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Phoenix666 writes:

A totally new type of polymer is designed to lift weights, contracting and expanding the way muscles do. It has the potential to do lots of other stuff, too—like deliver drugs or even repair itself.

The new capabilities are the result of both rigid and soft compartments with extremely different properties that are organized in specific ways.

The hybrid polymer cleverly combines the two types of known polymers: those formed with strong covalent bonds and those formed with weak non-covalent bonds, well known as "supramolecular polymers." The integrated polymer offers two distinct "compartments" with which chemists and materials scientists can work to provide useful features.

"Our discovery could transform the world of polymers and start a third chapter in their history: that of the 'hybrid polymer,'" says Samuel I. Stupp, a professor and director of Northwestern University's Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. "This would follow the first chapter of broadly useful covalent polymers, then the more recent emerging class of supramolecular polymers.

Simultaneous covalent and noncovalent hybrid polymerizations (DOI: 10.1126/science.aad4091).

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Phoenix666 writes:

Alexander Klöpping turned up to his first meeting at The New York Times late, alone, and not entirely sure why he had been summoned to a conference room with a dozen newspaper executives.

It was March 2014, still weeks before he and his co-founder Marten Blankesteijn would launch Blendle, a Dutch technology platform that aspires to do for newspapers and magazines what Apple's iTunes did for music: encourage a generation of young Internet users to pay for journalism online.

The backpack-wearing Dutch entrepreneur may have been awestruck and unprepared, but he made a strong impression. The Times offered to invest in his fledgling company, which gives users a mechanism to buy individual newspaper and magazine articles online for a small, one-off fee.

"I wasn't even sure if people in Holland were going to like it," Klöpping said. "Thinking about the United States was very far away."

Less than two years later, after debuting in the Netherlands and Germany, Blendle is on the verge of importing its iTunes-style micropayment model to the U.S.. If it works, it will add a new and potentially rich seam for a publishing industry that is desperately searching for more ways to generate revenue online as their traditional print income collapses.

All clickbait, all the time. Besides, who can resist an article with "Whiz Kid" in the title?

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Phoenix666 writes:

A few weeks into sixth grade, Colman Chadam had to leave school because of his DNA.

The situation, odd as it may sound, played out like this. Colman has genetic markers for cystic fibrosis, and kids with the inherited lung disease can't be near each other because they're vulnerable to contagious infections. Two siblings with cystic fibrosis also attended Colman's middle school in Palo Alto, California in 2012. So Colman was out, even though he didn't actually have the disease, according to a lawsuit that his parents filed against the school district. The allegation? Genetic discrimination.

Yes, genetic discrimination. Get used to those two words together, because they're likely to become a lot more common. With DNA tests now cheap and readily available, the number of people getting tests has gone way up—along with the potential for discrimination based on the results. When Colman's school tried to transfer him based on his genetic status, the lawsuit alleges, the district violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and Colman's First Amendment right to privacy. "This is the test case," says the Chadam's lawyer, Stephen Jaffe.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

If you (like me) like to live in the fast lane and chose to allow "pre-released updates" in your update preferences, you might find you lost all network connectivity after shutdown/restarting. The culprit is a libnl update (3 packages) that totally borks networking and network manager. You'll have to reinstall the older libnl packages, but you can't because you have no network. Workarounds are to download them on another computer and transfer them via flashdrive, or try a live CD and save them to the drive for re-installation.

This comment thread on askUbuntu.com gives details on the cause and fix.

[These kinds of problems are certainly not unique to Ubuntu. What's the worst upgrade you had to extricate yourself from? -Ed.]

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Copy, the free cloud storage service from Barracuda, is going away May 1.

We are announcing today that the Copy and CudaDrive services will be discontinued on May 1, 2016.

Copy and CudaDrive have provided easy-to-use cloud file services and sharing functionality to millions of users the past 4+ years. However, as our business focus has shifted, we had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the Copy and CudaDrive services and allocate those resources elsewhere.

Here is the post from their webpage, and a blog post by Rod Mathews, VP & GM of Storage Business at Barracuda.

takyon: Barracuda Said to Work With Morgan Stanley to Seek Sale

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http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/dutch-police-training-eagles-to-take-down-drones

Video (in Dutch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s

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Phoenix666 writes:

An international team of researchers supported by the National Science Foundation will journey to Antarctica this month to search for evidence that the now-frozen continent may have been the starting point for some important species that roam the Earth today.

Millions of years ago Antarctica was a warm and lush environment ruled by dinosaurs and inhabited by a great diversity of life. But today, the fossils that could reveal what prehistoric life was like are mostly buried under the ice of the harsh landscape, leaving the part that Antarctica played in the evolution of vertebrates (backboned animals) as one of the great unknowns in the history of life.

Leading the team are paleontologists from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The University of Texas at Austin, Ohio University and the American Museum of Natural History. Other collaborators include scientists from museums and universities across the U.S., Australia and South Africa.

The monthlong expedition will begin Feb. 2. Aided by helicopters, scientists will conduct research on James Ross Island and other nearby islands off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the few spots on Antarctica where fossil-bearing rocks are accessible.

"Ninety-nine percent of Antarctica is covered with permanent ice," said Matthew Lamanna, paleontologist and assistant curator at the Carnegie Museum. "We're looking for fossils of backboned animals that were living in Antarctica at the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs, so we can learn more about how the devastating extinction that happened right afterward might have affected polar ecosystems."

[...] The team will be sharing discoveries and daily life from the Antarctic ice on the expedition website, http://antarcticdinos.org/ and on Twitter @antarcticdinos.

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AndyTheAbsurd writes:

http://thehackernews.com/2016/02/apache-tor-service-unmask.html

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takyon writes:

The World Health Organization (WHO) is intensifying efforts to investigate the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is believed to cause microcephaly (infants born with abnormally small brains):

The World Health Organization has declared the cluster of microcephaly associated with the spread of the Zika virus to be a public health emergency of international concern — a designation reserved for an"extraordinary event" that is "serious, unusual or unexpected." Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general, said during a press briefing Monday that an international coordinated response was needed to improve mosquito control as well as to expedite the development of tests that detect the Zika virus.

The declaration is chiefly important to intensify the efforts to prove that the Zika virus is causing microcephaly in infants. Essentially, Chan said, if the Zika virus was not thought to be causing these neurological problems in newborns, it would not be a "clinically serious condition." Dr. David L. Heymann, assistant director-general of the WHO, said that it was unclear how long it would take to definitively link the Zika virus to microcephaly in children.

Brazil's Health Minister says that the Zika outbreak is worse than believed because most of the infected show no symptoms.

Here is another article taking down a conspiracy theory that claims that the Zika outbreak is the result of genetically modified mosquitoes and intended for population control.

The New York Times , Wikipedia.

Previously: World Health Organization to Convene Emergency Meeting for Zika Virus

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takyon writes:

Scientists with The Francis Crick Institute have received UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) approval for using gene editing techniques on human embryos:

The aim of the research, led by Dr Kathy Niakan, a group leader at the Crick, is to understand the genes human embryos need to develop successfully. The work carried out at the Crick will be for research purposes and will look at the first seven days of a fertilised egg's development (from a single cell to around 250 cells).

[...] In line with HFEA regulations, any donated embryos will be used for research purposes only and cannot be used in treatment. These embryos will be donated by patients who have given their informed consent to the donation of embryos which are surplus to their IVF treatment. The genome editing research now needs to gain ethical approval and, subject to that approval, the research programme will begin within the next few months.

The decision marks the first approval by a regulator of gene editing in human embryos:

In a world-first last year, scientists in China announced they had carried out gene editing in human embryos to correct a gene that causes a blood disorder. Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, a scientific advisor to the UK's fertility regulator, told the BBC: "China has guidelines, but it is often unclear exactly what they are until you've done it and stepped over an unclear boundary. This is the first time it has gone through a properly[sic] regulatory system and been approved."

[Continues...]

Phoenix666 writes:

In mid-January, Netflix announced a ban on the use of proxies, unblockers and virtual private networks (VPNs) – all technical work-arounds to view movies and TV programs unavailable in the subscriber's country. This announcement coincided with the company's global service launch into more than 130 new markets.

With the new ban in place, Australian subscribers will no longer be able to watch U.S. shows until they become available Down Under. Likewise, U.S. subscribers who are addicted to British shows will have to wait for those shows to come stateside.

The content providers' desire for this ban is easy to understand. If Australian fans have already watched a U.S. show via Netflix, who will tune in when the show finally arrives in Australia?

Thus far, movie studios and TV producers have repeatedly criticized Netflix for turning a blind eye to unlicensed viewing. Had the company continued to ignore geographical licensing restrictions, some of these providers might have eventually pulled their content from the service.

Nevertheless, the recently announced ban is unlikely to provide a long-term cure to the content providers' chronic headaches. The problem lies not with Netflix, but with the unmet consumer demand in foreign markets. If we are to successfully address this problem, more comprehensive copyright reform will be needed.

Not news to Soylentils, but good to see wider recognition that it won't work.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Sometime within the next five to seven years, a section of Niagara Falls will go dry. This isn't a case of the great western drought creeping east, but rather New York's plan to, for lack of a better term, turn off the famed waterfall. The most astonishing part of the whole idea is that it's not nearly as crazy, difficult, expensive, or novel as it may sound.
...
Niagara Falls sits as the western edge of New York, on the Canadian border. The Niagara River connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and about halfway between the two, drops more than 100 feet. There are actually three distinct waterfalls. On the western, Canadian side of Goat Island is Horseshoe Falls, the massive 165-foot drop that accounts for about 85 percent of the river's flow. On the US side of the island are the smaller American and Bridal Veil Falls.

This round of dewatering needs to happen so engineers with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation can scrap two 115-year-old bridges that have reached—well, exceeded—the end of their useful lives. The bridges cross the Niagara River above the American Falls, and were built to carry cars, trolleys, and pedestrians between the town of Niagara Falls and Goat Island, one of the prime viewing spots for both the American and Horseshoe falls.

The Canadian side is better anyway.

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Phoenix666 writes:

On the road to restoring US Human spaceflight from US soil, SpaceX conducted a pair of key tests involving a propulsive hover test and parachute drop test for their Crew Dragon vehicle which is slated to begin human missions in 2017.

SpaceX released a short video showing the Dragon 2 vehicle executing a "picture-perfect propulsive hover test" on a test stand at the firms rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.

The video published last week shows the Dragon 2 simultaneously firing all eight of its side mounted SuperDraco engines, during a five second test carried out on Nov. 22, 2015.

Using the SuperDragos will eventually enable pinpoint propulsive soft landings like a helicopter in place of parachute assisted landings in the ocean or on the ground.

The video clip seen below includes both full speed and slow motion versions of the test, showing the vehicle rising and descending slowly on the test stand.

The SuperDracos generate a combined total of 33,000 lbs of thrust.

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Soylskill writes:

According to a (paywalled) report in The Information, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wants the company to take greater control over development of their Nexus smartphones. When producing Nexus phones, Google has always partnered with manufacturers, like Samsung, LG, and HTC, who actually built the devices. Rather than creating a true revenue stream, Google's main goal has been to provide a reference for what Android can be like without interference from carriers and manufacturers. (For example, many users are frustrated by Samsung's TouchWiz skin, as well as the bloatware resulting from deals with carriers.

But now, Google appears to want more control. The report indicates Google wants to do a better job of competing throughout the market. They want to compete with Apple on the high end, but also seem concerned that manufacturers haven't put enough effort into quality budget phones. The article at Droid-Life argues, "We all know that Nexus phones will never be household items until Google puts some marketing dollars behind them. Will a top-to-bottom approach finally push them to do that?"

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Phoenix666 writes:

Ancient records tell us that the intrepid Viking seafarers who discovered Iceland, Greenland and eventually North America navigated using landmarks, birds and whales, and little else. There's little doubt that Viking sailors would also have used the positions of stars at night and the sun during the daytime, and archaeologists have discovered what appears to be a kind of Viking navigational sundial. But without magnetic compasses, like all ancient sailors they would have struggled to find their way once the clouds came over.

However, there are also several reports in Nordic sagas and other sources of a sólarsteinn "sunstone". The literature doesn't say what this was used for but it has sparked decades of research examining if this might be a reference to a more intriguing form of navigational tool.

The idea is that the Vikings may have used the interaction of sunlight with particular types of crystal to create a navigational aid that may even have worked in overcast conditions. This would mean the Vikings had discovered the basic principles of measuring polarised light centuries before they were explained scientifically and which are today used to identify and measure different chemicals. Scientists are now getting closer to establishing if this form of navigation would have been possible, or if it is just a fanciful theory.

Lagertha teaches me all I need to know about Vikings.

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takyon writes:

Samsung's default browser on Android devices will now support ad-blocking:

Samsung has added built-in ad-blocking capabilities to its Android browser in its latest OTA (over-the-air) update to its Lollipop 5.0 devices, which include the Galaxy S6.

Samsung's internet browser now supports third-party ad-blockers such as Adblock Fast. Firefox's browser supports ad-blocking plug-ins, while to firewall unwanted traffic across the system, Android users need to root their devices, or install NoRoot Firewall.

Apple heralded the much vaunted "adpocalypse" by adding support for ad-blockers in Safari in its iOS9 update last year. Advertising spending on mobile campaigns is increasing more rapidly than other digital formats, in part because it has been harder to block advertising on mobile devices. Publishers have begun to fight back passive-aggressively, refusing to serve content to browsers with an active ad-blocker. The least passive, and most aggressive, was Alphabet (Google) itself: it took technical countermeasures against YouTube ad-blockers, and forced those attempting to block video ads to watch even longer video ads.

[...] So will Samsung's move accelerate the "adpocalypse"? Perhaps not as much as you might initially think. Samsung remains the No.1 Android vendor, and has only just slipped behind Apple in total smartphone shipments. But Chrome still dominates mobile browsing, with 41.57 per cent share so far in January 2016, and Chrome's rise has been consistently steady.

Adblock Plus is also available.

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