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An Anonymous Coward writes:

More than 100 Nobel laureates have a message for Greenpeace: Quit the G.M.O.-bashing.

Genetically modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Opponents, they say, are standing in the way of getting nutritious food to those who need it.

[...] Proponents of genetically modified foods such as Golden Rice, which contains genes from corn and a bacterium, argue that they are efficient vehicles for needed nutrients. Opponents fear that foods whose genes are manipulated in ways that do not naturally occur might contaminate existing crops. And, they say, the debate distracts from the only guaranteed solution to malnutrition: promoting diverse, healthy diets.

[...] In 2014, the Pew Research Center found an enormous gap between the public and scientists on the issue. Just 37 percent of adults in the United States said genetically modified foods were safe to eat, while 88 percent of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science said the same.

Source: The New York Times

Related: GeneticLiteracyProject.org

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Facebook is training its top leaders and employees on how to manage their political bias, according to the social network's COO Sheryl Sandberg.

The revelation comes less than two months after Facebook's trending topics controversy, which saw the company fending off accusations of human bias affecting its news algorithm.

In a discussion with Arthur Brooks at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on Wednesday, Sandberg stated: "We have a managing bias class that all of our leaders and a lot of our employees have taken that I was part of helping to create. And we focused on racial bias, age bias, gender bias, national bias, and we're going to add in a scenario now on political bias."

"So that, as part of [how] we think about helping people understand different points of view and being open to different points of view, we're dealing with political bias as well going forward."

Source: Fox News

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward wrote in with this Slackware release news:

Yes, it is that time again (finally)! Following a long period of planning, development, and testing, the Slackware Linux Project is proud to announce the latest stable release of the longest running distribution of the Linux operating system, Slackware version 14.2!

[...] Slackware 14.2 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.12.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.14.21 (KDE 4.14.3 with kdelibs-4.14.21) a stable release of the 4.14.x series of the award- winning KDE desktop environment. These desktops utilize eudev, udisks, and udisks2, and many of the specifications from freedesktop.org which allow the system administrator to grant use of various hardware devices according to users' group membership so that they will be able to use items such as USB flash sticks, USB cameras that appear like USB storage, portable hard drives, CD and DVD media, MP3 players, and more, all without requiring sudo, the mount or umount command. Just plug and play. Slackware's desktop should be suitable for any level of Linux experience.

• Official announcement
• Oldest living GNU/Linux distribution
• Uses eudev, no systemd

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

Google has removed an extension for the Chrome browser from its online store. The software contains a crowd-sourced list of Jewish names; during a browsing session, it would detect matching names in Web pages and surround them with three sets of round brackets.

From PCMag:

Google this week removed a Chrome extension that identified the names of prominent Jews on websites with a user-generated list.

The "Coincidence Detector" Chrome plugin reportedly had 2,473 users and a rating of 5 out of 5 stars, according to Mic, which earlier this week published an investigation into the online tactics of white supremacists.

The plugin scanned the text of websites for matches on its frequently-updated list of Jewish names. When it found a match, it encased the name in three sets of parenthesis, an identification format that originated on a right-wing blog called The Right Stuff, according to Mic. Users could add new names to the app's database by posting them on the app's support tab.

A screenshot of the extension's installation page showed that it was last updated on Jan. 16. Its publisher was listed as "altrightmedia," likely a nod to the similarly-named ultraconservative movement in the US.

coverage:

• PCMag
• Tech Times
• Mic
• Arutz Sheva
• The Guardian
• Breitbart
• The Jerusalem Post

Original Submission

China Builds World's Largest Radiotelescope

butthurt writes:

According to 9news, construction of the world's largest radiotelescope has been completed. Situated in a hollow in the mountains of China's Guizhou province, the structure includes a 500 m reflector, hence its name Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). Unlike the Arecibo telescope, the shape of the reflector can be changed. The receiver was built by the CSIRO.

martyb writes:

Two years ago, on 2014-07-04, SoylentNews received official confirmation of becoming a Public Benefit Corporation. Though there is no user-visible manifestation of this on the site (or any of the other services we provide), it does stand as an important milestone in our history.

A lot has happened since this site went live. Here are some numbers:

• 93 - polls posted.
• 170 - current subscribers.
• 1816 - journal articles posted.
• 6278 - registered nicknames.
• 12252 - stories posted to the site.
• 14556 - stories submitted.
• 369411 - comments posted.
• 41767215 - story hits we've counted (ignores AC hits)

Numbers, however, provide only part of the story. We have been able to keep the site up and running with only a few unplanned site outages, which is a far cry from how things were back when the site launched. To watch this community coalesce and grow to what it is today has been a heart-warming and enriching experience. I've read stories and comments that have changed my view of the world. All thanks to the tireless (and very occasionally tired) efforts of our all-volunteer staff and you, our community. And what a talented and selfless group of people we have! I am continually impressed with the knowledge and professionalism exhibited by the staff — I tip my hat to them all.

One of the comments to last year's story sums it up very well for me:

I[t] feels like much longer than a year ago, maybe because Soylent perfectly replaced the place Slashdot occupied in my heart. Except, it's better. NCommander, Eds, we really appreciate the work, spirit, and intent you've put into the community. It's a mark of distinction that this place feels more like a really big, walnut-panelled study filled with learned colleagues than it does a random, pointless forum. The latter is ubiquitous, the former unique.

It is my fervent hope that we will continue to earn your support and provide you with the best news discussion site we can.

Original Submission

cubancigar11 writes:

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/286195-feds-ask-for-27-month-delay-in-release-of-clinton-aides-emails

The Obama administration on Thursday asked a federal court to delay until October 2018 the release of 14,000 pages of emails from aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In a court filing on Wednesday, administration lawyers said the State Department miscalculated the amount of material it would need to process the documents as part of a lawsuit with the conservative organization Citizens United.

As a result, the government asked for a 27-month delay to release the emails, which were originally due out on July 21.

"State deeply regrets these errors, and is working diligently to correct them as quickly as possible," the lawyers said.

takyon: Additionally, Attorney General Loretta Lynch faced controversy after it emerged she met with former President Bill Clinton:

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, conceding that her airport meeting with former President Bill Clinton this week had cast a shadow over a federal investigation of Hillary Clinton's personal email account, said Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations that career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges in the case.

"I will be accepting their recommendations," Ms. Lynch said in an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival. She said that "the case will be resolved by the same team that has been working on it from the beginning."

Also at The Washington Post and Politico.

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fork(2) writes:

Rich Smith, at The Motley Fool, is doing a sequence of articles about...well, he calls it, "Our voyage of discovery (of potential investments) in the space industry..." In a recent article he looks at the relative cost of the various space launch vehicles.

In the article he lists, estimates, and guesses the cost to build rockets at SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, the Indian Space Research Organization, China National Space Administration, and Russia's Roscosmos.

He concludes the brief article by saying:

What does it all mean for investors? Right now, SpaceX is clearly building rockets cheaper than Boeing and Lockheed or Airbus can match. But given the cut-rate pricing being offered by not-necessarily-for-profit space programs in Russia, India, and China, SpaceX may be the least of Boeing's, Lockheed's, and Airbus' worries. Going forward, the real price pressure, and the real battle for market share, may be coming from abroad.

Original Submission

frojack writes:

The New York Times carries an interesting opinion article from Marine Le Pen, a French politician who is the president of the National Front, a national-conservative political party in France.

Do Soylentils see an echo of the Arab Spring happening in the EU, or is this just a clever turn of a phrase?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

http://www.worldscientific.com/page/pressroom/2016-07-01-01

A team of researchers from the Iowa State University in Ames, IA has demonstrated a proof-of-concept three-dimensional paper-based microbial fuel cell (MFC) that could take advantage of capillary action to guide the liquids through the MFC system and to eliminate the need for external power. Their report appears in the forthcoming issue of the journal Technology.

The paper-based MFC runs for five days and shows the production of current as a result of biofilm formation on anode. The system produces 1.3 μW of power and 52.25 μA of current yielding a power density of approximately 25 W/m3 for this experiment. These results show that the paper-based microbial fuel cells can create power in an environmentally friendly mode without the use of any outside power. "All power created in this device is usable because no electricity is needed to run the fluids through the device. This is crucial in the advancement of these devices and the expansion of their applications." says Nastaran Hashemi, PhD, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the senior author of the paper.

The biofilm formation on the carbon cloth during the test provides further evidence that the current measured was the result of the bio-chemical reaction taking place. This is important because the biofilm plays a vital role in current production of a microbial fuel cell. Increased biofilm size and thickness ultimately leads to increased current production. Individual bacterial cells metabolize electron-rich substances in a complex process involving many enzyme-catalyzed reactions. The electrons are then free to travel to the anode through one of many modes of electron transport. Electron transport is very complicated, and evidence suggests that it is unique to each type of bacteria.

[...] The Iowa State University team is currently exploring options to better control the voltage output and create constant current. Controlled environment tests will aid in the regulation of the systems output and yield more stable results. For optimal usability and decrease in cost, the team would also like to explore a device that would not need to use Nafion and Potassium Ferricyanide in its application.

A paper-based microbial fuel cell operating under continuous flow condition (DOI: 10.1142/S2339547816400124)

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

IEEE Spectrum carries an article Why Wi-Fi Stinks -- and how to fix it (doesn't seem to be paywalled). Basically, the idea is to optimize the use of the Wi-Fi spectrum with better routers capable of using (and relinquishing, when necessary) special-use channels using Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS).

DFS acts as a high-speed traffic cop -- when it spots a radar signal in one of these protected channels, it quickly shifts all Wi-Fi traffic to another lane. There are a few rules about how this traffic cop works: It must listen for radar for at least 60 seconds before declaring a channel free to use, then continue to listen while Wi-Fi traffic is on the channel. If the mechanism detects even a 1-microsecond radar pulse, the Wi-Fi transmitter must clear the channel within 10 seconds and stay off it for half an hour.

The vast majority of mobile devices introduced in the last three or four years have radios that can operate in these bands and have the required software to respond to instructions from what is called a DFS master. But they need that DFS master built into the router to tell them when it's all right to use a radar-priority channel and when they need to move aside.

The trick is to create a less costly and more effective technology to detect radar signals on channels. The article's author and colleagues at Ignition Design Labs in San Jose think they've figured it out.

We have designed an enhanced router, called Portal, which incorporates a full-spectrum radio scanner and a CPU dedicated to radar detection and channel management alongside standard router hardware. The scanner continuously sweeps the entire 5-GHz band for radar as well as for Wi-Fi traffic and general interference. Making this detection system completely separate from the Wi-Fi sending and receiving radio solves a lot of the problems of current radar-detection technology, which shares the main processor and Wi-Fi radio for radar detection as well as communications.

Because the spectrum is finite, finding affordable, effective ways to use it is important in order to deal with the current and future data traffic jam.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In May, the database giant failed in its bid to have Google stump up $9bn on Android and stake a sweeping claim over APIs and how they're broadly used. And now, this week, Oracle was ordered to pay Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) $3bn for reneging on a commitment to put its software on HPE's Itanic servers.

That figure is the size of Oracle's entire cloud business during a single quarter. It might seem as though Oracle is in court quite a lot, but to be fair it's probably not – most likely less than the headlines suggest, and less than those involved in the smartphone sector in recent years.

There's a lot of litigation in the field of technology. It attracts cases like a road kill does flies because there's so much money involved – both present and future potential. At one point in smart phones, it resembled the final scene of Reservoir Dogs, with everybody firing at everybody else. And yes, Oracle is right to both defend its trademarks and copyrights and to protect its business by law, should it feel the need.

[...]

It's just that Oracle's cases are bigger and make greater claims to unfairness. Oracle is not a retiring company, so its legal disputes are that much bigger.

Case in point: the firm's response to an employee claiming malpractice – probably falsely – in its cloud business accounting has been, guess what? Threatening to throw the legal juggernaut at the individual.

Now, Oracle isn't letting the HPE case go, and as you would expect, has vowed to appeal.

"It is very clear that any contractual obligations were reciprocal and HP breached its own obligations. Now that both trials have concluded, we intend to appeal both today's ruling and the prior ruling from Judge Kleinberg," executive vice president and general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement.

[...]

At this point, it would seem that Oracle's time would be better served devising a sustainable way out of the place where its business now resides instead. ®

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Google has purchased the entire 12-year supply of power from a 50-turbine wind farm that is due to finish its construction in 2017.

[...] The farm, due to be completed in 2017, will be used to power Google's European data centres, Reuters reports. The search giant has also bought the entire power output of a second wind farm in Sweden, which is due to be built in 2018. The two power plants will supply 236 megawatts in total.

"[The additional wind farms] take us one step closer to running 100 percent of our operations on clean energy," said Marc Oman, EU energy lead of Google global infrastructure on the company's European blog.

See additional coverage and details on Reuters.

Original Submission

edIII writes:

Parts of feathers have been discovered before, but these two dinosaur-era bird wings, however, "come complete with bone, skin, muscle, tissue and tracts of feathers".

While it’s generally agreed that virtually all dinosaurs had feathers, scientists have to base their conclusions on findings that tell very little. The few dinosaurs that became fossilized feathers and all, like the famous Archaeopteryx, only provide a 2-D picture with no depth — besides they’re also rare.

“The biggest problem we face with feathers in amber is that we usually get small fragments or isolated feathers, and we’re never quite sure who produced [them],” says co-author Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate palaeontology at Canada’s Royal Saskatchewan Museum. “We don’t get something like this. It’s mind-blowingly cool.”

Unfortunately, this did not lead towards any new information about which came first, the chicken or the egg.

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

The GF and I are at the point where we're considering life after employment.

We do not belong to that legendary 2% who are rich through inheritance, nor to the 4% who have been able to save 10% of every paycheque since age ten.

We've been mostly self employed, so missed the boat on the era when employers provided pensions, and even had permanent employees, and we have the misfortune to live in a country with a decidedly crappy retirement scheme. Yeah, $650 CDN a month is luxury!

What we do have is a fairly paid off home in Vancouver, which we hope to sell before the bubble pops.

We're looking at a) Brexit, and the aftermath of that mess; b) Trump, and the aftermath of that mess; c) climate change, and the aftermath of that mess; and d) the sense that the whole economic system could be reaching the point where the house of cards collapses.

So, two people, retired, modest income, a reasonable nest egg from a house sale, and one Canadian and one British passport, with criteria of: low housing and living costs, reasonably warm weather, good and affordable wine, decent health care, and some kind of interesting cultural environment.

We've looked at Montreal, a city that we love; Greece, on an island away from tourists; the south of France; and some of the lesser regions of the UK; and would love to hear from others in similar circumstances who have made the plunge.

The US has been ruled out for some pretty obvious reasons, as have any of the 'Stans.

So tell us Soylentils, where should we escape to?

Original Submission