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Now IT'S OFFICIAL: THE FTC IS INVESTIGATING FACEBOOK This week is already shaping up to be  anotherrough one for Facebook. This morning, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a bipartisan federal agency designed to protect consumers and promote competition, is investigating the embattled company. https://sagarabhi.wooplr.com/s/RkQRZE9jL?ref=cp.c.i.f Rumblings of such an investigation began March 20, when  The Washington Post  reported  that the FTC was beginning an investigation into the social media platform in the wake of news of its  involvement with Cambridge Analytica , a data mining company. However,  WaPo  cited a source not authorized to speak on the record, and an FTC spokesperson simply said the agency was “aware of the issues that have been raised but cannot comment on whether we are investigating.” Today, Tom Pahl, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, made it off...

Future Society A Web Company Is Offering to Pay Their Employees’ Salaries in Bitcoin   Pixabay IN BRIEF A Japanese web hosting company will begin offering their employees the option of receiving part of their salaries in the form of bitcoin. Starting in February, workers can opt to receive between 1,000 yen ($88) and 100,000 yen ($890) of their paychecks in the popular cryptocurrency. BITCOIN AT WORK GMO Internet , a Japanese web hosting company, has  just offered  to pay a portion of their employees’ salaries in bitcoin. The shift is entirely optional, and the company is offering a range of entry points into the initiative. Starting in February, some workers will have the option of receiving as little as 10,000 yen (around $88) or as much as 100,000 yen (around $890) of their salaries in bitcoin. The offer will eventually expand to all of the company’s more than 4,000 employees. Image credit: Antana/Flickr In May, GMO I...

Earth & Energy Donald Trump Is Dropping Climate Change From a List of Security Threats   University of Alabama IN BRIEF Donald Trump is removing climate change from the United States' National Security Strategy. The revised security document, which Trump is expected to reveal on December 18, will focus on economic competition and border security, according to reports. NEW NATIONAL SECURITY Under the Trump administration, the United States’ National Security Strategy is getting a noteworthy edit: it will no longer include  climate change as a national threat . The fact that President Trump is dropping climate change from the National Security Strategy isn’t shocking. While on the campaign trail, he openly mocked its categorization as a security threat. The truly alarming aspect of the decision is its potential to do tremendous harm to our planet. There goes the neighborhood. #ClimateChange ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Comic by @lukekingma and @opawapo A post s...

Advanced Transport To Save Lives, Self-Driving Cars Must Become the Ultimate Defensive Drivers by  The 2262 li   Getty Images IN BRIEF The myriad of potential causes of danger on the road makes programming self-driving especially difficult. Not only must programmers develop procedures for normal conditions, but also learn how to react when drivers and vehicles behave out of the ordinary. Srikanth Saripalli ,  Texas A&M University In early November, a  self-driving shuttle and a delivery truck collided in Las Vegas . The event, in which no one was injured and no property was seriously damaged, attracted media and public attention in part because one of the vehicles was driving itself – and because that shuttle had been operating for only less than an hour before the crash. It’s not the first collision involving a self-driving vehicle. Other crashes have involved  Ubers   in Arizona , a  Tesla in “autopilot” mode  in Flo...

obots & Machines   SPONSORED Net Neutrality is Over. It’s Time to Get a VPN. 13329   Getty Images Futurism has forged a partnership with ExpressVPN, the world’s largest premium VPN service provider. As part of our partnership, ExpressVPN is offering 3 months free to new annual customers. To get started and  reclaim your privacy, go here . The FCC, ISPs, and VPNs Despite  efforts to delay  in order to allow for an investigation into false comments and stolen identities, the FCC voted last week to  repeal net neutrality . The repeal concerns regulations for companies that connect us to the internet. When in place, the regulations prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking websites or charging additional fees to access specific content. Net neutrality rules were put in place in 2015 to protect not only consumers from price gouging but also to ensure the internet remained equally accessible to all. To many,...

Hard Science We May Have Just Uncovered the Earliest Direct Evidence of Life on Earth 17 10030   Wikimedia Commons Life on Earth At approximately 3.5 billion-year-old, the  oldest fossils on Earth  have been uncovered in Western Australia. The microscopic fossils are the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth and — thanks to further analysis and study by researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison —could deepen our understanding of the origins of life. The study was published on Monday in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  In the study, a team of researchers led by  J. William Schopf, professor of paleobiology at UCLA, and John W. Valley, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described 11 microbial fossil specimens stemming from five separate taxa. They connected the fossil’s morphologies to the chemical signatures we understand to be the basis for life. Some of the s...

Mature Cells May Play an Important Role in the Onset of Cancer by 17 1426   Wikimedia Common Reverting Back A new study has found that mature cells, as well as rapidly dividing  stem cells , might play a role in the onset of cancer in the human body. A team of researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis observed mature cells displaying behavior more commonly associated with rapidly dividing stem cells. Even as they reverted back, they maintained the mutations that had developed over the course of their lifespan, which could increase the chances that these cells develop into precancerous lesions. The study looked at mice who had suffered injuries affecting their stomach lining, whose ability to call on stem cells to fix the problem had been blocked. The stomach was chosen as the focus because it’s easier to distinguish stem cells and mature cells in that environment. Although stem cells were not present, the mice still...