Tropical Forests Losing Their Ability to Absorb Carbon, Study Finds
Live Facial Recognition Is Coming to US Police Body Cameras ; FDA Bans ‘Aversive’ Shock Treatment ; and More Picks
Live Facial Recognition Is Coming to US Police Body Cameras (Chris)
The author writes, “Wolfcom, a company that makes technology for police, is pitching body cameras with live facial recognition to law enforcement groups across the United States, OneZero has learned. It’s a move that pushes against industry norms: Axon, the largest manufacturer of body cameras in the United States, declared last year that it would not put the invasive technology in its hardware, citing ‘serious ethical concerns.’ NEC, which sells live facial recognition elsewhere in the world, has also not sold it to U.S. law enforcement. Wolfcom claims to have sold body cameras to at least 1,500 police departments, universities, and federal organizations across the country.”
This Small Company Is Turning Utah Into a Surveillance Panopticon (Chris)
From Motherboard: “The state of Utah has given an artificial intelligence company real-time access to state traffic cameras, CCTV and ‘public safety’ cameras, 911 emergency systems, location data for state-owned vehicles, and other sensitive data. The company, called Banjo, says that it’s combining this data with information collected from social media, satellites, and other apps, and claims its algorithms ‘detect anomalies’ in the real world.”
Noose Found on Gunman’s Locker at Milwaukee Coors Facility Years Before Deadly Shooting (Russ)
The author writes, “Current and former employees of the Molson Coors brewery here say there is a long-held culture of racism, including racist cartoons placed in workspaces, the n-word scrawled in break rooms and bathrooms and nooses hung at the facility — one on the locker of an employee who killed five co-workers there last week. Police have not provided a motive for the Feb. 26 rampage, which ended when gunman Anthony Ferrill killed himself inside the iconic brewery that has produced Miller beer for more than a century. Police also have not said racism played a part in the shooting deaths.”
FDA Bans ‘Aversive’ Shock Treatment (Mili)
The author writes, “In 2014, the FDA convened an advisory committee meeting to consider whether to increase regulation on [electric shock] devices … or ban them entirely. No formal vote was taken, but the discussion indicated that most panel members wanted a full ban. Some said the treatment could be helpful in certain cases, but there was general agreement that the risks outweighed the benefits. Why it took 6 years for the FDA to come to a final conclusion after that meeting wasn’t clear.”
Stone Age Seafood-Based Diet Was Full of Toxic Metals (Mili)
From Forbes: “Modern paleo-diets, characterized by avoiding agricultural products and eating things like meat, fish, and naturally occurring seeds and fruits, gained quite some popularity in the last years. But a new study suggests that the original paleo-diet, some 9,500 years ago at the end of the last ice age, was downright toxic. In 2015, researchers reported that cod caught off the North American coast around 6,500 years ago by Stone Age hunter-gatherers contained more than 20 times the levels of mercury recommended for humans today.”
