NEW RESOURCES

Microsoft: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport and Microsoft partner to digitally preserve ancient site of Olympia. “The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport and Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced Ancient Olympia: Common Grounds, a new collaboration to digitally preserve and restore ancient Olympia, the original home of the Olympic games, using AI. This digital revival project allows viewers around the world to explore ancient Olympia as it stood more than 2,000 years ago through an immersive experience via an interactive mobile app, web-based desktop experience, or a Microsoft HoloLens 2 exhibition at the Athens Olympic Museum.”

Phys .org: New database of 660,000 assembled bacterial genomes sheds light on the evolution of bacteria. “In a new study, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), researchers standardized all bacterial genome data held in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) before 2019, creating a searchable and accessible database of genomic assemblies. In the research, published on 9 November 2021 in PLOS Biology, researchers reviewed all of the bacterial data available as of November 2018 and assembled it into over 660,000 genomes.”

Tipperary Live: Tipperary Studies to launch website database of Ireland’s Great War dead on Armistice Day . “Tipperary Studies will launch a new website on Armistice Day (tomorrow, Thursday, November 11) that is a database of servicemen and servicewomen who died in the Great War.”

Sportico: Sportico Launches New College Sports Financial Database. “It has become cliché to refer to big-time intercollegiate athletics as a ‘multi-billion-dollar industry.’ But while that grand, amorphous phrase is no doubt true, behind that industry are details of where all that the money comes from, and where it goes. With that in mind, Sportico has launched a new, Intercollegiate Finances database, the most comprehensive, interactive and user-friendly online tracker of athletic department balance sheets for public Football Bowl Subdivision schools.” As far as I can tell this is free. I wandered around a bunch of data without hitting a paywall.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Variety: Spotify Expands Charts to Include Genre and Local Categories. “Spotify has launched a new Charts destination website that includes new Genre and Local charts, in addition to data and tools to give artists and listeners more information on releases.”

CNET: YouTube to remove all public dislike counts, aiming to defang harassment mobs. “YouTube is removing public dislike counts, the visible tallies of how many people click on ‘thumbs down’ for a video. Google’s video site, the largest source of online video on the planet with more than 2 billion monthly users, said the move is designed to impede ‘dislike attack’ harassment campaigns.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: Google Keep vs. Evernote vs. Apple Notes: Which Is the Best Note-Taking App?. “There are currently plenty of note-taking apps. Evernote is as evergreen as it ever was and continues to evolve with time. Google Keep by the search engine giant is another feather in its cap. Apple Notes received a huge update with the recent release of iOS 15 bringing it on par with the rest of the pack. Here we examine Google Keep vs. Evernote vs. Apple Notes to see which one is better and why.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Independent Cork: Project aims to compile database of Cork’s many revolutionary monuments. “A NEW project initiated by Cork County Council is set to compile the first comprehensive database of the numerous revolutionary related monuments dotted around the county. The project, which is being undertaken under the auspices of the Decade of Centenary programme, is aimed at enhance the knowledge of the period from 1912 to 1923 and ‘create a powerful resource to interpret how events of a century ago have been remembered ever since.'”

Mashable: Discord users are revolting over NFTs and crypto. Platforms should heed this warning.. “Web3 basically is the hot terminology right now being used by people in the cryptocurrency and NFT space to push the idea that the next iteration of the internet after the social media era (aka Web 2.0) is a decentralized one. Web3 is basically a version of the internet where everything is run on the blockchain. One can see why crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) evangelists would be bullish on this, being that it would cement everything that they’re investing into now as the future.” Barf.

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Timber Poachers Set a Forest on Fire. Tree DNA Sent One to Prison.. “Prosecutors said this was the first time that such evidence had been used in a federal criminal trial, although it has been used in state cases and in federal cases that did not reach trial. Researchers hope this will deter future poaching, particularly of bigleaf maples, for which there is now a large database.”

CNET: Cryptocurrency scams are all over social media. Don’t get duped. “Creating a fake live event video is just one way crooks are attempting to dupe crypto enthusiasts into giving away their assets. From fake giveaways to bogus investment sites, scammers use YouTube, Twitter and other social media sites to hook potential victims. Last week, Twitter flagged accounts that appeared to be tied to a Squid Game crypto coin and that bilked buyers out of more than $2 million by exploiting enthusiasm for the hit Netflix show. Scammers are even turning to dating apps to push these schemes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Futurism: People Keep Sneaking Onto Simulated Mars Base for Social Media Clout. “The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) uses the Utah desert to simulate life on the Red Planet. However, the station’s director has found that the biggest issue isn’t coping with the effects of isolation or the inhospitable environment — instead, it’s dealing with annoying tourists.” Good morning, 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!