Daniel Lemire's blog

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Science and Technology links (Novembre 13rd 2021)

  1. Pacific rougheye rockfish can live hundreds of years while other rockfish barely live past ten years.
  2. Female condors can reproduce without males. The phenomenon is known as parthenogenesis and it occurs in birds such as chickens. It does not happen in mammals naturally as far as we know.
  3. Chimpanzees can thrive in virtual reality.
  4. People have a good opinion of their own environmental impact and they are biased against the behaviour of others. In other words, we are environmental hypocrites.
  5. A majority of minimum wage workers are age 15 to 24 in Canada.
  6. Though we tend to view American businesses as uniquely innovative, Nordic countries in Europe may be just as innovative, albeit with a small population. This could be explained in part by the fact that Nordic countries have advantageous tax regimes for businesses.
  7. Smartphone vendors like to scan our content for illegal pictures. From databases of pictures, they seek to detect pictures that you own that might be visually similar. Unfortunately, it appears that the current breed of algorithms are easily fooled.
  8. Eating several eggs a day might improve your cardiovascular health.
  9. Some mice can regenerate their kidneys without scars.
  10. About half of all patents have to do with software. They are filed from a few major tech centres, unlike other patents which have more varied origins.