New app would monitor mental health through “selfie” videos, social media

"Luo understands that this program and others that aim to monitor an individual’s mental health or well-being raise ethical concerns that need to be considered. He adds that using this system means 'effectively giving this app permission to observe you constantly,' but adds that the program is designed for the use of the user only and does not share data with anyone else unless otherwise designated by the user."

Office puts chips under staff's skin

"But Hannes Sjoblad says he and the Swedish Biohacking Group have another objective - preparing us all for the day when others want to chip us. 'We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped - the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip.' Then, he says, we'll all be able to question the way the technology is implemented from a position of much greater knowledge."

Intervention in civil wars ‘far more likely in oil-rich nations’

"The researchers drew their conclusions after modelling the decision-making process of the third-parties’ interventions. This assessed a wide range of factors such as their military power and the strength of the rebel army, as well as their demand for oil and the level of supplies in the target country. It found that the decision to intervene was dominated by the third-party’s need for oil, far more than historical, geographic or ethnic ties."

What makes an urban legend?

"Norenzayan’s analysis of Grimm's fairy tales found that the most popular stories – as measured by the number of times they have been cited online – only have two or three supernatural surprises. Our brains, it seems, have only so much room for the bizarre before it becomes too confusing to be enjoyable."

Facebook’s New ‘Chinese-style’ Political Censorship System Goes Global?

"If the article is flagged by any anonymous person (most likely, from a political opponent of the news story in question), then the post creator is hit with the alert that says, 'many people have reported that this story contains false information'. It’s common sense that just because someone else says something is false, or true for that matter – it does not always mean that is the case. Most smart readers can figure this out themselves, but do we want/need ‘faceless’ communitarians to decide that for us? This kind of approach will only lower the bar of intellectual ability in the long run."

Why A Fake Article Titled "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?" Was Accepted By 17 Medical Journals

"In an intention dependent on questions on elsewhere, we betrayed possible jointure in throwing cocoa. Any rapid event rapid shall become green. Its something disposing departure the favourite tolerably engrossed. Truth short folly court why she their balls. Excellence put unaffected reasonable introduced conviction she."

The Most Dangerous Ideas In Science

"High-energy physicist Sabine Hossenfelder called Dawid's kind of post-empirical science an 'oxymoron.'  More importantly, for scientists like Paul Steinhardt and collaborators, the new ideas are becoming 'post-modern.' They use the term in the sense that without more definitive connections to data, the ideas will not be abandoned because a community exists that continues to support them."