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Phoenix666 writes:

A single-dose dengue vaccine, tested in a small clinical trial, was 100 percent effective in protecting human volunteers from a strain of the most prevalent mosquito-borne virus in the world.

The vaccine, developed at the National Institutes of Health, was tested in a trial led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine .

It could represent a major advance in the battle against dengue, which infects nearly 400 million people across more than 120 countries each year. Most survive with few or no symptoms, but more than 2 million annually develop what can be a dangerous dengue hemorrhagic fever. That kills more than 25,000 people each year.

I've never had it, but have met enough survivors on my travels to know you'd never want to. Good news.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Tests of a new air-cleaning system show that it can remove a remarkably wide range of nasty particles while using very little energy.

Unlike other systems that burn or freeze the pollution or require frequent maintenance, the new GPAO system needs no filters, is energy efficient, and requires less maintenance, says Matthew Johnson, a professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, who invented it.

"As a chemist I have studied the natural ability of the atmosphere to clean itself. Nature cleans air in a process involving ozone, sunlight, and rain. Except for the rain, GPAO does the very same thing, but speeded up by a factor of a hundred thousand," says Johnson.

In the GPAO system, the polluted gas is mixed with ozone in the presence of fluorescent lamps. This causes free radicals to form that attack pollution, forming sticky products that clump together. The products form fine particles which grow into a type of airborne dust. And whereas gas phase pollution was hard to remove, dust is easy. Just give it an electrostatically charged surface to stick to, and it goes no further.

Original study: Gas-Phase Advanced Oxidation for Effective, Efficient in Situ Control of Pollution (DOI: 10.1021/es5012687)

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takyon writes:

Optogenetics has been used to activate neurons in mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, allowing them to remember the fear caused by an electric shock:

Memories banished by Alzheimer's can in theory be rescued by stimulating nerve cells to grow new connections, a study has shown. The research, conducted in mice, raises the possibility of future treatments that reverse memory loss in early stages of the disease. Scientists used a technique called optogenetics, which uses light to activate cells tagged with a special photo-sensitive protein. It was tested on mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms that quickly forgot the experience of receiving a mild electric shock to their feet. After tagged cells in their brains were stimulated with light, their memory returned and they displayed a fear response when placed in the chamber where the shock had been applied an hour earlier.

The optogenetic treatment helped the neurons re-grow small buds called dendritic spines, which form synaptic connections with other cells. Although the same technique cannot be used in humans, the research points the way to future memory-retrieving therapies, say the researchers. Lead scientist Prof Susumu Tonegawa, from the Picower institute for learning and memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, said: "The important point is, this a proof of concept. That is, even if a memory seems to be gone, it is still there. It's a matter of how to retrieve it."

The research, published in the journal Nature, specifically targeted memory cells in the hippocampus region of the brain previously identified by Tonegawa's team. Two different strains of mice, genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's symptoms, plus a control group of healthy animals, were used in the experiment.

Memory retrieval by activating engram cells in mouse models of early Alzheimer's disease (DOI: 10.1038/nature17172)

Another recent study (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151081) of Alzheimer's disease found that gum inflammation may hasten the brain's decline.

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c0lo writes:

Gizmodo and others announce Disney is going to squeeze some more juice from the (73yo) Harrison Ford - and your pocket - with a reboot of the Indiana Jones franchise (acquired together with the Lucas studio):

Spielberg will direct, Ford will star, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy^[1] will produce. The official press release from Disney has no mention of co-creator George Lucas, who sold Disney rights to the character in 2012 along with Star Wars.

For the past several years, Spielberg and Ford have reiterated they wanted to come back to the series. There had also been lots of talk about a possible recasting. Whether or not this fifth film will set the table for that, we don't know, but the Indy of old will be back at least one more. And we're excited to have him.

Just cross your fingers for no flying monkeys.

tenplay.com.au with a just a bit of more gossipy details on George Lucas' reaction:

No plot details for the next instalment have been released, and there has been no mention of Mr Lucas being involved in the project.

Though, he was spotted enjoying food-court noodles in Adelaide this afternoon as fans absorbed the announcement of a fifth film.

His wife, Mellody Hobson, was the key speaker at today's Conference of Major Super Funds in the city.

Mr Lucas voiced his unhappiness with last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the third highest-grossing film worldwide of all time, when he was not consulted during the project after selling the film rights to Disney.
...
The Indiana Jones franchise has grossed nearly US $2 billion at the global box office with the previous four films and amassed a global fan base.

The announcement quickly became a top ten trending topic on Twitter, but reaction was mixed. Many made fun of Ford's age, offering tongue-in-cheek suggestions for the film's title, such as "Indiana Jones and 'Hey You Kids, Get Off My Lawn!"

[1] Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy produced all the other 4 movies of the franchise. Spielberg and the two are also involved in Amblin Entertainment, another movie production company.

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edIII writes:

Apple said in court filings last month that it would take from six to 10 engineers up to a month to meet the government's demands. However, because Apple is so compartmentalized, the challenge of building what the company described as "GovtOS" would be substantially complicated if key employees refused to do the work.

"Such conscription is fundamentally offensive to Apple's core principles and would pose a severe threat to the autonomy of Apple and its engineers," Apple's lawyers wrote in the company's final brief to the Federal District Court for the Central District of California.

After interviewing Apple engineers, it has been revealed there is indeed a discussion among Apple employees about resisting any court order to deliberately weaken Apple security. Key engineers have said they may quit the company if forced to participate.

Huge fan of civil disobedience, and up till now it didn't occur to me that Apple engineers may quit. It seems like the government may really have no way at all of forcing the decryption of the iPhone without forcefully conscripting engineers into service, which is unlikely.

Good news everybody!

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"exec" writes:

The remote-controlled robots that were sent into the site of the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan have reportedly 'died', thanks to incredibly high amounts of leaked radioactive materials destroying their wiring.

The robots - which take years to manufacture - were designed to swim through the underwater tunnels of the now-defunct cooling pools, and remove hundreds of extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods. But it looks like that's not going to happen any time soon.

... As we reported in January, Tepco successfully removed 1,535 spent fuel-rod assemblies from the cooling pool in the reactor 4 building, which was a relatively easy job because that reactor had lower radiation levels, so human workers could oversee the retrieval process more closely. 

Reactor 3, which is where our poor, recently deceased robots had been sent, contains far higher levels of radiation, and humans can't get near it. It's estimated that there are 566 fuel-rod assemblies that need to be removed from just this one reactor.

"The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now," Reuters reports.

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-robots-sent-into-fukushima-have-died?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

-- submitted from IRC

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takyon writes:

A Brazilian judge has suspended the appointment of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the current President Dilma Rousseff's cabinet. The move was seen as intended to help Lula avoid corruption charges:

With a corruption and money-laundering scandal rocking Brazil, lawmakers in that nation's lower house of congress have started the formal impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff, forming a committee to look at potential charges. But the most dramatic moments Thursday center on the presidential palace, where a ceremony to officially invest former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as the current chief of staff "broke into chaos," NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports. After that scene erupted, a judge issued an injunction to suspend Lula's appointment, a move that had widely been seen as an attempt by Rousseff to shield Lula from possible corruption charges.

As for Rousseff, the move to impeach her stems — for now, at least — from allegations that are separate from those besetting Lula.

[...] At the investment ceremony for Lula this morning, Lourdes says, a protester shouted, "Shame on you," — as Rousseff's party faithful chanted, "There will be no coup."

Late last night, a judge ordered the release of phone recordings of calls to and from Lula's phone, audio that was intercepted as part of a sweeping corruption investigation. In one short exchange recorded by federal police, Lula is heard speaking to Brazil's sitting president, with Rousseff referring to a paper she's sending him in case he needs to use it. In Brazil, many people immediately interpreted the exchange as a discussion about contingency measures to obstruct the investigation and violate the constitution.

Also at CNN, BBC. Reuters reports that the currency may be tied to the fate of President Rousseff.

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takyon writes:

The now former vice president of engineering at the United Launch Alliance (ULA) was a little too candid when discussing the advantages of ULA's competitor SpaceX at a talk with engineering students at the University of Colorado. Brett Tobey has resigned from his position, and Senator John McCain has called for an investigation into his comments:

Brett Tobey, vice president of engineering at the United Launch Alliance, has resigned after he spilled the beans on ULA's feud with SpaceX. He made the remarks to students at his alma mater in a speech that was recorded and then put online.

ULA is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin that lofts US military satellites into orbit. The biz has been at loggerheads with SpaceX after the Elon Musk-led upstart was locked out of the bidding for government contracts. SpaceX sued Uncle Sam, and was eventually allowed to bid on a launch. ULA didn't put in a counter-bid because it said it couldn't meet the requirements of the contract.

However, Tobey told students at University of Colorado-Boulder this week that other factors were involved – chiefly that ULA couldn't match SpaceX on price. He explained that SpaceX was offering to do the entire launch for $60m, and ULA would have charged $125m. That figure rises to $200m when you factor in the $800m a year the US military pays ULA for a "capability contract" to provide short-notice launches in an emergency. "ULA opted to not bid that," Tobey said. "The government was not happy with us not bidding that contract because they felt that they had bent over backwards to lean the fill to our advantage. But we saw it as a cost shootout between us and SpaceX."

Tobey also ranted about SpaceX using Senator John McCain to block access to key technology for ULA. The consortium uses RD-180 rocket engines that are made in Russia, but after Putin started acting up, the ULA was barred from buying the rockets under conditions of embargo – at SpaceX's bidding, Tobey suggested. Luckily for ULA, the ban on Russian rockets was overturned by Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who represents a district where ULA has a major manufacturing plant. Nevertheless, ULA has now hired two firms to develop a new rocket for its launches.

TFA has some more juicy details, and I would recommend reading the rest. More coverage at The Verge, Ars Technica, GovExec.

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hubie writes:

The first comprehensive set of papers describing results from the New Horizons Pluto flyby were published in the most recent volume of Science .

"These five detailed papers completely transform our view of Pluto – revealing the former 'astronomer's planet' to be a real world with diverse and active geology, exotic surface chemistry, a complex atmosphere, puzzling interaction with the sun and an intriguing system of small moons," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

NASA conveniently summarized the findings from these papers that cover observations of a broad range of surface and atmospheric properties.

"Observing Pluto and Charon up close has caused us to completely reassess thinking on what sort of geological activity can be sustained on isolated planetary bodies in this distant region of the solar system, worlds that formerly had been thought to be relics little changed since the Kuiper Belt's formation," said Jeff Moore, lead author of the geology paper from NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

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takyon writes:

Back to the Future II's rosy predictions of the future didn't include the mandatory surveillance required to buy a mechanical gadget:

Nike has unveiled its much-anticipated range of self-lacing shoes. It said the HyperAdapt trainers would be released to the public before the end of the year. A pair of Nike-branded shoes with self-tightening laces featured in the 1989 film Back to the Future II, but it was not until 2013 that the firm started trying to make real-world versions. In an unexpected move, the US firm has said that sales would be restricted to users of its apps.

While some might see the self-lacing function as being more gimmicky than useful, the tie-in to the Nike+ software will help the company promote other goods to those curious about HyperAdapt. Nike+ apps are currently focused on tracking data about users' activities and offering them training programmes. But from June, the platform will introduce personalised shopping recommendations and an online store. "Nike has lost a fair bit of traction recently to sportswear upstarts including Under Armour, which bought the MyFitnessPal app, and Asics, which has acquired Runkeeper," said Marc McLaren, online editor of Stuff, a tech-focused magazine. "This will help keep people engaged, and we can already see from the reaction our readers are having to the announcement that they are very excited by it."

All proceeds from the shoes that replicate the style of the ones in the film are being given to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

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bitstream writes:

There's a a growing trend to close off publishing platforms by demanding a login in order to view the content. Which is a move away from an open web. In December 2015 Facebook launched its own in-app browser, which is basically a web-view that loads links you tap on using the Facebook app. It may provide convenience for some but the primary goal is to keep users inside the application longer. This opens up more advertising exposure and associated revenue. This poses a challenge to the open web because this overrides the user's default mobile browser keeps the eyeballs in a closed ecosystem. The feature Instant Articles for publishers is done such that it loads articles available nearly instantly in the app compared to a mobile browser. This opens up for monetizing viewing and privacy invasions by Facebook on users. The in-app browser lack decent privacy controls.

Facebook is trying to accomplish a closed version of the internet. The Free Basics initiative with Facebook as the gatekeeper offers users free access to select websites. This initiative made privacy advocates in India, who play an instrumental role in the makeup of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to vote on 2016-02-08 that all data pricing must be equal, and that companies cannot offer cheaper rates than others for certain content. The decision favours net neutrality and essentially bans Facebook's initiative in that country. The Indian TRAI ruling states that pricing must be content agnostic. Facebook has become a monolithic platform that tries to mimic existing services by offering video uploads (YouTube), money transfers (PayPal) etc. Facebook is expanding like a invasive species similar to the Borg from Star Trek trying to absorb everything that touches their sphere of interest.

In the future, could resistance be futile because you will miss out essential information?

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takyon writes:

The Hubble Space Telescope has found previously unknown massive stars at the edge of the Milky Way:

Hubble has probed a clutch of monster stars about 170,000 light-years away on the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy. Some two dozen behemoths were identified, all with masses in excess of a hundred times that of the Sun. Four were known previously, including the remarkable colossus catalogued as R136a1, which is 250 times as massive as our home star. But the new survey finds many more of the super-objects in a tight patch of sky within the Large Magellanic Cloud.

"In just a tiny bit of this satellite galaxy, we see perhaps a couple of dozen stars with more than a 100 solar masses, of which nine are in a tight core just a few light-years across," explained Prof Paul Crowther from Sheffield University, UK. "But that two dozen number - that's probably more than are in the entire Milky Way Galaxy for this type of star," he told BBC News.

The observations are to be published shortly in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society [DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw273]. They build on earlier work reported in 2010 that first described R136a1 - the most massive and most luminous star identified to date. That study used data gathered principally by a ground-based telescope in Chile. This follow-up research employed the pin-sharp resolution and ultraviolet sensitivity of the orbiting Hubble telescope to tease out yet more detail. In 2010, astronomers saw four monster stars including R136a1 in the central core. Thanks to Hubble, they detect a further five. The stars are not only extremely massive, but they are also extremely bright. Together, these nine stars outshine our Sun by a factor of 30 million, said Prof Crowther.

Also at Futurity and the University of Sheffield.

[Technically, these stars were not found in the Milky Way galaxy, but instead were found in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy which is located at a distance of approximately 50 kiloparsecs (≈163,000 light-years). See this image to get an idea of its location with respect to nearby galaxies. -martyb.]

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butthurt writes:

The tomb of Tutankhamun has been examined with ground-penetrating radar. The resulting images appear to indicate the presence of two previously unknown chambers, containing "organic and metal material."

In the news:

• The Guardian
• CNN
• Ahram Online
• The Independent
• Daily Mail
• Scottish Daily Record
• AFP via Prothom Alo
• BBC News

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GungnirSniper writes:

Google's parent company, Alphabet, is putting the robotics firm Boston Dynamics up for sale. In addition to the lack of near-to-release products, company culture issues were also cited as reasons for the for-sale sign. The company was part of a 2013 buying spree in the robotics field led by Andy Rubin, who had previously headed the Android division. Rubin left Google in 2014. At the end of 2015, the US Marine Corp declined to order the "AlphaDog" engine-powered pack-carriers due to noise concerns. Amazon and Toyota are mentioned as possible buyers for the company.

The Daily Mail has pictures and video of Boston Dynamics' creations as well as a quote from Gill Pratt, of DARPA, regarding disaster areas like Fukushima.

'Sometimes in a disaster, it is too dangerous for people to go in,'

The robots developed by TEPCO and Toshiba used in Fukushima have stopped working after radiation damaged their wires.

Our ageless robo-partners are not yet on the horizon.

takyon: Also at TechCrunch.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Free Software Foundation's blog has notified readers that:

There have been several attempts at 4-Freedom respecting hardware, there is a notable lack of modern, high-end and even desktop-class options.

See also:

• Express interest and be notified
• Preliminary Specifications
• Tyan's OpenPower Systems for comparison.
• OpenPOWER
• Stallman's explanation of his computing.

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