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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Dave Prowse, actor who played Darth Vader, dies at 85:

Dave Prowse, the British weightlifter-turned-actor who was the body, though not the voice, of arch-villain Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, has died. He was 85.

Prowse died Saturday after a short illness, his agent Thomas Bowington said Sunday.

Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse was a three-time British weightlifting champion and represented England in weightlifting at the 1962 Commonwealth Games before breaking into movies with roles that emphasized his commanding size, including Frankenstein's monster in a pair of Hammer Studios horror films.

Director George Lucas saw Prowse in a small part in "A Clockwork Orange" and asked the 6-foot-6-inch (almost 2-meter) actor to audition for the villainous Vader or the Wookie Chewbacca in "Star Wars."

Prowse later told the BBC he chose Darth Vader because "you always remember the bad guys."

[...] Prowse is survived by his wife Norma and their three children.

David Prowse, Man Behind the Darth Vader Mask, Dies at 85:

David Prowse, the champion English weightlifter and bodybuilder who supplied his 6-foot-7 frame — but not the voice or the deep breathing — to portray Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, died early Saturday morning following a short illness. He was 85.

Prowse's death was confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter by his agent Thomas Bowington. Bowington Management also shared the news on Twitter, announcing his passing with "great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and million of fans around the world."

[...] George Lucas had seen him in Clockwork Orange and offered him a part in the first Star Wars(1977).

"Lucas said to me, 'You've got a choice of two characters in the movie,'" Prowse recalled in a 2016 interview. "He said, 'There's a character called Chewbacca, which is like a huge teddy bear, or alternatively, there's the main villain in the piece.' Well, there's no choice, is there? Thank you very much, I'll have the villain's piece."

Prowse didn't realize that his head and face would be covered by that now-iconic Samurai-inspired helmet and mask or that his outfit, made of fiberglass and leather, would weigh 40 pounds and be extremely, uncomfortably hot.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Mystery Of London's 1952 Killer Fog Is Solved:

Londoners are used to a regular dose of fog, drizzle, and cloud in the winter. But in early December 1952, the city's fog took a much deadlier turn.

By the time "the big smoke" had lifted just five days later, it had killed 4,000 people and left 150,000 others seriously ill in hospital with respiratory tract infections. In the long term, it's estimated at least 12,000 people died from the killer fog, along with thousands of animals.

[...] Sulfates were a key component of the London fog. This gave the fog its definitively thick, smelly, and toxic properties. It's always been correctly assumed that the London fog was caused by sulfur dioxide released by the burning of low-quality soft coal from chimneys, industry, and power plants. However, why this sulfur dioxide turned into sulfuric acid remained unknown.

[...] "Our results showed that this process was facilitated by nitrogen dioxide, another co-product of coal burning, and occurred initially on natural fog," lead author Renyi Zhang of Texas A&M University explained in a statement.

"Another key aspect in the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfate is that it produces acidic particles, which subsequently inhibits this process. Natural fog contained larger particles of several tens of micrometers in size, and the acid formed was sufficiently diluted. Evaporation of those fog particles then left smaller acidic haze particles that covered the city."

A similar chemistry is happening right now in the air of rapidly industrializing Asian cities, many of which are in China. [..] High levels of ammonia from China's extensive fertilizer use and road traffic neutralizes the particles. This makes it less acidic, but a still utterly unsavory cocktail of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

Journal Reference:
Gehui Wang, Renyi Zhang, Mario E. Gomez, et al. Persistent sulfate formation from London Fog to Chinese haze [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1616540113)

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[Ed. note: I was tempted to pass over this article because it beggared believe and I was unfamiliar with the author. Come to find out, Sabine Hossenfelder is a highly-respected researcher in this field.]

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Warp Drive News. Seriously!:

As many others, I became interested in physics by reading too much science fiction. Teleportation, levitation, wormholes, time-travel, warp drives, and all that, I thought was super-fascinating. But of course the depressing part of science fiction is that you know it's not real. So, to some extent, I became a physicist to find out which science fiction technologies have a chance to one day become real technologies. Today I want to talk about warp drives because I think on the spectrum from fiction to science, warp drives are on the more scientific end. And just a few weeks ago, a new paper appeared about warp drives that puts the idea on a much more solid basis.

But first of all, what is a warp drive? In the science fiction literature, a warp drive is a technology that allows you to travel faster than the speed of light or "superluminally" by "warping" or deforming space-time. The idea is that by warping space-time, you can beat the speed of light barrier. This is not entirely crazy, for the following reason.

hubie writes:

Noninteger dimensions are fairly well known in mathematics, but they are also used in various branches of physics and engineering to explain the emergence of scale invariant phenomena, such as atmospheric turbulence, or for measuring coastlines. Subhash Kak of Oklahoma State University in the United States published a paper that shows that if you look at physical space through the lens of information theory, the optimal number of dimensions turns out to be not an integer.

Kak shows the optimal dimension associated with the representation of information is e = 2.71828... and he argues that physical space is e-dimensional instead of 3-dimensional if one accepts optimality as a fundamental physical principle. He argues the discrepancy between 3 and e can be seen in existing data, and the example used has to do with the large scale structure of the universe.

One of the "crises" in physics is reconciling the two different values of the Hubble constant, H₀. The two values are 67 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 if you use early universe data, and 74 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 if you use late universe data. If physical reality is e-dimensional and we insist on viewing it as being 3-dimensional then there is a discrepancy equal to e/3=0.9060. This number is very close to the divergence of 67/74=0.9054 from the experimental data.

Journal Reference:
Subhash Kak. Information theory and dimensionality of space [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77855-9)

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takyon writes:

Hawaii's Fresh Water Leaks to the Ocean Through Underground Rivers (archive)

There are few things on the island of Hawaii that are more valuable than fresh water. This is not because the island is dry. There is plenty of rain. The trouble is that there is tremendous demand for this water and much of it that does accumulate on the island's surface disappears before it can be used.

New research by marine geophysicists reveals that underground rivers running off the large island's western coast are a key force behind this vanishing act.

[...] Ocean water conducts electricity exceptionally well because of the presence of dissolved salt ions. By comparison, fresh water is a rather poor conductor. Aware of these different electrical properties, [Eric Attias, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii,] worked with a team at Scripps Institute of Oceanography to tow a 3,200-foot long system behind a boat that emitted electromagnetic fields down through the submerged coastal rocks near Hualalai volcano on the west coast.

Dr. Attias' work shows that within the rock of the island below the waves, there are underground rivers of fresh water flowing 2-½ miles out into the ocean. These rivers are flowing through fractured volcanic rock and surrounded by porous rocks that are saturated with salt water. Between all of this salt water and the flowing fresh water are thin layers of rock formed from compacted ash and soil that appear to be impermeable and thus keeping the two types of water separated. In total, these rivers appear to contain enough fresh water to fill about 1.4 million Olympic swimming pools.

Marine electrical imaging reveals novel freshwater transport mechanism in Hawai'i (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd4866) (DX)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

The ISS Is About to Receive a New Doorway to Space:

The International Space Station (ISS) is about to take delivery of what NASA describes as a new "doorway to space."

The Bishop Airlock Module, that's its official name, was built by Texas-based Nanoracks and will arrive at the space station early next month as part of SpaceX's next supply mission. Astronauts currently serving as the station's Expedition 64 crew will then fit the module to an available port.

Nanoracks' Bishop Airlock Module is special in that it'll be the first permanent, commercial addition to the space station. Also, with a height of 1.8 meters and a diameter of 2 meters, it'll offer fives times the volume that can currently be moved in and out of the orbiting laboratory.

A new doorway to space is coming to the @Space_Station! ????✨

Launching on the 21st commercial resupply mission, @Nanoracks#BishopAirlock Module will allow more researchers and companies to move larger payloads inside and outside the station. Learn more: https://t.co/GiqgvW5hpgpic.twitter.com/Vpir46MyVJ

— NASA's Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) November 25, 2020

[...] As we look forward to seeing how the module will be used by private companies and researchers, NASA notes that the space agency itself has already booked multiple slots for use of the airlock for more banal activities, namely the disposal of larger pieces of trash that will later burn up on entry into Earth's atmosphere.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:

Boston Dynamics' Spot Is Helping Chernobyl Move Towards Safe Decommissioning:

In terms of places where you absolutely want a robot to go instead of you, what remains of the utterly destroyed Chernobyl Reactor 4 should be very near the top of your list. The reactor, which suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986, has been covered up in almost every way possible in an effort to keep its nuclear core contained. But eventually, that nuclear material is going to have to be dealt with somehow, and in order to do that, it's important to understand which bits of it are just really bad, and which bits are the actual worst. And this is where Spot is stepping in to help.

[...] The goal for Spot in the short term is fully autonomous radiation mapping, which seems very possible. It'll also get tested with a wider range of sensor packages, and (happily for the robot) this will all take place safely back at home in the U.K. As far as Chernobyl is concerned, robots will likely have a substantial role to play in the near future. "Ultimately, Chernobyl has to be taken apart and decommissioned. That's the long-term plan for the facility. To do that, you first need to understand everything, which is where we come in with our sensor systems and robotic platforms," Megson-Smith tells us. "Since there are entire swathes of the Chernobyl nuclear plant where people can't go in, we'd need robots like Spot to do those environmental characterizations."

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canopic jug writes:

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure has a call for donations against the Unitary Software Patent Trolls after Thursday's disastrous Bundestag vote. On Thursday in Germany, the Bundestag voted on ratification of a proposal for a Unified Patent Court, largely seen as purely a vehicle for introducing software patents into Europe. As software patents in the US were on the way out, introducing them into Europe would bring them back into the US after further "harmonization". Thursday's vote is the result of the software patent lobby changing its strategy in Europe by creating a central patent court outside of the control of the individual member states under which it would make its own rules and avoid democratically elected legislators.

oumuamua writes:

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spreads more indoors at low humidity.

The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi from the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks. A relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of the viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane. To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, it is therefore extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices or public transport, writes the research team in the scientific journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research

And other findings dispute that: Temperature and Humidity Do Not Play a Major Role in Coronavirus Spread:

Research headed by The University of Texas at Austin is providing a little clarity on the role of weather in COVID-19 infection. The new study found that humidity and temperature do not play a major role in the spread of coronavirus.

A doctor's opinion: This winter, fight covid-19 with humidity:

c0lo writes:

Straight for the horse's mouth ESA and ClearSpace SA sign contract for world's first debris removal mission

ESA is signing an €86 million contract with an industrial team led by the Swiss start-up ClearSpace SA to purchase a unique service: the first removal of an item of space debris from orbit. As a result, in 2025, ClearSpace SA will launch the first active debris removal mission, ClearSpace-1, which will rendezvous, capture and bring down for reentry a Vespa payload adapter. Journalists are invited to follow an online round table for media on Tuesday, 1 December, at 13:30 CET. Mission experts will give an overview of the project status, explain the ambitious mission design and detail the next steps leading to launch.

[...] The ClearSpace-1 mission will target the Vespa (Vega Secondary Payload Adapter). This object was left in an approximately 801 km by 664 km-altitude gradual disposal orbit, complying with space debris mitigation regulations, following the second flight of Vega back in 2013. With a mass of 112 kg, the Vespa target is close in size to a small satellite.

In almost 60 years of space activities, more than 5550 launches have resulted in some 42 000 tracked objects in orbit, of which about 23 000 remain in space and are regularly tracked. With today's annual launch rates averaging nearly 100, and with break-ups continuing to occur at average historical rates of four to five per year, the number of debris objects in space will steadily increase. ClearSpace-1 will demonstrate the technical ability and commercial capacity to significantly enhance the long-term sustainability of spaceflight. The mission is supported within ESA's Space Safety Programme based at the agency's ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

The capture process

Commercial project's page

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cmdrklarg writes:

Sheep counters find a monolith:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/utah-monolith-what-is-it-trnd/index.html

Some geek on Reddit found it on Google Earth already:

https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_find_this_obelisk_in_remote_utah/

That shining, eerily symmetrical silver monolith found in the Utah desert has everyone screaming "ET." The truth is likely far more terrestrial.

We still don't know who made the tall, metal rectangle or why they stuck it among the red rocks, where it was discovered this week in a helicopter flyover by Utah Department of Public Safety employees (they were counting bighorn sheep).

And though comparisons were quickly drawn to the fictional monoliths of film auteur Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," we can safely say this real-life monolith was not the work of aliens.

Still, it's a fittingly mystifying symbol in a year that's often felt stranger than fiction. And while we may eventually learn more about the artwork's origin, any piece of Kubrick-inspired art should leave some questions unanswered, said I.Q. Hunter, a film scholar and De Montfort University professor.

Also at:
Mysterious metal monolith discovered in rural Utah
Utah monolith: Internet sleuths got there, but its origins are still a mystery
Thanks aristarchus_, Runaway1956

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus_:

Missing Ink: Darwin Notebooks, Long Unseen, Now Believed Stolen:

Have you seen Charles Darwin's missing notebooks? If so, the authorities — and some "heartbroken" librarians — would like to have a word with you.

That's the bottom line of an appeal issued Tuesday by Cambridge University Library in the United Kingdom. The library, which manages a massive archive of the famed naturalist's work, said it's seeking two notebooks that have been missing for nearly two decades — and that, after an exhaustive search, they fear were stolen.

Cambridgeshire police confirmed Tuesday that they have opened a formal investigation into the disappearance. The library says the pair of journals, which it estimates being worth millions of dollars, have also been added to the Art Loss Register in the U.K. and Interpol's database of stolen works of art.

"It is deeply regretful to me that these notebooks remain missing despite numerous widescale searches over the past 20 years, including the largest search in the library's history earlier this year," Jessica Gardner, the Cambridge University librarian, said in a recorded plea for public help.

"We would be hugely grateful for anyone with information that might assist in their recovery," she added. "Someone, somewhere may be able to help us return these notebooks to their proper place at the heart of the U.K.'s cultural and scientific heritage."

Among the missing papers is a sketch that Darwin composed in 1837, shortly after returning from the voyage on the HMS Beagle that helped inspire his theory of evolution. The little drawing, better known among scholars as the Tree of Life sketch, reveals elements of Darwin's thinking more than two decades before he fleshed out his ideas in his groundbreaking On the Origin of Species.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Square Enix Launches Permanent Work-From-Home Program Next Month:

2020 has been a year like no other - with pretty much the entire tech and video game industry required to work from home during the height of the pandemic.

With this in mind, Square Enix - publishing upcoming releases like Balan Wonderworld and the recently revealed NEO: The World Ends With You - has announced it will offer employees and executive officers more flexibility with a "Work-From-Home" program.

The program will start on 1st December and Square Enix expects approximately 80% of its team to be home-based (working an average of at least three days per week from home). Office based roles will depend on the work required (with the employee working an average of at least three days per week from the office).

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Tech giants face fines or even break-up if they breach new rules: EU's Breton:

Tech giants that break new EU rules aimed at curbing their powers could face fines, be ordered to change their practices or even be forced to break up their European businesses, the bloc's digital chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday.

Breton's comments come two weeks before he is due to present draft rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), which are likely to affect big U.S. players Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.

The DSA will force tech companies to explain how their algorithms work, open up their advertising archives to regulators and researchers, and do more to tackle hate speech, harmful content and counterfeit products on their platforms.

[...] The planned laws are still some way from taking effect, though. The European Commission will have to negotiate with EU countries and the European Parliament to agree on the final legislation, a process which could take a year or two.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Exclusive: Foxconn to shift some Apple production to Vietnam to minimise China risk:

Foxconn is moving some iPad and MacBook assembly to Vietnam from China at the request of Apple Inc, said a person with knowledge of the plan, as the U.S. firm diversifies production to minimise the impact of a Sino-U.S. trade war.

The development comes as the outgoing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump encourages U.S. firms to shift production out of China. During Trump's tenure, the United States has targeted made-in-China electronics for higher import tariffs, and restricted supplies of components produced using U.S. technology to Chinese firms it deems a national security risk.

[...] Foxconn is building assembly lines for Apple's iPad tablet and MacBook laptop at its plant in Vietnam's northeastern Bac Giang province, to come online in the first half of 2021, the person said, declining to be identified as the plan was private.

[...] "The move was requested by Apple," the person said. "It wants to diversify production following the trade war."

Foxconn said in statement: "As a matter of company policy, and for reasons of commercial sensitivity, we do not comment on any aspect of our work for any customer or their products".

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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