- Nearly two-thirds of parents feel lonely and burned out, survey finds
- Why everyone is crying to Taylor’s breakup songs
- Belgian man whose body produces alcohol in rare condition acquitted of drunk driving
- Minerals are in short supply on Earth. This startup wants to mine asteroids
- Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
- How to freeze a memory: putting worms on ice stops them forgetting
KMU Weekly: News around the World
Issue 118 - Apr. 29. 2024
Nearly two-thirds of parents feel lonely and burned out, survey finds
調查發現近三分之二的父母感到孤單和倦怠
Health
Many parents today find parenting a challenge to their ability to connect with other adults, according to a new national survey published Wednesday by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. In fact, 66% of 1,005 surveyed parents felt the demands of parenthood sometimes or frequently left them feeling isolated and lonely, while nearly 40% felt as if they have no one to support them in their parenting role. “I’m a mom of four,” said Kate Gawlik, an associate clinical professor at the Ohio State University College of Nursing in Columbus who conducted the research. “My life is incredibly busy,” she said.”Keeping busy, however, does not replace the need for friendship and more intimate conversations with others who share your interests.”
---from CNN
Columbus市俄亥俄州立大學Wexner醫學中心週三發布的一項新的全國調查顯示，如今許多父母發現養育子女對他們與其他成年人溝通的能力構成了挑戰。 事實上，在1,005 名受訪的父母中，有66%的人感到為人父母的要求有時或經常讓他們感到孤單和寂寞，而近40% 的人則覺得在養育子女的過程中沒有人支持他們。 「我是四個孩子的母親，」進行這項研究的Columbus 俄亥俄州立大學護理學院臨床副教授 Kate Gawlik 說。 「我的生活非常忙碌，」她說，「然而，保持忙碌並不能取代對友誼的需要，也不能取代與志趣相投的人進行更親密的交談。」
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Why everyone is crying to Taylor’s breakup songs
為什麼每個人都因泰勒絲的分手歌流淚
Health
Fans were waiting with bated breath for the emotional torment they were sure would come from “The Tortured Poets Department,” Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album. And she delivered with a double album. The first release since the end of Swift’s six-year relationship was announced, “The Tortured Poets Department” captured the anger, sadness, longing and confusion that fans love in a good breakup song. She sang about having held her breath since her love left her, her heart breaking when he pretended to put a ring on her wedding finger and him being the loss of her life – the kind of pain listeners may turn away from in life but sometimes seek out in their music. Experts say it’s normal and often helpful to connect with heartbreaking music, and Swift even shared her own philosophy in an Instagram post about the album. “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page,” she said. “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”
---from CNN
歌迷屏息以待，等待泰勒絲的第 11 張錄音室專輯《The Tortured Poets Department》帶來的情感折磨。 她還推出了一張雙專輯。 《The Tortured Poets Department》是泰勒絲宣布結束六年戀情之後的首張專輯，裡面所收錄很棒的分手歌曲中捕捉到了歌迷們喜愛的憤怒、悲傷、渴望和困惑。 她唱道，自從她的愛人離開她後，她就屏住了呼吸，當他假裝把戒指戴在她的無名指上時，她的心碎了，他是她生命中的損失——聽眾在生活中可能會避開、但他們有時也會在音樂中尋找這種痛苦。 專家表示，與令人心碎的音樂產生連結是很正常的，而且往往很有幫助，泰勒斯甚至在 Instagram 上分享了她自己對於這張專輯的理念。 「歌曲的作者堅信，我們的眼淚會以墨水的形式在書頁上變得神聖，」她說。 「一旦我們說出了最悲傷的故事，我們就可以得到釋放。」
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Belgian man whose body produces alcohol in rare condition acquitted of drunk driving
一名比利時男子因罕見地能從身體產生酒精，而被判酒駕無罪
Culture
A Belgian man was acquitted of drunk driving on Monday because he suffers from auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), a rare condition whereby the body produces alcohol, his lawyer said. Anse Ghesquiere told Reuters that in “another unfortunate coincidence” her client works at a brewery, but three doctors who independently examined him confirmed he suffered from ABS. Belgian media said that in the verdict, the judge emphasized that the defendant, who was not named in line with local judicial custom, did not experience symptoms of intoxication. The Bruges police court, which acquitted the man, did not immediately reply to an email from Reuters. Lisa Florin, clinical biologist with Belgian hospital AZ Sint-Lucas, explained that people with the condition produce the same type of alcohol as the one in alcoholic drinks but that they generally feel less of its effects. She added that people are not born with ABS but can get it when they already suffer from another intestine-related condition.
---from CNN
一名比利時男子的律師表示，週一這名男子被判酒駕罪名不成立，因為他患有自動製酒症候群（ABS），這是一種身體會產生酒精的罕見疾病。 律師Anse Ghesquiere 告訴路透社，「另一個不幸的巧合」是，她的這位客戶在一家啤酒廠工作，但有三名獨立檢查他的醫生都證實他患有 ABS。 比利時媒體稱，法官在判決書中強調，被告並未出現中毒症狀，依照當地司法慣例，沒有公佈被告的姓名。 Bruges警察法院宣判該名男子無罪，但並未立即回覆路透社詢問此案件的電子郵件。 位於比利時Sint-Lucas醫院的臨床生物學家Lisa Florin 解釋說，患有這種疾病的人會產生與酒精飲料中相同類型的酒精，但他們通常感覺不到酒精的影響。 她補充說，人們並不是生來就會患有 ABS，而是當他們已經患有另一種腸道相關疾病時才會患上 ABS。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Minerals are in short supply on Earth. This startup wants to mine asteroids
礦物在地球上供應短缺。這家新創公司想要開採小行星
Culture
Matt Gialich, whose childhood love of space led him into engineering and a job at the satellite launch company Virgin Orbit before its bankruptcy, began wondering how to extract the metal in asteroids. Scientists believe these chunks of celestial debris, which are by-products from the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, are rich in metals that are in short supply on Earth. In 2022, Gialich and Jose Acain, who has almost a decade of experience at SpaceX and NASA, founded AstroForge. Now the California-based startup is attempting to make asteroid mining a reality. The company isn’t alone. The clean energy transition is expected to cause demand for mineral resources to soar, and interest in extracting them from previously untapped sources, like the ocean floor and space, is growing. Companies across the world have raised tens of millions of dollars to test asteroid-mining technologies. Some say the idea is a prohibitively expensive, far-fetched fantasy. But 38-year-old Gialich thinks it could be put into practice soon. “Going out and securing resources from space is this Holy Grail,” he says. “I think we’re finally at this inflection point where we can take it on.”
---from CNN
Matt Gialich童年時對太空的熱愛促使他進入工程領域，並在衛星發射公司Virgin Orbit找到了一份工作，後來這家公司破產了。他開始思考如何從小行星的礦石中提煉出金屬。科學家認為，這些天體碎片是45億年前太陽系誕生時的副產品，富含地球上缺乏的金屬。 2022年，Gialich 和在SpaceX和NASA工作了近十年的Jose Acain創立了 AstroForge。現在，這家總部位於加州的新創公司正試圖使小行星採礦成為事實。 該公司並不是唯一一家這麼做的公司。清潔能源轉型預計將導致對礦產能源的需求飆升，並且對從未開發的資源（例如海底和太空）中開採礦產資源的興趣也在增長。世界各地的公司已籌措數千萬美元來測試小行星採礦技術。 有人說這個想法是昂貴地令人卻步。但38歲的Gialich認為這項技術很快就會付諸實踐。 「走出去並從太空獲取資源是個聖杯(極難找到之物)，」他說。「我認為我們終於到了可以處理的轉折點。」
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
致命自主武器來了：我們要如何控制它們？
Sciences
The development of lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), including AI-equipped drones, is on the rise. The US Department of Defense, for example, has earmarked US$1 billion so far for its Replicator programme, which aims to build a fleet of small, weaponized autonomous vehicles. Experimental submarines, tanks and ships have been made that use AI to pilot themselves and shoot. Commercially available drones can use AI image recognition to zero in on targets and blow them up. LAWs do not need AI to operate, but the technology adds speed, specificity and the ability to evade defences. Some observers fear a future in which swarms of cheap AI drones could be dispatched by any faction to take out a specific person, using facial recognition. Warfare is a relatively simple application for AI. “The technical capability for a system to find a human being and kill them is much easier than to develop a self-driving car. It’s a graduate-student project,” says Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a prominent campaigner against AI weapons. The emergence of AI on the battlefield has spurred debate among researchers, legal experts and ethicists. Some argue that AI-assisted weapons could be more accurate than human-guided ones, potentially reducing both collateral damage — such as civilian casualties and damage to residential areas — and the numbers of soldiers killed and maimed, while helping vulnerable nations and groups to defend themselves. Others emphasize that autonomous weapons could make catastrophic mistakes. And many observers have overarching ethical concerns about passing targeting decisions to an algorithm.
---from Nature
致命自主武器（LAW）的開發正在不斷發展，其中包括配備人工智慧的無人機。例如，美國國防部迄今已經為其Replicator 計劃撥出10億美元，該計劃旨在打造一支小型武器化自動駕駛車隊。實驗用的潛艇、坦克和船都使用人工智慧來駕駛和發射。商用無人機可以使用人工智慧圖像辨識來鎖定目標並將其炸毀。致命自主武器不需要人工智慧來操作，但這項技術增加了速度、特異性和規避防禦的能力。一些觀察家擔心，未來任何軍派都可以派出大量廉價人工智慧無人機，利用臉部辨識技術，除掉某個特定的人。 戰爭是人工智慧的一個相對簡單的應用。「系統找到一個人並殺死他的技術能力比開發一輛自動駕駛汽車要容易得多。這只是一個研究生等級的研究，」加州大學柏克萊分校的電腦科學家、反對人工智慧武器的知名活動家Stuart Russell說。 人工智慧在戰場上的出現引發了研究人員、法律專家和倫理學家之間的爭論。有些人認為，人工智慧輔助武器可能比人類操作的武器更精準，可以減少附帶損害（例如平民傷亡和住宅區的破壞）以及士兵死亡和肢體傷殘的人數，同時幫助脆弱國家和團體的自我防衛。其他人則強調自主武器可能會犯下災難性的錯誤。許多觀察家對將目標決策交給演算法存在著全面性的道德隱憂。
---摘錄翻譯自Nature
How to freeze a memory: putting worms on ice stops them forgetting
如何鎖住記憶：將蟲類放在冰上可以防止它們忘記
Sciences
Roundworms have short memories, forgetting new information just two to three hours after learning it. But put them on ice and they don’t forget — until they are returned to room temperature, a study finds. The worms, the laboratory workhorse Caenorhabditis elegans, only retain their memories if they’re cooled quickly. If they are allowed to acclimatize to the cold by spending the night in cool conditions before they are trained and placed on ice, they forget the information as fast as usual. If they are given the drug lithium, they also hang onto their memories for longer than normal, even at room temperature. The work raises questions about why the keenness of a worm’s memories changes under different environmental conditions. The research is “terrific”, says molecular biologist Ilya Ruvinsky at Northwestern University, Illinois, who was not involved in the research. “Forming memories is an intrinsically interesting problem. But it doesn’t happen in isolation.” The research was led by geneticist Oded Rechavi at Tel Aviv University in Israel and posted on the preprint server bioRxiv on 3 April. It has not yet been peer reviewed.
--from Nature
蛔蟲的記憶力很差，在學習新資訊後兩到三個小時就忘了。但一項研究發現，將它們放在冰上，它們就不會忘記，直到它們回到室溫。 這些實驗室裡的主要蠕蟲Caenorhabditis elegans，只有在快速冷卻的情況下才能保留它們的記憶。如果讓它們在寒冷的環境下過夜以適應寒冷，然後再將它們放在冰上，它們就會像往常一樣很快忘記這些訊息。如果給他們服用藥物鋰，即使在室溫下，他們的記憶時間也會比正常人長。 這項研究提出了一個問題：為什麼蠕蟲的記憶力會在不同的環境條件下產生變化。 伊利諾州Northwestern University 大學的分子生物學家Ilya Ruvinsky沒有參與這項研究，但他說這項研究「太棒了」。「形成記憶本質上是一個有趣的問題。但這並不是獨立發生的。」 這項研究由以色列特拉維夫大學遺傳學家 Oded Rechavi 所領導，並於4月3日發表在預印本伺服器 bioRxiv 上。但它尚未經過同儕審查。
--摘錄翻譯自Nature