In a drab office building near a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, nearly 200 young men and women from countries across Africa sit at desks glued to computer monitors, where they must watch videos of murders, rapes, suicides, and child sexual abuse.
These young Africans work for Sama, which calls itself an “ethical AI” outsourcing company and is headquartered in California.
Sama says its mission is to provide people in places like Nairobi with “dignified digital work.” Its executives can often be heard saying that the best way to help poor count…
Matt Higgins and his team of researchers at the University of Oxford had a problem.
For years, they had been studying the parasite that spreads malaria, a disease that still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. They had identified an important protein on the surface of the parasite as a focal point for a potential future vaccine. They knew its underlying chemical code. But the protein’s all-important 3D structure was eluding them. That shape was the key to developing the right vaccine to slide in and block the parasite from infecting human cells.
The team’s best way of taking a “photograph” of the protein was using X-rays—an imprecise tool that only returned the fuzziest of images. Without a clear 3D picture, their dream of develop…
In the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise it short-term interest rates target for the tenth straight meeting in order to combat what it sees as untenably high-inflation, it’s time to assess what has happened economically in the United States over the past year—the stock market has gone from strength to weakness; home buying has slowed precipitously; wage growth has plateaued; inflation has moderated; growth as measured by GDP is barely above zero; and the public mood on all things economic has soured.
Some of these trends are also global, as countries worldwide are still adjusting to the post-pandemic dislocations of supply chains combined with excess stimulus. Given the oddness of the past three years, the U.S. is actually doing OK. Inflation is com…