From Venmo and PayPal to Facebook Messenger, Google Wallet and even iMessage, there are plenty of ways to send money to your friends online. But these all require your contacts to have accounts set up to receive funds, which often causes friction whe…
While Project Scorpio was teased at last year’s E3, it was only yesterday that we finally got a good look at Microsoft’s latest console, now named the Xbox One X. It’s the company’s answer to Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro, bumping up the system’s graphics…
East Coast-ers should take a look up tonight, because NASA is putting on a show. As part of an experiment to track how particles move in space, researchers are releasing bright, color-changing vapors into the sky.
The events keep on rolling here at E3 2017 and now it’s almost time for Ubisoft to take the stage. The company will make its announcements at 4PM ET/1PM PT today and you can keep it locked hear to follow the news as its announced from the Orpheum The…
E3 2017 is arguably the biggest expo Microsoft has had in years, thanks to the official reveal of the Xbox One X. Though Microsoft spent a fair amount of time talking about the console itself, it used most of its conference time to show off all of the games that will be getting the 4K treatment on Xbox One X. … Continue reading
Smirnoff vodka takes a shot at President Donald Trump in its new ad campaign.
The vodka brand just trolled, er, rolled out a new bus ad touting the fact that it has been made in America since 1934.
“Made in America, but we’d be happy to talk about our ties to Russia under oath,” the ad says.
That’s clearly a reference to Trump’s recent declaration that he is “100 percent” willing to testify under oath about his conversations with then-FBI Director James Comey, who was fired amid an ongoing probe into ties between Trump’s campaign and associates and Russian officials.
The ad just started to appear at bus stops in New York City and may show up on billboards as well, a Smirnoff U.S. spokeswoman told HuffPost.
The spokeswoman didn’t comment on how the company might react to backlash from Trump supporters. Instead, she gave HuffPost this official statement:
“Smirnoff has been made in America for more than eight decades. The recent interest in American-made products created the perfect opportunity to reinforce that fact and the brand’s roots in Russia ― with a wink and nod to current affairs.”
Your move, comrade Trump.
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Brain scans, analyzed using a type of artificial intelligence, can reveal whether 6-month-old babies are likely to develop autism, a new study shows.
The study examined 59 infants who were at high risk of developing autism; that is, each had an older sibling with autism. The artificial intelligence predicted with 100 percent accuracy that 48 infants would not develop autism. In addition, of the 11 infants who did develop the disorder by the time they were 2 years old, the system correctly predicted nine of the cases.
“It was extremely accurate,” Robert Emerson, the lead author on the study and a former cognitive neuroscience postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina (UNC), told Live Science. [5 Things That May Cause Autism]
Studies show that 20 percent of babies who have older siblings with autism will develop the disorder; among babies in the general population, 1.5 percent develop autism, Emerson told Live Science.
The results of the new research could lead to new diagnostic tools that identify autism before symptoms occur, giving clinicians the opportunity to intervene early, the researchers said.
“The idea is that we can be more effective if we can get to these kids before they develop autism, perhaps ameliorating or preventing it,” Dr. Joseph Piven, a professor of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, told Live Science. The researchers published their results today (June 7) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Autism spectrum disorder, a brain-based disorder characterized by a wide range of social-communication challenges and repetitive behaviors, affects about one out of every 68 children in the United States. Behavioral symptoms typically begin to appear in children at around age 2.
Emerson and his colleagues demonstrated that they could identify biomarkers for the disorder before the symptoms occur.
As part of their study, the researchers used MRI scanners to image the brains of the infants while they slept. During the scans, the researchers recorded the neural activity of 230 different regions in the brain, looking particularly at whether or not pairs of these region — referred to as functional connections — were synchronized with each other, and if so, to what extent.
In total, the researchers measured 26,335 functional connections crucial for cognition, memory and behavior.
When the children reached age 2, they came back in for a behavior assessment. The researchers looked at the children’s social interactions, communication, motor development and tendency to perform repetitive actions, and determined whether each child had autism. [11 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Baby’s Brain]
With all of the data in hand, the researchers set out to first train their machine learning program, and then use it to run predictions. They wanted to see how accurately it could predict which infants had developed autism, using only the functional connections data from when the children were 6 months old. In other words, although the researchers knew which babies had developed into toddlers with autism and which had not, the machine learning program did not.
Machine learning is a kind of artificial intelligence system that gets smarter based on the data it processes. In this case, the program was learning to spot differences between the functional connections imaged in the MRI data collected at 6 months old that correlate with cognition, memory and behavior and the details from the behavioral assessments collected at 24 months.
As the program did this, it separated the children into two groups — those with autism and those without the condition. Once it was trained, it could make predictions. [7 Baby Myths Debunked]
But during the training process, the researchers didn’t use the data from all 59 kids. Instead, they fed data in from 58 of the 59 infants to train the model, and then to get the prediction, they inputed the data from the one infant they had left out. They repeated this for all 59 children.
“Each child was predicted separately based on a model from the other children in the group,” Emerson said.
In the end, the machine learning program was correct in 82 percent of the cases in which the children did develop autism.
Piven said the team published a study earlier in the year that also showed an impressive prediction rate, but that study required two MRI scans, one at 6 months of age and one at 1 year. Moving the needle to an earlier age is a big advance, Piven said.
The research team was amazed by the parents who participated in this and other studies over the years, given all that was required, he said.
“This is an extraordinary group of people,” Piven said. “Not only do they have an older child with autism, but they bring their babies, often multiple times and from very far away, to one of our four clinical sites around the country.”
“They’re very committed,” Emerson said.
The researchers said they hope their contributions will lead to more effective interventions for children on the brink of developing autism.
Originally published on Live Science.
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After giving birth to twins, musician Alexa Wilding was offered a “mommy makeover” for her postpartum body. Months later, she realized just how harmful those two words can be for many mothers.
In a video for the “Dispelling Beauty Myths” series from Allure and StyleLikeU, Wilding opened up about the birth of her twins. She explained that after a year of nursing them and seeing one of them through a cancer battle, she struggled with having “that sensual feeling again.”
“I remember lying on my side to face my husband and the skin fell over,” she said in the video. “It was like a landslide. There was so much of it that it was me, my husband and this wad of flesh between us.”
Wilding described her experience with muscle diastasis, a condition some moms face after giving birth where the abdominal muscles separate, making it look like the mother is still pregnant. After having intense back pain, she visited a hernia specialist who suggested a plastic surgery doctor. The surgeon immediately said Wilding should have “the mommy makeover,” or a tummy tuck, a boob lift and “lots of lipo.” Wilding chose to only have the tummy tuck.
Later, Wilding began to recognize the pressures many mothers face to “fix” their bodies. After her tummy tuck, Wilding told the surgeon her skin looked different. The surgeon suggested she would have to go through the procedure again, and that’s when Wilding understood what was really happening.
“I was being sold this erasure,” she said, adding later, “It’s this maidenhood to motherhood transformation and we as a culture we want to stay in maidenhood as long as possible. So many women are trying to erase the rite of passage from their bodies, from their faces, their experiences.”
The HuffPost Parents newsletter, So You Want To Raise A Feminist, offers the latest stories and news in progressive parenting.
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Over the past few years, rosé has become a symbol of the “basic” movement.
Some people wholeheartedly embrace the signs of being “basic,” which means drinking rosé at brunch with your besties in the summer, or counting down the days until Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte comes out.
But because of rosé’s newfound reputation, some people avoid the delicious wine because it might seem less sophisticated than other choices. So HuffPost called on five sommeliers to get their expert opinions on what they think of people who drink rosé.
“It’s true, there can be an almost involuntary, knee-jerk assumption of basic-bitchness when someone orders rosé. I’d say especially when it’s a by-the-glass situation and it’s clear that the only guiding principle for the selection is color, and maybe temperature. But it certainly doesn’t make you want to roll your eyes, clench your jaw, and shake a person like hearing the tired refrain, ‘I don’t like Rieslings, they’re all too sweet!’ (Most produced around the world are made in a dry style, P.S., and what the hell is so wrong with sweet anyways?!).
“But I digress. I’ll say this: I order rosé all the time. And I don’t feel like a basic bitch when I do, and, most importantly, I don’t care if the somm thinks I am for ordering it. Drink what you like and what you’re in the mood for; others’ opinions be damned.”
“I’ve been in the wine industry now for 20 years and I’ve probably been drinking rosé with my industry peers and other professionals for probably 15 of those 20 years. It was always something that we in the industry always drank and enjoyed because it’s light and crisp and clean and delicious. But because of the persona that it was pink and therefore sweet, nobody else would drink it outside of the industry. And it’s finally in the past two years got to the point where people understand it is delicious and it’s not sweet and it’s dry and I feel like all of us in the industry are finally high-fiving each other like, ‘Yes!’
“I think ten, fifteen, twenty years ago we as consumers replied simply on scores to dictate what we were drinking and now with the influence that we see in social media, individuals start to follow sommeliers and wine professionals and all of our feeds are filled with rosé, and it’s what we all drink in the summertime.”
“I personally love rosé and know many ‘sophisticated wine drinkers’ that do too. That said, when ordering any glass of wine I think context matters. Did you order ‘the rosé’ but not specify which one you want out of the four on the list? That’s an indication you either don’t know or don’t care about the differences (which is fine, not everyone’s a wine geek). Then, what about the setting? If you’re poolside, you’re more likely to be judged for ordering a glass of full-bodied red than a glass of rosé. I think rosé is actually a great fail-safe wine to order if you’re unsure what to get. Like sparkling, it pairs well with many cuisines and is easy to drink without food too.”
“It’s 2017 and rosés from important regions all over the wine world (including Champagne) can be found on most wine lists―so ordering a glass of dry rosé in a restaurant is getting close to being mainstream. Add to that the fact that dry rosé is such a versatile wine when it comes to pairing with a wide ranges of dishes. Finally, it’s also summer, which is prime rosé season.
“As for what a sommelier might think of you ordering a glass of rosé? Order the right wine and they will probably think you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“So I am no one to judge really, and especially when we are talking about a category. Like for white and red, there is a huge range of quality of wines. I think there are tremendous rosés, some for early conception, some worth aging. I like and absolutely respect rosés when they are made with a purpose, from respectful farming (organic, biodynamic) with as little additives as possible to let the terroir, the varieties, the winemaker’s craft speak.
“When rosé is made just based on the color, with little to no interest to the farming, with a heavily interventionist viticulture, it is another story and not bottles I am looking to open, and even less to recommend to my guests.”
These answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.
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President Donald Trump invited his top employees to shower him with compliments on Monday. They happily obliged, one-by-one, on live television.
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, the president touted the “record-setting pace” of his legislative agenda and claimed “never has there been a president, with few exceptions” who has accomplished more while in office.
Trump then went around the table and called on each official to deliver brief remarks, beginning with Vice President Mike Pence. The bizarre scene that ensued resembled something out of North Korea, as each Cabinet official attempted to outdo one another with nice statements about their boss.
“It’s the greatest privilege of my life to serve as vice president to a president who is keeping his word to the American people, and assembling a team that’s bringing real change, real prosperity, real strength back to our nation,” Pence said.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao touted the success of “Infrastructure Week,” noting that “hundreds and hundreds of people were so thrilled” by the president’s visit to the Department of Transportation last week.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has publicly broken with her boss on a number of issues, hailed Trump’s message to the world as transformational and called it a “new day” at the U.N.
“I think the international community knows we’re back,” she added.
“Thank you,” Trump responded. “It’s true.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer apologized for the delay in his confirmation to the post.
“First of all, I want to apologize for being late for work. For four months, I got bogged down in the swamp that you want to drain,” he said, to laughter in the room.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue touted his recent trip to rural America.
“While we are bragging about international travel I just got back from Mississippi and they like you there,” he said, after others in the room mentioned traveling abroad.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who appears to be under constant threat of losing his job, thanked the president for “the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda.”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo, however, took a pass by taking a shot at the president’s favorite punching bag: the press.
“In the finest tradition of the CIA, I’m not gonna say a damn thing in front of the media,” he said, garnering a round of laughter.
Trump then ended the public portion of the meeting by thanking reporters and photographers who were there, some of whom shouted questions about former FBI Director James Comey. The president did not respond, however, and White House aides ushered the press out of the room.
Watch footage of the meeting above.
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