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fork(2) writes:

In the special issue of Nature devoted to Science in China, Richard Van Noorden's article China by the numbers says:

China's blazing economic growth has cooled in recent years, but the nation's scientific ambitions show no signs of fading. In 2000, China spent about as much on research and development (R&D) as France; now it invests more in this area than the European Union does, when adjusted for the purchasing power of its currency. That surge in funding has paid off. China now produces more research articles than any other nation, apart from the United States, and its authors feature on around one-fifth of the world's most-cited papers. Top Chinese scientific institutions are breaking into lists of the world's best, and the nation has created some unparalleled facilities.

The article contains some excellent graphics summarizing spending on science, the scale of China's experimental facilities, research productivity, and the Chinese scientific workforce.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

To avoid angering Turkey, some are loathe to describe the killing of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Pope Francis, who's in Yerevan for the 100-year commemorations, is not shy about using the term.

Source: NPR

As of 2016 governments and parliaments of 29 countries, including Russia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Canada, as well as 45 states out of 50 of the United States of America, have recognized the events as a genocide.

National governments in the US and UK have traditionally refrained from using the term genocide in attempts to not damage relations with Turkey.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has assured Turkey that the White House opposes a congressional resolution labeling the World War One massacres of Armenians in Turkey as genocide, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said

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"exec" writes:

In a special video production, CNET takes you inside the hallowed halls of Bletchley Park, the stately home in Buckinghamshire, England where the Enigma code was broken in World War II. Our 360-degree tour, embedded below, will take you into the huts, libraries and work rooms of Bletchley, putting you in the office of Alan Turing, and revealing how German wartime encryptions were broken.

The story of Bletchley Park has been told before -- in books, documentaries and in Hollywood dramatisations such as 2014's "The Imitation Game" -- but never before have its secrets been exposed in such an immersive medium. Whether it's at your desktop with a set of headphones, through Google Cardboard, Samsung's Gear VR or any other virtual reality headgear, we hope you enjoy this exclusive glimpse at one of history's most significant sites. (Embedded video not playing correctly? Watch it on YouTube or Facebook.)

Source: CNET

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Twinkies and cockroaches.

Those two things stand out among items that, short of blunt force trauma, are rumored to be invulnerable to the forces of decay and habitat destruction, according to popular folklore.

An ongoing unscientific, four-decade experiment at George Stevens Academy is helping to feed that perception of the confection.

It was in 1976 when then-chemistry teacher Roger Bennatti took a freshly unwrapped Twinkie and, in a spontaneous moment of science education, placed it on top of a chalkboard in his classroom so he and his students could see how long it would take to decompose.

That question, however, remains unanswered to this day, with said Twinkie having outlasted both Bennatti's teaching career and Interstate Bakeries Corp., the original company that churned out the cream-filled snack cakes from 1930 until it filed for bankruptcy in 2012. This is despite the fact that, according to NPR, the official shelf life of Twinkies (as stated by the company that now makes them) is only a few weeks.

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/06/20/news/hancock/40-years-later-twinkie-remains-intact-at-maine-school/

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Original URL: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3088094/security/the-number-of-corporate-users-hit-by-crypto-ransomware-is-skyrocketing.html

The prevalence of ransomware programs, both those that encrypt data and those that don't, has exploded over the past two years, with companies being increasingly targeted.

Based on an analysis by security vendor Kaspersky Lab, more than 2.3 million users encountered ransomware between April 2015 and March, a jump of almost 18 percent over the previous 12 months.

This includes programs that only lock the computer's screen to prevent its use as well as those that hold the data itself hostage by encrypting it -- the so-called cryptors. The rise of cryptors in particular has been significant, accounting for 32 percent of all ransomware attacks last year compared to only 7 percent the year before, according to Kaspersky Lab.

The number of users hit by crypto ransomware during the period studied grew 5.5 times to reach more than 700,000, while the number of corporate users in particular who encountered such threats rose from 27,000 to 159,000 -- an almost six-fold increase.

Corporate users represented over 13 percent of all ransomware victims between April 2015 to March 2016, nearly double that of the year before.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

For a very long time, life was limited by the rate at which we spoke. Although we have had writing systems for millennia, early texts were designed to be read aloud, meaning that literature unfolded at the pace of human speech. For years now, podcast and audiobook players have provided speedup options, and research shows that most people prefer listening to accelerated speech. Now Jeff Guo writes at The Washington Post that a new kind of storytelling is emerging as software has made it much easier to watch videos at 1.5x to 2x.

You can play DVDs and iTunes purchases at whatever tempo you like and a Google engineer has written a popular Chrome extension that accelerates most other Web videos, including on Netflix, Vimeo and Amazon Prime. Over 100,000 people have downloaded that plug-in, and the reviews are ecstatic. “Oh my God! I regret all the wasted time I've lived before finding this gem!!” one user wrote. According to Guo speeding up video is more than an efficiency hack. "I quickly discovered that acceleration makes viewing more pleasurable. "Modern Family" played at twice the speed is far funnier — the jokes come faster and they seem to hit harder. I get less frustrated at shows that want to waste my time with filler plots or gratuitous violence. The faster pace makes it easier to appreciate the flow of the plot and the structure of the scenes."

"So here we are," concludes Guo, "spending three hours a day on average, scrambling to keep up with the Kardashians, the Starks, the Underwoods, and the dozens of others on the roster of must-watch TV, which has exploded in the age of fragmented audiences. "Nowadays, to stay on the same wavelength with your different groups of friends — the ones hating on “Meat Chad” and the ones cooing over Khaleesi — you have to watch in bulk."

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Comodo, the world's biggest issuer of browser-trusted digital certificates for websites, has come under fire for registering trademarks containing the words "let's encrypt," a phrase that just happens to be the name of a nonprofit project that provides certificates for free.

In a blog post, a Let's Encrypt senior official said Comodo has filed applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for at least three such trademarks, including "Let's Encrypt," "Let's Encrypt with Comodo," and "Comodo Let's Encrypt." Over the past few months, the non-profit has repeatedly asked Comodo to abandon the applications, and Comodo has declined. Let's Encrypt, which is the public face of the Internet Security Research Group, said it has been using the name since November 2014.

In an update to the original article posted on Friday, Comodo surrendered all claims to the trademarks with the following statement from CTO Robin Alden:

Comodo has filed for express abandonment of the trademark applications at this time instead of waiting and allowing them to lapse. Following collaboration between Let's Encrypt and Comodo, the trademark issue is now resolved and behind us and we'd like to thank the Let's Encrypt team for helping to bring it to a resolution.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/800-pound-comodo-tries-to-trademark-upstart-rivals-lets-encrypt-name/

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

Science News reports:

Rumors swirling on the internet are casting doubt on hints of a new particle reported by scientists at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva. But researchers say it's still too soon to know whether the particle exists or not.

"Currently the data are still being recorded and analyzed and it is too early to conclude," says Beate Heinemann of the University of California, Berkeley. "We hope to be able to present the new data in early August." Heinemann is the deputy spokesperson of ATLAS, an experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. ATLAS scientists, along with those from a second LHC experiment, CMS, reported signs of the new particle in December (SN: 1/9/16, p. 7).

Physicists have rumored on Twitter and on blogs that evidence of the particle is disappearing with additional data -- an outcome that would disappoint hordes of eager scientists.

After CMS and ATLAS researchers reported an unexpected bump in their data, physicists went into a frenzy (ScienceNews: 5/28/16, p. 11), posting hundreds of papers about the result online at arXiv.org.

But with the data they had in hand, physicists couldn't tell if the signal was real, or just a random fluctuation that would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Since May, the LHC has been colliding protons at a fever pitch (ScienceNews Online: 5/9/16).

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khallow writes:

Researchers have demonstrated common genetic and evolutionary ties between the scales, feathers, and hair of reptiles, birds, and mammals (which comprise the amniotes):

Further on it is noted:

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takyon writes:

After four years of exile in the Ecuadorian embassy, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is making some more noise:

Assange implored the audience to "get ready to gather around" in order "to protect our ability to be publishing." "It will be very necessary in the coming months," the WikiLeaks editor stressed.

Many of the upcoming releases, he said, concern Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "I've come to know Hillary quite well," Assange joked. WikiLeaks has released thousands of Clinton's emails, and he has read many of them. "She is an extremely ambitious liberal interventionist hawk," he explained. This is, of course, no surprise, he added, but the extreme degree of her belligerence is often not understood. Clinton "was the leading figure behind the destruction of Libya," he said, echoing comments he said in an interview with Salon in February. "If Hillary Clinton gets into office, it means endless war," Assange warned. "We are in fact already, under Obama, in endless war, but I think it will significantly ramp up under Hillary Clinton."

The WikiLeaks Twitter account has suggested that the UK's "Brexit" could allow Assange to go free, since the European Arrest Warrant may be scrapped in the UK. However, Assange is still wanted for breaching the conditions of his bail.

WikiLeaks recently released a new 88 GB insurance file. The contents are unknown, but speculation is converging on the idea of material related to Hillary Clinton, including emails or more:

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fliptop writes:

In 2001, the Free State Project started with a goal of recruiting 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire. The state was chosen, in part, because of its "Live Free or Die" motto and relative ease of getting elected to political office (the state legislature has 424 seats). For the past 13 years FSP has sponsored Porcfest, a week-long camping festival billed as libertarian utopia:

Called "porcupines," the animal that serves as a logo for libertarians, they come to share ideas and be among others who dream of a small government society where taxes are limited, trade is free and people are allowed to eat, imbibe and inhale whatever they please. The festival, officially called the Porcupine Freedom Festival, offers a glimpse into the kind of libertarian paradise Free State Project leaders hope to one day create statewide.

This year's PorcFest comes at a key moment for the Free State Project, a plan devised in the early 2000s to persuade 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire en masse. [...] In February, the movement earned its 20,000th "signer," the threshold that is supposed to trigger a mass move within five years.

[...] Weston Cooke is one signer who hasn't made the move. From under a tarp shielding his hammock from rain Wednesday, Cooke said he currently lives rent-free in Boston and won't move until he can find a similar setup in New Hampshire.

[...] What draws Cooke to PorcFest?

"I think the obvious answer is freedom," he said. "There's nowhere else you can go and get served a cheeseburger by a 14-year-old with an AR-15 strapped to his back."

Guns are indeed allowed freely at PorcFest; a posted flyer reminds gun carriers: "Be respectful. Be careful. Be safe." Marijuana is freely smoked too, as most participants believe the drug should be legal.

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

From Ars Technica (video clip may or may not be available there, see another link below):

Ars is excited to be hosting this online debut of Sunspring, a short science fiction film that's not entirely what it seems. It's about three people living in a weird future, possibly on a space station, probably in a love triangle. You know it's the future because H (played with neurotic gravity by Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch) is wearing a shiny gold jacket, H2 (Elisabeth Gray) is playing with computers, and C (Humphrey Ker) announces that he has to "go to the skull" before sticking his face into a bunch of green lights. It sounds like your typical sci-fi B-movie, complete with an incoherent plot. Except Sunspring isn't the product of Hollywood hacks -- it was written entirely by an AI. To be specific, it was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory, or LSTM for short. At least, that's what we'd call it. The AI named itself Benjamin.

NYU AI researcher, Ross Goodwin, posted this cool description/musing (includes video clips and the lyrics to a song that was also generated by an LSTM he trained).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Scientific research funded by Big Chocolate:

Physicists say they've discovered how to zap the fat out of chocolate. The researchers, led by Rongjia Tao of Temple University, were able to remove up to 20 percent of fat by running liquid milk chocolate through an electrified sieve. And they say the chocolate tastes good, too.

[...] When a consulting firm working for candy giant Mars Inc. reached out to Tao back in 2012, it wanted his help in improving the viscosity of liquid milk chocolate. Tao's team worked out a method of making the chocolate flow even better than normal through the pipes — without adding any more cocoa butter. Then the researchers had a Eureka moment: If they could make liquid chocolate flow better without any extra cocoa butter, they could also slash the fat in it — by 10 to 20 percent — and still make it flow well enough not to jam the pipes.

[...] When you look at liquid chocolate at the microscopic level, the cocoa solids are circular, suspended in the fat and oil of the cocoa butter. These circular particles can pack together and get jammed (like a glass full of golf balls). Adding cocoa butter helps get the cocoa solids moving again. But Tao and his team figured out how to use electricity to get the flow going. The researchers inserted an electrified sieve into the liquid chocolate. When the cocoa particles passed through the sieve, they receive an electric shock. That makes the cocoa solids flatten and start behaving like little bar magnets, lining themselves up into long chains. This chain formation allows more room for the liquid chocolate to flow.

Electrorheology leads to healthier and tastier chocolate (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1605416113)

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

Writing in Science this morning (June 24) Daniel Clery said, "Science and technology were not a major talking point during the referendum campaign, but numerous scientists and research organizations urged voters to preserve the United Kingdom's E.U. membership." The British research community has strongly argued that Brexit is a serious threat to funding and innovation. Earlier this week Debora MacKenzie of the MIT Technology Review said:

Polls say 83 percent of British scientists oppose Brexit. Many have spoken out: in March all 159 Fellows of the Royal Society at the University of Cambridge called the move "a disaster for British science," mainly because it would stop young scientists from migrating freely within Europe. A report by the House of Lords reported in April that "the overwhelming balance of opinion from the UK science community" opposed Brexit.

Why? Partly because the EU funds a lot of science and technology research for its member countries, with 74.8 billion euros budgeted from 2014 to 2020. Brexiters say British taxpayers should simply keep their contribution and spend it at home.

They'd take a serious loss if they did. Britain punches above its weight in research, generating 16 percent of top-impact papers worldwide, so its grant applications are well received in Brussels. Between 2007 and 2013, it paid 5.4 billion euros into the EU research budget but got 8.8 billion euros back in grants.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Source: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/06/24/fbi-doesnt-need-warrant-hack/

A senior US district judge has decided that the FBI didn't need a warrant to capture a defendant's IP address or to extract additional info from his computer.

The case in question is that of Edward Matish, III, who stands accused of access with intent to view child pornography and receipt of child pornography.

He is one of a number of suspects who's IP address was identified with the help of a "network investigative technique" (NIT) used by the FBI after they seized control of Playpen, a dark net website dedicated to child porn distribution.

The NIT also instructed Matish's and other suspects' computers to send information about the OS running on it, its name, its MAC address, and its active operating system username to the server controlled by the FBI.

"The Court finds that Defendant possessed no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer's IP address, so the Government's acquisition of the IP address did not represent a prohibited Fourth Amendment search," Judge Henry Coke Morgan, Jr., ruled.

Original Submission