All posts tagged: dramatically

I tried CuerdOS and this niche Debian distro is dramatically fast

I tried CuerdOS and this niche Debian distro is dramatically fast

Published by skeptic

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways CuerdOS is a unique, Debian-based Linux distribution. This distro offers blazing-fast performance. You’ll find an interesting collection of preinstalled software. Every once in a great while, I run into a Linux distribution that I’ve never heard of. Such is the case with CuerdOS. This Linux distribution of Spanish origin is focused on stability, efficiency, and performance. Based on Debian, CuerdOS is, I’m assuming, a play on the Spanish word cuerdo, which means sane or rational. After using this distribution for a few days, I’d have to say that’s spot on. I downloaded the GNOME flavor of the OS and found the default settings quite sane.  Instead of the straight-up GNOME desktop, you get a few customizations by way of some GNOME extensions and just the right combination of software.  Also: The once beloved PCLinuxOS is back – and it’s still a great Windows escape Now, when you look at the software collection, you could conclude that CuerdOS has something …

Earth’s distance from the Sun found to dramatically alter seasons

Earth’s distance from the Sun found to dramatically alter seasons

Published by Jenni Sidey

A strip of cool water stretches west from South America along the equator, helping set the pace for some of the planet’s most important weather swings. That Pacific “cold tongue” helps steer the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which can influence winter rain in California, drought in parts of Asia, and weather across much of North America. Now, a model-based study suggests that one overlooked force helps drive that cold tongue’s yearly cycle: the changing distance between Earth and the sun. That idea may sound odd at first, since the seasons are usually explained by Earth’s axial tilt, not by the slight oval shape of its orbit. Yet the new work, published in Nature, argues that this distance effect is not a small side note in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Instead, it appears to create its own annual cycle, one that combines with the better-known tilt effect and changes the timing and strength of the cold tongue over very long stretches of time. Schematic of the Earth’s orbital configuration. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun …

AI breakthrough could dramatically lower the cost of drug development

AI breakthrough could dramatically lower the cost of drug development

Published by Jenni Sidey

Three-letter DNA “words” can decide whether a yeast cell cranks out a medicine efficiently or sputters along. The words are called codons, and they are the genetic code’s way of spelling out amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. For drugmakers, those tiny choices add up. Industrial yeasts already manufacture vaccines and other protein-based drugs, but getting a new protein production process working well can take a lot of trial and error. Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemical engineers now report a different approach: let a language model learn the yeast’s codon habits, then ask it to write a gene that the yeast can translate more smoothly. The team focused on Komagataella phaffii, a yeast widely used for making recombinant proteins. J. Christopher Love, the Raymond A. and Helen E. St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, led the work with former MIT postdoc Harini Narayanan as lead author. Their study appeared this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team focused on Komagataella phaffii, a yeast widely used for making …

How fasting can dramatically reduce symptoms of stomach condition

How fasting can dramatically reduce symptoms of stomach condition

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Intermittent fasting within an eight-hour window can significantly reduce symptoms of Crohn’s disease, a new study has found. Crohn’s disease, according to the NHS, is a long-term condition where part of the gut becomes inflamed. It cannot currently be cured and the common symptoms include: diarrhoea, blood or mucus in your poo and stomach pain. Researchers at the University of Calgary found that time-restricted feeding can reduce disease activity by 40 per cent and halve abdominal discomfort in over 12 weeks in people living with Crohn’s disease. Participants of the clinical trial, funded by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, followed the intermittent fasting schedule by eating for 8 hours a day and fasting for the remaining 16 hours, without any instructions to cut calories. On average, the subjects lost an average of about 5.5 pounds during the study, while those in …

One Google Maps setting that makes offline navigation dramatically better

One Google Maps setting that makes offline navigation dramatically better

Published by skeptic

I’ve relied on Google Maps for years. For me, navigation meant only Google Maps. However, I’ve always complained about one thing with Google Maps offline navigation: it felt unreliable. I remember my friends and I were on a road trip to Scotland last year, with winding back roads and a spotty network. While planning my trip, I had already downloaded the offline map for that area several weeks ago. So, I was feeling confident. Somewhere in the middle of our route, Google Maps rerouted us down to a road that was blocked. I looked at my phone and found out that my downloaded offline map hadn’t been updated in weeks. I realized that offline maps can’t be downloaded and forgotten. Over the next few weeks, I experimented with several Google Maps settings to improve offline navigation. Eventually, I found one setting that saved my next road trip. The one setting that changes everything Auto-update offline maps Credit: Kanika Gogia / MUO If you’re someone like me, you’ve probably downloaded offline maps and believe that they will …

A Pilates instructor says this one side-lying move can dramatically improve hip strength and control

A Pilates instructor says this one side-lying move can dramatically improve hip strength and control

Published by Jenni Sidey

If hip strength is a focus for you this year, there’s one move that can help you achieve it more effectively than other moves, according to Pilates instructor Nina Popp at Life Time. Popp says that the side-lying leg lift can strengthen your hips, thighs and abdominal muscles. “By practicing this move, you can see benefits in not only your Pilates practice, but in your standing posture as well,” she says. You may like “You’ll also notice better hip control while walking, and even when doing higher-intensity exercises such as running, cycling or swimming.” By strengthening the hip abductor muscles in your outer hips, the side-lying leg lift “promotes balance and teaches your legs how to work from the core,” says Popp. Try adding this move into your workouts or doing it on its own a couple of times a week to see results. How to do side-lying leg lift Popp emphasises the importance of setting yourself up in the right position to perform the move correctly. Start your week with achievable workout ideas, health …

AI models that simulate internal debate dramatically improve accuracy on complex tasks

AI models that simulate internal debate dramatically improve accuracy on complex tasks

Published by skeptic

A new study by Google suggests that advanced reasoning models achieve high performance by simulating multi-agent-like debates involving diverse perspectives, personality traits, and domain expertise. Their experiments demonstrate that this internal debate, which they dub “society of thought,” significantly improves model performance in complex reasoning and planning tasks. The researchers found that leading reasoning models such as DeepSeek-R1 and QwQ-32B, which are trained via reinforcement learning (RL), inherently develop this ability to engage in society of thought conversations without explicit instruction. These findings offer a roadmap for how developers can build more robust LLM applications and how enterprises can train superior models using their own internal data. What is society of thought? The core premise of society of thought is that reasoning models learn to emulate social, multi-agent dialogues to refine their logic. This hypothesis draws on cognitive science, specifically the idea that human reason evolved primarily as a social process to solve problems through argumentation and engagement with differing viewpoints. The researchers write that “cognitive diversity, stemming from variation in expertise and personality traits, …

The number of new orphans has dropped dramatically in Uganda : NPR

The number of new orphans has dropped dramatically in Uganda : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A nurse changes an 18-month-old at a facility that cares for orphans living with AIDS who do not have the support of extended families. Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images Over the past several decades, a hopeful story has played out across southern Uganda. The number of children who’ve lost a parent has plummeted, from nearly one in four in the early 2000s to just 6% in 2022.  New research suggests the decline in orphanhood – defined as the loss of at least one parent – was driven by HIV foreign aid programs. “I’m about 70 now,” says study co-author Dr. David Serwadda of Makerere University in Uganda. “I’ve never seen a program intervention that has had this huge impact.” Serwadda was working in Uganda during the mid-1990s, when the HIV pandemic was claiming more than 100,000 lives each year. “I remember visiting what looked like an abandoned household, we just kept shouting ‘is anybody home,’ ” he says. Three children came out, aged 9, 7 and 6. “We …