In The News

CNBC: Technology and Globalization Are Eliminating the Middle Class

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. July 14, 2017
Advances in technology continue to reduce the need for many low-skilled positions in the United States, reported Federal Chair Janet Yellen to the House Financial Services Committee. She also targeted a limited form of globalization – outsourcing workplaces and jobs to other countries – for reinforcing the effects of automation along with retailers reducing jobs in response to greater demands by...

The Guardian: Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event Underway, Scientists Warn

Damian Carrington July 13, 2017
The world’s loss of biodiversity is not proceeding at a gradual pace. Instead, a “biological annihilation” of wildlife signals that a sixth mass extinction is more severe than previously assumed, explains Damian Carrington for the Guardian. The study led by Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,...

CSM: Tech Companies Caught Between US, EU Ideals

Amanda Paulson June 28, 2017
A recent cluster of terrorist attacks has prompted French and British politicians to introduce regulation imposing financial penalties on internet firms that do not sufficiently curtail the flow of extremist propaganda. As a result, YouTube, its parent company Google, and Facebook announced their own plans to preempt these laws that could negatively affect their financial bottom line as well as...

Wired: Inside Google’s Global Campaign to Shut Down Phishing

Lily Hay Newman June 23, 2017
Phishing schemes tempt users into clicking on problem websites or hand over passwords, and the setups are increasingly sophisticated and customized, designed to appear to come from friends, banks and other legitimate sources that might interest a particular user. Internet users can protect themselves by pausing before clicking, and companies like Google also set up war rooms to provide early...

BBC: Europol Says Cyber-Attack Was Unprecedented in Scale

May 14, 2017
Tens of thousands of computer systems in 99 nations were attacked with ransomware, including those of utilities, banks, universities, manufacturers, government agencies and Britain’s National Health Service. “Although the spread of the malware – known as WannaCry and variants of that name – appears to have slowed, the threat is not yet over,” reports BBC News. The program demanded a $300 payment...

Stratfor: Changing the Scientific Climate in the United States

April 26, 2017
Throughout history, experimentation and science have delivered comfort and prosperity – electricity, road and air transportation, cures for disease, satellites and weather forecasting, communication technologies and more. US scientists are alarmed by political leaders who reject policy recommendations based on evidence – notably the near unanimous agreement among climate scientists that reliance...

Wired: To Save Florida’s Oranges, Scientists Race to Weaponize a Virus

Megan Molteni April 19, 2017
A disease known as citrus greening, spread by the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and the psyllid as insect vector, has infected about 90 percent of Florida’s orange groves. Scientists try traditional breeding and genetic engineering methods as well as chemical and heat treatments to slow the disease's spread without luck. One citrus company “is developing something more like an...