8 | New Scientist | 5 February 2022
TechnologyBirthday wishes
on social media
are a security riskEVERY day, thousands of people
are giving away private information
about their friends that could
compromise their online security –
by wishing them happy birthday
on social media.
Banks and other organisations
often use a customer’s date of birth
to verify their identity, and security
experts therefore advise people not
to mention it on social media. It is
even protected as personal dataunder data protection laws in
the UK and the European Union.
Dilara Keküllüoğlu at the
University of Edinburgh, UK, and
her colleagues found more than
18 million Twitter posts that
mentioned “happy birthday” in a
45-day period. Of those, 2.8 million
directly mentioned a user, so they
could be used to ascertain an
individual’s birthday. More than
66,000 of these tweets also gave
away the age of the user, and
therefore their full date of birth.
Only around 2 per cent of the
Twitter users mentioned in those
posts shared their birth years ontheir profiles, so the team warns
that well-wishers are exposing this
information for people who haven’t
proactively shared it themselves
(arxiv.org/abs/2201.10655).
Keküllüoğlu says that around
0.85 per cent of tweets in English
contain the term “birthday”.
“The information you leak
and your networks leak, it’s
one point in the data chain
that could get malicious peoplecloser to your account,” she says.
But she doesn’t think the solution
is for us to stop wishing each other
happy birthday online. “I wouldn’t
want that,” says Keküllüoğlu. “I
think this is something that brings
joy to people.”
“Date of birth was a good
authentication because everyone
had one, and it wasn’t that
guessable if you’re not close to that
person,” she says. “But now, with
the introduction of social media,
it’s no good. If any companies or
organisations are using it, they
need to move away from it.” ❚
Matthew Sparkes“It’s one point in the
data chain that could get
malicious people closer
to your account”GIANT pandas that become
pregnant through artificial
insemination are more likely to
reject their newborn cubs than
those that conceive by mating
naturally. This finding could help
conservationists further increase
the number of giant pandas,
which remain vulnerable.
As newborns, giant pandas
(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are
helpless. They require near-
constant body contact to keep a
steady temperature, don’t open
their eyes for six to eight weeks
and need to be licked to stimulate
urination and defecation.
”A newborn panda cub is
completely dependent on the
mother, and the mother won’t
even feed or drink in the first few
weeks after birth,” says Ming Fei Li
at PDXWildlife, a conservation
charity in Oregon.
Li and her colleagues examined
mating statistics recorded
between 1996 and 2018 at the
Wolong Panda Center and the
Bifengxia Panda Base, both in
Sichuan province, China. These
included observations on 202 cubs
produced by 57 females, with63 cubs born after artificial
insemination and 139 born
following natural mating.
The pandas that gave birth
after artificial insemination
were 37.9 per cent more likely
to reject a cub than females that
mated naturally (Applied Animal
Behaviour Science, doi.org/hfdk).
When a panda rejects a cub,
she may ignore it, deny it body
contact or refuse to nurse it.Without any courtship, the
mother panda can’t inspect the
father of her children – sniffing
him, listening to him, observing
how he competes with other
males – so cannot be assured
of his quality, says Li.
While snubbed cubs can be
hand-reared by conservation
staff, the researchers warn that
this can cause trouble further
down the line. This is because
missing out on the proper social
learning interactions during the
critical development period can
lead to abnormal behaviours inadulthood, which may lower
mating success. Li and her
colleagues now recommend
that conservation programmes
prioritise natural mating.
In 2016, giant pandas were
reclassified from endangered to
vulnerable by the International
Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), following population
growth of nearly 17 per cent over
the previous 10 years. At last
count, there were 1864 pandas
in the wild, according to figures
from China’s National Forestry
and Grassland Administration.
There are also 633 pandas in
captivity within panda centres in
China and zoos around the world.
Nicola Loweth at conservation
charity WWF in the UK says the
IUCN reclassification was a “step in
the right direction”, but there are
still concerns. “Vulnerable species
still have a high risk of extinction,”
she says. “Several significant
threats remain, including habitat
loss and fragmentation, snaring
and climate change, which is
predicted to have significant
impacts on the panda’s main
food source, bamboo.” ❚Sophie FreemanIM
AG
INECHINALIMITED/ALA
MYAnimal behaviourGiant pandas snub their cubs
When cubs are born via artificial insemination, panda mothers are more likely to reject them
A female giant panda
at the Bifengxia Panda
Base in ChinaNews