Excerpt:

>Google mobility data suggest that San Francisco has had one of the slowest returns to in-person work since the pandemic when compared to over 50 major metropolitan areas — and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change in 2023.

>Google’s reports, which they stopped publishing in October 2022, are based on data from anonymous Google users who have their “Location History” setting turned on in their account, so may not be representative of all users.

>Google uses its location tracking and map directions data to quantify the places people are visiting. Those places are lumped into categories like “workplaces,” which includes places like offices and production facilities, and “retail and recreation” places.

>Trips to workplaces in San Francisco were still nearly 40% lower in October 2022 than in January 2020, according to data from Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports.

>In mid-April 2020, time spent in the workplace plummeted to 70% of what it was at the beginning of the year for San Francisco. Despite some growth, time spent in the workplace among these Google users in San Francisco was still 37% lower than pre-pandemic times as of October 2022.

>Meanwhile, other cities like New York and Los Angeles are 31% and 28% below pre-pandemic, respectively.

> 

>San Francisco’s chief economist Ted Egan said “there’s probably a certain amount of ‘only in San Francisco’ phenomenon that’s keeping people away from the workplace.”

>Still, these hollowed-out office spaces could have a large impact on the city’s financial outlook considering that the city’s downtown is a large source of revenue for the city. In 2021, office work contributed to three-quarters of the city’s GDP, according to Egan.

>“Almost nowhere in San Francisco is sales tax recovery to where it was before the pandemic after you adjust for inflation and it’s particularly bad in downtown,” Egan said. “We’re missing office workers, we’re missing residents and we’re missing hotel guests who were usually customers to those businesses.”

Adriana Rezal, 11 Jan. 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle (Hearst)

Excerpt:

>The space rock, known as 2023 BU, zoomed over the southern tip of South America [on 26 Jan. 2023], while it was only around 2,200 miles above the surface of the Earth.

>This is one of the closest approaches of an near-Earth object ever recorded. Data from NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies showed that the flyby of 2023 BU was the fourth-nearest of more than 35,000 past and future Earth close approaches in the 300-year period from 1900 to 2200.

>As the asteroid flew past our planet, astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) managed to capture some images.

>The VTP is a service provided by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Ceccano, Italy, that operates and provides access to robotic, remotely operated telescopes.

>"We managed to capture this extraordinary footage, showing such an extremely close and fast asteroid," Masi told Newsweek.

>Masi captured the images with the "Elena" robotic telescope unit, which is capable of tracking the very fast motion of asteroids flying past Earth.

>The images used to create the time-lapse video were captured when 2023 BU was around 13,600 miles above the surface of our planet.

Aristos Georgiou, 27 Jan. 2023, Newsweek (Marc Benioff)

Excerpt:

>TikTok is grappling with an increasingly real prospect of being banned in the United States. This wouldn’t just be a mostly performative prohibition of installing the app on federal or state government-owned devices.

>The ban TikTok is now facing would forbid its China-based parent company, ByteDance, from doing business in the United States, which would block Apple and Google from hosting the TikTok app in their app stores.

>It wouldn’t make it illegal for you, the consumer, to use TikTok. It would just make it much harder to do so.

>ByteDance is spending a lot of money trying to convince detractors that it doesn’t take marching orders from China and that it wouldn’t give the Chinese government US user data or influence US users.

> 

>The company has spent millions building up and expanding its Washington, DC, presence, and more than $1 billion on “Project Texas,” an effort to rebuild the app on US servers in order to wall it off from ByteDance and China as much as possible, while also promising several layers of independent oversight and transparency.

>Accordingly, TikTok is getting more aggressive about making Project Texas’s case to politicians, public interest groups, academics, and the media after years of lying low and quietly trying to work out a deal that CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] still has yet to officially agree to.

>The company briefed think tanks in late January, while TikTok’s lobbyists have also “swarmed” lawmakers’ offices, and the company is currently hiring several people for communications and policy positions on a state and federal level, according to the New York Times.

>The only thing that may have grown faster than TikTok’s popularity in the US is the company’s DC presence.

> 

>ByteDance spent just $270,000 on federal lobbyists in 2019, a year when TikTok agreed to a settlement with the FTC over children’s privacy law violations for a then-record fine of $5.7 million and when lawmakers started to raise concerns over its ties to China.

>ByteDance and TikTok spent $2.61 million on federal lobbyists in 2020, hiring people with connections to Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike (some were former lawmakers themselves).

>That spending nearly doubled to $5.18 million in 2021, and grew again to about $5.5 million in 2022, according to publicly available data. In late 2021, TikTok signed a lease for its first DC office. In April 2022, it grabbed an additional floor.

>That October, it hired Jamal Brown, who was the press secretary for Biden’s presidential campaign and then the deputy press secretary for the Pentagon, as a policy communications director.

>While ByteDance has spent a lot on federal lobbying, some of its peers — Meta and Amazon, for instance — still spend a lot more. Meta, for instance, spent over $19.15 million on lobbying in 2022, and Amazon spent $21.38 million.

Sara Morrison, 26 Jan. 2023, Vox.com (Vox Media)

Findings in title quoted from the linked paper^1 in Nature Ecology & Evolution and an Italian-language summary^2 by ANSA news agency.

From the linked paper:^1

>Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins.

>These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints.

>Simbiro III level C, in the upper Awash valley of Ethiopia, allows us to test this assumption in its assemblage of [575] stone tools made only with obsidian, dated to more than 1.2 million years (Myr) old.

>Following the deposition of an accumulation of obsidian cobbles by a meandering river, hominins began to exploit these in new ways, producing large tools with sharp cutting edges.

>We show through statistical analysis that this was a focused activity, that very standardized handaxes were produced and that this was a stone-tool workshop.

>We argue that at Simbiro III, hominins were doing much more than simply reacting to environmental changes; they were taking advantage of new opportunities, and developing new techniques and new skills according to them.

>[The 575 of 578] standardized obsidian handaxes provide ample evidence of the repetitive use of fully mastered skills.

>[The early hominins] creatively solved through convergent thinking technological problems such as effectively detaching and shaping large flakes of the unusually brittle and cutting volcanic glass.

^1 Mussi M., et al. A surge in obsidian exploitation more than 1.2 million years ago at Simbiro III (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia). Nature Ecology & Evolution (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01970-1

^2 Officina artigianale di 1,2 mln di anni fa scoperta in Etiopia, 20 Jan. 2023, https://www.ansa.it/sardegna/notizie/2023/01/20/officina-artigianale-di-12-mln-di-anni-fa-scoperta-in-etiopia_9c0dda4f-c7f8-4fd4-9cbd-3fbce9af0a20.html

>kilkonie

>That means it's not plagiarism when I use its work as it's not an author. Nice!

Did you read the linked content? From it:

>AI writing software can amplify social biases like sexism and racism and has a tendency to produce “plausible bullshit” — incorrect information presented as fact. (See, for example, CNET’s recent use of AI tools to write articles. The publication later found errors in more than half of those published.)

>mrstubali

>More predictable behavior from goons who haven't been paid off yet.

>Ladies and gentlemen, the message of education and publisher racket: "Hey, don't reference where you actually got your information from." Dude we're in for a wild ride in the next 5-10 years.

In my excerpt comment, quoted from the linked content:

>Arguments against giving AI authorship is that software simply can’t fulfill the required duties, as Skipper and Nature Springer explain.

>“When we think of authorship of scientific papers, of research papers, we don’t just think about writing them,” says Skipper.

>“There are responsibilities that extend beyond publication, and certainly at the moment these AI tools are not capable of assuming those responsibilities.”

>Software cannot be meaningfully accountable for a publication, it cannot claim intellectual property rights for its work, and cannot correspond with other scientists and with the press to explain and answer questions on its work.

Further reading:

Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their use, 24 Jan. 2023, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00191-1

James Vincent, 26 Jan. 2023, The Verge (Vox Media)

Excerpt:

>“We felt compelled to clarify our position: for our authors, for our editors, and for ourselves,” Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Springer Nature’s flagship publication, Nature, tells The Verge.

>“This new generation of LLM tools — including ChatGPT — has really exploded into the community, which is rightly excited and playing with them, but [also] using them in ways that go beyond how they can genuinely be used at present.”

>The company announced this week that software like ChatGPT can’t be credited as an author in papers published in its thousands of journals.

> 

>Arguments against giving AI authorship is that software simply can’t fulfill the required duties, as Skipper and Nature Springer explain.

>“When we think of authorship of scientific papers, of research papers, we don’t just think about writing them,” says Skipper.

>“There are responsibilities that extend beyond publication, and certainly at the moment these AI tools are not capable of assuming those responsibilities.”

>Software cannot be meaningfully accountable for a publication, it cannot claim intellectual property rights for its work, and cannot correspond with other scientists and with the press to explain and answer questions on its work.

>ChatGPT and earlier large language models (LLMs) have already been named as authors in a small number of published papers, pre-prints, and scientific articles.

Further reading:

Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their use, 24 Jan. 2023, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00191-1

Findings in title quoted from the linked summary^1 about a paper^2 in The Economic Journal.

From the linked summary^1 released by the University of Copenhagen:

>The study minutely details the spread of 29 ground-breaking military technologies in all independent states in the period 1820-2010 (see box) as well as the form of government in these states.

>Based on statistical analysis of the data, the study establishes connections between states’ access to specific weapons, their economy and form of government.

>“In short, the more protesters a regime can kill using as few resources as possible, the stronger it will be.

>“But this is the first scientific study to show that regimes’ access to weapons do have a systematic, measurable effect on democratisation,” says Associate Professor Asger Mose Wingender from the Department of Economics, who conducted the study together with Professor Jacob Gerner Hariri from the Department of Political Science.

>The extensive study has taken seven years to complete. The survey of the spread of weapons technology alone contains 596,443 data points. Furthermore, the study includes a comprehensive survey of weapons history.

From the paper^2 by J.G. Hariri and A.M. Wingender:

>We collect a new, comprehensive data set tracking the adoption of 29 groundbreaking military technologies in all independent states in the period 1820–2010. Each technology represents a discrete improvement in the capacity to inflict violence.

>Based on these data, we first show that military technology spreads faster across borders than economic modernisation.

>We proceed to show that the swift diffusion of military technology impeded democratisation. To this end, we estimate linear probability models of democratisation in a panel of autocracies with a measure of military technology derived from our data set as the main explanatory variable.

^1 Modern arms technologies help autocratic rulers stay in power, 25 Jan. 2023, https://politicalscience.ku.dk/about/news/2023/modern-arms-technologies-help-autocratic-rulers-stay-in-power/

^2 Jacob Gerner Hariri, Asger Mose Wingender, Jumping the Gun: How Dictators Got Ahead of Their Subjects, The Economic Journal, Volume 133, Issue 650, February 2023, Pages 728–760, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac073

Excerpt:

>The twin findings from the Tomio Maruyama Tumulus last November can be classified as national treasures, experts say, with the discovery of the shield-shaped mirror being the first of its kind.

>The shield-shaped mirror is 64 cm in length, 31 cm in width at most, and weighs 5.7 kilograms.

>The latest sword has markings of a sheath and handle, and together, its length measures 2.6 meters, more than dominating the last longest dako sword discovered at around 85 cm.

>"(These discoveries) indicate that the technology of the Kofun period (300-710 AD) are beyond what had been imagined, and they are masterpieces in metalwork from that period," said Kosaku Okabayashi, the deputy director for Nara Prefecture's Archaeological Institute of Kashihara.

> 

>He called their discoveries a breakthrough in the research of the period, named for the "kofun" tomb mounds built for members of the ruling class.

>Mirror and shields are considered to be tools to protect the dead from evil spirits. The sword is thought to have been enlarged to increase its power, and the possibility of its use as a battle tool is low, they said.

>Riku Murase, 32, who was on the excavation team that discovered the objects, said the sword's length was so astounding that his team initially thought it was several swords. He also thought they had found a unique bronze plate.

>"It was my dream to dig up a mirror. Who knew that it would be something so incredible," he said.

>The Tomio Maruyama burial mound, the largest in Japan at 109 m in diameter and dating back to the late 4th century, is thought to have belonged to a powerful individual supporting the Yamato rulers of the time.

Kyodo, 25 Jan. 2023.

Note: solved, thanks.

Note: it seems that direct links to doi.org and PNAS are being automatically removed. I’ll send a modmail.

Findings in title quoted from the linked summary^1 and its hyperlinked article^2 in PNAS.

From the linked summary:^1

>In the PNAS study, the researchers looked at 96 Anolis cristatellus lizards from three regions of Puerto Rico—San Juan, Arecibo, and Mayagüez—comparing lizards living in urban centers with those living in forests surrounding each city.

>They first confirmed that the lizard populations in the three regions were genetically distinct from one another, so any similarities they found among lizards across the three cities could be attributed to urbanization.

>They then measured their toe pads and legs and found that urban lizards had significantly longer limbs and larger toe pads with more specialized scales on their toes, supporting their earlier research that these traits have evolved to enable urban lizards to thrive in cities.

>To understand the genetic basis of these trait differences, the researchers conducted several genomic analyses on exomic DNA, the regions of the genome that code for proteins.

>They identified a set of 33 genes found in three regions of the lizard genome that were repeatedly associated with urbanization across populations, including genes related to immune function and metabolism.

> 

>“Urbanization impacts roughly two-thirds of the Earth and is expected to continue to intensify, so it’s important to understand how organisms might be adapting to changing environments,” said Kristin Winchell, assistant professor of biology at NYU and the study’s first author.

>“In many ways, cities provide us with natural laboratories for studying adaptive change, as we can compare urban populations with their non-urban counterparts to see how they respond to similar stressors and pressures over short periods of time.”

^1 Urban Lizards Share Genomic Markers Not Found in Forest-Dwellers, 9 Jan. 2023, New York University.

^2 Winchell K., et al. Genome-wide parallelism underlies contemporary adaptation in urban lizards. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023. 120 (3) e2216789120. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216789120

ETA at 04:01 UTC: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216789120

>hazpat

>The entire hypothesis is based around an individual with 4 spikes making it to adulthood.... since the malformed trident didnt impede survival it must be used in combat? at first glance, these look like they would also work great at disturbing mud in front of themselves while foraging...

From the linked summary^1 released by U.K.’s Natural History Museum:

>This suggests that a role in feeding or digging is unlikely, because the changes the fourth tine causes to the overall shape of the trident would have made it more difficult to use for these purposes, limiting the individual's chance of survival.

^1 Unique trilobite trident could be the oldest evidence of male sexual combat, Ashworth J., 16 Jan. 2023.

Findings in title quoted from the linked summary^1 and peer-reviewed journal article.^2

From the linked summary^1 released 16 Jan. 2023 by the U.K.’s Natural History Museum:

>Fighting for mates may be a behaviour that dates back over 400 million years.

>A unique specimen suggests that male Walliserops trilobites fought each other using trident-like structures to win the opportunity to mate with females.

>Co-author Professor Richard Fortey OBE FRS, who is a Scientific Associate at the Museum, says, “The extraordinary Devonian trilobite Walliserops carried a unique, giant trident on its head, the purpose of which has long been a mystery.”

>“We now believe that it was used for jousting between males striving for dominance. The evolution of sexually motivated competition in animals is hundreds of millions of years older than we thought.”

> 

>The researchers analysed the shape of the Walliserops tridents and compared them to the weapons of beetles to try and understand how they might have been used. They found the trident shape was most similar to beetles that try to tip over their opponents with shovel-like weapons.

>When the trilobites were alive 400 million years ago, it is believed they used their tridents to prod at each other before attempting to get underneath their rival and turn them over.

>While any trilobites that did get flipped were not necessarily stuck, the amount of time it could have taken to right themselves would have allowed victorious males the opportunity to mate with females.

>The trilobite at the centre of this study stands out from many other Walliserops specimens held in museums because of its unique trident.

>Instead of having three points, or tines, it is the only known individual to have grown four. The tines are all broadly equivalent in size and there is no sign of injury, which suggests it was born with four as a result of genetic mutation.

>Even more important than the four-tined trident itself is the fact that the specimen is fully grown. By making it to adulthood, it shows that the feature that makes it different from other trilobites didn't have a significant impact on its chances of survival.

^1 Unique trilobite trident could be the oldest evidence of male sexual combat, 16 Jan. 2023, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/january/unique-trilobite-trident-could-be-oldest-evidence-male-sexual-combat.html

^2 Gishlick A. and Fortey R. Trilobite tridents demonstrate sexual combat at 400 Mya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023. 120 (4) e2119970120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2119970120