All posts filed under: Debate

Debate

The debate happening inside of every VC firm

Precursor’s Charles Hudson wants to be cautious but not too cautious. The venture capitalist was at an AI confab last month, but he has not yet made a new AI investment during the current hype cycle. He’s one of many investors who have seen an inflection point take over a sector before, bringing in boatloads of capital, new founders and, at times, speedy and FOMO-driven deals. Historically, Hudson hasn’t minded sitting out. “With crypto, for example, I was OK being at almost zero,” he said. “I don’t think I’m OK with zero as the answer for AI. The question is where and how.” While the “ChatGPT for X” companies are certainly interesting, Hudson says that he’s out on them for now because they are just “wrapper” companies stitching together different preexisting companies. “I might regret that, but I think I would just say, my imagination didn’t provide the answer.” He said a founder recently pitched him an exciting product, but when asked how long it would take someone else to build the same tool, the …

Betty Boothroyd was the first woman speaker – and the first to become a ‘cult figure’ via televised debates

Baroness Betty Boothroyd, who has died at the age of 93, was, in no uncertain terms, a parliamentary giant. With a career in Westminster spanning almost 50 years, she was best known for becoming the first (and so far only) female speaker of the House of Commons – a post she held from 1992 to 2000. It had taken over 700 years to see a woman in the speaker’s chair Boothroyd served as member of parliament for West Bromwich between 1973 and 2000 and, after stepping down as speaker, was elevated to the House of Lords as a crossbench (independent) peer. She remained an active member of the second chamber until very late in her life. Boothroyd was born in 1929 to mill workers in Drewsbury, West Yorkshire. She started her career as a dancer, joining the Tiller Girl dance troupe. Her natural theatrical flare and love of the limelight put her in great stead not only to be a fierce MP but to be able to tame the beast that is the House of …

Galwan Valley confrontation between China and India could spiral out of control as India and China face-off

The forces of two nuclear weapons states have set about each other with clubs and rocks at one of the most forbidding flashpoints in the world, in a bloody incident that highlights the constant dangers posed by expansionist nationalism. India has confirmed that it lost at least 20 of its men in a clash with Chinese soldiers near the disputed mountain border running along the Ladakh area of Kashmir. It is the first fatal confrontation since 1975 and the most serious since 1967, and so can be expected to have a powerful galvanising effect on the populations of both countries, already primed by a constant stream of nationalist rhetoric. There is a long history of such encounters ever since the two nations fought a short war there in 1962. After that conflict a Line of Actual Control (LAC) was declared, but there is no agreed line and limited control, as the events of recent weeks have confirmed. Thus far at least, both Indian and Chinese forces have stuck to an agreement not to carry firearms …

Soldiers fell to their deaths as India and China’s troops fought with rocks in Galwan Valley

The hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, on steep, jagged terrain, with iron bars, rocks and fists. Neither side carried guns. Most of the soldiers killed in the worst fighting between India and China in 60 years lost their footing or were knocked from the narrow Himalayan ridge, plunging to their deaths. India has reacted with shock and caution to the loss of at least 20 soldiers on its disputed border with China, with images of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, burned in Indian cities. In his first public comments on the dispute, prime minister Narendra Modi led a two-minute silence for the killed soldiers and said India would “defend every stone, every inch of its territory.” “I would like to assure the nation that the sacrifice of our jawans [troops] will not be in vain,” said Modi, speaking at a televised meeting of India’s chief ministers. “For us, the unity and sovereignty of the country is the most important.” A day after reports of the “violent face-off” in the western Himalayas emerged, Indian news outlets began …

India cautions China against ‘exaggerated and flawed claims’ in border standoff – June 2020

India on Thursday cautioned China against making “exaggerated and untenable claims” to the Galvan valley area even as both nations tried to end a standoff in the high Himalayan region after their armies engaged in a deadly clash. Twenty Indian troops were killed in the clash on Monday night that was the deadliest conflict between the sides in 45 years. China has not disclosed whether its forces suffered any casualties. Himalayan flashpoint could spiral out of control as India and China face off Read more Responding to China’s claim to the valley, India’s external affairs ministry spokesman, Anurag Srivastava, said both sides had agreed to handle the situation responsibly. “Making exaggerated and untenable claims is contrary to this understanding,” he said in a statement. Both sides have accused each other of instigating the clash between their forces in the valley, part of the disputed Ladakh region along the Himalayan frontier. Media reports said senior army officers of the two sides met on Wednesday to defuse the situation, but there was no confirmation from either side. …

Genetic Engineering to Clash With Evolution

Genetic Engineering to Clash With Evolution

In a crowded auditorium at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in August, Philipp Messer, a population geneticist at Cornell University, took the stage to discuss a powerful and controversial new application for genetic engineering: gene drives. Gene drives can force a trait through a population, defying the usual rules of inheritance. A specific trait ordinarily has a 50-50 chance of being passed along to the next generation. A gene drive could push that rate to nearly 100 percent. The genetic dominance would then continue in all future generations. You want all the fruit flies in your lab to have light eyes? Engineer a drive for eye color, and soon enough, the fruit flies’ offspring will have light eyes, as will their offspring, and so on for all future generations. Gene drives may work in any species that reproduces sexually, and they have the potential to revolutionize disease control, agriculture, conservation and more. Scientists might be able to stop mosquitoes from spreading malaria, for example, or eradicate an invasive species. The technology represents the first …

Peru ends conversation of ‘roadless wilderness’ in its Amazon rainforests

Biodiversity reaches its zenith in south-east Peru. This vast wilderness of 2m square km of rainforests and savannahs is formed of the headwaters of three major river basins, the Juruá, Purús, and Madeira. Nowhere on Earth can you find more species of animals and plants than in this corner of the Amazon that rubs up against the feet of the towering Andean mountains. These forests are also home to a culturally diverse human population, many of whom still live in voluntary isolation from the rest of humanity. In 2012 I spent a hectic few days in the exhausting Madre de Dios region, literally Spanish for “Mother of God”. I was there at the invitation of the Peruvian tourist board, which wanted to raise awareness of the region’s potential. In the lush lowland rainforests our team of ornithologists recorded more than 240 bird species in a few hours. These included the Rufous-fronted Antthrush, a near-mythical sighting among birders and one of a number of vertebrate species discovered by scientists there in the second half of the …

Social media can be used used as an evidence against you

Social media can be used used as an evidence against you

As we increasingly use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp to communicate with each other, many of us are unaware of the ways in which our posts might later resurface – and get us into trouble with the law. There are numerous examples of social media being used as evidence in the criminal justice system, leading to convictions and sometimes prison sentences. Peter Nunn from Bristol, England, was imprisoned in 2014 after MP Stella Creasy and feminist Caroline Criado-Perez were subjected to a string of abuse on Twitter. And after the London riots of 2011, two men were imprisoned for incitement after posting messages on Facebook inviting those who read them to meet the next day and wreak havoc in their local town. Police were able to trace the messages back to the defendants, leading to successful prosecutions. Messages and media on WhatsApp, Snapchat and the like, have been used in evidence to show that defendants have committed offences, such as selling drugs, possession of firearms(as in the case of R v Noble and Johnson, where WhatsApp messages …

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Alzheimer’s, insulin is a new suspect

Johnson and Johnson recently announced that it was halting a clinical trial for a new Alzheimer’s drug after safety issues emerged. This latest failure adds to the dozens of large, costly clinical trials that have shown no effect in treating this devastating disease. The growing list of failures should give us pause for thought – have we got the causes of Alzheimer’s all wrong? In the first analysis of the disease, the German physician, Alois Alzheimer, noted odd changes in the brain of a patient who died of the condition. Alzheimer identified two kinds of protein aggregates that are not found in younger brains: plaques that are found between brain cells and tangles that are found inside brain cells. Later research identified the proteins that made up the plaques as amyloid and those that form the tangles as tau. What these structures actually do is still under debate. Unheeded warning Alzheimer advised scientists not to jump to the conclusion that these proteins caused the disease. Unfortunately, his caution was ignored, and over the years it has become gospel …

Down side of daydreaming

Daydreaming is one of life’s great joys. You can indulge in it when you’re stuck in a boring meeting or a long queue. This seemingly innocuous pastime, however, is a double-edged sword. Some research has found that it boosts creativity, but other studies suggest that it is bad for your mental health and could lower your intelligence. Before we look at the downside to daydreaming, let’s first look at the positive side. In a studyconducted by psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, undergraduate students were asked to come up with as many uses for everyday objects – such as toothpicks, clothes hangers and bricks – as they could in two minutes, take a 12-minute break, and then repeat the exercise. The students were able to generate more creative uses for the objects the second time around if their break involved completing an undemanding task, which is known to promote more daydreaming, compared with a break filled with a more attention-demanding task, known to reduce daydreaming. Daydreaming has also been linked with feeling socially …