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With So Much Bird Flu Around, Are Eggs, Chicken, and Milk Still Safe to Consume?

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Recent outbreaks of bird flu—in US dairy herds, poultry farms in Australia, and elsewhere, and isolated cases in humans—have raised the issue of food safety. So can the virus transfer from infected farm animals to contaminate milk, meat, or eggs? How likely is this? And what do we need to think about to minimize our risk when shopping for or preparing food? How Safe Is Milk? Bird flu (or avian influenza) is a bird disease caused by specific types of influenza virus. But the virus can also infect cows. In the US, to date, more than 80 dairy herds in at least nine states have been infected with the H5N1 version of the virus. Investigations are under way to confirm how this happened. But we do know that infected birds can shed the virus in their saliva, nasal secretions, and feces. So bird flu can potentially contaminate animal-derived food products during processing and manufacturing. Indeed, fragments o

The Science of Having a Great Conversation

If you’ve ever spoken to someone and later felt that you would have better spent your time talking to a brick wall, you’ll surely identify with the observations of Rebecca West. “There is no such thing as conversation,” the novelist and literary critic wrote in her collection of stories, The Harsh Voice . “It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.” If someone feels that their conversations have left no impression on those around them, then that is the definition of existential isolation. You’ve probably experienced this on a bad date, at an awful dinner party, or during an interminable family gathering. Psychological research has identified many habits and biases that impose barriers between ourselves and others—and if we wish to have greater connection with the people around us, we must learn how to overcome them. The good news is that corrections are very easy to put into practice. Tiny tweaks to our conversational style can bring enormous benefits. Let’s be

How Game Theory Can Make AI More Reliable

Posing a far greater challenge for AI researchers was the game of Diplomacy—a favorite of politicians like John F. Kennedy and Henry Kissinger. Instead of just two opponents, the game features seven players whose motives can be hard to read. To win, a player must negotiate, forging cooperative arrangements that anyone could breach at any time. Diplomacy is so complex that a group from Meta was pleased when, in 2022, its AI program Cicero developed “human-level play” over the course of 40 games. While it did not vanquish the world champion, Cicero did well enough to place in the top 10 percent against human participants. During the project, Jacob—a member of the Meta team—was struck by the fact that Cicero relied on a language model to generate its dialog with other players. He sensed untapped potential. The team’s goal, he said, “was to build the best language model we could for the purposes of playing this game.” But what if instead they focused on building the best game they could to

The Titan Submersible Disaster Shocked the World. The Exclusive Inside Story Is More Disturbing Than Anyone Imagined

On July 13, 2021, OceanGate’s Titan made its first successful dive to the Titanic , with Rush serving as the pilot. “We had to overcome tremendous engineering, operational, business, and finally Covid-19 challenges to get here, and I am so proud of this team and grateful for the support of our many partners,” Rush said in a press release. After the 2021 expedition, OceanGate was flush with success. The company announced plans for the following year’s expedition to document the wreck “in more detail than ever before” and urging “aspiring mission specialists” to get in touch. The successes and warm media coverage continued in 2022. OceanGate was profiled by CBS Sunday Morning , which accompanied one of the missions that summer. When reporter David Pogue noticed how improvised the setup on the sub was, Rush reassured him. “The pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all, because that’s where we worked with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail, your thrust

The 2024 US Open Is Designed to Thwart Golf’s Big Hitters

Ever since Tiger Woods and his soaring drives burst onto the scene in 1997, golfers have been driving the ball farther and farther, with courses lengthening their holes to mitigate the advantage—a practice both financially and environmentally unsustainable. But this week at the US Open, the United States Golf Association will showcase a course in Pinehurst No. 2 whose firm and fast conditions, along with slick, domed greens and considerable length off the tee, aim to challenge the biggest hitters without resorting to more yardage. This, the USGA hopes, will show how courses can stand the test of time. The Open could be a key turning point in golf’s arms race with sports science and technology. These tactics, if successful, might bring about changes well beyond the major championships and PGA tour. The need to combat ever-longer drives goes far beyond the professional ranks, says Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s chief governance officer. “You have the college game, you have state amateur tourna

Ukrainian Sailors Are Using Telegram to Avoid Being Tricked Into Smuggling Oil for Russia

This story originally appeared in Hakai Magazine and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A new video appears on the social media network Telegram: footage of the smoking area aboard a large vessel. The curtains are ripped, the lights are broken, and ash and glass litter the floor. “This is how they drink on our ship,” says the young Ukrainian deck worker filming the scene, turning to show the furniture thrown to the corner of the room. “I’m freaked out.” A Telegram administrator asks the deck worker if he can share the vessel’s name. They change the ship’s name multiple times a year, replies Feliks Bondar, whose own name has been changed for this story. “I don’t even know what name to tell you,” he writes in Ukrainian. “Our ship was originally called Eagle , but in Venezuela, we were Matador and then Shoyo Maru .” A chorus of similar messages had flooded the chat in recent months: stories of dangerously rundown ships, operators withholding pay, abandoned crew members, and vess

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