30 Août, 2018

L’eau contaminée devient une priorité pour le CDC qui compte 200 millions de cas de gastroentérites chaque année

The CDC wants to study water contamination in a new way

There are an estimated 200 million cases of acute gastrointestinal illness in the U.S. each year, but there isn’t reliable data to nail down how often that’s tied to tainted drinking water. Now, the CDC is hoping to dig up U.S. data with a proposed new study of what happens when water pressure drops — like when a water main breaks — and whether that can lead to contamination that can make people sick. Studies in Norway and Sweden have linked drops in water pressure to an increased risk of gastrointestinal illness. The proposed cohort study would survey households across the U.S. about water use and health issues. The idea is open for public comment until Oct. 29.

30 Août, 2018

La Californie développe une politique en faveur du changement climatique qui pourrait s’avérer un modèle pour le monde

On late Tuesday, the California Assembly passed a bill requiring 100 percent of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by the end of 2045. This puts one of the world’s most aggressive clean-energy policies on track for the governor’s desk.
Movin’ on up: The new bill also moves up the state’s earlier time line to reach 50 percent renewables from 2030 to 2026. But notably, California regulators have said the state’s major utilities could reach that milestone as early as 2020. This underscores the rapid pace at which the energy transformation has unfolded since the state put its renewable standards in place in 2002.
The testing grounds: California is acting as a test bed for what’s technically achievable, providing a massive market for the rollout of clean-energy technologies and building a body of knowledge that other states and nations can leverage, says energy economist Severin Borenstein. “We are showing that you can operate a grid with high levels of intermittent renewables,” he says. “That’s something that can be exported to the rest of the world.

6 Août, 2018

More people sickened in outbreak linked to salads (cyclospora dans la salade)

Du Cyclospora dans les salades : The number of people sickened in an outbreak linked to salads sold at McDonald’s restaurants continues to climb. The CDC says 395 people in 15 states have fallen ill with cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness caused by contaminated food. There have been 16 hospitalizations and no reported deaths. McDonald’s says it has replaced its salad supplier in the affected states. The FDA analyzed an unopened package of Fresh Express salad mix with romaine and carrots — the type distributed at McDonald’s — and confirmed it contained Cyclospora. Now, the agency is looking into the distribution and supplier information to try to pinpoint the source. The FDA says there’s no evidence so far that the outbreak is linked to another Cyclospora outbreak tied to Del Monte vegetable trays. ( Source Stat’s )

1 Août, 2018

Du coté de la robotisation

An AI-driven robot hand spent a hundred years teaching itself to rotate a cub

AI researchers have demonstrated a self-teaching algorithm that gives a robot hand remarkable new dexterity.
The creation: The robotic system, dubbed Dactyl, was developed by researchers at OpenAI. It taught itself to manipulate a cube with uncanny skill by practicing for the equivalent of a hundred years inside a computer simulation (though only a few days in real time).
How it works: It uses an off-the-shelf robotic hand from a UK company called Shadow, an ordinary camera, and an algorithm that’s already mastered multiplayer video game, DotA, using the same self-teaching approach.
Why it matters: As our own Will Knight explains, the robotic hand is still nowhere near as agile as a human one, and too clumsy to be deployed in a factory or warehouse. Even so, the research shows the potential for machine learning to unlock new robotic capabilities and suggests that some day robots might teach themselves new skills inside virtual worlds.

Source MIT technology Review

14 Mai, 2018

Le Monde entier se ligue contre les AGT (acides gras trans)

Le directeur général de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, et le PDG de Resolve to Save Lives, Tom Frieden, ont lancé, lundi 14 mai, une stratégie pour l’élimination des acides gras trans (AGT) d’origine industrielle de l’alimentation d’ici à 2023. Une démarche qui s’inscrit dans un mouvement amorcé depuis plus d’une décennie et qui pourrait « sauver plus de 10 millions de vies », selon l’OMS. Les six actions stratégiques proposées par l’OMS sont regroupées sous l’acronyme anglo-saxon « Replace ». Elles s’articulent ainsi : dresser l’inventaire des sources d’AGT d’origine industrielle, promouvoir des graisses plus saines, prendre des mesures législatives pour éliminer les AGT d’origine industrielle, évaluer les évolutions des consommations, sensibiliser aux effets néfastes des AGT et appliquer des politiques et réglementations. L’intégralité de l’article du Monde 

4 Mai, 2018

Nutrition: FDA pushes back deadline to update nutrition labels

The FDA is delaying big changes to nutrition labels. Back in 2016, the FDA under the Obama administration set new rules that require food manufacturers to list added sugars, along with more visible calorie counts and clearer serving sizes. Those guidelines were set to go into effect in July. Now, the FDA is extending the deadline to January 2020 to give food manufacturers more time to comply, with companies that bring in less than $10 million in annual sales getting until 2021. Meanwhile, after years of delays, a new FDA policy is going into effect on Monday that requires restaurants with 20 more or more locations to display calorie counts.