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This is today’s edition downlHEadvertisement, Our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the tech world.
How a Zambian morgue reveals the real covid toll in Africa
The morgue at Lusaka University Teaching Hospital (UTH), near the center of Zambia’s capital, is not a very pleasant place to conduct a clinical study. In the cavernous interior, newly arrived corpses linger. Others lie heaped on open-air shelves, where they’ve been derelict for months. The scent is too overwhelming.
But here, among cadavers at Zambia’s largest hospital, researchers have finally come close to solving one of the pandemic’s enduring mysteries: why Africa seems to have survived the heaviest of covid deaths elsewhere. The truth is coming out more and more, it wasn’t.
That’s the claim of a new study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, based on corpse testing by staff equipped with nasal swabs and a high tolerance for the spook. It constitutes perhaps the strongest clinical evidence that the massive undercount of covid-19 deaths in Lusaka and possibly much of Africa. Read the full story.
–Jonathan W Rosen
must read
I scoured the internet for today’s most entertaining/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 A new study turns upside down everything we know about particle physics
A particle called the W boson is much heavier than previously thought. (quantum)
+ Physicists experience the stress of this. (CNET)
2 The war in Ukraine spreads to Google Maps
After Putin invaded, some cartographers made Crimea a part of Ukraine from a disputed territory. (slate $)
+ Hackers tried to infiltrate the Facebook accounts of Ukrainian military personnel. (Boundary)
+ Blaming Russia for war crimes will not be easy. (New Yorker $)
3 China wants to stop web giants from abusing their algorithms
By asking the likes of ByteDance to explain how they work. (Bloomberg$)
4 gig drivers killed while working
Why isn’t more being done to protect them? (Marking)
5 We don’t actually know how many billionaires there are
Mainly because they don’t want to be recognized. (NYT$)
Can Twitter’s edit button really be a force for good?
Editing typos is fine, but changing all tweets is Extremely Bad Really Happening. (wired$)
+Maybe the company should focus on fighting abuse instead?(FT$)
+Elon Musk is holding an AMA session to ease the minds of anxious employees. (WP$)
+Twitter will now let you exempt yourself from tweets you don’t want to be tagged in.(CNET)
7 How do you live with a mental disorder that does not officially exist?
The nature of complex trauma makes identifying triggers uniquely difficult. (slate$)
+Ukrainian children are deeply wounded by the war.(wired$)
8 Brands are investing serious money in the metaverse
But virtual spaces still attract few visitors. (rest of the world)
+The main problem of the metastore? Lack of main uses.(FT$)
+Virtual reality started in the 90s with a parachute accident.(IEEE Spectrum)
+Lego wants to make its metadata store kid-friendly.(WP$)
9 If you recently received a text message from yourself, you are not alone
Part of a massive spam wave. (NYT $)
10 Are people quitting YouTube?
Subscriber numbers are rising, but creators say view counts are falling. (OneZero)
+This conservator’s art restoration videos have no problem capturing audiences.(artnet)
Word of the Day
“We have significant troop losses. And this is a great tragedy for us.”
— Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov admits Weather forecast He said that Russian forces suffered heavy losses during the war in Ukraine.
We can still have beautiful things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these strange times. (Any ideas? Write me or tweet me.)
+ Oral history of the perpetual disco classic, Aqua’s “barbie girl.
+ This sweet little man has the right idea.
+ Orville Peck is back with a brand new album and more horse metaphors.
+ I really enjoyed it praise for friendship (thanks Robbie!)
+ Have you ever seen a bird growl? oh yes and Whistle the Harry Potter theme tune.
+ I’m just watching this fresh bubble shooter race it makes me feel tired.
+ Movies based on video games are largely garbage. Are these only good?
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