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20 July 2018 TECH www.theasianindependent.co.uk London : Scientists have developed a low-cost sensor made from semiconducting plastic that can be used to diagnose or monitor a wide range of health conditions, such as surgical complications or neurodegenerative diseases. The sensor can measure the amount of critical metabolites, such as lactate or glucose that are present in sweat, tears, saliva or blood, and, when incorporated into a diagnostic device, could allow health conditions to be monitored quickly, cheaply and accurately. The device, described in the journal Science Advances, has a far simpler design than existing sensors, and opens up a wide range of new possibilities for health monitoring down to the cellular level. Semiconducting plastics are being developed for use in solar cells and flexible electronics, but have not yet seen widespread use in biological applications. "In our work, we've overcome many of the limitations of conventional electrochemical biosensors that incorporate enzymes as the sensing material," said Anna-Maria Pappa, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Cambridge in the UK. "In conventional biosensors, the communication between the sensor's electrode and the sensing material is not very efficient, so it's been necessary to add molecular wires to facilitate and 'boost' the signal," said Pappa. To build their sensor, researchers including those from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, used a newly-synthesised polymer that acts as a molecular Low-cost plastic sensors can diagnose diseases wire, directly accepting the electrons produced during electrochemical reactions. When the material comes into contact with a liquid such as sweat, tears or blood, it absorbs ions and swells, becoming merged with the liquid. This leads to significantly higher sensitivity compared to traditional sensors made of metal electrodes. Additionally, when the sensors are incorporated into more complex circuits, such as transistors, the signal can be amplified and respond to tiny fluctuations in metabolite concentration, despite the tiny size of the devices. Initial tests of the sensors were used to measure levels of lactate, which is useful in fitness applications or to monitor patients following surgery. However, according to the researchers, the sensor can be easily modified to detect other metabolites, such as glucose or cholesterol by incorporating the appropriate enzyme, and the concentration range that the sensor can detect can be adjusted by changing the device's geometry. "This is the first time that it's been possible to use an electron accepting polymer that can be tailored to improve communication with the enzymes, which allows for the direct detection of a metabolite: this hasn't been straightforward until now," said Pappa. "It opens up new directions in biosensing, where materials can be designed to interact with a specific metabolite, resulting in far more sensitive and selective sensors," she said. Since the sensor does not consist of metals such as gold or platinum, it can be manufactured at a lower cost and can be easily incorporated in flexible and stretchable substrates, enabling their implementation in wearable or implantable sensing applications. "An implantable device could allow us to monitor the metabolic activity of the brain in real time under stress conditions, such as during or immediately before a seizure and could be used to predict seizures or to assess treatment," said Pappa. Apple launches FREE Schoolwork app for teachers New Delhi : Apple has announced its Schoolwork app for iPad, which helps teachers create assignments for students, collaborate one-on-one with them, and view their progress. Teachers can also send announcements as well as a variety of content to their students on the app, which include, PDFs, web links, specific in-app activities, and more. Schoolwork app can be used by students to organise their work and keep track of assignment deadlines and completion. Apple's Schoolwork app will directly work with popular education apps like Explain Everything, Tynker, Kahoot! and GeoGebra. The app can also be used by teachers to assign a specific activity to students or guide them to a challenge or lesson. Apple's Schoolwork app can be used by teachers to get greater insights into the Apple's Schoolwork app will directly work with popular education apps like Explain Everything, Tynker, Kahoot! and GeoGebra. progress of their classroom and tailor their method of teaching for each student. The app lets teachers check on the progress of their class as a whole, as well as every individual student. Apple has also built-in some safety and privacy features into the app, letting schools control the accounts created by their students. The features also give teachers control of when and how a student's progress is shared with them. Schoolwork is designed to work alongside Classroom app by Apple, which is available for iPad and Mac. Classroom on iPad is a versatile app that gives teachers control of the technology used in the classroom. It gives the teacher access to students' devices in the classroom, allowing them to view a student's screen, share assignments, assign shared iPads and reset passwords. Space tourists may not be prepared for trip beyond Earth London : People who sign up with space tourism companies for a trip beyond the Earth may be unprepared for the rigours of spaceflight, according to a NASA astronaut. To date, only the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, has taken tourists into space, between 2001 and 2009, at a cost between $20 and 40 million. However, aerospace companies like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are hoping to launch commercial flights within the next decade. Hundreds of people including the Hollywood actors like Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, have already bought tickets. NASA astronaut Anna Fisher, who became the first mother in space, has warned many are unprepared for the rigours of spaceflight and the toll it will take on their bodies. Fisher said she was sick for the first two days of her mission on the Discovery space shuttle in 1984, expressing concern that people paying hundreds of thousands of pounds did not fully appreciate what might happen. "It's not like riding a commercial aircraft, not at all, and I can see all these problems with people up there and throwing up and messing up somebody's flight that they paid USD 250,000 for," Fisher was quoted as saying by 'The Telegraph'. The Apollo 8 crew were the first astronauts to report space sickness in 1968, and by Apollo 9 the crews were feeling so bad that their spacewalk had to be rescheduled. NASA's training aircraft where astronauts can experience weightlessness is colloquially known as the 'vomit comet' because it makes people feel so ill. TWITTER rolls out new policies to curb abuse, TROLLING SAN FRANCISCO : To address abuse and trolls on its platform, Twitter has introduced new policies on hateful conduct and violent extremism, including a plan to bring in new technology and staff to fight spam and abuse. The micro-blogging platform said that in May, its systems identified and challenged more than 9.9 million potentially "spammy" or automated accounts per week-up from 6.4 million in December and 3.2 million in September 2017. "To make it harder to register spam accounts, we're going to require new accounts to confirm either an email address or phone number when they sign up to Twitter. "This is an important change to defend against people who try to take advantage of our openness," Twitter said in a blog post late on Tuesday. "Due to technology and process improvements during the past year, we are now removing 214 per cent more accounts for violating our spam policies on a year-on-year basis," it added. Twitter saw a drop in the average number of spam reports-from an average of approximately 25,000 per day in March, to approximately 17,000 per day in May. "We've also seen a 10 per cent drop in spam reports from search as a result of our recent changes. These decreases in reports received means people are encountering less spam in their timeline, search, and across the Twitter product," the company said. Twitter currently has 330 million user accounts. "We're also moving rapidly to curb spam and abuse originating via Twitter's APIs. In Q1 2018, we suspended more than 142,000 applications in violation of our rulescollectively responsible for more than 130 million low-quality, spammy tweets," the blog post said. To reduce the visibility of suspicious accounts in Tweet and account metrics, the company said it has started updating account metrics in nearreal time. "For example, the number of followers an account has, or the number of likes or Retweets a Tweet receives, will be correctly updated when we take action on accounts," it added. Twitter is also conducting an audit to secure a number of legacy systems used to create accounts. "The new protections we've developed as a result of this audit have already helped us prevent more than 50,000 spammy signups per day," the company said. Twitter is also automating some processes where it sees suspicious account activity, like exceptionally high-volume tweeting with the same hashtag, or using the same @handle without a reply from the account a user has mentioned. Twitter said it will continue to invest in leveraging Machine Learning (ML) technology and partnerships with third parties.
www.theasianindependent.co.uk WORLD July 2018 21 5 killed in US newspaper shooting, suspect charged with first-degree murder Washington : Five people were killed and two others injured when a man armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades shot through a glass door into the newsroom of a newspaper in the US state of Maryland in a targeted shooting, police said. Jarrod Warren Ramos, the 38-year-old suspect was taken into custody after the attack at the Capital Gazette newspaper's office in Annapolis on Thursday and was charged with five counts of firstdegree murder, according to court records. The attack has been deemed as the deadliest day for journalism in America in several years. Ramos is scheduled to have a bail hearing on Friday. He had a long history of conflict with the daily, the US media reported. Ramos lost a defamation case against the paper in 2015 over a 2011 column he contended defamed him. The column provided an account of Ramos's guilty plea to criminal harassment of a woman over social media. Police, who arrived at the scene within a minute of the reported gunfire, apprehended the gunman who was hiding under a desk in the newsroom, according to the top official in Anne Arundel County, where the attack occurred. The five who were killed were Capital Gazette employees: Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, 56, a staff writer; Rebecca Smith, 34, a sales assistant Inter-Korean ties crucial for nuclear diplomacy, SAYS SOUTH KOREA Seoul : South Korea's point man for inter-Korean affairs on Friday said Seoul will try to facilitate civilian-level exchanges with North Korea in coming months to strengthen the conciliation process between the rivals. Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said strengthened relations between the Koreas will increase the chances of successful nuclear diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. "(Our) government will closely communicate and cooperate with North Korea and the United States, all our neighboring countries, and the entire international community so that the agreements between North Korea and the United States could be quickly and completely carried out," Cho said at a Seoul forum co-hosted by his ministry and South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "While the denuclearization negotiations go on, we may try to facilitate the negotiations with efforts from the inter-Korean level if such an approach is needed." Cho said Seoul will put in efforts to facilitate inter-Korean exchanges at the civilian and local government levels so that "people from all areas and levels of society" could engage in the conciliation process. He said Seoul will also try to promote exchanges between South Korean news organizations and North Korea's state media. Cho downplayed concerns that improved relations will be accompanied by the easing of sanctions and pressure on North Korea, saying that the progress in inter-Korean projects will depend on whether appropriate "conditions are created." South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said progress in inter-Korean relations will be crucial because the North won't give up its nuclear program unless it feels its security is assured. Moon met with and Wendi Winters, 65, who worked in special publications. Fischman and Hiaasen were editors, McNamara was a reporter, Smith was a sales assistant and Winters worked for special publications, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April and May and their summits have opened various channels of peace talks, including ongoing military talks for reducing border tensions, Red Cross talks that set up temporary reunions between war-separated relatives, and sports talks that led to an agreement to field combined teams at the Asian Games in August. Kim met with President Donald Trump earlier this month in Singapore where they issued an aspirational goal for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to travel to North Korea soon for followup talks. Cho said upcoming between Pompeo and senior North Korean officials will provide an opportunity to shape detailed plans for the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and security guarantee for North Korea," which would help the wartime foes kick off a genuine peace process. China expected to become largest 5G market by 2025: Report Shanghai : China is expected to become the world's largest 5G market by 2025, accounting for 430 million 5G connections, or onethird of the global total, according to a report released on Friday According to the joint report by the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA) and Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), all three Chinese mobile operators are currently conducting live 5G trials as part of a multi-year plan that includes research and development and a network deployment strategy with a view to a large scale commercial launch by 2020, reports Xinhua news agency. The report was released on the sidelines of the ongoing Mobile World Congress Shanghai. It emphasized that China's pre-commercial and commercial launch footprints will also be among the largest in the world in terms of base stations. China's leading role in 5G is backed by a proactive government intent on delivering rapid structural change, said Mats Granryd, director general of GSMA. "Chinese mobile operators should be encouraged to deliver what they do best in providing secure, reliable, and intelligent connectivity to businesses and enterprises across the country," Granryd added. according to the newspaper's website. Four of the victims died on the spot while the fifth was pronounced dead at the University of Maryland Medical Centre. The shooting began at about 3 p.m. in the office building as Ramos Tripoli : Around 100 people are thought to have drowned from a migrant boat off Libya's western coast, a coastguard official said on Friday. The coastguard picked up 14 survivors from the boat just east of the capital, Tripoli, the official said. Separately, the coastguard said it had intercepted 200 migrants from two other migrant boats east of Tripoli. Libya is one of the main departure points for migrants trying to cross to Europe by sea, usually in flimsy inflatable boats provided by smugglers that often get punctured or break down. Some make it to international waters where they hope to be picked entered the building with a shotgun and looked for his victims, the police said. After his arrest, Ramos refused to cooperate with the authorities or provide his name. He was identified using facial recognition technology, a law enforcement official told the New York Times. The newspaper, which was reeling from the attack, defiantly tweeted late on Thursday: "Yes, we're putting out a damn paper tomorrow." It tweeted the front page of its Friday edition as well as obituaries for their colleagues. The opinion page was left mostly blank with a brief message: "Today, we are speechless. This page is intentionally left blank today to commemorate victims of shooting at our office." It listed the five people's names. The Capital Gazette, which has an editorial staff of 31 people, had a daily circulation of about 29,000 and a Sunday circulation of 34,000 as of 2014. Commonly referred to as the Capital, the paper was founded in 1884 as the Evening Gazette. The paper promotes itself as one of the oldest publishers in the country, with roots dating to the Maryland Gazette in 1727. Libyan coastguard says 100 migrants may have drowned near Tripoli Libya is one of the main departure points for migrants trying to cross to Europe by sea, usually in flimsy inflatable boats provided by smugglers that often get punctured or break down. up by international vessels, but increasing numbers are intercepted by Libya's EU-backed coastguard and returned to Libya. Departures surged in 2014 when conflict in Libya worsened and more than 650,000 migrants have crossed the c e n t r a l Mediterranean since then. But the traffic has slowed since last July, when smuggling networks on Libya's Mediterranean coast were partially disrupted under heavy Italian pressure. This year just over 11,400 arrivals from Libya have been registered by Italy's interior ministry, more than 80 percent fewer than during the same period in 2016 and 2017.
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