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Phoenix666 writes:

In November Ars revealed exclusive details about a daring mission to land on Jupiter's moon Europa, and now it has become the law of the land. The Congressional budget deal to fund NASA for the fiscal year 2016 includes $1.63 billion for planetary science, of which $175 million is designated for the "Jupiter Europa clipper mission." It has a target launch date of 2022.

But the new budget legislation does not stop there. It further stipulates, "This mission shall include an orbiter with a lander that will include competitively selected instruments and that funds shall be used to finalize the mission design concept." In other words, it's against the law to fly the mission to Europa without a lander.

The overall budget for NASA provides $19.2 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2016, about $700 million more than President Obama requested. "This number, this year, is the largest vote of confidence that Congress has ever given NASA," Texas Congressman John Culberson, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the space agency, told Ars. "There's enough money to do everything on their plate."

The Monolith is not going to be happy.

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takyon writes:

If these walls could talk, they would silently urinate on you with scorn:

London's Hackney council is targeting male revellers' time-honoured practice of necking a skinful, and then relieving themselves against walls, with a hydrophobic coating designed to send steaming streams straight back to the piss-taker.

According to the BBC, the authority spends £100k a year cleaning up after al fresco urinators, and has decided to spunk £1,000 treating walls at "two popular drinking locations in Shoreditch and Dalston".

Ultra-Ever Dry - supplied by US outfit UltraTech International - is so slash-repellent[sic] that any attempt to water protected walls will result in a self-administered golden shower.

The council's Feryal Dermici said: "If the prospect of a fine doesn't put them off from weeing in the street, maybe the risk of getting covered in urine will."

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Phoenix666 writes with a story from Ars Technica :

Internet radio services like Pandora will have to pay more to artists and their representative groups, according to a decision released today by the Copyright Royalty (CRB). The basic per-song rates paid by Pandora will go from $.0014 per song, or 14 cents per 100 songs played, to $.0017. That's slightly more than a 20 percent increase.

The $.0017 rate will remain in effect for all of 2016 and then may increase according to the Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation, through 2020. At that point, the CRB will make another rate decision.

Today's decision resolves a long legal fight in which Pandora was asking to pay a lower rate of $.0011. SoundExchange, which distributes money to record labels and artists, wanted the rate to nearly double to $.0025 per stream.

The decision applies to all Internet radio providers, of which Pandora is the largest. Its competitors like iHeartRadio will have to pay the same rate.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Commonly known as fishing snakes, the Synophis genus has been expanded with as many as three new species following a research in the Andean cloud forests of Amazonian Ecuador and Peru. Not only is the discovery remarkable due to the rarity of new snake species being discovered, but also because this is the first time this mysterious and already eight-member genus is recorded from Peru. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The three new species have been identified as a result of both field and laboratory work, undertaken by Dr. Omar Torres-Carvajal, Museo de Zoología QCAZ, Ecuador, in collaboration with herpetologists from Peru (CORBIDI) and the United States (Francis Marion University). The new species differ from their closest relatives in scale features, male sexual organs and DNA. The unusual discoveries took place in areas within the 1,542,644 km2 of the Tropical Andes hotspot, western South America.

Although they are commonly known as fishing snakes, these reptiles most likely do not eat fish. Their diet and behavior are poorly known. So far, it has only been reported that one species feeds on lizards.

The fishing snakes have long been known to live in cloud forests on both sides of the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador. Yet, it seems they have waited all along to make an appearance. The new species described herein, along with a recent description of one species from southwestern Ecuador also published in Zookeys, has duplicated the number of species of fishing snakes from four to eight over the span of several months.

It's rather an argument for human involvement in the search for life on other worlds like Mars. We've been here a long time and have only just found these species.

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takyon writes:

The New York Times reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter used a personal email account to conduct government business during his first months at the Pentagon, and the newspaper says it has copies of some of the emails:

Mr. Carter continued the practice, which violated Defense Department rules, for at least two months after it was publicly revealed in March that Hillary Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account as secretary of state, the officials said.

It is not clear when Mr. Carter stopped using the account. But an administration official said that when the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, learned about Mr. Carter's email practices in May, Mr. McDonough directed the White House Counsel's Office to contact the Defense Department to ask why Mr. Carter was relying on the personal account. Mr. McDonough wanted to ensure that Mr. Carter was following all federal laws and regulations governing email use, the official said.

In a written statement on Wednesday, a spokesman for Mr. Carter said that the defense secretary had determined that he had been wrong to use the personal account.

[...] The emails obtained by The Times show Mr. Carter and his aides discussing a variety of matters, including legislation, television appearances and how to pay for a hotel bill.

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Phoenix666 writes:

There are some tantalizing signs that energy executives are beginning to cotton on to their dilemma. Take the recent memo from European coal lobbyist Brian Ricketts which, according to reports over at The Guardian, lamented the stigmatizing impact of the recent climate agreement in Paris. While some execs may breathe a sigh of relief at the lack of legally binding targets, Ricketts believes that this should be little consolation. Specifically, he says, coal will be "hated and vilified in the same way that slave-traders were once hated and vilified."

Of course vilification, by itself, is of little consequence to traders in commodities. But when entire countries and gigantic corporations start phasing out the use of your product, and when banks appear less willing to lend to you, the loss of moral legitimacy becomes an impediment to doing business.

They cry all the way to the bank.

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fliptop writes:

Any seasoned IT veteran will tell you that users are almost always the weakest link in the security chain. So it comes as no surprise when it's revealed that, pertaining to using encrypted apps to communicate, mistakes made by users in the authentication process can make using these apps less secure:

The apps, which include RedPhone and Signal, may ask people calling or texting each other to verbally compare a short string of words they see on their screens (often referred to as a checksum or short authentication string) to make sure a new communication session hasn't been breached by an intruder. The idea is that if a call's security is compromised, these words won't match up.

To test out how well this works, researchers the University of Alabama at Birmingham set up a study that mimicked a cryptophone app. Researchers had participants use a Web browser to make a call to an online server. Then they listened to a random two- or four-word sequence and determined if it matched the words they saw on the computer screen in front of them. The participants were also asked to verify whether the voice they heard was the same as one they'd heard previously reading a short story.

The researchers found that study participants frequently accepted calls even if they heard the wrong sequence of words, and often denied calls when the sequence was spoken correctly. Beyond that, researchers say that using a four-word checksum instead of a two-word checksum seemed to decrease security, even though a longer checksum should increase security exponentially.

[...] In addition, the researchers noticed that participants accepted four-word strings that were incorrect about 40 percent of the time, and rejected ones that were correct 25 percent of the time.

Originally spotted on Bruce Schneier's blog.

Related: Silent Circle Encrypted Phone App Cleared for U.S. Gov't Use

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Phoenix666 writes:

Biggest Mystery in Mathematics in Limbo after Cryptic Meeting

A collective effort to scrutinize one of the biggest mysteries in mathematics has ended with a few clues but no firm answers.

The mystery concerns an impenetrable but potentially groundbreaking proof — of a puzzle known as the abc conjecture — that appeared online three years ago. Whether the proof is valid is still not clear — a source of frustration for some of the leading specialists who gathered at the University of Oxford on 7–11 December to discuss the matter.

Others say that the workshop, in which the proof's reclusive architect Shinichi Mochizuki made a rare, virtual appearance, has at least boosted prospects for a resolution.

The quest to understand Mochizuki's proof dates back to August 2012, when he quietly posted four papers on his website in which he claimed to have solved the abc conjecture. The problem gets its name from expressions of the form a + b = c and connects the prime numbers that are factors of a and b with those that are factors of c. Its solution could potentially change the face of number theory, which deals with the fundamental properties of, and relationships between, whole numbers.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Guardian reports that "socialism" was the most looked-up word on Merriam-Webster's site this year, a change the American dictionary publisher attributes to US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has positioned of himself as a "democratic socialist".

As a socialist (or communist) myself, I personally think it's great that especially people from the United States try to figure out the meaning of the word beyond McCarthyism. I'm glad that people show interest in politics and finding out about positions of candidates.

Past years winners are available on Wikipedia.

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takyon writes:

Ford has secured a permit in California that will allow it to test driverless cars on public roads in 2016:

Ford is showing more signs of a serious commitment to autonomous driving and the future of transportation. The automaker announced Tuesday that it will begin testing a fully autonomous vehicle in California in 2016.

It recently received a permit from the state's DMV to test a Ford Fusion. Ford has already been testing on public roads in Michigan, as well as at MCity, the University of Michigan facility developed for testing autonomous vehicles. It conducts trials at its proving ground in Arizona, too.

Ford says California's favorable weather will allow it to expand tests. (Snow and heavy rainfall are serious challenges for fully autonomous vehicles.) A new environment provides fresh opportunities for the vehicles to experience new challenges. One unique situation will be dealing with motorcycles that are legally allowed to split lanes in the state.

Planting another flag in Silicon Valley also makes it easier to develop partnerships with the wealth of tech expertise in the area. In January, Ford opened a research and innovation center in Palo Alto, Calif., and hired mostly for the tech sector. Ford says it's also built relationships with the University of California-Berkeley, San Jose State, Santa Clara and Carnegie Mellon.

Also at Reuters, Los Angeles Times. Here is the California DMV's page for its Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program.

Original Submission

CISA Cybersecurity Legislation Slipped into Budget Bill

takyon writes:

CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, is back, and could become law imminently:

Privacy advocates were aghast in October when the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act by a vote of 74 to 21, leaving intact portions of the law they say make it more amenable to surveillance than actual security. Now, as CISA gets closer to the President's desk, those privacy critics argue that Congress has quietly stripped out even more of its remaining privacy protections.

In a late-night session of Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced a new version of the "omnibus" bill, a massive piece of legislation that deals with much of the federal government's funding. It now includes a version of CISA as well. Lumping CISA in with the omnibus bill further reduces any chance for debate over its surveillance-friendly provisions, or a White House veto. And the latest version actually chips away even further at the remaining personal information protections that privacy advocates had fought for in the version of the bill that passed the Senate.

"They took a bad bill, and they made it worse," says Robyn Greene, policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute.

Alternate coverage at The Register, NPR, Tom's Hardware, The Guardian, The Hill.

[More After the Break]

takyon writes:

University of California scientists have sequenced the genome of a commercial walnut variety:

UC Davis geneticists David Neale and Charles Langley worked with the California Walnut Board to develop genetic markers for use with classical walnut breeding. The first step was to sequence the walnut genome, which, unlike most major agricultural crops, had never been sequenced. This represents the first reference genome sequence for a nut crop.

UC Davis has the only walnut breeding program in California. The Walnut Improvement Program, under the direction of plant breeder Chuck Leslie, cooperates with a large number of research partners to develop new walnut varieties.

The walnut variety Chandler was used for the sequencing project because it is the leading variety of walnut in California. It is grown on about 50 percent of California's walnut acreage and accounts for more than 70 percent of the trees sold for new plantings. California produces 99 percent of U.S. commercial walnuts, and walnuts are the state's fourth largest agricultural export.

Consumer demand for nuts is growing, and nutritionists are touting the health attributes of moderate nut consumption in lowering the risk for heart disease. Walnuts are high in omega-3 fatty acids, a healthy form of fatty acids, and can be part of a heart-healthy diet by lowering low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, cholesterol levels in blood.

Growers are also striving to produce nuts more sustainably, particularly in the areas of pest management and drought tolerance.

Data will be available here.

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takyon writes:

The stocks for various solar energy companies soared on the news that the U.S. Congress's new spending bill will extend solar and wind tax credits for five years:

Several solar-energy stocks scored double-digit gains Wednesday after Congress neared an extension for a key tax credit for renewable energy. Shares of SolarCity Corp. rose 34% in the session, the largest daily gain in the company's history, to the highest closing price since early August. Shares of SunEdison Inc. rose 25%, while shares of First Solar Inc. gained nearly 10%, the biggest one-day increase since early November. Shares of SunRun Inc. were up 23%, their best showing since late August.

The tax credits solar and wind power were set to end next year. But a spending bill approved late Tuesday in a congressional quid-pro-quo would extend them for five years, including extending the current 30% credit until 2019. The bill must still be approved by the Senate and by the House, with lawmakers likely voting on it later this week. Solar companies stand to benefit the most from a credit extension, analysts at Credit Suisse said in a note Wednesday. If it passes, the bill "should solidify the ability to grow profitably in most markets" in which they operate, the analysts said.

[...] Companies also had been rushing to complete solar projects before the 2016 deadline, which cut down on their margins. Deutsch Bank analysts said margins should improve as those projects get pushed back into 2017, and added that companies with the most exposure to the residential solar U.S. market — SolarCity, SunRun, and Vivint Solar Inc. — would benefit the most. First Solar would also be a "huge beneficiary" as the utility-scale market was expected to decline the most in a post-tax-credit environment, they said.

This was very good news for Elon Musk, the CEO of SolarCity, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, since he bought back a few hundred thousand shares of SolarCity last month. Due to gains in SolarCity and Tesla Motors stocks following the tax credit news, Musk is reportedly $770 million richer on paper.

SolarCity "designs, finances, and installs solar power systems."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers were able to reverse fatty liver disease in obese and diabetic mice after feeding them bile acid that can turn off a receptor in the gut.

The mice only needed to eat a small amount of the compound, called glycine-beta muricholic acid (Gly-MCA), to see metabolic benefits. For a human, the equivalent would be a single dose in pill form once a day, says Andrew Patterson, associate professor of molecular toxicology at Penn State and one of the researchers involved in the study.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, show that Gly-MCA can inhibit the farnesoid X receptor (FXR), a transcription factor that regulates the expression of certain genes in tissues like those of the intestine and liver.

"Depending on the balance of conjugated and unconjugated bile acids, bacteria can modify these bile acid pools and turn off or turn on this receptor—FXR—in the gut," says Frank Gonzalez, chief of the laboratory of metabolism at the National Cancer Institute.

Original study.

Original Submission

edIII writes:

Look out, ancient bowhead whales: You may have some competition in the genre of world's oldest living animal.

An extremely rare Chinese giant salamander has been discovered in a cave outside Chongqing, China. The nearly 5-foot-long, 114-pound amphibian was found after a local fisherman accidentally stepped on something "soft and slimy."

It's unclear how they're measuring age, but if it holds, this specimen may be the oldest living animal on Earth.

Original Submission