

First Gene Drive in Mammals Could Aid Vast New Zealand Eradication Plan
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603533/first-gene-drive-in-mammals-could-aid-vast-new-zealand-eradication
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/glowingmousea1.jpg?cx=0&cy=359&cw=1700&ch=956&sw=1200

The group’s plans have divided ecologists, however, some of whom see a devil’s bargain in the dizzying new power to modify nature. “Conservation means caring for the natural world, not reëngineering it,” says Claire Hope Cummings, an environmental lawyer who says she dropped her support for Island Conservation over its gene-drive work.

#manipulations_génétiques #gènes

3-D-Printed Skin Leads the Way Toward Artificial Organs
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603511/3-d-printed-skin-leads-the-way-toward-artificial-organs/?set=603514

Researchers claim that additive manufacturing can now produce functional skin, and the first internal organs may be ready within six years.

#biotechnologies

One Man’s Quest to Hack His Own Genes
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603217/one-mans-quest-to-hack-his-own-genes
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/mit-comic2.jpg?cx=0&cy=0&cw=2000&ch=1125&sw=1200

When Brian Hanley set out to test a gene therapy, he started with himself.

#médecine #ADN #recherche #transhumanisme

Nearly Half of U.S. Jobs Are Vulnerable to Computerization
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computeri

“Rapid advances in technology have long represented a serious potential threat to many jobs ordinarily performed by people. A recent report (which is not online, but summarized here) from the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology attempts to quantify the extent of that threat. It concludes that 45 percent of American jobs are at high risk of being taken by computers within the next two decades.”

#computerization_job_work_computer_human

Questionable “Young Blood” Transfusions Offered in U.S. as Anti-Aging Remedy
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603242/questionable-young-blood-transfusions-offered-in-us-as-anti-aging-
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/mityoungblood-2.jpg?cx=0&cy=0&cw=1500&ch=843&sw=1200

Questionable “Young Blood” Transfusions Offered in U.S. as Anti-Aging Remedy

A startup called Ambrosia will fill your veins with the blood of young people and empty your pockets of $8,000.

Deep-Learning Machine Listens to Bach, Then Writes Its Own Music in the Same Style
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603137/deep-learning-machine-listens-to-bach-then-writes-its-own-music-in
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiBM7-5hA6o

The #machine-learning technique is straightforward. Hadjeres and Pachet begin by creating a data set to train their #neural_network. They begin with 352 chorales composed by #Bach and then transpose these to other keys that lie within a predefined vocal range, to give a data set of 2,503 chorales. They use 80 percent of these to train their neural network to recognize Bach harmonies and the rest to validate it.

#Biomedicine
Deaths in Immune-Therapy Trials Haunt the Experimental Cancer Treatment
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603005/deaths-in-immune-therapy-trials-haunt-the-experimental-cancer-trea

Companies are racing to develop a new class of #cancer drugs, but scientists are still assessing their safety.

#santé #immuno-thérapie

Massive Internet Outage Could Be a Sign of Things to Come
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602709/massive-internet-outage-could-be-a-sign-of-things-to-come

Schneier pointed out last month that a new wave of attacks also seems to be more investigative than previous DDoS assaults. Many of the attacks appear to be testing servers rather than taking them offline, by gradually increasing barrages of requests at one part of the server to see what it can withstand, then moving on to another, and another. Schneier warned that “someone is learning how to take down the Internet.”

Fail-Safe Nuclear Power
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602051/fail-safe-nuclear-power
▻https://d267cvn3rvuq91.cloudfront.net/i/images/moltensalt.1x2760.jpg?cx=0&cy=147&cw=1996&ch=1122&sw=1200

Over the next two decades China hopes to build the world’s largest nuclear power industry. Plans include as many as 30 new conventional nuclear plants (in addition to the 34 reactors operating today) as well as a variety of next-generation reactors, including thorium molten-salt reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (which, like molten-salt reactors, are both highly efficient and inherently safe), and sodium-cooled fast reactors (which can consume spent fuel from conventional reactors to make electricity). Chinese planners want not only to dramatically expand the country’s domestic nuclear capacity but also to become the world’s leading supplier of nuclear reactors and components

►https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9acteur_nucl%C3%A9aire_%C3%A0_sels_fondus

#nucléaire #chine #thorium #recherche #sels_fondus

Data Mining Reveals the Six Basic Emotional Arcs of Storytelling

Scientists at the Computational Story Laboratory have analyzed novels to identify the building blocks of all stories.

▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601848/data-mining-reveals-the-six-basic-emotional-arcs-of-storytelling

cf ▻http://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.07772v2.pdf

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm04wlAXYAA4NIf.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm04xd2WYAAsQ01.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm04x-6WgAAQnJ2.jpg

Basic Income: A Sellout of the American Dream
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-sellout-of-the-american-dream

Schemes for giving everyone a guaranteed income are gaining momentum in #Silicon_Valley and throughout Western Europe. It’s a great idea, until you look closely.

[..]

... there’s little convincing evidence that large-scale technological unemployment is actually happening or will happen in the immediate future. Advances are changing the types of tasks and skills in demand, displacing many workers from jobs that have become obsolete. But the massive, automation-fueled job displacement cited as the prime justification for a basic income won’t actually reach us for decades, assuming it does come. [...]

Proponents say a basic income is a way to liberate those who have struggled to find acceptable work: currently 7.4 million people are unemployed in the United States, another six million want full-time work but can only find part-time jobs, millions more have given up looking, and perhaps tens of millions have settled for jobs with low wages, skimpy benefits, or poor working conditions. But it can also be argued that the idea is a way of buying these people off, making it easier to avoid developing the education and training programs that would actually help alleviate income inequality and reverse wage stagnation. Could it just be a way to give up on providing the wide access to decent jobs that has long been considered an essential element of a healthy society? Or, to put it more bluntly: at a time when the tech economy is generating huge amounts of wealth, is Silicon Valley just attempting to appease those left behind?

#revenu_universel

$80 Million Hack Shows the Dangers of Programmable Money
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601724/80-million-hack-shows-the-dangers-of-programmable-money

A huge digital heist is a reminder that when your code has direct control of millions of dollars of assets, it had better be free of errors.

[...]

All software comes with bugs. And money is sometimes stolen via digital means from conventional financial institutions, for example in the recent attacks on the SWIFT system used for cross-border transfers.

But when software is empowered to directly control funds, as Ethereum was designed to allow, security becomes more critical.

Unfortunately, the designers of Ethereum and the DAO don’t appear to have drawn much on standard techniques that programmers and computer scientists have developed to contain the risk of security flaws. The DAO’s code wasn’t accompanied with documentation explaining the design of its various pieces, for example. That could have helped someone spot and fix the flaw used in the DAO heist sooner, perhaps before it was released.

[...]

There were many warnings that Ethereum’s design had security problems before today’s hack. The flaw used against the DAO was flagged earlier this month by Peter Vessenes, a Bitcoin entrepreneur who had previously cautioned that software built on Ethereum would be “candy for hackers.”

In a 2014 paper, researchers at University of Maryland who had asked students to build things with Ethereum concluded that “several subtle details about Ethereum’s implementation make smart contract programming prone to error.”

And in May, Sirer and two people active in the cryptocurrency community, including a researcher with the Ethereum project, called for the DAO to be effectively frozen until security flaws in its voting mechanisms were fixed.

[...]

A real fix for Ethereum’s problems will take a long time, and perhaps a complete redesign of much of its technology.

Cinglant article de la MIT Technology Review.

#Bug_(informatique) #Decentralized_autonomous_organization #Ethereum #Faille_informatique #Piratage_informatique #The_DAO_(organization)