NEW RESOURCES

Shanghai Daily (China): Database boosts city’s technology aim. “THE city is to set up a database of government subsided research. The idea is to allow agencies to help to pitch scientific projects and bring more resources to support projects from an early stage. The database initiative is part of an action plan to boost Shanghai’s capacity to transform scientific and technological research results into commercial initiatives, the city’s science and technology commission said yesterday.”

The Arctic: Finland to create a database of black carbon and methane emissions in the Arctic. “One of Finland’s priorities during its two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council is to create a database of the sources of black carbon and methane emissions in the Arctic, Finland’s consul general in St. Petersburg, Anne Lammila, told the TASS news agency.”

Indy Week (North Carolina): The Southern Oral History Program Noticed a Lack of Asian-American Voices in Its Archive. Southern Mix Is the Fix. . “A graduate of Duke and UNC, [Anna-Rhesa] Versola founded Southern Mix, which launched in April. A collaboration at UNC between SOHP, the Carolina Asia Center, and UNC’s Alumni Committee for Racial and Ethnic Diversity (of which Versola is a member), the project is collecting oral histories from Asian and Asian-American residents of the Triangle and the larger region, documenting stories about immigration, assimilation, and the blending or preservation of cultures.”

Phys.org: Open imaging data for biology. “A picture may be worth a thousand words, but only if you understand what you are looking at. The life sciences rely increasingly on 2-D, 3-D and 4-D image data, but its staggering heterogeneity and size make it extremely difficult to collate into a central resource, link to other data types and share with the research community. To address this challenge, scientists at the University of Dundee, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the University of Bristol and the University of Cambridge have launched a prototype repository for imaging data: the Image Data Resource (IDR). This free resource, described in Nature Methods, is the first general biological image repository that stores and integrates data from multiple modalities and laboratories.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CBC News: Indigenous communities in Canada finally on Google Maps. “More than 3,000 Indigenous communities in Canada have been added to Google Maps and Google Earth — and it’s about time, Aboriginal people say.”

Digital Trends: Mozilla Brings Firefox Focus, Its Privacy-conscious Web Browser, To Android. “When Mozilla launched Firefox Focus last year, its take on a modern iPhone web browser, it doubled down on privacy. Now, nearly half a year later, Mozilla is bringing the same security-conscious experience to devices running Android, Google’s smartphone operating system.”

BBC: Google’s DeepMind extends controversial Streams app. “Google’s DeepMind has extended the use of its Streams health app to Musgrove Park Hospital in Somerset. The app, which helps doctors and nurses spot signs of kidney failure, proved controversial when it was rolled out at the Royal Free hospital in London.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: For YouTube stars, breaking up is hard — and epic — to do. “Online video stars on sites such as YouTube can build millions of followers, turning videos about their lives into full-fledged careers. But digital stars like these often start young, in their teens or early ’20s, and they tend to build their fanbase by being open and accessible. That ‘realness’ usually means vloggers rejoice in the joys of early romance with their fans, only to experience followers turning on them or their loved ones when a relationship ends.”

USA Today: Instagrammers are getting rich as advertisers target Gen-Z . “For Andrea Russett, it’s not just about YouTube anymore. For years, the most lucrative avenue for video ‘creators’ like Russett—young folks who talk to the camera, act funny, sing, dance and make little mini-movies, was via YouTube, which shares revenues with its stable of popular performers. But this year, Facebook’s fast-growing Instagram app is ready for its closeup.”

TechCrunch: Twist is Slack without the annoying distractions. “When Slack implemented threaded conversations, it seemed like the holy grail for internal communications. Slack finally lets you talk about multiple things in separate conversations. But Slack remains a real-time messaging service at heart, so threads don’t feel native. It works well for many teams, but some companies would prefer something a bit more asynchronous and focused. At the same time, it should be more interactive than emails. That’s why Twist is starting over from scratch and taking a different approach by focusing on threads and borrowing some of Slack’s best ideas.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!