CBS 60 Minutes: “The National Archives has been in the news lately, not so much for what is in its collection, but for what was missing. After former President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Biden held on to records when they left office that should have been sent to the Archives… we wanted to know… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
A World of Waste: Risks and opportunities in household waste management
World Risk Poll: “As the global population continues to expand and development accelerates, the volume of waste generated worldwide is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Safely managing this growing waste burden is an escalating challenge with significant implications not only for the environment but also for human health, safety, and wellbeing. Download the report here… Continue Reading
Microplastics in the Olfactory Bulb of the Human Brain
Amato-Lourenço LF, Dantas KC, Júnior GR, et al. Microplastics in the Olfactory Bulb of the Human Brain. JAMA Netw Open [full text]. 2024;7(9):e2440018. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.40018. The ubiquity of microplastic (MP) pollution has become a pervasive environmental concern, raising questions about its occurrence within the human body and its harmful effects. While MPs have been detected in… Continue Reading
Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data
Beautiful Public Data: “As we run, drive, bike, and fly, humans leave behind telltale tracks of movement on Earth—if you know where to look. Physical tracks, thermal signatures, and chemical traces can reveal where we’ve been. But another type of breadcrumb trail comes from the radio signals emitted by the cars, planes, trains, and boats… Continue Reading
Flooded Again: Visualizing Repeated Flooding Across the U.S.
NRDC: “For communities across the country, flooding is an all-too-frequent experience—and, often, one with devastating consequences. Over 250,000 properties in the United States have had multiple claims under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). These “repetitive loss properties” are found in every U.S. state as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and… Continue Reading
WMO Ozone and UV Bulletin
World Meteorological Organization and Global Atmosphere Watch – new joint publication – WMO Ozone and UV Bulletin – [h/t Ben Amata] Continue Reading
Snapchat reserves right to put AI-generated images of users’ faces in ‘My Selfie’ ads
NY Post via MSN – original article paywalled on 404 Media: “Snapchat reserves the right to put photos of its users’ faces in ads as part of the terms of service of its “My Selfie” tool, which lets people and their friends create artificial intelligence-generated images that are trained on their selfies. “My Selfie is… Continue Reading
Museo del Prado offers free online access to more than 11,500 publications from late 15th century to early 20th century
“The new Digital Library of the Museo del Prado, developed with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), offers free access to 5600 magazine issues and 6,000 books specializing in artistic literature and published between the end of the 15th and early 20th centuries. More than 1,700,000 pages have been digitized, the cataloguing… Continue Reading
FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged in Vast Surveillance
Report recommends limiting data retention and sharing, restricting targeted advertising, and strengthening protections for teens – “A new Federal Trade Commission staff report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services shows they engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while… Continue Reading
A handy guide to the universal language for the mathematically perplexed
Ars Technica: “Galileo once famously described the universe as a great book “written in mathematical language and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures.” Unfortunately, it’s a language that many people outside of math and science simply do not speak, largely because they are flummoxed and/or intimidated by the sheer density of all… Continue Reading
How Opus Dei Conquered D.C.
Intelligencer via MSN – “A new book shows just how much sway the mysterious right-wing Catholic group has — and might have over Trump’s next term… Details of the Opus Dei network in the American capital are a significant part of a new, deeply researched book by British financial journalist Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult… Continue Reading
Inside Iron Mountain: It’s Time to Talk About Hard Drives
MIX: “A few years ago, archiving specialist Iron Mountain Media and Archive Services did a survey of its vaults and discovered an alarming trend: Of the thousands and thousands of archived hard disk drives from the 1990s that clients ask the company to work on, around one-fifth are unreadable. Iron Mountain has a broad customer… Continue Reading
