Essex football club to host charity match to support boy, 4, with gene mutation
A charity football match is set to take place in Halstead in support of a four-year-old boy with health issues.
Plans to open new bank inside Braintree's 30-year-old library submitted
Braintree's library could be transformed into a new bank.
Essex's 'worst' GP surgery according to its patients
Less than half of responding patients said their overall experience of the surgery was good
COVID Pandemic Aged Brains By an Average of 5.5 Months, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Using brain scans from a very large database, British researchers determined that during the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, people's brains showed signs of aging, including shrinkage, according to the report published in Nature Communications. People who got infected with the virus also showed deficits in certain cognitive abilities, such as processing speed and mental flexibility. The aging effect "was most pronounced in males and those from more socioeconomically deprived backgrounds," said the study's first author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, via email. "It highlights that brain health is not shaped solely by illness, but also by broader life experiences."
Overall, the researchers found a 5.5-month acceleration in aging associated with the pandemic. On average, the difference in brain aging between men and women was small, about 2.5 months. "We don't yet know exactly why, but this fits with other research suggesting that men may be more affected by certain types of stress or health challenges," Mohammadi-Nejad said. [...] The study wasn't designed to pinpoint specific causes. "But it is likely that the cumulative experience of the pandemic -- including psychological stress, social isolation, disruptions in daily life, reduced activity and wellness -- contributed to the observed changes," Mohammadi-Nejad said. "In this sense, the pandemic period itself appears to have left a mark on our brains, even in the absence of infection." "The most intriguing finding in this study is that only those who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 showed any cognitive deficits, despite structural aging," said Jacqueline Becker, a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "This speaks a little to the effects of the virus itself."
The study may shed light on conditions like long Covid and chronic fatigue, though it's still unclear whether the observed brain changes in uninfected individuals will lead to noticeable effects on brain function.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nvidia extends CUDA support to RISC-V just in time for next wave of Chinese CPUs
The prime beneficiary of the AI boom has global ambitions
Updated Nvidia is officially bringing its CUDA software stack to RISC-V CPUs.…
China warns citizens to beware backdoored devices, on land and under the sea
Suggests buying local tech to avoid infosec worries
China’s Ministry of State Security has spent the week warning of backdoored devices on land and at sea.…
New Look's flattering £29.99 dress that shoppers say is 'gorgeous'
Love Islander Millie Court has modelled the dress for the retailer
CALUM CROWE: Sergio's outburst was the last straw ... these childish tantrums can no longer be tolerated
For a player who was once adored by the crowds at the Open Championship, Sergio Garcia's drift into irrelevance has been a sad sight.
Erik Menendez is rushed to hospital with 'serious medical condition' ahead of parole hearing
Erik and his older brother Lyle were imprisoned for life after murdering their parents Kitty and Jose inside their swanky Beverly Hills home in 1989.
Shocking moment Spanish cop slaps tourist 'who swore at him after complaining about police treatment of African beach sellers' in Marbella
The officer, who was seen in the clip wearing a helmet to protect his head, slapped the elderly man twice around the face despite the fact there seemed to be prior physical provocation.
Primark's £11 summer co ord set perfect for holiday shoppers think is 'so cute'
It's a perfect addition to any summer wardrobe
The Escobar Phone Scam Saga Has Finally Come To an End
Olof Kyros Gustafsson, former CEO of Escobar, pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges related to the company's phone scam operation. The Department of Justice says Gustafsson took orders for phones branded with Pablo Escobar's likeness but failed to deliver products, instead transferring customer money for personal use.
When customers sought refunds, Gustafsson fraudulently referred payment processors to certificates of ownership as proof of delivery. The phones were Samsung devices with gold stickers. Gustafsson faces up to 20 years in prison and $1.3 million in restitution at his December 5th sentencing.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I got kicked in the testicles by a 6'5" bloke while playing football and it saved my LIFE
Owen McNee fell victim to the toe-curling ordeal during a game of football with friends in Glasgow in 1989, eight months after he had married his wife Lindsay.
Read Ozzy Osbourne's family's statement in full after rocker dies 'surrounded by love' aged 76
The Black Sabbath frontman had performed from a throne on stage at Villa Park in Birmingham less than three weeks ago.
The special bond that connects Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson: Single parents are united by their love and struggles with parenthood - as they continue to spark romance rumours
One thing Pamela and Liam, who are both single parents, will have connected over is the bond they have with their sons.
Ozzy Osbourne's final photo: Black Sabbath star snapped beaming on stage just days before death
The rocker reunited with his original Sabbath bandmates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward for the first time since 2005 to bid an emotional farewell to performing live.
Adam Lambert's heartbreak as he splits from boyfriend Oliver Gliese after four-year romance
At 43, the Grammy nominee is 14 years older than the Twitch streamer, and they 'broke up within the last month' and it's 'drama free'
Humans Can Be Tracked With Unique 'Fingerprint' Based On How Their Bodies Block Wi-Fi Signals
Researchers from La Sapienza University in Rome have developed "WhoFi," a system that uses the way a person's body distorts Wi-Fi signals to re-identify them across different locations -- even if they're not carrying a phone. By training a deep neural network on these subtle signal distortions, the researchers claim WhoFi is able to achieve up to 95.5% accuracy. The Register reports: "The core insight is that as a Wi-Fi signal propagates through an environment, its waveform is altered by the presence and physical characteristics of objects and people along its path," the authors state in their paper. "These alterations, captured in the form of Channel State Information (CSI), contain rich biometric information." CSI in the context of Wi-Fi devices refers to information about the amplitude and phase of electromagnetic transmissions. These measurements, the researchers say, interact with the human body in a way that results in person-specific distortions. When processed by a deep neural network, the result is a unique data signature.
Researchers proposed a similar technique, dubbed EyeFi, in 2020, and asserted it was accurate about 75 percent of the time. The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture. "The encouraging results achieved confirm the viability of Wi-Fi signals as a robust and privacy-preserving biometric modality, and position this study as a meaningful step forward in the development of signal-based Re-ID systems," the authors say.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Penny Mordaunt reveals she is a victim of 'humiliating and violent' AI-generated deepfake porn - and says she is not the only politician whose face has been used
The former Leader of the House of Commons made the candid confession in an interview with Victoria Derbyshire on Tuesda
England 2-1 Italy AET - PLAYER RATINGS: Who is the Lionesses most consistent player? Which star redeemed themselves? And who is lacking end product?
Mail Sport's Tara Anson-Walsh rates the players after England booked their place in a third successive major final with a dramatic 2-1 victory after extra-time against Italy in Geneva.