SoylentNews

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01810-6

The world’s seed-bearing plants have been disappearing at a rate of nearly 3 species a year since 1900 ― which is up to 500 times higher than would be expected as a result of natural forces alone, according to the largest survey yet of plant extinctions.

The project looked at more than 330,000 species and found that plants on islands and in the tropics were the most likely to be declared extinct. Trees, shrubs and other woody perennials had the highest probability of disappearing regardless of where they were located. The results were published on 10 June in Nature Ecology & Evolution¹.

[...]The work stems from a database compiled by botanist Rafaël Govaerts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. Govaerts started the database in 1988 to track the status of every known plant species. As part of that project, he mined the scientific literature and created a list of seed-bearing plant species that were ruled extinct, and noted which species scientists had deemed to be extinct but were later rediscovered.

[...]The researchers found that about 1,234 species had been reported extinct since the publication of Carl Linnaeus’s compendium of plant species, Species Plantarum, in 1753. But more than half of those species were either rediscovered or reclassified as another living species, meaning 571 are still presumed extinct.

takyon writes:

Google announces $1B, 10-year plan to add thousands of homes to Bay Area

The housing crisis in the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco, is a complex and controversial topic with no one-size-fits-all solution — but a check for a billion dollars is about as close as you're going to get, and Google has just announced it's writing one. In a blog post, CEO Sundar Pichai explained that in order to "build a more helpful Google," the company would be making this major investment in what it believes is the most important social issue in the area: housing.

San Francisco is famously among the most expensive places in the world to live now, and many residents of the city, or perhaps I should say former residents, have expressed a deep and bitter hatred for the tech industry they believe converted the area to a playground for the rich while leaving the poor and disadvantaged to fend for themselves.

Google itself has been the subject of many a protest, and no doubt it is aware that its reputation as a friendly and progressive company is in danger from this and numerous other issues, from AI ethics to advertising policies. To remedy this, and perhaps even partly as an act of conscience, Google has embarked on a billion-dollar charm offensive that will add thousands of new homes to the Bay Area over the next ten years.

$750 million of that comes in the form of repurposing its own commercial real estate for residential purposes. This will allow for 15,000 new homes "at all income levels," and while Pichai said that they hope this will help address the "chronic shortage of affordable housing options," the blog post did not specify how many of these new homes would actually be affordable, and where they might be.

Another $250 million will be invested to "provide incentives to enable developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units across the market".

They should build an arcology or giant pod hotel.

Also at NPR.

Previously: "It's a Perfect Storm": Homeless Spike in Rural California Linked to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley Charter Buses Vandalized by Pellet/BB Guns or Rocks

Related: Soaring Rents in Portland, Oregon Cause Homelessness Crisis
City of San Francisco Says It's Illegal to Live in a Box
San Francisco Restaurants Can't Afford Waiters, so they Put Diners to Work
In San Francisco, Making a Living from Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash
A Rogue Coder Turned a Parking Spot Into a Coworking Space

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

'Puppy Dog Eyes' May Have Evolved Just to Make Humans Melt - And It's Working

You know how when your dog wants something, she makes that face? You know the one - all beseeching, with eyes that seem to positively quiver with longing? You'd give her anything, right?

It turns out that our response to canine looks of longing or love may be the very reason dogs can make them. New research has found that the facial muscles involved in making these expressions can only be found in dogs, not wolves - suggesting our furry best friends evolved the ability specifically to communicate with humans.

"The findings suggest that expressive eyebrows in dogs may be a result of human unconscious preferences that influenced selection during domestication," said behavioural psychologist Juliane Kaminski of the University of Portsmouth.

"When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to look after them. This would give dogs that move their eyebrows more, a selection advantage over others and reinforce the 'puppy dog eyes' trait for future generations."

[...]For this research, the team did something different: they studied dog (Canis familiaris) behaviour as compared to wolves (C. lupus), and performed a comparative analysis of the facial anatomy of both species.

[...]"To determine whether this eyebrow movement is a result of evolution, we compared the facial anatomy and behaviour of these two species and found the muscle that allows for the eyebrow raise in dogs was, in wolves, a scant, irregular cluster of fibres," said anatomist Anne Burrows of Duquesne University.

"The raised inner eyebrow movement in dogs is driven by a muscle which doesn't consistently exist in their closest living relative, the wolf."

[...]The research has been published in PNAS.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

TOP500 Becomes a Petaflop Club for Supercomputers

The 53rd edition of the TOP500 marks a milestone in the 26-year history of the list. For the first time, all 500 systems deliver a petaflop or more on the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, with the entry level to the list now at 1.022 petaflops.

The top of the list remains largely unchanged, with only two new entries in the top 10, one of which was an existing system that was upgraded with additional capacity.

Two IBM-built supercomputers, Summit and Sierra, installed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, respectively, retain the first two positions on the list. Both derive their computational power from Power 9 CPUs and NVIDIA V100 GPUs. The Summit system slightly improved its HPL result from six months ago, delivering a record 148.6 petaflops, while the number two Sierra system remains unchanged at 94.6 petaflops.

The #100 system is at 2.3957 petaflops, up from 1.9661 petaflops in November 2018. The #500 system was at 0.8748 petaflops in November.

Complete list. The leading Green500 system is still "Shoubu system B" at 17.604 gigaflops per Watt.

Previously: Latest Top500 List: Upgraded US Supercomputers Claim Top Two Spots; China has Most Systems

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Facebook announces Libra cryptocurrency: All you need to know

Facebook has finally revealed the details of its cryptocurrency Libra, which will let you buy things or send money to people with nearly zero fees. You'll pseudonymously buy or cash out your Libra online or at local exchange points like grocery stores, and spend it using interoperable third-party wallet apps or Facebook's own Calibra wallet that will be built into WhatsApp, Messenger, and its own app. Today Facebook released its white paper explaining Libra and its testnet for working out the kinks of its blockchain system before a public launch in the first half of 2020.

Facebook won't fully control Libra, but instead get just a single vote in its governance like other founding members of the Libra Association including Visa, Uber, and Andreessen Horowitz who've invested at least $10 million each into the project's operations. The association will promote the open-sourced Libra blockchain and developer platform with its own Move programming language plus sign up businesses to accept Libra for payment and even give customers discounts or rewards.

Facebook is launching a subsidiary company also called Calibra that handles its crypto dealings and protects users' privacy by never mingling your Libra payments with your Facebook data so it can't be used for ad targeting. Your real identity won't be tied to your publicly visible transactions. But Facebook/Calibra and other founding members of the Libra Association will earn interest on the money users cash in that is held in reserve to keep the value of Libra stable.

Also at Business Insider and The Verge.

See also: Facebook announces new cryptocurrency called Libra - business live
Facebook's Answer to Bitcoin Poses a Double Threat
How Libra Would Work for You

Previously: Facebook Cryptocurrency
Facebook Plans to Launch 'GlobalCoin' Cryptocurrency in 2020

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

The FCC recently auctioned spectrum in the 24GHz band under controversial circumstances, as experts from other federal agencies warned that cellular transmissions in that band may significantly reduce the accuracy of weather forecasts.

When asked about the controversy at yesterday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Pai said that data provided by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is faulty. He also criticized the agencies for raising concerns "at the 11th hour."

Calling NOAA's study "fundamentally flawed," Pai said, "For example, it ignores the fact that 5G will involve beamforming, essentially adaptive antenna arrays that will more precisely send 5G signals—sort of a rifle shot, if you will, instead of a shotgun blast of 5G spectrum."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/06/ajit-pai-says-noaa-and-nasa-are-wrong-about-5g-harming-weather-forecasts/

See also: 5G likely to mess with weather forecasts, but FCC auctions spectrum anyway

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Sorry Truckers, Volvo's Autonomous Vehicles Can Handle it From Here

Volvo is ready to put its first autonomous, fully electric truck to the test. With the assistance of shipping company DFDS, the vehicle, known as Vera, will ferry goods from a logistics center to a port in Gothenburg, Sweden.

[...] Volvo eventually wants to expand and include multiple autonomous trucks in its operation. It made Vera compatible with most existing trailers and load carriers to take advantage of existing infrastructure. A fleet of Veras would ideally increase predictability and minimize unnecessary downtime, Volvo says.

[YouTube promo]

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Domino's will begin delivering pizza using self-driving robots in the Houston area later this year, the company announced on Monday. The company will use delivery vehicles from the Silicon Valley startup Nuro.

"Nuro's vehicles are specially designed to optimize the food delivery experience, which makes them a valuable partner in our autonomous vehicle journey," said Kevin Vasconi of Domino's in a press release. "The opportunity to bring our customers the choice of an unmanned delivery experience, and our operators an additional delivery solution during a busy store rush, is an important part of our autonomous vehicle testing."

The deal is a coup for Nuro, which raised $940 million in February and is already delivering groceries for Kroger in the Houston area. Pizza delivery is one of the most common applications for last-mile deliveries, and Domino's is one of the biggest companies in the business, delivering about 3 million pizzas per day. That's a lot of potential business for Nuro if the Houston trial is successful.

"Select customers who order online from one of Domino's participating stores will have the opportunity to use Nuro's autonomous delivery," according to the press release. "Once they have opted in, customers can track the vehicle via the Domino's app and will be provided with a unique PIN code to unlock the compartment to get their pizza."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/06/dominoes-will-start-robot-pizza-deliveries-in-houston-this-year/

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Porn trolling mastermind Paul Hansmeier gets 14 years in prison

A federal judge in Minneapolis has sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison for an elaborate fraud scheme that involved uploading pornographic videos to file-sharing networks and then threatening to sue people who downloaded them.

"It is almost incalculable how much your abuse of trust has harmed the administration of justice," said Judge Joan Ericksen at a Friday sentencing hearing.

We've been covering the antics of Hansmeier and his business partner John Steele for many years. Way back in 2012, we started reporting on a law firm called Prenda Law that was filing lawsuits against people for sharing pornographic films online. Prenda wasn't the only law firm filing these kinds of lawsuits, but Prenda came up with a novel way of ginning up more business: uploading the films itself, including some that were produced by Prenda associates.

A key part of the firm's strategy was to seek settlements of a few thousand dollars. The demanded sums were small enough that it cost less to settle the lawsuits than fight them. Prosecutors say that the men made more than $6 million from copyright settlements between 2010 and 2013.

Over time, judges became increasingly skeptical of Prenda's tactics. In one case, a judge threw out one Prenda-related lawsuit after it became clear that no one in the courtroom could explain exactly who the supposed plaintiff—an entity called Sunlust pictures—actually was. She described the lawsuit as an "attempted fraud on the Court."

As judges around the country dug into Prenda-related cases, they found more and more examples of apparent fraud. In another case, Steele and Hansmeier were accused of forging the name Alan Cooper, a man who served as a caretaker for one of Steele's properties. Cooper said he hadn't been consulted before being listed as the CEO of two Prenda-linked shell companies.

As the extent of the alleged fraud became apparent, judges began referring the pair to federal prosecutors. In 2016, the two men were arrested and charged with federal fraud, perjury, and money laundering.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Netflix puts a 'Patriot Act' episode about bad internet access on DVD

The latest episode of Netflix variety talk show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj focuses on the digital divide. In it, Minhaj breaks down some of the many reasons why internet access is so terrible across much of the US, including the roles of carriers and the Federal Communications Commission.

[...] He points out the irony that people who have a strong enough connection to stream the episode probably aren't affected by the problem. So, the Patriot Act team is putting the episode on DVD, which you can rent through Netflix's DVD mail rental service. Around 2.7 million people in the US still get Netflix's red DVD envelopes, so you can order the episode on a disc even if, say, you're struggling with a dial-up connection. Alternatively, the whole episode is on YouTube, so you can watch it even without a Netflix subscription.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

Hackers behind dangerous oil and gas intrusions are probing US power grids

In a new troubling escalation, hackers behind at least two potentially fatal intrusions on industrial facilities have expanded their activities to probing dozens of power grids in the US and elsewhere, researchers with security firm Dragos reported Friday.

The group, now dubbed Xenotime by Dragos, quickly gained international attention in 2017 when researchers from Dragos and the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye independently reported Xenotime had recently triggered a dangerous operational outage at a critical-infrastructure site in the Middle East. Researchers from Dragos have labeled the group the world's most dangerous cyber threat ever since.

The most alarming thing about this attack was its use of never-before-seen malware that targeted the facility's safety processes. Such safety instrumented systems are a combination of hardware and software that many critical infrastructure sites use to prevent unsafe conditions from arising. When gas fuel pressures or reactor temperatures rise to potentially unsafe thresholds, for instance, an SIS will automatically close valves or initiate cooling processes to prevent health- or life-threatening accidents.

In April, FireEye reported that the SIS-tampering malware, known alternately as Triton and Trisis, was used in an attack on another industrial facility.

Now, Dragos is reporting that Xenotime has been performing network scans and reconnaissance on multiple components across the electric grids in the US and in other regions. Sergio Caltagirone, senior VP of threat intelligence at Dragos, told Ars his firm has detected dozens of utilities—about 20 of them located in the US—that have been subjected to Xenotime probes since late 2018. While the activities indicate only an initial exploration and there's no evidence the utilities have been compromised, he said the expansion was nonetheless concerning.

"The threat has proliferated and is now targeting the US and Asia Pacific electric utilities, which means that we are no longer safe thinking that the threat to our electric utilities is understood or stable," he said in an interview. "This is the first signal that threats are proliferating across sectors, which means that now we can't be certain that a threat to one sector will stay in that sector and won't cross over."

[...] While none of the electric utility targeting events has resulted in a known, successful intrusion into victim organizations to date, the persistent attempts, and expansion in scope is cause for definite concern. XENOTIME has successfully compromised several oil and gas environments which demonstrates its ability to do so in other verticals. Specifically, XENOTIME remains one of only four threats (along with ELECTRUM, Sandworm, and the entities responsible for Stuxnet) to execute a deliberate disruptive or destructive attack.

XENOTIME is the only known entity to specifically target safety instrumented systems (SIS) for disruptive or destructive purposes. Electric utility environments are significantly different from oil and gas operations in several aspects, but electric operations still have safety and protection equipment that could be targeted with similar tradecraft. XENOTIME expressing consistent, direct interest in electric utility operations is a cause for deep concern given this adversary's willingness to compromise process safety – and thus integrity – to fulfill its mission.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

A combined research team from Carnegie Mellon University and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason is pairing a nanoscale imaging technique with virtual reality technology to create a method that allows researchers to "step inside" their biological data.

By combining the technique, called expansion microscopy, with virtual reality (VR), scientists will be able to enlarge, explore and analyze cell structures far beyond the capabilities of traditional light microscopy.

The development of these technologies, a two-step process funded at $200,000 through Grand Challenges, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will accelerate researchers' understanding of infectious and autoimmune diseases and enhance their ability to develop disease diagnostics and prevention and treatment methods.

[...] Through VR technology developed specifically for the purpose, researchers will be able to see and manipulate the originally 2D expansion microscopy images in 3D, giving them a 360 degree view of tissue and protein organizations and interactions.

"At BRI, we'll prepare the live infectious and autoimmune disease samples," said Caroline Stefani, senior postdoctoral research associate. "We'll send those to Carnegie Mellon, where they will enlarge the samples and send images back to BRI to be viewed in VR."

"This is the future of how scientists can handle complex data," Zhao said. "It's an immersive experience, just like you are sitting inside your data. You have the freedom to explore your data from every angle and every spot."

Source: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/june/vr-microscopy.html

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Some YubiKey FIPS Keys Allow Attackers to Reconstruct Private Keys

Yubico issued a security advisory saying that an issue impacting YubiKey FIPS Series devices (versions 4.4.2 and 4.4.4) reduces the strength of generated RSA keys and ECDSA signatures after power-up.

YubiKey FIPS Series key affected by this issue are the YubiKey FIPS, the YubiKey Nano FIPS, the YubiKey C FIPS, and the YubiKey C Nano FIPS — other Yubico products are not impacted.

According to Yubico's advisory, "random values leveraged in some YubiKey FIPS applications contain reduced randomness for the first operations performed after YubiKey FIPS power-up."

More to the point, on affected Yubico products, the buffer holding the keys derivation random value used by RSA and ECDSA algorithms contains some predictable data which leads to the value being not as random as expected. This problem occurs only during the YubiKey's power-up.

However, "After the predictable content in the random buffer is consumed, the buffer will be filled with the intended full random number generator output, and all subsequent use of randomness will not be affected."

Yubico discovered the issue internally and fixed it in YubiKey FIPS Series firmware version 4.4.5, which again was certified as FIPS compliant on April 30, 2019.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Researchers discovered two vulnerabilities in Alaris Gateway Workstations that are used to deliver fluid medication. One of them is critical and an attacker could leverage it to take full control of the medical devices connecting to it.

A flaw in the firmware code of the device has been assigned the highest severity score, a perfect 10, so it can be exploited remotely and without authentication. The other issue received is less severe and affects the workstation's web-based management interface.

[...] Researchers at CyberMDX discovered that AGW's firmware can be replaced remotely with a custom version. An attacker sitting on the same network as the target system would be able "update and manipulate a CAB file, which stores files in an archived library and utilizes a proper format for Windows CE," say the researchers.

With this type of access, the adversary would be able to alter the dosage of the drug dispensed by certain models of infusion pumps connected to an AWG, which are common in hospital wards and intensive care units.

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/critical-bug-in-infusion-system-allows-changing-drug-dose-in-medical-pumps/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Grow Faster, Grow Stronger: Speed-Breeding Crops to Feed the Future

Farmers and plant breeders are in a race against time. The world population is growing rapidly, requiring ever more food, but the amount of cultivable land is limited. Warmer temperatures have extended growth seasons in some areas — and brought drought and pests to others.

"We face a grand challenge in terms of feeding the world," said Lee Hickey, a plant geneticist at the University of Queensland in Australia. "If you look at the stats, we're going to have about 10 billion on the planet by 2050 and we're going to need 60 to 80 percent more food to feed everybody. It's an even greater challenge in the face of climate change and diseases that affect our crops that are also rapidly evolving."

[...] Dr. Hickey's team has been working on "speed breeding," tightly controlling light and temperature to send plant growth into overdrive. This enables researchers to harvest seeds and start growing the next generation of crops sooner.

Their technique was inspired by NASA research into how to grow food on space stations. They trick the crops into flowering early by blasting blue and red LED lights for 22 hours a day and keeping temperatures between 62 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Last November, in a paper in Nature [DOI: 10.1038/s41596-018-0072-z] [DX], they showed that they can grow up to six generations of wheat, barley, chickpeas and canola in a year, whereas traditional methods would only yield one or two.

On Monday in Nature Biotechnology [DOI: 10.1038/s41587-019-0152-9] [DX], Dr. Hickey and his team highlight the potential of speed breeding, as well as other techniques that may help improve food security. Combining speed breeding with other state-of-the-art technologies, such as gene editing, is the best way to create a pipeline of new crops, according to the researchers.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

One patient has died and another became seriously ill after fecal transplants inadvertently seeded their innards with a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday.

The cases highlight the grave risks of what some consider a relatively safe procedure. They also call attention to the mucky issues of federal oversight for the experimental transplants, which the FDA has struggled to regulate. In its warning Thursday, the agency announced new protections for trials and experimental uses of the procedure.

The FDA shared minimal details from the deadly transplants. Its warning only noted that the cases involved two patients who were immunocompromised prior to the experimental transplants and received stool from the same donor. Subsequent to the transplant, the patients developed invasive infections from an E. coli strain that was resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics in the penicillin and cephalosporin groups. The E. coli strain carried a drug-defeating enzyme called an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) [open, DOI: 10.1155/2012/625170] [DX], which generally cleaves a ring common to all the chemical structures of those antibiotics. When unnamed researchers who administered the transplant looked back at the donor stool, they found that the stool contained an identical ESBL-producing E. coli.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/killer-poop-fecal-transplant-patients-death-prompts-fda-to-push-out-warning/

Original Submission