A sharp decline in mathematical proficiency among American college students has exposed the unintended consequences of recent education policies, as detailed in The Atlantic. At UC San Diego, incoming freshmen lacking high-school-level math skills surged from roughly 30 five years ago to over 900 today, with many unable to master middle-school concepts such as fractions. Similar trends have doubled or tripled remedial placements across the University of California system, including Berkeley and UCLA. Faculty attribute the crisis to relaxed standards, pandemic-era grade inflation, the elimination of standardized testing in admissions, and reduced accountability since 2015. “Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared risks harming the very students we hope to support,” the UC San Diego report warns. Experts reject reliance on AI as a substitute, insisting foundational quantitative reasoning remains essential for future innovation and economic competitiveness.
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Fortell, a New York-based startup backed by Thrive Capital and Founders Fund, has launched an AI-powered hearing aid that dramatically outperforms rivals in noisy environments, effectively solving the decades-old “Cocktail Party Problem” for age-related hearing loss. Available initially only through a single Manhattan clinic, the discreet over-ear devices use proprietary source-separation algorithms and a custom low-latency chip to isolate desired speech in real time. A blind NYU Langone study showed users had nearly 19 times higher odds of understanding speech versus leading competitors. “The results were overwhelming,” said Mario Svirsky, professor of hearing science at NYU. Beta testers including Steve Martin and Henry Kravis describe life-changing clarity in restaurants and parties, fueling explosive word-of-mouth demand among affluent boomers and signaling a breakthrough that could eventually restore social connection for millions.
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In a rare public admission, South Korea’s largest digital asset exchange Upbit acknowledged losing approximately $30 million after attackers reportedly estimated private keys by analyzing on-chain transaction patterns. Cryptographer JP Aumasson, writing on his blog, points to the simplest explanation: repeated ECDSA nonces. “Any cryptographer knows this well, and we all remember the PlayStation 3 disaster,” he notes, recalling how nonce reuse instantly exposes private keys when the same 256-bit random value k signs two different messages. Even partial nonce leakage can prove fatal. Aumasson highlights that modern alternatives like EdDSA and deterministic ECDSA variants eliminate randomness entirely, removing the vulnerability at its root. While official details remain sparse and North Korean attribution circulates, the incident brings to fore a long-known yet persistently costly weakness in legacy signature schemes, reinforcing the industry’s emerging emphasis on more robust cryptographic design.
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A comprehensive study by psychologists at the University of Zurich, led by Renato Frey and published in Psychological Science, reveals that people dread occupational decisions far more than health risks. Across 4,380 Swiss participants surveyed in an open-ended format, accepting or quitting a job consistently ranked as the most feared choices, followed by financial investments, driving, and housing decisions. “First and foremost, people think of occupational risky choices,” Frey noted, upending researchers’ expectations that medical or travel uncertainties would dominate. Remarkably, responses remained “surprisingly stable” even across the COVID-19 era. The resulting database of the top 100 dreaded decisions, sortable by career, money, relationships, age, and gender, offers policymakers and therapists an optimistic, evidence-based map to deliver targeted support that empowers freer, less anxious life choices.
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