Featured Links – February 20, 2023

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about:

Cat in a window

Cannabis Extract Shows "Remarkable" Ability To Kill Skin Cancer Cells. "The results are promising, but preliminary."

Jim Collins: Discovery of the First New Structural Class of Antibiotics in Decades, Using A.I. "Starting from >12,000 compounds to find, with explainability, new drugs effective vs methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA)"

Vaccine Confidence Falls as Belief in Health Misinformation Grows. "Americans have less confidence in vaccines to address a variety of illnesses than they did just a year or two ago, and more people accept misinformation about vaccines and Covid-19, according to the latest health survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania."

Truths, Untruths, and the Realm of Belief in Between: Misinformation & Propaganda in Science Fiction. "A science fiction author looks at how the genre examines the role of truth and mistruth in the genre."

Staring At A Red Light In The Morning Improves Worsening Eyesight, Study Shows. Staring at a deep red light for just three minutes can drastically restore declining eyesight, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports. Impressively, improvements from a single session of light exposure lasted for a whole week, although the treatment is only effective if administered in the morning.

Router Security. "This site focuses on the security of routers. This includes both configuration changes to make a router more secure, and, picking a router that is more secure out of the box. If you are interested in faster WiFi, there is one page on extending the range of a Wi-Fi network."

The real problem with Google's new Gemini Android assistant. "The real problem with Gemini as the Android assistant is that Google's forgotten why a phone assistant actually matters — and what we, as actual users in the real world, need from such a service." He's absolutely right and I'm not installing it on my phone until they fix it.

DOJ quietly removed Russian malware from routers in US homes and businesses. "Feds once again fix up compromised retail routers under court order."

Researchers reveal lost library of Charles Darwin for the first time. "For the first time since his death in 1882, Charles Darwin’s impressive library has been virtually reassembled to reveal the multitude of books, pamphlets and journals cited and read by the influential naturalist."