NEW RESOURCES

BBC: London pollution: Maps shows worst areas for road run-off pollution. “A new online map has been created to show where contaminated rain water from roads is polluting rivers in London. Environmental charity Thames21 has launched the site to help local authorities, as well as local communities, identify problem areas.”

Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia: Mapping Australia’s heavy minerals in world-first. “The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia, developed by Geoscience Australia in collaboration with Curtin University, has been created using heavy mineral samples found in floodplain sediments from across the country.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Cornell Chronicle: Add new types of data for the 37th season of Project FeederWatch. “The prime directive for Project FeederWatch has been and continues to be gathering data about how bird populations and distributions are changing across the United States and Canada—vital information for conservation. For the 37th season of this project, participants can enter some brand-new kinds of data—and finally get a chance to tell tales about squirrels, deer, raccoons, bears, or other mammals they see at their count sites in winter—in addition to the birds.”

Search Engine Journal: YouTube Unveils Major Update Including Dozens Of New Features. “YouTube has launched over three dozen new features and design updates to enhance the user experience. Now rolling out globally, the changes are designed to give viewers more control and help them easily find content while modernizing the look and feel.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

ARTnews: British Museum Will Digitize Entire Collection at a Cost of $12.1 M. in Response to Thefts. “British Museum has announced plans to digitize its entire collection in order to increase security and public access, as well as ward off calls for the repatriation of items. The project will require 2.4 million records to upload or upgrade and is estimated to take five years to complete.”

AFP: US congresswoman shares post misrepresenting photo of dead Syrian children. “Hundreds of children are among those killed as Israeli pounds the Gaza Strip with air strikes and prepares a ground offensive against Hamas, which plunged the region into war with a bloody attack. But a photo spreading online of dead boys and girls swaddled in cloth — amplified by a US lawmaker — does not show slain Palestinian youth; the picture was taken in Syria in 2013.”

New York Times: What Happens When an Artist’s Technology Becomes Obsolete?. “A museum’s task of protecting art in perpetuity has remained fixed, even as artists’ materials have changed. Art institutions are likely the only places in the world that are currently planning how they might be able to fix an Oculus Rift 50 years from now. Rather than keep stockpiles of expensive and obsolete technology in storage, museums have to find clever ways around software updates, from video game emulators to server farms to niche businesses like CTL.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Musk considers removing X platform from Europe over EU law. “Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, is considering removing the service formerly called Twitter from Europe in response to a new internet platform regulation in the region, news site Insider reported on Wednesday (18 October)” This is the Digital Services Act.

Times of Israel: Hamas launched unique terror tactic: Livestreaming horrors on victims’ social media. “Hamas seems to have intentionally adopted a new terror tactic during its devastating attack on Israeli communities on October 7 — that of using the social media accounts of their victims to spread fear and confusion among their families and friends as the killings and abductions unfolded.”

Ars Technica: The most insane “robocall mitigation plans” that telcos filed with the FCC. “The 20 carriers include a mix of US-based and foreign voice service providers that submitted required ‘robocall mitigation’ plans to the Federal Communications Commission about two years ago. The problem is that some of the carriers’ submissions were blank pages and others were bizarre images or documents that had no relation to robocalls.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford Medicine: Virtual reality helps people with hoarding disorder practice decluttering. “…a pilot study by Stanford Medicine researchers suggests that a virtual reality therapy that allows those with hoarding disorder to rehearse relinquishing possessions in a simulation of their own home could help them declutter in real life. The simulations can help patients practice organizational and decision-making skills learned in cognitive behavioral therapy — currently the standard treatment — and desensitize them to the distress they feel when discarding.”

Newswise: Using AI to develop hydrogen fuel cell catalysts more efficiently and economically. “The team developed Slab Graph Convolutional Neural Network (SGCNN) artificial intelligence model to accurately predict the binding energy of adsorbates on the catalyst surface. This is not the first application of AI to materials discovery. The SGCNN model was developed by evolving the CGCNN model, which is specialized in predicting bulk properties of solid materials, to predict surface properties of catalytic materials.” Good morning, Internet…

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