● [Tech] Facebook bug unblocked unwanted users. ︴ ︴

▼ Facebook has admitted a glitch in its network meant people who had been blocked were temporarily unblocked. The bug, revealed by the company on Monday, affected at least 800,000 people. It was active between between 29 May and 5 June and applied to both core Facebook and its Messenger app. The company said it would be informing those affected with a pop-up message, starting on Monday. “While someone who was unblocked could not see content shared with friends, they could have seen things posted to a wider audience, for example pictures shared with friends of friends,” said Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, in a blog post. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Tech] Jaron Lanier: Social media feeding a manipulation machine. ︴ ︴ ![Image](Computer scientist Jaron Lanier says people should delete their social media accounts in order to get a greater perspective on life. He tells Hardtalk's Stephen Sackur that companies such as Google and Facebook are "behaviour modification empires" due to the intense monitoring of their users and the way they send subliminal messages to them.)

▼ Computer scientist Jaron Lanier says people should delete their social media accounts in order to get a greater perspective on life. He tells Hardtalk's Stephen Sackur that companies such as Google and Facebook are "behaviour modification empires" due to the intense monitoring of their users and the way they send subliminal messages to them. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Tech] Facebook reveals its data-sharing VIPs. ︴ ︴

▼ Facebook has revealed which businesses it gave special rights to access users' data after it had shut others out. It listed the companies as part of a lengthy response to US politicians' questions about its practices, which it published at the end of last week. It said 61 companies had been given a temporary exemption to a block on apps accessing details about users' friends. And it identified a further 52 it had authorised to tap its data to "recreate Facebook-like experiences". The social network had faced criticism last month from some US lawmakers after it emerged several Chinese companies - including Huawei - had been included in the latter list, despite the fact that Facebook had not sought explicit consent from its users to do so. Mark Zuckerberg's company has been under pressure to disclose more details about its data-sharing habits in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved a UK-based political consultancy obtaining personal details about Facebook users in breach of the platform's rules. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Science] Newborn planet pictured for first time. ︴ ︴

▼ Astronomers have captured this image of a planet that's still forming in the disk of gas and dust around its star. Researchers have long been on the hunt for a baby planet, and this is the first confirmed discovery of its kind. Young dwarf star PDS 70 is less than 10 million years old, and its planetary companion is thought to be between five and six million years old. Known as PDS 70b, it appears to be several times the size of Jupiter and probably has a cloudy atmosphere. Researchers led by a team at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astronomy found that the planet orbits about as far from its star as Uranus does from the Sun. Each journey around the dwarf star takes about 118 years. Surface temperatures are thought to exceed 1,000C; far greater than those on any planet in our Solar System. The star's light was blocked with a tool called a coronagraph, which allowed astronomers to see the much fainter planet. How are planets born? (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Science] Another Cup? More Coffee Could Be Linked to Longer Life Span. ︴ ︴

▼ Coffee lovers may not have to feel that familiar pang of guilt when pouring themselves yet another cup of joe for the day. A new study found that drinking coffee, even more than 8 cups a day, was linked with a lower risk of deathwithin a 10-year follow-up period. However, the researchers stressed that the study only found an association with coffee and longevity and didn't prove that coffee leads to a longer life. "Although these findings may reassure coffee drinkers, these results are from an observational study and should be interpreted cautiously," said lead study author Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In the study, published today (July 2) in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, Loftfield and her team at the NCI analyzed data from nearly 500,000 people who took part in the U.K. Biobank study. That project gathered health information from more than 9 million people. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Science] Beauty vitamins promise shinier hair, stronger nails, and suppler skin, but do they work? Cosmetic supplements have a lot of claims, but not enough science. ︴ ︴

▼ Beauty pills and gummy vitamins claim to improve skin, hair, and nails but they only work for people who have a true deficiency. Deposit Photos For centuries, women have turned to creams, superfoods, and potions for the sake of beauty. But today, an increasing number of people are instead popping a pill—taking so called beauty vitamins, ingestible capsules, or gummies that all promise to improve their hair, skin, and nails. But the science behind this method is not so clearcut. Like far too many attempted beauty cures before it, most of these vitamin regimens come with tall claims, lowly research to back them up, and occasionally, the potential to cause harm. There’s no question that this beauty trend is taking hold. Walk into any cosmetic store and the shelves are stocked full of a variety of pills all with similar hair, skin, and nail improving claims. Recent research reflects this. According to a Business of Fashionarticle last year, about 20 percent of supplement users in the United States take them for skin, hair, and nail benefits. As a whole, dietary supplements—the term used to describe all ingestibles meant to improve or boost your health—were a $133 billion market worldwidein 2016 and expected to grow to $220 billion in 2022. Why are people turning to a vitamin to fulfill their skin goals? (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [Science] Could Aspirin Help Prevent Alzheimer's Disease? Mouse Study Says Maybe. ︴ ︴

▼ Could an aspirina day keep the Alzheimer's away? If only it were that simple. And yet, new research suggests that there does seem to be some hope that aspirin, one of the most widely used medications in the world, may help to treat some aspects of this devastating brain disease. Scientists have discovered that aspirin works with certain subcellular machinery in the brain to prevent the buildup of amyloid plaque, sticky blobs of protein around brain cells that are thought to be the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease, according to the new study, which was done in mice. In the study, mouse experiments revealed that aspirin enhanced the ability of lysosomes, which are sort of like the cells' waste processors and recyclers, to clear amyloid plaque or stop it from forming in the first place. Aspirin should have the same effect on the human form of Alzheimer's, too, said the researchers, who published their findings today (June 2) in The Journal of Neuroscience. Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, is a progressive brain disease that affects nearly 6 million Americans and is the sixth-leading cause of death among all U.S. adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There's no cure, and medications have had very limited success in slowing the progression of the disease. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [International News] Andrés Manuel López Obrador Mexico's president-elect and Donald Trump share 'respectful' phone call Andrés Manuel López Obrador had sharply criticised Trump Both leaders strike diplomatic tone over telephone call. ︴ ︴

▼ Andrés Manuel López Obrador said of his call with Donald Trump: ‘There was respectful treatment and our representatives will speak more.’ Photograph: Edgard Garrido/Reuters He has railed against what he called Donald Trump’s arrogant, racist and inhumane family separation policy. He has lambasted the “erratic” US president’s “hate campaign” against Latin American migrants. But Mexico’s president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,struck a more diplomatic tone with his northern counterpart on Monday, just hours after his historic election victory sent thousands of supporters pouring on to the streets. “I received a call from Donald Trump and we spoke for half an hour,” the 64-year-old leftist tweetedon Monday afternoon. “I proposed that we explore an integral agreement of development projects, which generate jobs in Mexico and with that reduce migration and improve security. There was respectful treatment and our representatives will speak more.” (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [International News] India 'WhatsApp child abduction rumours': Five more lynched. ︴ ︴

▼ Five men have been lynched by a mob in India's western state of Maharashtra allegedly over rumours of child abduction spreading over WhatsApp. Twelve people have been arrested for the killings, which happened on Sunday, police told BBC Marathi. The victims belonged to a nomadic community and had been passing through the village, police said. Despite attempts by the police to counter them, incidents of lynchings resulting from such rumours continue. The police have imposed a curfew in the village as the situation remains tense and additional police forces have also been deployed. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source

● [International News] India: 11 family members found dead in Delhi home Police say handwritten notes point toward ‘spiritual or mystical practices by the whole family’. ︴ ︴

▼ Relatives mourn the death of 11 members of a family that were found dead on Sunday in north Delhi. Photograph: STR/EPA Indian police are investigating the deaths of 11 people from one family whose bodies were discovered in a house in the north of Delhi. Officers arrived at the property in Burari at about 7.30am on Sunday after receiving a call from a neighbour saying that several people may have killed themselves. They found 10 bodies, including two 12-year-old children, and a 75-year-old woman. There were no signs of forced entry into the house. Police said in a statement they had found handwritten notes that pointed “toward observance of some definite spiritual or mystical practices by the whole family”. The dead included Narayan Devi, her sons Bhupi, 46, and Lalit, 42, along with their wives and children, and Devi’s daughter, Partibha, 60, and her daughter. Members of the family had lived in the home for nearly three decades and had celebrated the engagement of Partibha’s daughter, Priyanka, two weeks ago. Crowds gathered on Monday morning inside the narrow alley leading to the two-storey home. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, read the full note here: Source