All posts tagged: unlocking

The Download: unlocking lithium and controlling Ebola

The Download: unlocking lithium and controlling Ebola

Published by skeptic

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. How the Pope’s Magnifica Humanitas offers a template for individuals to meet the AI moment ——Father Séamus Finn, a leader in faith-based and socially responsible investing with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and Sister Susan Francois, assistant congregation leader and treasurer of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on artificial intelligence includes a statement that warrants serious attention from technologists and policymakers: “Technology is never neutral.”  Magnifica Humanitas is a call to act with courage and solidarity as AI transforms human life, framing the choice ahead as one between the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of our common humanity. It warns that corporations alone cannot set the direction of such a transformation. With governments slow to regulate AI, institutional investors are stepping into the gap. Here’s how they can build a better future. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to …

Set Up Your Phone’s Always-On Display So You’re Unlocking It Less Often

Set Up Your Phone’s Always-On Display So You’re Unlocking It Less Often

Published by skeptic

How many times do you think you check your phone a day? The number is probably much higher than you’d guess. Phones are always within easy reach, offering instant access to the world, social media, and messages from friends and family. Even if you’re not being pinged with notifications, the temptation to scroll through an app or two is always there. There are different ways to tackle this, from muting notifications to keeping some space between you and your device. But one easy way to be sure you check your phone less often is to do more with the lock screen on your handset. You can populate the lock screen with a variety of alerts and updates that help you see what’s happening with just a brief glance. You won’t need to unlock your phone again and again, and you won’t be drawn into checking multiple apps each time you pick it up. Here’s what you can do on the major phone models. Google Pixel Phones Most Android phones now offer an always-on display feature, …

Unlocking lithium’s hidden effects on Alzheimer’s disease at the cellular level

Unlocking lithium’s hidden effects on Alzheimer’s disease at the cellular level

Published by José Betancourt

Lithium salts have shown promise in treating Alzheimer’s disease by preventing certain proteins in the brain from clumping together, but how they affect cells on a broader scale remains largely unexplored. A recent study published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy reveals that lithium chloride alters multiple cellular pathways beyond its primary target, changing the activity of various enzymes and structural proteins linked to dementia. These results suggest that modifying the type of lithium used in medical treatments could improve outcomes for patients experiencing memory loss and cognitive decline. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, characterized by two main physical features in the brain. The first is the buildup of amyloid-beta, a protein that forms sticky plaques between nerve cells. The second involves a protein called Tau, which normally helps stabilize the internal structure of brain cells. In people with dementia, Tau undergoes a chemical alteration called hyperphosphorylation. Phosphorylation is a normal chemical reaction where enzymes called kinases attach small chemical tags, known as phosphate groups, to a protein. These tags act …

Unlocking Israel’s Ancient History – OpentheWord.org

Unlocking Israel’s Ancient History – OpentheWord.org

Published by Sam Flores

Cyrus Cylinder on display in The British Museum Credit: Prioryman, Wikpedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 An interesting statement in the first three verses of the opening chapter of Ezra speaks of a decision made by Persia’s King Cyrus to allow the Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra leaves little doubt that he was quoting directly from an official document issued by Cyrus’ press office.   Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: 2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to rebuild for Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, …

Hungary’s Magyar meets von der Leyen to game-plan unlocking frozen EU funds – POLITICO

Hungary’s Magyar meets von der Leyen to game-plan unlocking frozen EU funds – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Magyar’s team has also been working with some of his predecessor’s ministers and civil servants to advance the technical work required to make the reforms, three other officials with knowledge of the proceedings said. András Kármán, Magyar’s nominee for finance minister, István Kapitány, tapped for economy minister, and Anita Orbán, the incoming foreign minister, met a high-level Commission delegation, including von der Leyen’s Cabinet chief Bjoern Seibert, on Saturday and prepared the ground for the Magyar-von der Leyen meeting. Before that, the teams met in Budapest on April 18 and 19. The first step to unlocking Hungary’s recovery money is complying with 27 EU-mandated “super milestones,” covering procurement, judicial independence and academic freedom. Because Tisza has won more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament, Magyar is expected to be able to get those changes approved quickly. European People’s Party leader Manfred Weber with Ursula Von der Leyen in Brussels in January 2025. Weber said the European Parliament should halt Article 7 proceedings against Hungary. | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images The harder part is …

Former NATO commander: Halting mine-laying vessels ‘key to unlocking’ Strait of Hormuz

Former NATO commander: Halting mine-laying vessels ‘key to unlocking’ Strait of Hormuz

Published by Sam Flores

Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO allied supreme commander, suggested on Thursday that reopening the Strait of Hormuz largely hinges on the U.S. military’s ability to stop Iranian mines from being laid in the waterway. “Strategically, what we ought to be doing is going after these small boats before they get underway. And… Source link

Global energy body convenes summit on unlocking emergency oil reserves – POLITICO

Global energy body convenes summit on unlocking emergency oil reserves – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

BRUSSELS — The head of the International Energy Agency on Tuesday summoned an extraordinary meeting to decide whether to tap millions of barrels of emergency oil supplies amid soaring energy costs. The meeting, to be held at an undisclosed time on Tuesday, will “assess the current security of supply and market conditions to inform a subsequent decision on whether to make emergency stocks of IEA countries available to the market,” the agency’s chief, Fatih Birol, said in an emailed statement. The IEA’s 31 members — mostly advanced Western economies — have grown increasingly panicked as Iran and a U.S.-Israeli coalition trade airstrikes, imperilling critical supply chains and energy infrastructure across the Gulf. Merchant shipping has also abandoned the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for 20 percent of the world’s energy trade, prompting fears of price spikes. Source link

Unlocking the Power of Tacit Knowledge

Unlocking the Power of Tacit Knowledge

Published by Jenni Sidey

I recall the first full-time job I ever had. I was a young graduate joining Alcan, an aluminium company that made commercial aluminium windows and doors for the architectural building industry. I recall my mentor, a very nice elderly man who had amazing technical knowledge, but I found he was reluctant to share his accumulation of lifelong knowledge with me. This highlights a problem many organizations face today: How do you capture and retain the tacit knowledge that is unwritten, unspoken, and intuitive, which individuals acquire through personal experiences, interactions, and observations (Polanyi, 1966; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995)? Unlike explicit knowledge, which is well-documented, codified, and transferred through books, manuals, and databases, tacit knowledge resides within individuals and is difficult to articulate; it includes skills, expertise, and insights gained over time (Polanyi, 1966). Significant competitive advantage can be gained in capturing and leveraging tacit knowledge (Grant, 1996; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). However, due to the intangible nature of tacit knowledge, transferring and retaining this knowledge pose considerable challenges (Szulanski, 1996). Many employees have valuable insights …

Unlocking the secrets of an ancient plague : NPR

Unlocking the secrets of an ancient plague : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Ancient ruins of Jerash, Jordan — scene of a devastating pandemic in the 7th century. Gatsi/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Gatsi/Getty Images In the middle of the 7th century, a plague swept through the walled city of Jerash, in what is now modern-day Jordan. Ceramicists abandoned their workshops under the Hippodrome, leaving unfired pottery in their haste. Young and old alike succumbed to a bacteria called Yersinia Pestis, the same microbe responsible for the Black Death seven centuries later. The city, unable to manage the dead and dying, converted those workshops into a mass grave. “It was filled within days — hundreds of bodies,” says Rays Jiang, a University of South Florida geneticist and lead author of a new study in the Journal of Archeological Science, highlighting the plague victims of Jerash. “There’s no ceremony, there’s no grave goods. It’s a bare minimum to get the bodies disposed of and away from the city.” To understand the lives of the people who died at Jerash, Jiang gathered a team of eight experts from various …