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upstart writes:

Zero-trust troubles and more ransomware regulation make tech analyst Gartner's list of factors you need to plan for:

Many businesses will fail to see the benefits of their zero trust efforts over the next few years, while legislation around paying off ransomware gangs will be extended and attacks on operational technology may have real-life consequences, according to set of cybersecurity predictions.

The list comes from tech analyst Gartner, which said business leaders should build these strategic planning assumptions into their security strategies for the next two years.

"We can't fall into old habits and try to treat everything the same as we did in the past," said Gartner senior director analyst Richard Addiscott. "Most security and risk leaders now recognize that major disruption is only one crisis away. We can't control it, but we can evolve our thinking, our philosophy, our program and our architecture."

1. Consumer privacy rights will be extended
2. By 2025, 80% of enterprises will adopt a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access
3. Many organizations will embrace zero trust, but fail to realize the benefits
4. Cybersecurity will become key to choosing business partners
5. Ransomware payment legislation will rise
6. Hackers will weaponize operational technology environments to cause human casualties
7. Resilience will be about more than just cybersecurity
8. Cybersecurity will matter for the CEO's bonus

Do you think "businesses" will include critical infrastructure like power plants and hospitals, or will they need to be forced/incentivized?

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takyon writes:

Arm Immortalis Flagship GPU Includes Hardware-Based Ray Tracing

Arm has announced a new GPU family, targeting ultimate gaming experiences on next-gen flagship smartphones. The first of its new 'beyond-Mali' breed is the Immortalis-G715, and it comes with a sizable and realistically lit feather in its cap. It's "the first Arm GPU to offer hardware-based ray tracing support on mobile." Immortalis won't replace Mali graphics, though, and this is evidenced by Arm announcing two new Mali GPUs today, with many advanced graphical quality and performance features.

It's interesting to see Arm launching hardware accelerated ray tracing on mobile, at a time when even beefy desktop PCs with GPUs eating hundreds of watts require complementary technologies such as DLSS and FSR for the sake of frame rates and responsiveness. There are some technologies available for Arm GPUs that might help boost frame rates, though. Immortalis and new Mali GPUs both support Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and Adaptive Performance in Unity titles, for example. Additionally, the new GPUs from Arm are all said to offer 15% better rasterization performance and improved efficiency compared to the previous generation.

[...] Interestingly, Arm says that the ray tracing hardware in the Immortalis GPU only uses 4% of the shader core area, while delivering more than a 300% performance improvement through the hardware acceleration.

Press release.

Related: Samsung Announces Exynos 2200 SoC with AMD RDNA2 Graphics

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upstart writes:

Ancient microbes may help us find extraterrestrial life forms:

The earliest living things, including bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea, inhabited a primarily oceanic planet without an ozone layer to protect them from the sun's radiation. These microbes evolved rhodopsins—proteins with the ability to turn sunlight into energy, using them to power cellular processes.

[...] Rhodopsins are related to rods and cones in human eyes that enable us to distinguish between light and dark and see colors. They are also widely distributed among modern organisms and environments like saltern ponds, which present a rainbow of vibrant colors.

Using machine learning, the research team analyzed rhodopsin protein sequences from all over the world and tracked how they evolved over time. Then, they created a type of family tree that allowed them to reconstruct rhodopsins from 2.5 to 4 billion years ago, and the conditions that they likely faced.

"Life as we know it is as much an expression of the conditions on our planet as it is of life itself. We resurrected ancient DNA sequences of one molecule, and it allowed us to link to the biology and environment of the past," said University of Wisconsin-Madison astrobiologist and study lead Betul Kacar.

upstart writes:

Clinics offering debunked cancer treatments are still allowed to advertise, despite the company's stated efforts to control medical misinformation:

The ad reads like an offer of salvation: Cancer kills many people. But there is hope in Apatone, a proprietary vitamin C–based mixture, that is "KILLING cancer." The substance, an unproven treatment that is not approved by the FDA, is not available in the United States. If you want Apatone, the ad suggests, you need to travel to a clinic in Mexico.

If you're on Facebook or Instagram and Meta has determined you may be interested in cancer treatments, it's possible you've seen this ad, or one of the 20 or so others recently running from the CHIPSA hospital in Mexico near the US border, all of which are publicly listed in Meta's Ad Library. They are part of a pattern on Facebook of ads that make misleading or false health claims, targeted at cancer patients.

Evidence from Facebook and Instagram users, medical researchers, and its own Ad Library suggests that Meta is rife with ads containing sensational health claims, which the company directly profits from. The misleading ads may remain unchallenged for months and even years. Some of the ads reviewed by MIT Technology Review promoted treatments that have been proved to cause acute physical harm in some cases. Other ads pointed users toward highly expensive treatments with dubious outcomes.

Mystery Rocket Crashes Into Moon but No Country Will Take Credit

upstart writes:

You may recall this story from March: A Dead Chinese Rocket is Crashing Into the Moon on Friday, and Scientists Can't Wait. It seems that nobody wants to admit to owning it - but NASA have now got a picture that might help resolve that question.

Mystery rocket crashes into Moon but no country will take credit:

NASA scientists are baffled by a mystery spacecraft that crashed into the moon, creating two large craters.

The rocket has been tracked through space since 2015, but no one has claimed it. It was travelling at more than 5 kilometres a second when it hit the lunar surface on March 4 this year – and new images by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show that the impact was unlike anything they had seen before.

"Surprisingly, the crater is actually two craters, an eastern one (18m diameter) superimposed on a western one (16m diameter)," scientists from NASA and Arizona State University wrote in a post.

"The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the body had large masses at each end. Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank. Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may indicate its identity."

Amateur astronomers first pointed the finger at SpaceX, but then recalculated it was likely to be from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission (Chang'e 5-T1). China has contested this, saying that booster had "safely entered the Earth's atmosphere and was completely incinerated".

AnonTechie writes:

Dartmouth College

Robots, artificial intelligence, and other automation technologies enable companies to produce more. They also displace workers from their jobs, wreaking havoc on those who have no other training and are financially vulnerable.

Research by Dartmouth and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists featured in this week's National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Papers says the speed of automation is excessive and should be cut in half.

"Firms do not necessarily take into account the consequences that automation has for their workers. Instead, they tend to focus on the value that automation will bring to the firm and its shareholders," says co-author Nathan Zorzi, an assistant professor of economics.

"Automation can benefit society as a whole. But it also comes at a cost in the short run. It displaces workers who can be financially vulnerable," says Zorzi. "The government should tax automation to slow down its adoption while these workers retrain and transition to new jobs."

[Also Covered By]: Phys.Org

[Journal Reference]: Inefficient Automation [PDF (732Kb)]

While the race is on for more automation and cost reduction, this paper suggests exactly the opposite. What do you think ?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

What sea cucumbers can teach us about self-defense:

Sea cucumbers are a food delicacy in south Asia where their cultivation is a multi-million-dollar industry. The molecules they produce to defend their ecological niche at the bottom of the ocean are highly valued for their medicinal properties.

These curious marine animals produce a category of molecule known as triterpenoid saponins which are widespread in plants, but rare in animals.

Until now the question of how they evolved their unusual ability to produce these molecules has been unexplained. An international research collaboration investigated the genome of sea cucumbers and compared them with those of other Echinoderms, such as sea stars and sea urchins. Analysis showed that an enzyme found across all kingdoms of life that makes sterols, essential for building membranes and hormones, was missing in sea cucumber.

In sea cucumbers this sterol-producing function had been diverted to produce two new genes in this enzyme family. Using molecular biology, the researchers isolated the genes, transferred them to yeast and analysed the extracts.

This showed that the genes have acquired new functions; one of them makes an alternative type of saponin that the sea cucumber uses for self-defence, and the other produces molecules that protect the creature from the toxic effects of its own chemicals.

Chemical analysis showed that these genes required for the synthesis of self-defence compounds were expressed more in the outside layers of tissue.

Journal Reference:
Thimmappa, Ramesha, Wang, Shi, Zheng, Minyan, et al. Biosynthesis of saponin defensive compounds in sea cucumbers [open], Nature Chemical Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41589-022-01054-y)

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owl writes:

https://www.howtogeek.com/812246/atari-was-very-very-hard-nolan-bushnell-on-atari-50-years-later/

It's been 50 years since Nolan Bushnell co-founded Atari, which brought video games to the mainstream. To celebrate, we asked Bushnell what he learned during the early years—and what we've lost sight of since then.

When you hear the name "Atari," if you're of a certain generation, you might think back to a period in the very late 1970s and early 1980s when the Atari 2600 home video game console seemed unstoppable. But prior to Warner Communications purchasing Atari in 1976, the young company experienced four wild years of uncertainty and success while its employees relentlessly innovated a brand new class of electronic entertainment.

The guiding creative force at Atari during that time was Nolan Bushnell, who co-founded the company with Ted Dabney on June 27, 1972 in Sunnyvale, CA. Bushnell and Dabney had already worked together on the world's first arcade video game, Computer Space, at Nutting Associates, and they were ready to take the business more fully into their own hands. They soon had a monster hit with the arcade game Pong in late 1972, which spawned copycats that spread video games all over the world. But Atari still faced an uphill fight as big names jumped into the market.

With that in mind—and the 50th anniversary of Atari at hand—we thought it would be fun to talk about lessons from Bushnell's early years at the pioneering company. Bushnell spoke over the telephone, and his answers have been edited for formatting.

Original Submission

captain normal writes:

El Reg reports "What's said to be a Ukrainian-made long-range anti-drone rifle is one of the latest weapons to emerge from Russia's ongoing invasion of its neighbor."
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/27/ukraine_drone_rifle/

The Antidron KVS G-6 is manufactured by Kvertus Technology, in the western Ukraine region of Ivano-Frankivsk, whose capital of the same name has twice been subjected to Russian bombings during the war. Like other drone-dropping equipment, we're told it uses radio signals to interrupt control, remotely disabling them, and it reportedly has an impressive 3.5 km (2.17 miles) range.

Sounds like just the thing if one is worried about Amazon or Walmart drones not just making deliveries but spying on your backyard.

Video: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-anti-drone-gun-russia-war/31912255.html

War seems to spur innovation, eh, but telling the enemy the name and approximate location of the factory is might not be the best idea.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A singular focus on high-tech will dilute the vibrancy of our cities and limit their potential:

The term "smart cities" originated as a marketing strategy for large IT vendors. It has now become synonymous with urban uses of technology, particularly advanced and emerging technologies. But cities are more than 5G, big data, driverless vehicles, and AI. They are crucial drivers of opportunity, prosperity, and progress. [...]

A focus on building "smart cities" risks turning cities into technology projects. We talk about "users" rather than people. Monthly and "daily active" numbers instead of residents. Stakeholders and subscribers instead of citizens. This also risks a transactional—and limiting—approach to city improvement, focusing on immediate returns on investment or achievements that can be distilled into KPIs.

Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of "solutions." They are defined by their residents' talents, relationships, and sense of ownership—not by the technology that is deployed there.

[...] Where technology can play a role, it must be applied thoughtfully and holistically—taking into account the needs, realities, and aspirations of city residents. Guatemala City, in collaboration with our country office team at the UN Development Programme, is using this approach to improve how city infrastructure—including parks and lighting—is managed. The city is standardizing materials and designs to reduce costs and labor,  and streamlining approval and allocation processes to increase the speed and quality of repairs and maintenance. Everything is driven by the needs of its citizens. Elsewhere in Latin America, cities are going beyond quantitative variables to take into account well-being and other nuanced outcomes.

[...] Coordinating and implementing the complex efforts required to reach these goals is far more difficult than deploying the latest app or installing another piece of smart street furniture. But we must move beyond the sales pitches and explore how our cities can be true platforms—not just technological ones—for inclusive and sustainable development. The well-being of the billions who call the world's cities home depends on it.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Third and fourth robotic arms feel like a part of the user's own body:

A research team with members from the University of Tokyo, Keio University and Toyohashi University of Technology have developed supernumerary robotic arms operated by the user's foot movements in a virtual environment. It has shown that users can feel the supernumerary robotic arms as a part of their own body (embodiment). [...]

Doctoral student Ken Arai and Professor Masahiko Inami from the University of Tokyo, in collaboration with researchers from Keio University and Toyohashi University of Technology, have developed supernumerary robotic arms that works in conjunction with user's foot movements in a virtual reality (VR) environment, and have shown that users consider the supernumerary robotic arms as a part of their own body (embodiment). [...]

Humans do many things in our daily lives by skillfully manipulating the own bodies. Then, they use tools to do things that are difficult to do with their bodies alone. [...] The goal of supernumerary robotic arms is to extend the body's functions by adding extra limbs using appropriate human-computer interaction systems. It is expected that the supernumerary robotic arms will move as intended naturally, just like the user's own arms and legs. [...]

[...] The results of the experiment showed that after learning to use the supernumerary robotic system, subjective evaluation scores indicated the supernumerary robotic arms were embodied, and the perceptual change in visual-haptic integration around the supernumerary arm (peripersonal space) correlated with the subjective evaluation score that felt the number of arms increased (supernumerary-limb sensation).

Journal Reference:
Ken Arai, Hiroto Saito, Masaaki Fukuoka, Sachiyo Ueda, Maki Sugimoto, Michiteru Kitazaki, Masahiko Inami (2022). Embodiment of supernumerary robotic limbs in virtual reality, Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13981-w

Original Submission

upstart writes:

4-Billion-Year-Old Crystals Offer Clues to When Plate Tectonics Began, Setting Stage for Life on Earth:

Scientists have long known that plate tectonics, the movement of distinct, rigid plates that make up the Earth's crust, formed continents and mountains and was crucial to the evolution of the planet's surface from one of molten lava and rock to an environment hospitable to life.

What's been less apparent is when it began.

A team of Harvard University-led scientists has analyzed some very rare, ancient, and nearly indestructible crystals the size of small grains of sand called zircons for chemical clues about the onset of plate tectonics. The research study, published in recently in the journal AGU Advances, suggests that 3.8 billion years ago there was a major transition in the geochemistry of these zircons that make them look much more like the zircons that are formed today in the red-hot environments where plate tectonics happen.

"Prior to 3.8 billion years ago, the planet doesn't seem to be as dynamic," said Nadja Drabon, a Harvard assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the paper's first author. "Today, there's lots of crust that gets constantly destroyed in what are called subduction zones, and new crust is created. Many [previous] zircons showed that back then once the early crust formed, it lived for a really long time —about 600 million years in this case. While there was some internal reworking, we never created new granitic crust.... Then 3.8 billion years ago, everything changes."

Think of Zircons as tiny time capsules that retain chemical clues of the Earth's first 500 million years. Some were formed in the magma of the planet more than 4 billion years ago when the Earth, geologically speaking, was still in its infancy. It makes them the oldest known materials on Earth. Their secrets can be understood by zapping them with lasers, which is what the researchers did for their analysis.

[...] Today, the Earth's outer shell consists of about 15 shifting blocks of crust, which hold the planet's continents and oceans. The process was key to the evolution of life and the development of the planet because the process exposed new rocks to the atmosphere, which led to chemical reactions that stabilized Earth's surface temperature over billions of years.

hubie writes:

Researchers say people with Developmental Dyslexia have specific strengths relating to exploring the unknown that have contributed to the successful adaptation and survival of our species:

Cambridge researchers studying cognition, behaviour and the brain have concluded that people with dyslexia are specialised to explore the unknown. This is likely to play a fundamental role in human adaptation to changing environments.

They think this 'explorative bias' has an evolutionary basis and plays a crucial role in our survival.

Based on these findings − which were apparent across multiple domains from visual processing to memory and at all levels of analysis − the researchers argue that we need to change our perspective of dyslexia as a neurological disorder.

[...] "The deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn't telling the whole story," said Taylor. "This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia."

She added: "We believe that the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity."

[...] The new findings are explained in the context of 'Complementary Cognition', a theory proposing that our ancestors evolved to specialise in different, but complementary, ways of thinking, which enhances human's ability to adapt through collaboration.

These cognitive specialisations are rooted in a well-known trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge. For example, if you eat all the food you have, you risk starvation when it's all gone. But if you spend all your time exploring for food, you're wasting energy you don't need to waste. As in any complex system, we must ensure we balance our need to exploit known resources and explore new resources to survive.

"Striking the balance between exploring for new opportunities and exploiting the benefits of a particular choice is key to adaptation and survival and underpins many of the decisions we make in our daily lives," said Taylor.

Journal Reference:
Taylor, H. and Vestergaard M. D: Developmental Dyslexia: Disorder or Specialization in Exploration? [open] Frontiers in Psychology (June 2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Nasa makes history with first commercial rocket launch containing 'mini Hubble' tech from Australia spaceport:

In a historic move, Nasa has successfully launched a rocket from Australia's remote Northern Territory, making it the agency's first commercial launch outside the US.

After a delay due to rain and wind, the sub-orbital rocket carrying technology likened to a "mini Hubble" telescope, blasted off from the Arnhem Space Centre on the Dhupuma plateau at half-past midnight on Monday.

The blast off was the space agency's first launch from a commercial spaceport outside the US and is reportedly aimed to help scientists conduct studies that can only be undertaken in the southern hemisphere. Monday's launch was also the first for Australia in nearly 27 years.

The rocket, carrying an X-ray quantum calorimeter, is expected to travel over 186 miles into space to observe the Alpha Centauri A and B constellations. The quantum calorimeter will enable University of Michigan scientists to measure interstellar X-rays with precision and provide new data on the impact of a star's light on the habitability of planets.

Nearly 75 Nasa personnel were present at the newly constructed launch site and nearly 100 scientists, politicians and Indigenous leaders were shuttled to watch the launch.

"It was in the blink of an eye, but to me, it was like it was in slow motion because the whole area just lit up," Yirrkala School co-principal Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Prostate Cancer Hijacks Tumor Cells' Circadian Rhythm To Evade Hormone Therapy:

Hormone treatment is successful at controlling metastatic prostate cancer, but the tumor cells eventually develop resistance to it. An unexpected potential solution has now emerged in medicines that are not designed to fight cancer, but rather to target proteins that regulate a cell's circadian rhythm.

[...] Prostate cancer is a form of tumor that develops under the influence of hormones, primarily testosterone. Patients with metastatic prostate cancer are frequently treated with anti-hormonal therapy, which inhibits the signal sent out by testosterone that stimulates tumor growth.

Anti-hormonal therapy can keep prostate cancer under control for a time, but eventually, the cancer manages to progress despite ongoing treatment. The tumor cells have become resistant. This means that the greatest challenge in treating metastatic prostate cancer isn't to find drugs that inhibit tumor growth itself, but to find drugs that can prevent resistance to hormonal therapy. The exact process of how tumor cells become resistant to hormone therapy, however, has been a mystery — until now.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute has made a surprising discovery using tissue from patients with prostate cancer who had been treated with testosterone-inhibiting drugs. They found that an unexpected class of proteins, namely proteins that normally regulate the circadian clock, dampens the effects of the anti-hormonal therapy. "Prostate cancer cells no longer have a circadian rhythm," says Wilbert Zwart, one of the research leaders. "But these 'circadian clock' proteins acquire an entirely new function in the tumor cells upon hormonal therapy: they keep these cancer cells alive, despite treatment. This has never been seen before."'Drug repurposing could save a decade or research'

Now that they have discovered the tumor's escape route, the researchers will next work together with Oncode towards the development of novel strategies to block this process, and ultimately increase the efficacy of anti-hormonal therapy against prostate cancer even further.

Reference: 27 June 2022, Cancer Discovery.
DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-21-0576

Original Submission