Category Archives: Wellness Live

Keir Starmer Warns Social Media Is Not A ‘Law-Free Zone’ After Sadiq Khan Reveals Concerns

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Keir Starmer signalled that a firmer crackdown on social media may be in the works after the London mayor Sadiq Khan expressed his concerns.

After a week and a half of far-right riots – partially driven by social media disinformation and online conspiracy theories – Khan said the government has “very swiftly” realised the Online Safety Act needs to be amended.

The mayor added: “I think it is not fit for purpose.”

The Online Safety Act became law last October, and allows regulator Ofcom to fine social media companies up to £18m or 10% of their global turnover if they do not take illegal content off their platforms.

However, these fines will not come into effect fully until 2025.

On Friday, the prime minister was asked for his response to Khan’s comments.

He said: “I do agree that we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder, but the focus at the moment has to be on dealing with the disorder and making sure that our communities are safe and secure.”

Starmer added: “This is not a law-free zone. And I think that’s clear from the prosecutions and sentencing. Today we’re due sentencing for online behaviour.”

Two people linked to inciting the violence seen all over the UK in the last few days online have now been jailed.

The PM continued: “That’s a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable, and you will be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law.”

He said tech bosses should be “mindful of the first priority, which is to ensure that our communities are safe and secure”.

Starmer did not directly mention the boss of X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, who has been in a war of words with the PM over the riots.

He responded to various clips of extremists clashing with the police, claiming “civil war in inevitable” in the UK and pushing conspiracy theories like “two-tier policing”.

Khan, one of the most high-profile Muslim politicians in the UK, also told the Guardian on Thursday that he felt “triggered” by the racist riots.

He said: “I’m somebody who grew up in the 1970s and 80s and experienced the National Front and the BNP and I thought that’s behind us.

“Like a lot of people of my generation, I felt triggered by the events of the last couple of weeks in particular.”

Khan has regularly faced abuse online too – but he noted it was not “realistic” to boycott any social platforms.

“One of the ways we can address people’s fears is using the medium that’s used by citizens and that is social media platforms.” he said.

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Mexico Says It Will Not Arrest Putin if He Visits The Country, Despite Plea From Ukraine

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Mexico has just rejected Ukraine’s request to arrest Vladimir Putin if he visits the North American country later this year.

The Russian president may defy the international arrest warrant out against him and attend the inauguration of Mexico’s next president in October.

Kyiv asked Mexico to arrest him if he did turn up when president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum is sworn in.

It comes after Sheinbaum’s team invited Putin to the ceremony, along with all countries it has a diplomatic relationship with.

After all, Putin appears to be on positive terms with the incoming president.

When Sheinbaum was elected in June, he called her to congratulate her and said the country was a “historically friendly partner of Russia in Latin America”.

Outgoing Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, told reporters at a press conference on Thursday that the country would not arrest Putin if he did visit, adding: “We can’t do that. It’s not up to us.”

The remark comes after Ukraine’s Mexican embassy wrote to the central government on August 7.

“We hope the Mexican government is aware that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal with an arrest warrant against him,” the embassy said in a statement.

It pointed to the UN’s International Criminal Court has accused Putin of war crimes and of personal responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine.

The warrant was issued last year, months after Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

But the effectiveness of the ICC ruling relies on international cooperation.

While Russia is not a signatory of the ICC, Mexico is.

If Mexico chooses not to follow the ICC ruling, then Putin may be empowered to travel further afield in the future.

That would mean the Russian president can enjoy more international freedom, despite being accused of war crimes.

Meanwhile, Russia’s war against Ukraine has been rumbling on for more than two years.

According to reports, Putin was furious that Ukrainian forces breached the Russian border earlier this week, calling it a “major provocation”.

Kyiv has not commented on the alleged attack.

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Doctors question union over puberty blocker views

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Some doctors question the British Medical Association’s stance on what gender services should offer.

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Detecting climate change using aerosols

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Researchers analyzed long-term aerosol satellite observation big data focusing on the Pacific Ocean downwind of China. Using a newly developed metric that considered aerosols as tracers, they detected altered atmospheric transport patterns associated with climate change. They observed that the distance of transboundary air pollution moving east from China had shortened. Thus, long-term satellite-based Earth observations are crucial for early climate change detection and accurate evaluation of this trend.

Climate change is one of the most significant environmental challenges of present times, leading to extreme weather events, including droughts, forest fires, and floods. The primary driver for climate change is the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere due to human activities, which trap heat and raise Earth’s temperature. Aerosols (such as particulate matter, PM2.5) not only affect public health but also influence the Earth’s climate by absorbing and scattering sunlight and altering cloud properties. Although future climate change predictions are being reported, it is possible that the impacts of climate change could be more severe than predicted. Therefore, it is necessary to detect climate change accurately and as early as possible.

Building on these insights, a research team from Japan, led by Professor Hitoshi Irie from the Center for Environmental Remote Sensing at Chiba University, utilized long-term observational data to study the effect of climate change on transboundary air pollution in the downwind area of China by using aerosols. They utilized a completely unique perspective on how aerosols impact climate and developed a new metric to detect climate change by considering aerosols as tracers.

“The significance of this study lies in the fact that most of its results are derived from observational data. In natural sciences focused on Earth studies, the ultimate goal is to piece together highly accurate data obtained from observations to quantitatively understand the processes occurring on Earth and to pursue immutable truths. Therefore, the more observational data we have, the better. With the continued Earth observations by Japan’s major Earth observation satellites (such as the GCOM series, GOSAT series, Himawari series, and ALOS series), we aim to complement these efforts with numerical simulations and data science methodologies to achieve a safe and secure global environment that mitigates the impacts of the climate crisis.” explains Prof. Irie.

The research team included Ms. Ying Cai from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Chiba University, Dr. Alessandro Damiani from the Center for Climate Change Adaptation, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Dr. Syuichi Itahashi and Professor Toshihiko Takemura from the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, and Dr. Pradeep Khatri from Faculty of Science and Engineering, Soka University. Their study was made available online on May 23, 2024, and published in Science of The Total Environment on August 20, 2024.

China is a major contributor to air pollution in East Asia. The downwind area of China analyzed in this study is a unique open ocean area with minimal human interference yet an important zone of transboundary air pollution pathways, making it an ideal location for studying meteorological variations due to climate change.

In their study, the researchers analyzed aerosol optical depth (AOD) datasets derived from satellites, reanalysis datasets, and numerical simulations focused on the Pacific Ocean in the downwind area of China, over 19 years from 2003 to 2021. AOD, a measure of the amount of sunlight blocked by aerosols, is a key factor is analyzing aerosols and their impact on climate change.

The researchers developed a new metric called RAOD which utilized the potential of aerosols as tracers to evaluate the impact of climate change on transboundary air pollution pathways. Using RAOD the researchers were able to quantify significant temporal variations in aerosol transport. They discovered that long-term changes in RAOD due to climate change were outweighed by larger year-to-year variations in the meteorological field. Moreover, seasonal trends showed that aerosols moved west to east during spring and winter, and northward in summer. They concluded that the probability of aerosols from China to be transported far eastward was low, highlighting a shift in transboundary pollution pathways due to global warming. In this study the authors successfully detected climate change using long-term satellite observational data, in contrast to most existing studies that tracked transboundary air pollution using model simulations.

“These results suggest that RAOD is a valuable metric for quantifying the long-term changes in transboundary air pollution pathways due to climate change. These results are particularly significant because most of them are derived from observational data,” says Prof. Irie, highlighting the importance of the study. Sharing the future implications of their study he concludes, “The effects of climate change could be more severe than currently predicted. This study will help verify climate change predictions from an unconventional perspective of ‘aerosol observation,’ enabling a more accurate understanding of climate change progression and implementation of rational countermeasures.”

In summary, this study demonstrates an innovative use of aerosols as climate change tracers, marking a significant step forward in the global effort to tackle the pressing issue of climate change.

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I Just Learned The Names Of Tetris Blocks, And They’re Perfect

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Next year, Tetris turns 40 and I have been pre-emptively celebrating by giving myself wrist cramp as I marathon the game on my phone.

While we all know by now that Tetris has quite a bit of Lore, I mean, even Apple Studios have produced a film about it starring Taron Egerton.

That being said, while I spend all of my hours in the evening flipping and swiping Tetris blocks around, I’d never considered that they actually have names and, uh, I would never have guessed them.

The names of Tetris blocks were an important tool in the early days of the game

In the early days of the game, the bricks didn’t have colours as the game was in black and white. This meant that identifying the blocks was easier done by using names for the shapes.

According to The Gamer: “One of the most popular ways to name the blocks is to call them as the letter of the alphabet that they resemble: I, O, L, J, S, Z, and T.”

Which, honestly, makes perfect sense.

However, some pranksters have given them other names in the past in a move that actually was believed by the producers at the trivia show Jeapordy!

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It all started when X (formerly Twitter) user vechitto shared a post, saying: “I found the original instruction booklet for Tetris and… did anyone know that these pieces had names??”

The edited instructions said: “There are seven total Tetris blocks, and knowing which is which at a glance is essential to mastering the game.”

In this cheeky post, our L shaped friends are named Orange and Blue Ricky, the Z’s are named after Cleveland and Rhode Island, the long line is called Hero, the T is Teewee and the cube? Smashboy.

Now, I will admit that when my blocks are getting too high and I desperately need to score a Tetris, yes, I would call the long line a hero. So, fair play. That one kind of works.

Orange and Blue Ricky, though?! Chaos.

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