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Alarm overload is undermining safety at sea as crews face thousands of alerts
Analysis of more than 40 million alarm-related events shows most alarms offer little operational value, disrupt rest and push crews toward risky workarounds.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 330 posts.
242
Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment
As warmer temperatures return, Union Pacific is applying an innovative concept to manage heat-related track conditions – part of a broader strategy that helped the railroad deliver its best-ever full-year derailment incident rate in 2025, improving 19% year over year.
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Rethinking legal education in the AI era
OverviewArtificial Intelligence is already impacting higher education and the legal profession, and the pace of change appears only to be accelerating. It is thus critical for us to use this moment to carefully reflect on how legal education should adapt. This memo describes the approach we are taking to legal…
245
EFF letter to FTC on X consent order [pdf]
Strong safeguards on our information require eagle-eyed oversight when that data is abused and misused for profiteering ventures. X’s actions not only showed us this in the past, but continue to do so in the present day.
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Nonviolence
As a theologian, Martin Luther King reflected often on his understanding of nonviolence. He described his own “pilgrimage to nonviolence” in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom , and in subsequent books and articles. “True pacifism,” or “nonviolent resistance,” King wrote, is “a courageous confrontation of evil by…
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Meta Deployed AI and It Is Killing Our Agency
Managing millions in Meta ad spend, yet treated like we don't exist. An inside look at how Meta's AI-driven changes are disrupting agencies and advertiser performance.
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We moved our Bluesky data to Eurosky
Our presence in the ATmosphere – Bluesky’s protocol – is no longer dependent on the platform’s standard infrastructure. Instead, our data now runs on Eurosky’s Personal Data Server (PDS).
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The same AI request emits 8.5 times more CO2 in Texas than in Sweden
Swedish AI provider Berget AI releases an open-source method for calculating the carbon emissions of every individual AI request, developed with researchers from SEI, WattTime and Klimatkollen — and customers can now follow their emissions per request in the console.
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MIT's Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training
Through five intense months of meetings, research, and outreach across the MIT community, the Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training sought to understand the role of generative AI in the life and educational mission of the Institute and recommend how to navigate its challenges and…
252
How Quickly Can the DoD Rebuild and Recast the Munitions Industrial Base?
The U.S. munitions industrial base should be rebuilt and recast for modern wars of precision and attrition. What is a realistic timeline for this goal? By analyzing DOD budget documents and industry announcements, this analysis provides a clearer picture of the planned future.
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DHS Quits Granting Green Cards–Almost
This policy is illogical and will harm Americans, their employees, employers, and family members. It will drive talented people to other countries and make America a less competitive place for business.
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How the Tobacco Industry Drove the Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods (2025)
Public Health professor discusses how ultra-processed foods are a direct legacy of the tobacco industry, and are responsible for a dramatic rise in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases across the country.
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Building FireStriker: Making Civic Tech Free
A solo developer watched his community lose a fight because they didn't have the right tools at the right time. So he started building.
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More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
Many people in the U.S. believe that their statistical knowledge is limited, but they would rely on statistics for decision-making more if they understood statistics better, according to a new study led by a Penn State researcher.
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California legislature agrees to upload driver's licenses to national database
Withdrawing its opposition under behind-the-scenes pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawless threats from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the California legislature has agreed to fund and revise state law to authorize the upload of information about all driver’s licenses and ID cards issued by the…
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Rijksmuseum researchers discover new painting by Rembrandt van Rijn
Researchers at the Rijksmuseum have demonstrated that the painting Vision of Zacharias in the Temple (1633) was made by Rembrandt. They examined the work with the same advanced techniques used in Operation Night Watch , and closely compared it with other paintings by Rembrandt from the same period. Materials analysis…
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John Coltrane illustrates the mathematics of jazz
The Jazz of Physics: Albert Einstein and John Coltrane had a lot in common. The so-called “Coltrane circle” or “Circle of Fifths,” but incorporates Coltrane’s own innovations. Coltrane gave the drawing to saxophonist and professor Yusef Lateef in 1967, who included it in the Repository of Scales and
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Agents of Chaos
Natalie Shapira 1 Chris Wendler 1 Avery Yen 1 Gabriele Sarti 1 Koyena Pal 1 Olivia Floody 2 Adam Belfki 1 Alex Loftus 1 Aditya Ratan Jannali 2 Nikhil Prakash 1 Jasmine Cui 2 Giordano Rogers 1 Jannik Brinkmann 1 Can Rager 2 Amir Zur 3 Michael Ripa 1 Aruna Sankaranarayanan 8 David Atkinson 1 Rohit Gandikota 1 Jaden…
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Distinct cellular and genetic differences in colorectal cancer in young patients
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers, along with Mass General Brigham researchers from the Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, and the Broad Institute, have uncovered biological clues to why colorectal cancer can behave more aggressively in younger people. Published today in Nature Medicine, the…
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A U.S. Strategy to Prevent the Creation of Mirror Life
RAND researchers present a strategy for the United States to prevent the creation of mirror life by anyone, anywhere.
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Felix "fx" Lindner has died
With heavy hearts, we announce that Felix “FX” Lindner —a cherished friend, and the founder and owner of Recurity Labs—passed away on 2026-03-01.
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Beef and dairy drive 41% of biodiversity damage linked to global farmland
The Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford brings together the best minds from different fields to tackle the most pressing issues of the 21st…
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Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo
Kinshasa—One hundred days have passed since the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak, which has now become the country's fastest growing. Transmission is outpacing control efforts, requiring a substantial scale-up across all areas of response to halt the spread of the virus.
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PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD
Student performance across OECD countries has continued to decline, reaching the lowest average ever recorded by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in mathematics and reading. Across the OECD, one in five 15-year-old students is now a low performer in science, mathematics and reading, up…
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Second Circuit allows government to search electronic devices at the border
NEW YORK—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today held that border agents may search travelers’ electronic devices without suspicion. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) submitted an amicus brief in the case, arguing that…
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US Government wants DNA and social media from visitors
Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP).