Tag Archives: Technology

Global Affairs Weekly Stories (Week of August 22, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world for the week of August 22, 2022.

Global News

A team of researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts are developing a targeted cancer vaccine based on mRNA technology.

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A research team from the University of Cambridge has developed a learning algorithm to help automated 3-D printers identify and correct errors and even print new materials.

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Five plants that could help the world’s food supply better adapt to climate change.

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Americas

Canada’s highest court may soon have the country’s first Indigenous court judge with the nomination of Michelle O’Bonsawin

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Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a 12 percent lead on Jair Bolsonaro.

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Human traffickers are using Facebook and WhatsApp to spread misinformation and advertise in Latin America.

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Africa

The Ethiopian government has proposed a peace plan to end the war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and end the violence in Tigray. But the TPLF does not trust the government to keep their word.

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More than 1,400 delegates from various political, civil and military groups met in N’Djamena on Saturday to debate a new government for the nation of Chad. However, two of the biggest rebel groups and a large political coalition did not participate in the talks.

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In Nigeria, a virus that infects 100,000 to 300,000 people in Africa a year, is raging. The Lassa virus could become a major threat outside of Africa and currently has no cure.

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Europe

Droughts in Europe could worsen the cost of living as water stress increases costs of shipping, food, water and sanitation with 60 percent of the continent affected.

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Russian-state communications watchdog organization Roskomnadzor is imposing fines and other punishment against foreign IT companies like TikTok and Pinterest for alleged violations of Russian law regarding the removal of “illegal” content.

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Explainer: What is causing the recent tensions between Serbia and Kosovo?

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Middle East

Israel and Turkey are reestablishing diplomatic relations with ambassadors to be exchanged.

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Explainer: The Iran nuclear deal maybe closer to agreement, but how close is it?

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Asia

Newly elected Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr is taking aim at critics in the media.

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Slavery allegations in Xinjiang, China, are credible according to a United Nations expert on the subject. In the cited report, other nations have been spotlighted for forced domestic servitude and forced and child marriages.

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After failing to curb resistance to military rule, Myanmar, military government chief Min Aung Hlaing is targeting government and business elites. Some analysts see this as consolidation of power by Hlaing and potentially a sign of fragile leadership.

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Global Tech Stories (April 26, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Researchers in Israel have developed a new 3-D printing process that can restore and preserve coral reefs. The process can apply to a diverse array of coral types and environments and at large scale while attracting reef species and marine life.

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A new way to prevent unintended pregnancies could be a few years away. Researchers in China are working on a reversible non-hormonal contraceptive for men. While still in testing, this method is reversible with ultrasound and worked in experiments with mice.

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Despite being 100% recyclable without a quality loss, glass is one of the least recycled materials. Scientists at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore created a way to replace sand in concrete with glass waste that can lead to more environmentally sustainable building materials.

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An integrated reversible gas-to-electricity system has been developed by researchers from Stanford University and at the University of Mannheim, which can convert hydrogen to electricity and back depending on power needs. These fuel cells can scale with any grid and make a new way to store and utilize green energy affordably.

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Researchers in the United States are working on developing a nickel-based catalyst that only requires light. This will pave the way for catalysts that do not need scarce precious metals like Palladium.

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Global Tech Stories (April 12, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Long distance quantum communications is difficult due to information losses over distance. If there were a way to limit the information loss, one could have a communication system that is nearly impossible to compromise by third parties. Scientists in Australia discovered a way to limit the information loss.

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Microfluidic channels can now be 3-D printed, at least in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Such channels are vital to microfluidic devices and biomedical research on the property of specific compounds and drug testing and the development of new treatments.

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An international research team developed a new way to heal bone fractures using bioprinting paired with gene therapy. While tested on rats, the healing rate was several times greater than by natural healing, with four times greater bone tissue creation and almost four times greater bone coverage.

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Miniature pulse power systems maybe the future of energy storage. Researchers at the University of Houston are studying how to create a miniaturized pulse power system that is a one-tenth of the size of the conventional devices.

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Microbiologists are using bacteria to convert methane into electricity. Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon as a greenhouse gas and often introduced to the atmosphere from agriculture and fossil fuel-based energy use.

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Researchers are developing a renewable alternative to increasingly expensive inorganic phosphates. This will improve fertilizers and agricultural practices.

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Global Tech Stories (April 5, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

A fungal spray that can fight soil degradation and air pollution has been developed in India.

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Zyxel, a hardware company, has released a patch for the CVE-2022-0342 flaw. The flaw affected VPNs and Firewalls due to an authentication bypass vulnerability in the common gateway interface of a device.

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Twitter and Elon Musk reached a deal to allow Musk onto the board but limited to 14.9% common stock. This deal would prevent a buyout of the company’s stock.

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Darknet site Hydra, the largest cybercrime forum globally, has been shut down by German authorities.

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According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there are five things we can do to fight climate change effectively with current technology and tools.

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Deeper dive on the IPCC report.

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Global Affairs Weekly Stories (Week of April 3, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world for the week of April 3, 2022.

Global News

U.S. Federal Reserve is mulling another interest rate bump after positive news on job growth. The federal interest rate affects global financial assets denominated in the U.S. dollar, such as treasury bonds or debts denominated in dollars.

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The United Nations is appointing a 16-member panel to investigate climate change projects and efforts by private sector actors to determine their effectiveness and how to improve corporate efforts to fight climate change. The announcement comes after environmental groups accuse some large corporations of ‘greenwashing’- when a climate damaging activity is rebranded as fighting climate change.

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The Middle East and North Africa are experiencing more frequent and damaging climate disasters and higher temperatures than anywhere else in the world.

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Only 2 million Bitcoin left untapped globally.

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Americas

Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, now have a unionized warehouse after successfully voting for one. This comes after more than 25 years of Amazon preventing unionization company-wide and may inspire other Amazon warehouses.

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Workers for Brazil’s central bank have voted on an indefinite strike starting April 1, while the president of the central bank, Roberto Campos Neto, vacations in Miami. This threatens the Pix payment system that 67% of Brazil’s adult population use.

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The Biden Administration may end Title 42 by May 23, though this has not been finalized. The administration is seeking to address “root causes” for migration in a shift in immigration policy.

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Africa

The duct fiber foundations of a smart city are being laid out in Lagos. Another smart city project, the Eko Atlantic, also in Lagos, held a ground breaking ceremony for a new U.S. consulate.

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Aid is reaching Tigrayans for the first time since December 15, 2021 after a truce was called last week. More then 90% of the Tigrayan population need food after the 16-month long civil war between the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front left the thousands dead and brought hundreds of thousands to starvation since November.

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The United Nations voted unanimously to endorse an African Union force fighting armed groups like al-Shabab and Daesh. The new force will transition responsibility for Somalia’s domestic security to the Somali transitional government over time as the government gains strength.

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Europe

Putin’s war is not a sign of genius, and has been a disaster.

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Ukrainian officials and civilians accuse Russian military personnel and the Russian government of atrocities and massacres across the Kyiv region.

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Lithuania stopped importing Russian gas at the beginning of April, the first European nation to stop buying Russian gas.

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Middle East

In Jordan, Prince Hamza bin al-Hussein has renounced his title and claim on the throne.

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The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is working with nations in West Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East to develop water conservation and use strategies to promote stability and cooperation. Known as the Blue Peace Strategy, the SDC believe this could be a tool to promote peace in the Middle East and beyond as water scarcity becomes a greater threat.

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Yemen’s 7-year long war might be seeing peace as all warring factions agreed to a two-month truce for the month of Ramadan.

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Asia

Pakistan is headed for early elections after president Imran Khan avoided a no-confidence vote and dissolved Parliament.

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 Several cryptocurrency mining companies took advantage of tax cuts and exemptions not meant for them specifically, according to auditors in Kazakhstan. While not actually breaking any laws, these companies were an example used by the Accounts Committee to claim the Digital Kazakhstan program was not working as intended.

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The President and prime minister of Sri Lanka lost all 26 ministers in the government in protest over the nation’s woes- national debt, rising cost of living, shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

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Global Tech Stories (March 22, 2022)

Returning from our break, we have more tech stories for this Tuesday!

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

The renewable energy produced by wind energy could have already replaced coal in Texas. Yet the energy grid is a mess.

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The Lapsus$ hacking gang compromised a super user account in Okta, a password management platform responsible for using multiple services securely without using a password for each service.

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Researchers at John Hopkins University in Maryland are working on an autonomous medical robot.

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A new way to phish passwords that anyone can use.

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Scientists developed a way to repel dust and even moisture from solar panels in the desert.

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Global Tech Stories (March 1, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Nanobots will one day remove heavy metal pollutants from the water ways and oceans. Scientists in Prague developed nanobots that can attract and retain pollutants and be fabricated at large scale with environmentally sustainable components.

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NASA has new ideas for the future of space exploration. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program selected 12 Phase I projects and 5 Phase II projects for further funding, including a project on extended radiation shielding for astronauts, 3-D printed microbots and the development of artificial gravity through rotating structures.

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Researchers at MIT are tackling bias in machine-learning models by teaching machines to different similarity attributes besides a sensitive one. This method is Partial Attribute Decorrelation, and could make technologies like facial recognition fairer.

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For manufacturers, downtime from broken or stalled equipment can be a drain on resources and time, often without the help of experienced employees to help fix the problem. A recently created self-learning assistance system could change that.

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A newly developed wrap blocks both bacteria and viruses.

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The future of bullet resistant armor looks a lot thinner and could one day be warn in hot and cold climates. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a nano-fibrous material that performs better at resisting impact than steel plates and Kevlar fabric.

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Imagine harvesting electricity from radio waves. Researchers in the University of South Florida have developed a metasurface-based antenna that could harvest 100 microwatts- enough to power a simple device.

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Earthworms play a more active role in the health of soil and the nitrogen cycle by secreting nitrogen in their mucus when active, enriching the soil and contributing to crop health.

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Scientists developed a way to turn on dormant genes using a combination of AI and CRISPR technologies. This could help doctors activate genes for fighting illnesses through personalized medicine and general medical treatments.

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Stonehenge may have been a solar calendar.

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Global Tech Stories (February 15, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Explainer: What is the Ethereum Swarm?

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The BlackByte group launched attacks that penetrated at least three critical infrastructure sectors and several US and foreign businesses last year.

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In 2021, 74% of all revenue from ransomware attacks went to Russian-affiliated hacker groups.

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The James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first pictures in space. The object was of the star HD 84406 in the constellation of Ursa Major.

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After testing bionic implants to improve eyesight for sheep, Researchers in Australia came one step closer to bionic eyes for humans.

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Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan developed a way to produce hydrogen using cobalt and manganese.

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Global Tech Stories (February 8, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

MIT scientists created a new material that is as light as plastic and with a yield strength twice that of steel. This new material can be produced in large quantities and impermeable to gases.

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The University of Delaware has developed a hydrogen powered carbon filtration and capture device that captures 99% of carbon dioxide from the air. The device could scale for different applications such as cars, spacecraft, submarines and other machines.

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A new form of targeted medicine has been developed in a collaborative between Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University and TU Graz (Austria). The metal-organic framework antibody-drug delivery system is a crystal that latches onto a targeted cell and dissolves, exposing only the targeted cell to the drug or chemical.

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A new AI coding program, AlphaCode, could perform almost as well as a human in writing code. However, AI is still not ready to replace human coders.

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Patients with spinal cord injuries may walk again in the next few years with personalized implants. Researchers at Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology developed 3-D spinal cord tissue that can be implanted and restore walking ability to lab models with long-term chronic paralysis with an 80% success. For lab models with acute paralysis, the implants were successful in restoring walking abilities 100% of the time.

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Global Tech Stories (January 25, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Social Media company Meta plans on developing a powerful AI supercomputer by mid-2022. Meta plans to use this super computer to train their systems, such as content moderation and machine learning.

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A new firmware-based implant malware has been discovered recently by Kaspersky. This malware is the most advanced of its variety so far discovered.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan and Northeastern University developed a topological optimization algorithm that promises not only to cut down time and resources in finding the best designs for architecture, but to reshape the world.

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Self-powered soft temperature sensors have been developed and can lead to the development of smart clothing and soft robotics.

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Banana peels and apple cores may one day fuel your car, fertilize crops and create valuable components to electrical devices. A way to make biofuel, fertilizer, and electrodes out of organic waste material has been created.

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An atomic level layer of graphene could provide protection for next-generation accelerators.

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