[lush]

This New AI Voice Scam Could Fool Anyone—Here’s How to Beat It
083123*


LUCKYSTEP / Getty Images

Criminals are using artificial intelligence technology in a scary new AI scam, but knowing the red flags can help you avoid becoming their next victim

Picture this: You answer a phone call one day and hear a voice that sounds like your child. They tell you that they have been kidnapped and need cash for a ransom right away. You scramble to help—only to realize that the voice on the other end of the line isn’t your child but rather part of a sophisticated, terrifying new AI scam phone call.

That’s what happened to Arizona mother Jennifer DeStefano, who recently testified about her experience to the Senate. And unfortunately, her story is all too common. As artificial intelligence (AI) technology becomes cheaper and more accessible, criminals are frequently using it to impersonate the voices of our friends and loved ones to trick us into sending them money. In fact, imposter scams like these have stolen up to $2.6 billion from Americans in the past year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The good news? You can beat scammers at their own game. We spoke with cybersecurity experts to learn how these AI scam calls work, why they’re so hard to spot, how to avoid them, what to do if you become a target, the future of AI scams and more.

What is the new AI scam?
A clever scammer with a good AI program doesn’t need much more than a few-second recording of a loved one’s voice to be able to clone the person’s voice and apply their own script. From there, they can play the audio over the phone to convince their victims that someone they love is in a desperate situation and needs money immediately.

These aren’t your typical four-word phone scams or Google Voice scams. They’re even more advanced.

In one of the most common examples, parents or grandparents receive a call from their children or grandchildren claiming they need money for ransom or bail, like the AI kidnapping scam DeStefano encountered. “We have seen parents targeted and extorted for money out of fear that their child is in danger,” says Nico Dekens, director of intelligence and collection innovation at ShadowDragon.

Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, says that the center also receives reports of AI scam calls that convince victims their relative needs money to pay for damages from a car accident or other incident. Other scams include using a manager or executive’s voice in a voicemail instructing someone to pay a fake invoice, as well as calls that sound like law enforcement or government officials demanding the targeted individual share sensitive information over the phone.

How does this AI scam work?
It may take a few steps to pull together an AI scam, but the tech speeds up the process to such an extent that these cons are worryingly easy to produce compared with voice scams of the past. In a nutshell, this fraud follows the steps below.

Step 1: Collect the recording
To carry out an AI scam call, criminals first must find a five- to ten-second audio recording of a loved one’s voice, such as a clip from YouTube or a post on Facebook or Instagram. Then they feed it to an artificial intelligence tool that learns the person’s voice patterns, pitch and tone—and, crucially, simulates their voice.

These tools are widely available and cheap or even free to use, which makes them even more dangerous, according to experts. For example, generative AI models like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s VALL-E need to listen to only three seconds of an audio “training” clip of someone speaking to create a replica of their voice. “As you can imagine, this gives a new superpower to scammers, and they started to take advantage of that,” says Aleksander Madry, a researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Step 2: Feed the AI a script
Once the AI software learns the person’s voice, con artists can tell it to create an audio file of that cloned voice saying anything they want. Their next step is to call you and play the AI-generated clip (also called a deepfake). The calls might use a local area code to convince you to answer the phone, but don’t be fooled. Remember, the bad guys are capable of spoofing their phone numbers. Many phone-based fraud scams originate from countries with large call-center operations, like India, the Philippines or even Russia, according to Velasquez.

Step 3: Set the trap
The scammer will tell you that your loved one is in danger and that you must send money immediately in an untraceable way, such as with cash, via a wire transfer or using gift cards. Although this is a telltale sign of wire fraud or a gift card scam, most victims will panic and agree to send the money. “The nature of these scams plays off of fear, so in the moment of panic these scams create for their victims, it is also emotional and challenging to take the extra moment to consider that it might not be real,” Dekens says.

Scammers are also relying on the element of surprise, according to Karim Hijazi, the managing director of SCP & CO, a private investment firm focused on emerging technology platforms. “The scammers rely on an adequate level of surprise in order to catch the called target off guard,” he says. “Presently, this tactic is not well known, so most people are easily tricked into believing they are indeed speaking to their loved one, boss, co-worker or law enforcement professional.”

How has AI made scams easier to run—and harder to spot?
Imposter scams have been around for years, but artificial intelligence has made them more sophisticated and convincing. “AI did not change much in terms of why people do scams—it just provided a new avenue to execute them,” Madry says. “Be it blackmail, scam or misinformation or disinformation, all now can be much cheaper to execute and more persuasive.”

While AI has been around for decades for both criminal and everyday use—think: AI password cracking and AI assistants like Alexa and Siri—it was expensive and required a massive amount of computing power to run. As a result, shady characters needed a lot of time and expertise with specialized software to impersonate someone’s voice using AI.

“Now, all of this is available for anyone who just spends some time watching tutorials on YouTube or reading how-to docs and is willing to tinker a bit with the AI systems they can download from the internet,” says Madry.

On top of that, Velasquez notes that previous imposter phone scams used to blame a poor connection or bad accident to explain why their voice sounded different. But today’s technology “has become so good that it is almost impossible for the human ear to be able to tell that the voice on the other end of the phone is not the person it purports to be,” says Alex Hamerstone, a director with the security-consulting firm TrustedSec.


WWWEBMEISTER / Getty Images

How can you avoid AI scams?
They may be quicker to create than past imposter scams, but AI scam calls are still labor-intensive for criminals, so your odds of being targeted are low, according to Velasquez. Most con artists want to use attacks that they can automate and repeat over and over again, and “you can’t do that with voice clones because it requires the victim to know and recognize a voice, not just some random voice,” she says.

The problem is that these attacks will continue to increase as the technology improves, making it easier to locate targets and clone voices. And there’s another reason now is the best time for criminals to run these cons: “As these kinds of capabilities are new to our society, we have not yet developed the right instincts and precautions to not fully trust what is being said via phone, [especially] if we are convinced that this is a voice of a person we trust,” Madry says.

That’s why it’s important to take proper precautions to boost your online security and avoid being targeted in the first place. Here are a few suggestions from the experts:

Make your social media accounts private
Before sharing audio and video clips of yourself on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or other social media accounts, Velasquez recommends limiting your privacy settings (including who can see your posts) to people you know and trust. Users who keep their posts open to everyone should review and remove audio and video recordings of themselves and loved ones from social media platforms to thwart scammers who may seek to capture their voices, she says.

Use multifactor authentication
Setting up multifactor authentication for your online accounts can also make it more difficult for fraudsters to access them. This system requires you to enter a combination of credentials that verifies your identity—such as a single-use, time-sensitive code you receive on your phone via text—in addition to a username and password to log in to your account.

If you use biometric tools for verification, opt for ones that use your face or fingerprint rather than your voice to avoid providing criminals with the resources to create a deepfake.

Assign a secret phrase
Hijazi suggests coming up with a secret phrase or password that you can exchange with your loved one ahead of time. That way, if you receive a call alleging that they have been kidnapped or need money right away, you can authenticate that you are indeed speaking to the real person. “This does take some advance planning, but it’s a free and effective proactive measure,” he says.

Erase your digital footprint
Last, you can avoid being targeted by these scams to begin with by disappearing from the internet, as best as anyone is able to these days. Scammers often rely on the trail of breadcrumbs you leave about yourself online, from your pet’s name to your high school mascot, to learn about your life and build a scam around it.

“There are vast amounts of information freely and publicly available about almost every one of us,” Hamerstone says. “It is very simple to find out people’s family members, associations and employers, and these are all things that a scammer can use to create a convincing scam.”

The solution is simple, according to Hamerstone. “Limiting the amount of information we share about ourselves publicly is one of the few ways that we can lower the risk of these types of scams,” he says.
Online tools like DeleteMe can automatically remove your name, address and other personal details from data brokers, which will make it more difficult for scammers to target you. Google is even working on a new Results About You tool that’ll alert you when your personal info appears in its search results and will make it easy to request their removal.

What should you do if you receive an AI scam call?
Received a suspicious phone call? If you are on the phone with a loved one who is demanding money, don’t panic. “It can be scary and disturbing to hear a loved one in distress, but the most important thing to remember is not to overreact,” Velasquez says.

Instead, experts recommend taking these steps before agreeing to send money to someone over the phone:

• 1. Call your loved one directly using a trusted phone number.
• 2. If you can’t reach them, try to contact them through a family member, friend or colleague.
• 3. Ask the caller to verify a detail that only they would know, such as the secret phrase mentioned above.
• 4. Alert law enforcement. They can help you verify whether the call you received is legitimate or a scam, Dekens says.
• 5. Listen for any audio abnormalities, such as unusual voice modulation or synthetic-sounding voices, to identify a scammer. “Deepfake audio can lack natural intonation or exhibit glitches, like sounding angry or sad,” Dekens says. Hijazi also points out that this technology is not “conversational” yet and will likely fail to keep up if you keep asking questions.
• 6. If you determine that the call is a scam, write down or screenshot the phone number that called you.
• 7. Block the number on your phone and place them on your do-not-call list to avoid receiving a call from them again.
• 8. Dekens suggests putting the scam caller on speaker on your phone and recording the audio with a secondary phone. “It is a good way to preserve evidence,” he says.
• 9. Report the call to your mobile phone carrier so the company can take appropriate action.

While AI scams are becoming more common, today’s AI technology isn’t always a bad thing. These funny AI mistakes and future robots that use AI show the positive (and silly) side of these tools.

Dubai Company Buys Used Cooking Oil to Turn Into Biofuel for Cars Citywide to Reduce CO2 Emissions




Used cooking oil collection truck and one of the biofuel production plants – Credit: Lootah Biofuels

A Dubai-based company Lootah Biofuels is producing biodiesel from used cooking oil bringing sustainable transportation options to a major oil-producing country.

The result is a fuel that is less expensive, renewable, and clean.

The United Arab Emirates company now boasts having their own fuel outlets across the city of Dubai, delivering 60 million liters annually.

It is the brainchild of Yousif Bin Saeed Al Lootah, who wants the UAE to be the first nation in the region to mandate that biofuels blends be featured alongside other fuel in all public stations.

They pay for the used cooking oil collected, thus giving an incentive to providers like restaurants, bakeries, and food chains, which provide 500,000 liters of waste oil every month.

The company says it converted the waste oil into 770 tons of biofuel last year.

The Lootah Biofuels website reports that used cooking oil has the highest carbon saving ratio amongst all the available biodiesel feedstock—and calculates their product has caused the reduction of 500 million tons of CO2, so far.

[Misstee]

Research uncovers a rare resin fossil find: A
spider that aspires to be an ant
March 22 2024





That's why, paleobiologist George Poinar Jr. explains, some spider
species have developed the defense of deception. They masquerade as a
much less desirable prey—ants—and Poinar's recent paper in Historical
Biology presents an early record of an ant-mimicking spider in fossilized
resin.
"Ants are particularly good creatures for spiders to pretend to be—many
animals find ants distasteful or dangerous to eat," said Poinar, who has a
courtesy appointment in the Oregon State University College of Science.
"Ants are aggressive in their own defense—they have a strong bite as
well as a stinging venom, and they can call in dozens of nestmates as
allies. Spiders, meanwhile, have no chemical defenses and are loners,
which makes them vulnerable to being hunted by larger spiders, wasps
and birds—predators that would rather avoid ants. So if a spider can be
like an ant, it's more likely to be unbothered."

Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the
globe but until now most have been able to avoid detection from fossil
researchers as well as predators. The specimen that Poinar describes,
which he named Myrmarachne colombiana, was entombed in a type of
fossilized resin known as copal.
Copal is a less mature form of fossilized resin than amber, which is
routinely dated to be 25 million or more years old. Still, copal can be up
to 3 million years old.
The age of the resin in this case, however, could not be determined, said
Poinar, an international expert in using plant and animal life forms
preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant
past.
The resin block he was working with, which came from Medellin,
Colombia, was too small to age-test without risk of damaging the spider
inside. Poinar notes there is no record of any currently living antmimicking
spider making its home in Colombia.
"It is a challenge for spiders to accomplish this magical transformation to
ants," he said. "Ants have six legs and two long antennae, while spiders
have eight legs and no antennae."
To get around those anatomical differences, Poinar said, spiders
typically position their two front legs in a way that approximates the look
of antennae. But number of legs and absence/presence of antennae are
not the only characteristics differentiating an ant's appearance from a
spider's.
"The abdomen and cephalothorax of spiders are closely attached, while
in ants the equivalent of these body parts are separated by a narrow
segment called the petiole," Poinar said. "And there are many other
lesser structures that need to be modified in spiders for them to closely
resemble ants. How is this accomplished? Most scientists say it begins
with spider mutation, adaptation and then natural selection.

"However, I think there is some spider reasoning and intelligence
involved too since the spiders often model their body changes after
specific ants in the same environment," he said. "In the early days, we
were told that all habits of insects were the result of instincts, but that is
no longer the case."
Several groups of spiders have developed the ability to look and behave
like various types of ants, he added. There are also spiders that try to
blend in as other insects, such as flies, beetles and wasps.
Most of the copycat spiders belong to a few families of hunting spiders,
including Salticidae or jumping spiders. The specimen in the Colombian
copal appears to be a jumping spider.

Spiders that practice mimicry also come from the Corinnidae (sun
spider), Thomisidae (flower spider) and Zodariidae (spotted or ant
spider) families.

NASA’s x-ray telescope faces a long goodbye

Layoffs loom as budget slashed for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory


Chandra has been the sharpest eyed x-ray telescope in orbit for nearly 25 years.NASA

The end is nigh for NASA’s nearly 25-year-old Chandra X-ray Observatory. Funding for the space telescope was slashed last week in President Joe Biden’s budget request, which calls for winding the mission down over several years.

Astronomers are up in arms over the announcement. They argue that the telescope is as productive as ever and remains a cornerstone of U.S. high-energy astrophysics. Its loss would be an “extinction-level event” for x-ray astronomy in the United States, according to a “SaveChandra” website set up to lobby for the mission.

“I’m horrified by the prospect of Chandra being shut down prematurely,” says x-ray astronomer Andrew Fabian of the University of Cambridge, who has been involved with the observatory from before its launch in 1999. “If you start doing deep cuts so abruptly you will lose a whole generation” of x-ray astronomers, says Elisa Costantini of the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, who has worked with Chandra data since its launch. It will leave “a hole in our knowledge” of high-energy astrophysics, she says.

The president’s request for fiscal year 2025 asks for $1.58 billion for NASA’s astrophysics division, a 3% rise over Congress’s FY2024 appropriations. But NASA is nevertheless seeking a small cut to the operating budget of the Hubble Space Telescope—and a substantial one for Chandra. The x-ray mission received $68.3 million in FY2023. That would drop to $41.1 million in FY2025 and $26.6 million the following year. By 2029 the mission would only receive $5 million.

Come October, the drop in funding will likely lead to layoffs for half of Chandra’s 180-person staff, according to the SaveChandra website. The grants that come with observing time will also soon cease. “Chandra has always been one of the largest sources of funding for x-ray people, who must support their own salaries and the salaries of students through grants,” Fabian says.

X-rays reveal what is happening in the universe’s hottest and most violent locations: the swirling gases around supermassive black holes, the blast debris flung out from supernovae explosions, and the
superheated gases inside gigantic galaxy clusters. Those high energy photons can’t penetrate Earth’s atmosphere so space telescopes are necessary. Since 1999, Chandra and its European counterpart XMM-Newton have been the backbone of x-ray astronomy. Chandra has the sharpest resolution of any x-ray telescope yet launched and can produce images and spectra that rival those of optical telescopes.

Chandra, which is named after Indian American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who first determined the mass of white dwarf stars, was the first telescope to see x-ray emission from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It was the first to spot shock waves from the nearby supernova 1987A. It and another telescope figured out that gamma ray bursts come from star-forming regions in distant galaxies. And Chandra was the first to find evidence for an exoplanet in another galaxy.

Originally planned as a 5-year mission, Chandra’s filters and thermal protection have, as expected, degraded over the years. Nevertheless, supporters argue it is as productive as ever. Its data consistently produce about 400 published papers per year and five times as many astronomers apply for time on the telescope than can be accommodated. In a statement, Patrick Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center, disputes the assertion in the budget request that managing the aging spacecraft is becoming unaffordable. Staff have adapted to its temperature control issues “with amazing success—experiencing little or no decrease in observing efficiency, which far exceeds the initial requirements for the mission,” he says.

Chandra has enough propellant to operate its thrusters for another decade and astronomers say its observations are becoming ever more valuable as new instruments, working in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, make discoveries for Chandra to follow up. They are also concerned that there are no x-ray missions on the horizon with similar abilities. Europe’s NewAthena isn’t due to launch until the second half of the next decade. Although NASA has a proposal for a flagship mission, called Lynx, and smaller probe-class missions called AXIS and LEM in contention, nothing has been approved for construction.

It will be “damaging to the x-ray community if NASA turned Chandra off prematurely without any plans for its replacement,” says Esra Bulbul of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.

The president’s request is, however, just the opening salvo in the U.S. budget process that ends in congressional appropriations. Astronomers have in the past saved threatened missions with passionate campaigns of support. SaveChandra calls on astronomers and the public to do just that, by emailing or calling their representatives in Congress.

“SaveChandra”

[Zbignieww]

The Longest Word In English? It'll Take You Hours To Read
We hope you don't have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (a fear of long words).



You may have heard people claim the longest word in the English language is “antidisestablishmentarianism,” a dusty old term that's defined as the “opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church.” With 28 letters and 12 syllables, it is certainly a mouthful, but it isn’t necessarily the lengthiest. Bury your head deep into the murky corners of the complete English lexicon and you’ll find that much longer words exist.

The word that takes three hours to say
Some people contend that the longest word in English has 189,819 letters, starting with “methionyl…” and ends with “...isoleucine.” As tempting as it is, we won’t be typing the word out in the full as it will take hours upon hours.

In 2017, YouTube behemoth MrBeast posted a video in which he mumbles through the entirety of the word and he clocked in just under 2 hours. Other attempts have reportedly taken up to 3 hours.

The word is the full chemical name of Titin, the largest known protein that’s made up of over 34,000 amino acids. It’s so unbelievably long because it’s essentially listing all the amino acids in the chain that form the protein.

However, it might not be strictly accurate to call this a “word”. You won’t find it in any dictionary as most lexicographers believe such names are “verbal formulae” as opposed to actual words.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
If you want a less controversial contender, “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” is said to be the longest word currently listed in Oxford dictionaries. This is a 45-letter word that refers to a lung disease caused by inhaling tiny silica particles from a volcanic eruption.

Once again, some purists may take issue with the inclusion of this word as it’s a technical term that's not used in day-to-day communication.

Furthermore, some argue that the word is contrived – that is to say, the people who created the word intentionally made it ridiculously long to break records. Indeed, it wasn’t organically coined by a doctor or scientist, but forced into the English language in the 1930s by Everett M Smith, the former president of the National Puzzlers' League.

The world’s longest word
Beyond English, many other languages host stupendously extended words.

German is well-known for its compound words where numerous words are stuck together like Lego bricks. With 63 letters, Germany’s longest was “Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz”, which described a law developed in 1999 during the BSE crisis to regulate beef labeling in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

By 2013, however, the BSE problem was largely controlled and the law was repealed, consigning the word to the dustbin of history. Today, the longest word you’ll find in a German dictionary is “Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung”, which has something to do with car insurance.

According to the Guinness World Records, the longest word in the world features 195 Sanskrit characters, transliterating to 428 letters in the Latin alphabet. Used to describe the Tamil Nadu region of India, it goes something like this: निरन्तरान्धकारित-दिगन्तर-कन्दलदमन्द-सुधारस-बिन्दु-सान्द्रतर-घनाघन-वृन्द-सन्देहकर-स्यन्दमान-मकरन्द-बिन्दु-बन्धुरतर-माकन्द-तरु-कुल-तल्प-कल्प-मृदुल-सिकता-जाल-जटिल-मूल-तल-मरुवक-मिलदलघु-लघु-लय-कलित-रमणीय-पानीय-शालिका-बालिका-करार-विन्द-गलन्तिका-गलदेला-लवङ्ग-पाटल-घनसार-कस्तूरिकातिसौरभ-मेदुर-लघुतर-मधुर-शीतलतर-सलिलधारा-निराकरिष्णु-तदीय-विमल-विलोचन-मयूख-रेखापसारित-पिपासायास-पथिक-लोकान्

https://www.iflscience.com/the-longest- ... read-73498

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
SUNDAY MARCH 24
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[ozswede]

Puppy dog eyes DO exist! Dogs are seen as more friendly and less threatening if they have dark eyes, study finds

Try as you might, it can seem almost impossible to say no to your puppy when they gaze at you imploringly with their big, brown eyes.

Now, a study has found that dogs with darker-coloured eyes are perceived as friendlier and less threatening.

And experts say that humans may have driven their popularity.

All modern dogs are descendants of wolves and became 'man's best friend' through over thousands of years of domestication.

The most common eye colour for wolves is yellow, and scientists wanted to figure out if humans may have had an influence on their descendants' eye colour today.


Experts have found that dogs with darker-coloured eyes are perceived as friendlier

The team, from Teiko University of Science in Japan, collected 22 images of grey wolves and 81 pictures of domestic dogs from 35 different breeds.

They found that the irises of dogs were much darker compared to those of wolves – and were more likely to be brown compared to yellow.

They then collected 12 images of dogs including Labrador Retrievers, Vizslas and Welsh Corgis, and 'recoloured' their eyes to either be dark or yellow.

When they asked 76 participants to rate the photos, they found that dogs with darker eyes were seen as friendlier and less threatening than the same dogs with lighter-coloured eyes.

Researcher Dr Akitsugu Konno said: 'We speculate that a darker iris makes it more difficult to distinguish the size of the pupil and thus gives the illusion of a large pupil, which is associated with our perception of being more infant-like.


The researchers collected 12 images of dogs and 'recoloured' their eyes to either be dark or yellow

'Human studies demonstrate that humans evaluate those with dilating pupils as more friendly, attractive and trustworthy.'

The researchers said darker eyes may elicit a 'caregiving' response from humans, which drove the evolution of this trait in domesticated dogs.

Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, they added: 'In conclusion, our results suggest that the iris colour of dogs is darker than that of wolves, and that dark eyes of dogs positively affect human perception toward dogs.

'Dogs with dark eyes may have evolved by acquiring a facial trait that sends a non-threatening gaze signal to humans.'

A genetic analysis of the world's oldest known dog remains revealed that dogs were domesticated in a single event by humans living in Eurasia, around 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

Dr Krishna Veeramah, an assistant professor in evolution at Stony Brook University, told MailOnline: 'The process of dog domestication would have been a very complex process, involving a number of generations where signature dog traits evolved gradually.

'The current hypothesis is that the domestication of dogs likely arose passively, with a population of wolves somewhere in the world living on the outskirts of hunter-gatherer camps feeding off refuse created by the humans.

'Those wolves that were tamer and less aggressive would have been more successful at this, and while the humans did not initially gain any kind of benefit from this process, over time they would have developed some kind of symbiotic [mutually beneficial] relationship with these animals, eventually evolving into the dogs we see today.'

[Alessa9]

Runners celebrate start to spring season with 43rd annual Shamrock Shuffle



CHICAGO - Thousands of runners decked out in green gear are gathering in Grant Park for the 43rd annual Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle this morning.

The event kicks off at 8:30 a.m., beginning with the 8K run and then a 2-mile walk. The course begins at the northern end of Grant Park.

Runners will go as far north as Grand Avenue and then will head back over the river on State Street and run west on Wacker Drive before continuing south. The race finishes in the southern part of Grant Park. See the complete course map here.

Drivers will need to take extra care when traveling downtown due to street closures. Balbo Drive between Columbus Drive and DuSable Lake Shore Drive will close at 10 a.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Monday. Columbus Drive between Randolph Street and Roosevelt Road will be closed Saturday through Monday.

Streets on the race route will be closed Sunday during the race and reopened by the Chicago Police Department as the final runners pass through. Roads in Grant Park will be closed longer, as a post-race party is planned in the park until 1 p.m.

The route uses Grand Avenue, State Street, Wacker Drive, Washington Boulevard, Jackson Boulevard, Franklin Street, Harrison Street, Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Road.

The 2-mile walk leaves from Columbus Drive and Monroe Street and uses Randolph Street to access the Lakefront Trail.

Last year's event brought more than 21,000 people.

Following the race runners can enjoy live music at the post-race party.

Video: https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/chicago-shamrock-shuffle
Runners prepare for 2024 Shamrock Shuffle in downtown Chicago

[lush]

A funeral home worker tracked down a family — and uncovered a decades-old secret
031524*


Mas Masumoto (left) and Shizuko Sugimoto in 2013.
Mas Masumoto

This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.

Growing up, Mas Masumoto was vaguely aware that he had an aunt who'd been separated from the family in the 1940s. Her name was Shizuko Sugimoto, and she had an intellectual disability. As was often done in those days, she became a ward of the state. The family never talked about her, and assumed she had passed away.

But one day in 2012, Masumoto received a surprising phone message from a funeral home worker named Renée Johnson. She wanted to tell Masumoto about a client in her 90s that he might know – a woman named Shizuko Sugimoto.

Johnson told him that his aunt had been living in an assisted living facility. She'd had a stroke and entered a hospice program, whose staff contacted the funeral home to begin preparations for Sugimoto's eventual death.

Typically, when the funeral home took on clients that were under the protection of the government, they would simply manage the last rites and take care of the body. But when Johnson discovered that Sugimoto seemed to have no family members, she made a special effort to locate them – and found her way to Masumoto.

"She looked up in the 1930 census, found Shizuko's name with my mom's name, and proceeded to phone me so Shizuko would not die alone," Masumoto recalled. "It was amazing for Renée to go through all that work when she didn't have to."


Mas Masumoto.
Mas Masumoto

When Masumoto told his family, he asked them to sit down. "And I said, 'You remember Aunt Shizuko?' And they all said, 'Oh yeah, yeah, she passed away a long time ago.' And I took a deep breath and I said, 'No, Shizuko's alive.'"

His family was shocked.

"Everyone said, 'No, that can't be, that can't be right.' And then I told them the story of what happened. And they all paused and said, 'We need to see her. We need to go see her.'"

The family did get to meet Sugimoto; she lived another two years after they reunited. They were also able to thank Johnson.

Masumoto and his family continue to be grateful for Johnson's extraordinary efforts, which uncovered a larger story about the efforts to keep Sugimoto's existence hidden.
Her fiancé started to struggle while swimming. Then she saw a surfer approaching

"Renée opened the door to a family secret," Masumoto said. "For my parents' generation and grandparents, this was a secret that people had. And it brought shame to a lot of people. And people were treated wrongly by becoming invisible and hiding these kind of facts."

Masumoto went on to write a book about his aunt's story, released in 2023, titled Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm. It's now a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. And it all started with the quiet effort of a funeral home worker, Renée Johnson.

"We were forced to re-examine and probe our own family secrets, and I want to thank you for that," Masumoto said. "Because you have changed our family history, and also opened my own eyes to understand this is part of the legacy that I carry. And all thanks to you."

[Fatima99]

Scientists Discover Potential HIV Cure that Eliminates Disease from Cells Using CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing



A new study has unveiled a likely future cure for HIV which uses molecular scissors to ‘cut out’ HIV DNA from infected cells.

To cut out this virus, the team used CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology—a groundbreaking method that allows for precise alterations to a patient’s genome, for which its inventors won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.

One of the significant challenges in HIV treatment is the virus’s ability to integrate its genome into the host’s DNA, making it extremely difficult to eliminate—but the CRISPR-Cas tool provides a new means to isolate and target HIV DNA.

Because HIV can infect different types of cells and tissues in the body, each with its own unique environment and characteristics, the researchers are searching for a way to target HIV in all of these situations.

In this study, which is to be presented ahead of this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, the authors used CRISPR-Cas and two guide RNAs against “conserved” HIV sequences.

They focused on parts of the virus genome that stay the same across all known HIV strains and infected T cells. Their experiments showed outstanding antiviral performance, managing to completely inactivate HIV with a single guide RNA and cut out the viral DNA with two guide RNAs.

“We have developed an efficient combinatorial CRISPR-attack on the HIV virus in various cells and the locations where it can be hidden in reservoirs, and demonstrated that therapeutics can be specifically delivered to the cells of interest,” said Associate professor Elena Herrera Carrillo from the University of Amsterdam AMC.

“These findings represent a pivotal advancement towards designing a cure strategy.”



The team has a long way to go before their cure will be available to patients, but said, “These preliminary findings are very encouraging’.

Currently, HIV can be kept in check with anti-retroviral medication, but no one has actually been cured—although three patients receiving stem cell transplants for blood cancer were subsequently declared free of the disease when their HIV became undetectable.

“We hope to achieve the right balance between efficacy and safety of this CURE strategy,” said Dr. Carrillo. “Only then can we consider clinical trials of ‘cure’ in humans to disable the HIV reservoir.

“Our aim is to develop a robust and safe combinatorial CRISPR-Cas regimen, striving for an inclusive ‘HIV cure for all’ that can inactivate diverse HIV strains across various cellular contexts.

[rflash8]

Mysterious note found inside book returned to library 37 years late



A book on the use of hallucinogenic drugs has been returned to a Colorado library 37 years after it was originally borrowed.

‘Psychedelics’, by Bernard Aaronson, was due back to the High Plains Library District on May 30th, 1987.

The resulting trip, it seems, took longer than expected: the anonymous borrower returned the book with a staggering 13,437 days delay, raising questions on how the use of psychedelics might have affected their sense of time.

Attached to the book was a Post-it note that read: ‘Sorry, so late! It’s been a long strange trip.’

The library, located in Evans, Colorado, shared the peculiar news on their Facebook page, saying: ‘It was returned to Riverside Library and Cultural Center… last week. 13,437 days late! Or, 36 years, 9 months, and 13 days late.’

‘Psychedelics’ is now believed to hold the peculiar record for most overdue book ever returned to the library.

‘But, hey, we get it. Sometimes you get busy. For almost 37 years. It happens,’ said the library.

The vintage book, which was first published in 1970, is described as a ‘surprising and enlightening’ read for both the ‘uninitiated’ and ‘the frequent user’.

The book was anonymously returned using a drive-through drop box, James Melena of the High Plains Library District told Fox News.

Melena explained that, if they had to charge for a late fee, the mysterious reader would incur a $1,300 fine.

Luckily for the anonymous borrower, the library stopped charging late fees years ago. But even if fees were still in place, the library said they would have happily waived it, ‘since it’s such a funny and odd story.’

The library has even humorously challenged patrons to try and surpass this record. ‘If anyone can beat the current record of 13,437 days, I’m offering you total amnesty for the safe return of your items,’ they said on Facebook.

‘Although I’m not encouraging you to check something out TODAY and return late enough to bear the record, which would be…January 1st, 2061.

‘We’ll be closed New Year’s Day. Probably. Maybe. By 2061, who knows?’

[HogwartsExpress]

Harry Potter steam train service suspended



A steam train that appeared in the Harry Potter films has been suspended in a wrangle over safety regulation.

West Coast Railways (WCR) has been challenging demands for central locking systems to be fitted to carriage doors on its Jacobite service.

WCR said it had suspended the service while it sought an exemption to the rules from rail regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

The Jacobite and its crossing of the Glenfinnan Viaduct, near Fort William, featured in 2002's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The service runs between Mallaig and Fort William from March to October.

Its crossing of the Glenfinnan Viaduct is popular with fans of JK Rowling's stories of a young wizard.

WCR received its most recent temporary exemption in November last year.
The company said it was awaiting a decision on a new application and had suspended the Jacobite service until further notice.

It said passengers booked on the train would be offered a full refund.

Commercial manager James Shuttleworth said: “We are disappointed to have to suspend this service and we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers who have booked trips."

src: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ha ... r-BB1keumw


Some comments from the news.

[PennySerenade]

81-year-old rookie powerlifter breaking records, inspiring community



Ron Brunner is proof that it’s never too late to try something new.

The 81-year-old Winnipegger started weightlifting for the first time just six months ago.

“A friend of mine introduced me to this small gym it’s called One Family Fitness Centre. There’s about 200 members and we’re very close-knit,” Brunner said.

Shortly after he was introduced to the gym he was asked if he was interested in competing in the sport.

“I sure am,” Brunner said.

It was an ambitious goal for the rookie lifter.

“When he came to us, he couldn’t even sit and get up,” his coach and owner of Winnipeg’s One Family Fitness Centre Kyla Camire said.



“I’m 81 years old and I feel like I’m 61 years old,” Brunner said.

Brunner’s first powerlifting competition is one to remember.

In front of friends from his retirement community at Riverwood Square as well as his family, Brunner competed alone in his age category securing a gold medal while adding his name to the record books.



Brunner broke provincial records and had a combined lifting score of 32.5 kilograms

“Truly inspiring to everyone. We want to encourage older people to do resistance training. Him being here is setting the bar. There is nothing to be scared of,” Camire said about Brunner’s lifting journey.

As for Brunner himself, he sees this as just the beginning.

“It’s something new to me and I’m not going to give that up,” Brunner said. “I’ll be back again next year.”

[DaveLDaveL]

Bears take a ride on swan pedalo at Woburn Safari Park



The group of bears, also known as a sleuth, crowded on to the watercraft


These black bears wasted no time clambering on to a swan pedalo when it appeared in their enclosure at Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire.

Keeper Tommy Babbington added the quirky paddle boat to keep the animals entertained after a large pool of water formed at the site during the recent wet weather.

"It was great fun for visitors to see them climb on board," he said.

The black bear is the most common bear in the forests of North America - where it is unlikely they are gifted giant plastic watercraft.

They can grow up to 1.9m (6ft 3in) long and weigh up to 300kg (47 stone).



One bear was keen to hitch a ride...


"We love devising new ways to provide food, scent and habitat enrichment that stimulates their natural foraging behaviours," added Mr Babbington.

"There's been so much wet weather this year that a new mini lake has formed in the black bears' drive-through, so we had the idea of turning this into interesting enrichment for them.

"The sleuth of bears was immediately intrigued by their new neighbour and wasted no time in investigating the swan paddle boat."



... but where's everyone gone?

Optimist Pollster Finds Americans Are Far More Alike Than Different, With Shared Values Bridging Political Divides



By David Colarusso (cropped) – CC BY-NC 2.0

After listening to the media, you might think America has sunk into a political civil war, with neighbors fighting neighbors—and each side convinced the other will ruin the country.

Political debate has indeed become rancorous, but dig into the thoughts and feelings of everyday Americans and you will discover that things are better than you think.

Dubbed the most optimistic pollster in the country, The Harris Poll’s chief executive Will Johnson says the supposed divides disappear when you consider values, points of view, and experiences beyond politics.

“It turns out that we’re more alike than different,” says Johnson. People on the Left, Right, and Middle “all want to make a difference in the world, value learning and growing, and, most of all, crave love and caring. To put it plainly, our hearts are in sync.”

Of course, political views matter, but they are notoriously changeable and they can neglect to capture the complexity of the attitudes of individuals—and the results often challenge conventional wisdom.

In a Harris poll commissioned by Time, for instance, respondents were asked to select adjectives to describe their own life. They picked “hopeful” and “happy” as the top two. Only in third place was negative feeling, “frustrated”.

Johnson insists that his Harris Poll data shows that Americans share many more values than they disagree on. Many enjoy having friends who hold different perspectives than theirs, and understand that they want the same things for themselves and their families. (And this is based on respondents who’ve been selected to reflect the U.S. population by gender, age, region, political affiliation, and economic status.)

Americans are more cheerful than headlines would suggest, when asked about their relationships with each other:

• 76% see the good in those they disagree with

• 71% have a friend who doesn’t share their views

• 57% think the “culture wars” are overblown in terms of how important the issues of those debates are to daily life

• 57% think most Americans get along with one another

• 56% believe that opportunities exist for nearly all to attain the American dream.

The rise in the number of Independents with no party affiliation likely reflects the shared values of people who occupy the vast middle of the political spectrum.

While other pollsters may look for black-and-white conclusions, Johnson always looks for the values beneath the surface.

“The idea that people can be put in a political box, which will then reflect the mood of the country, is outdated,” says Johnson. “Our goal is to find the nuance in U.S. public opinion since so much of our world is gray.”

One final word from Johnson on the truth about a so-called divided America. “The country has problems, for sure,” he says. “But most people remain hopeful and can see the big picture.”