Monthly Archives: October 2022

Anti-vaccine groups avoid Facebook bans by using emojis

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson) Pizza slices, cupcakes, and carrots are just a few emojis that anti-vaccine activists use to speak in code and continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook. Bloomberg reported that Facebook moderators have failed to remove posts shared in anti-vaccine groups and on pages that would ordinarily be considered violating content, if not…

It’s time to play “find the falling Chinese rocket” once again

Enlarge / Rendering of the Chinese Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station. (credit: Getty Images) On Monday, China’s space program successfully launched another large piece of its space station. The 23-ton Mengtian module will provide pressurized volume for scientific experiments and is the final large living area to be added to the Tiangong…

Just in time for Halloween, the sun looks like a jack-o’lantern

Just look at that grin. NASA / SDO It looks like many things to many people. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the classic 80s movie “Ghostbusters.” A ScrubDaddy sponge. An emoji. And a jack-o’lantern, just in time for Halloween. Last week, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the sun’s surface in an apparent smile. “Today, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory…

Pinecone vector database can now handle hybrid keyword-semantic search

When Pinecone announced a vector database at the beginning of last year, it was building something that was specifically designed for machine learning and aimed at data scientists. The idea was that you could query this data in a format that machines understand, making it much faster. Originally this involved semantic searches where users could…