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The profound impact of the technology of social networking on our culture, especially social media juggernaut Facebook, is a phenomenon that is unique in human history, allowing friends, loved ones, and even complete strangers to connect from disparate corners of the interweb. Conversely, it has also been used to spread disinformation, such as in the case of Russian hackers meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, and for many it has also become the object of addictive behavior.read more

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The infamous hole in Earth’s ozone layer has shrunk down to 7.6 million square miles wide (12,200,000 square kilometers), the smallest the gap has been since 1988. This healing of Earth’s main shield against ultraviolet radiation is due largely to efforts initiated in the mid-1980s, when the use of ozone-harming CFCs was phased out. Not only is this positive news in regards to our atmosphere’s ability to filter out harmful UV radiation, it also stands as an example of how humanity can make a positive, large-scale impact when efforts to reduce ecological harm are required, such as in the case of our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Medical researchers have saved the life of a seven-year-old boy by growing genetically-modified replacement skin for him. The young German boy suffered from a deadly congenital condition called epidermolysis bullosa, a condition that cases the sufferer’s skin to tear and blister, as if it had been burned. The procedure not only saved his life, but he’s now able to participate in sports with his classmates.

By 2015 the patient had been admitted to the burns unit at Bochum Children’s Hospital in Germany: at that point, two-thirds of his skin was either was either badly damaged or outright missing, and traditional treatments failed to yield results, including skin grafts from a donor.
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Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and others have been warning about the dangers of weaponizing artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the Russian and Chinese militaries are already in an AI weapons arms race. The Pentagon has promised that it won’t release such weapons from human control, but whether or not they will learn to release themselves–or be programmed to under various circumstances–remains an unknown. Research projects in all three countries are deeply classified, but if one deploys autonomous intelligent weapons, then the others must do the same. The simple reason is that human control would then be too slow.
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