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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Black Lives Matter has taken offense at police saying “Blue Lives Matter” and others who say “All Lives Matter,” but now a Wisconsin school is risking ire by branding a class on environmentalism “Green Lives Matter.”

The course at University of Wisconsin at Green Bay will encourage students to support the “environmental justice movement” by “the merging of civil rights and environmental concerns.” But even Scott Furlong, the dean of social sciences at the school, acknowledged that the class name plays on what has become a loaded term.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/01/green-lives-matter-college-course-title-has-some-critics-seeing-red.html

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The US Air Force today announced that its first operational squadron of F-35A Lightning II fighters is ready for combat duty. The announcement was made just a day into the five-month period that the Air Force had been given to reach operational levels with the 34th Fighter Squadron, based at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The "initial capability" declaration comes after two Air Force F-35As joined two Marine Corps F-35s at July's Royal International Air Tattoo at the United Kingdom's Fairford Royal Air Force base and after an accelerated pace of operational tests for the 34^th over the past few months. The first F-35A aircraft were delivered to the 34^th in September of last year. They've been modified several times after delivery, including getting software updates to the avionics that have eliminated some of the "instability" problems previously experienced (including radar system crashes that required reboots while in flight). Since the most recent software upgrades, the squadron has flown 88 individual aircraft sorties without a software problem, according to an Air Combat Command statement.

[...] However, as stealthy as it is, the F-35A currently has a limited punch. The aircraft won't be able to carry the full suite of weapons used by the F-16—the aircraft it is intended to replace—until 2020, when the Air Force begins accepting aircraft at full-rate production of 150 per year.

Eventually, the Air Force plans to purchase up to 1,800 F-35As at a final price tag of $100 million per aircraft (plus the buried costs of the long-delayed development of the aircraft). The total cost of the program to the US and its allies is expected to exceed $500 billion (~£375 billion).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The embattled biotech firm Theranos has introduced a new blood testing product, as its CEO deflected criticism of the company's previous blood tests:

Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes made an appearance at a scientific convention today, but it wasn't to allay the many concerns about the company's previous blood tests, the results of which were thrown out earlier this year. Holmes also chose not to address the federal criminal and civil investigations against her company, instead announcing a new Theranos product: a blood-testing kit that could serve as the successor to its controversial Edison machines.

Speaking at the the annual meeting for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Holmes said the new machine — called the Theranos Sample Processing Unit, or "miniLab" — was the size of a computer printer, and will be able to run a battery of tests on just 160 microliters of blood taken from a pricked finger. She showed clinical data that detailed 11 tests miniLab can run on blood samples, including one for the Zika virus, but the company says that it can run up to 40 tests. A source told The Wall Street Journal that so many tests could not be run on the same blood, and that patients would need to provide three or four samples.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is the sixth largest pharmaceutical company and Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) is a subsidiary of Alphabet. You may remember Verily from its big promises on delivering a Tricorder, glucose-monitoring contact lenses, and the "Google Baseline" study of human health in a standard population.

In his blog Dr. Lowe says:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/08/02/galvani-gsk-goes-bioelectronic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verily_Life_Sciences
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/07/not-so-verily

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/2/12275980/moon-express-private-mission-spaceflight-us-government

Private spaceflight company Moon Express will soon announce it has been granted regulatory approval by the US government to send a lunar lander to the surface of the Moon, according to a source familiar with the matter. If so, that means the company will be the first private company to have received permission from the government to send a vehicle beyond Earth orbit and on to another world.

Moon Express is a private spaceflight company with long-term hopes of mining the lunar surface. But in the short term, the company is focused on simply getting to the Moon first. The venture is developing the MX-1 — a 20-pound lunar lander designed to "hop" across the Moon's surface. MX-1 is in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, an international contest to send the first privately funded spacecraft to the Moon. In order to win that competition, Moon Express has to get its lander to the surface of the Moon before December 31st, 2017.

[...] Currently, there's no regulatory framework in place that allows the US government to oversee private missions beyond Earth orbit.

And that's a problem, since the US has to adhere to obligations set by the Outer Space Treaty — an international agreement that guides how nations conduct missions in space. Specifically, the US has to adequately oversee private missions to other planetary bodies, as well as ensure that companies don't violate planetary protection.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Tails Linux 2.5 is out (Aug 2, 2016).

Tails is a live system that aims to preserve your privacy and anonymity. It helps you to use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship almost anywhere you go and on any computer but leaving no trace unless you ask it to explicitly.

It is a complete operating system designed to be used from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card independently of the computer's original operating system. It is Free Software and based on Debian GNU/Linux.

Tails comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc

= Announcements:
https://tails.boum.org/news/version_2.5/index.en.html
https://twitter.com/Tails_live/status/760516381905448968
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/amnesia-news/2016-August/000110.html
https://twitter.com/torproject/status/760516806587117568

[Continues...]

takyon writes:

Niantic faces a class action lawsuit for encouraging trespassing on private property:

When Niantic released Pokemon Go, it randomly placed Pokémon, Pokéstops and Pokémon Gyms all over the world. Players of the game wander the real world and use smartphones to capture Pokemon, buy items and fight Pokemon Gym leaders.

"To create that immersive world, Niantic made unauthorized use of Plaintiff's and other Class members' property by placing Pokéstops and Pokémon gyms thereupon or nearby," said Jennifer Pafiti in the lawsuit. "In so doing, Niantic has encouraged Pokémon Go's millions of players to make unwanted incursions onto the properties of plaintiff, and other members of the class, a clear and ongoing invasion of their use and enjoyment of their land from which defendants have profited and continue to profit."

Due to the randomized placement of the Pokémon, Pokéstops and Pokémon Gyms, they have turned up in some unwanted locations such as in houses, cemeteries and museums. According to Jeffrey Marder, a man living in New Jersey, he received at least five unwelcome visitors that wanted access to his backyard to catch Pokémon within the first week of the game's launch.

"Plaintiff and other Class members have all suffered and will continue to suffer harm and damages as a result of Defendants' unlawful and wrongful conduct. A class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of this controversy," said Pafiti.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A protein is found to regulate cocaine-craving after withdrawal

Neuroscientists know that cocaine addiction and withdrawal rewire the brain. But figuring out how to disrupt those changes to treat addiction requires an extremely detailed understanding of how those changes occur. Now, in a paper published recently in Biological Psychiatry, researchers at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo have identified an important piece in the puzzle.

Led by David M. Dietz, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UB, the team has discovered that a protein in the brain's reward center, the nucleus accumbens, regulates genes that help drive the craving for cocaine after a period of withdrawal. [...] In the current experiments, laboratory animals self-administered cocaine and then experienced abstinence for seven days. After the abstinence period, the researchers saw increased expression of a protein called BRG1 and increased interaction between it and the transcription factor SMAD3.

"We noticed that this transcription factor, which was critical in mediating relapse-like behaviors, was also known to interact with a molecule like BRG1 in other cells in the body," explained Dietz. "We wanted to know if BRG1 and this transcription factor also interact following cocaine addiction and if those interactions helped regulate genes in these individuals." Cocaine not only changes the expression of BRG1, the UB researchers learned, but it also changes how BRG1 interacts with transcription factors known to be essential in mediating gene expression following cocaine use. "In this way, BRG1 facilitates how transcription factors regulate genes after cocaine use and withdrawal," said Dietz.

BRG1 in the Nucleus Accumbens Regulates Cocaine-Seeking Behavior (DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.04.020)

Original Submission

frojack writes:

Ars Technica reports on a paper in PNAS that suggests the use of fire might have paved the way for Tuberculosis to become the killer it has been over our entire history.

Living in close quarters in scarce shelters was probably bad enough. Adding smoke to irritate the lungs probably left everyone with a cough and a sore throat.

I've been in some of the places where TB stubbornly remained problematic well into the 70s. The Alaskan bush typically had poorly ventilated log cabins, with wood heating and lots of smoke. There is a limit to how much fresh air you want to let in when its 40 below for months on end.

This is a disease that preceded the white man, and history shows it was a problem before Seward bought the place from the Russians. The fight against Tuberculosis in Alaska was a long battle and the disease was a major problem into the early 1970s. In Southeast Alaska, the death rate from tuberculosis in 1932 was 1,302 per 100,000. since then, the rate Alaska Natives (the most impacted group) has declined from 653 per 100,000 in 1950 to merely three times the national average today. (9.2/100,000).

I suppose most of this is due to better medicine and vaccines. But at least some of has to do with modern housing and better heating systems.

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

"Wolverines!" was the battle-cry of the teen-aged guerilla group in the 1984 recruitment movie Red Dawn . Little guys taking on a hard task...

That's exactly what the tiny rocket company Vector Space Systems is doing. From their website:

For several years, Vector has been quietly developing a launch vehicle specifically designed for Micro Satellites weighing less than 50 kg. This is the only launch system dedicated to micro spacecraft and will allow you to launch your satellite when you want and to where you want.

It looks like that strategy is not a bad idea. Today Ars Technica (and others) are reporting that Vector has scored a contract with the Finnish company Iceye for 21 launches of Iceye's commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation.

From Ars Technica:

The two companies are already working together. According to Jim Cantrell, chief executive of Vector Space Systems, Saturday's test flight in Mojave, California, carried a prototype of an Iceye microsatellite core computing and communications systems to see if it would survive launch conditions (it did). Vector's sub-scale launcher, named the P-20, also tested some prototype upper stage engines.

The test will help Vector finalize design of its Wolverine rocket, which is based upon technology from Garvey Spacecraft Corporation. The two-stage rocket will be powered by liquid fuels, and it's made of all composites. Gross liftoff weight is 5 tons. Vector intends to offer small satellite companies the capability to launch within three months of demand into any desired orbit from Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska or Cape Canaveral in Florida. Launch costs will range from $2 million to $3 million (£1.5 to £2.2 million).

[Continues...]

n1 writes:

The United States launched multiple airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Libya on Monday, opening a new, more persistent front against the group at the request of the United Nations-backed government, Libyan and U.S. officials said.

Fayez Serraj, the head of Libya's U.N.-brokered presidency council, said in a televised statement that American warplanes attacked the IS bastion of Sirte on the Mediterranean in northern Libya. No U.S. ground forces will be deployed, he said.

The precision strikes, which targeted an Islamic State tank and vehicles, come amid growing concerns about the group's increased threat to Europe and its ability to inspire attacks across the region, even though its numbers have been shrinking because of attacks from local forces and allied international troops.

Source: Associated Press

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/08/01/massachusetts-equal-pay-comparable-work-baker-bill/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/08/01/3803836/massachusetts-equal-pay/

Original Submission

Snow writes:

From the Bitfinex.com homepage:

Investigating - Today we discovered a security breach that requires us to halt all trading on Bitfinex, as well as halt all digital token deposits to and withdrawals from Bitfinex.

We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen. We are undertaking a review to determine which users have been affected by the breach. While we conduct this initial investigation and secure our environment, bitfinex.com will be taken down and the maintenance page will be left up.

The theft is being reported to—and we are co-operating with—law enforcement.

As we account for individualized customer losses, we may need to settle open margin positions, associated financing, and/or collateral affected by the breach. Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC. We are taking this necessary accounting step to normalize account balances with the objective of resuming operations. We will look at various options to address customer losses later in the investigation. While we are halting all operations at this time, we can confirm that the breach was limited to bitcoin wallets; the other digital tokens traded on Bitfinex are unaffected.

The amount was posted in a reddit thread here: I can confirm that the loss from the hack stands at 119,756btc.

According to coindesk.com:

The price of bitcoin fell sharply today exacerbating an already ongoing decline as global market participants reacted to news that one of the largest digital currency exchanges had been hacked.

Earlier this afternoon, Hong Kong-based exchange Bitfinex halted trading after discovering a security breach, which included taking its website offline and pausing all withdrawals and deposits. Representatives from the exchange told CoinDesk engineers were seeking to uncover issues at press time, though the company had confirmed roughly 120,000 BTC (more than $60m) was lost or stolenvia social media.

In response, bitcoin prices fell to $560.16 by 19:30 UTC, $530 by 23:30 and $480 at press time, CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) data reveals.

This price was roughly 20% lower than the day's opening of $607.37 and 27% below the high of $658.28 reached on Saturday, 30th July, when the digital currency began pushing lower.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Researchers have pinpointed the approximate date and cause of extinction of woolly mammoths on St. Paul Island, Alaska:

While the Minoan culture on Crete was just beginning, woolly mammoths were disappearing from St. Paul Island, Alaska, according to an international team of scientists who have dated this extinction to 5,600 years ago.

[...] In this study, three different spores from fungi that grow on large animal dung were extracted from lake cores and used to determine when the mammoths were no longer on the island. Proxies in sediments from cores from a lake near the cave were used to determine the time of the demise of the mammoth population. [...] Sediment DNA from the lake cores showed the presence of mammoth DNA until 5,650 years ago, plus or minus 80 years. After that time, there is no mammoth DNA and so no mammoths on the island. The youngest of the newly dated mammoth remains' dates fall within the mammoth DNA range and the fungal spore dates as well.

[...] The island, which formed between 14,700 and 13,500 years ago rapidly shrank until 9,000 years ago and continued slowly shrinking until 6,000 years ago and now is only 42 square miles in area. [...] The shrinking of the island concentrated the mammoths in a smaller area and diminished available water. Pollen from the lake cores indicate that the area around the lake was denuded of vegetation by the mammoths. Like elephants today, when the water became cloudy and turgid, the mammoths probably dug holes nearby to obtain cleaner water. Both of these things increased erosion in the area and helped fill in the lake, decreasing the available water even more. After the extinction of the mammoths, the cores show that erosion stopped and vegetation returned to the area. In essence, the mammoths contributed to their own demise. The researchers note that this research "highlights freshwater limitation as an overlooked extinction driver and underscores the vulnerability of small island populations to environmental change, even in the absence of human influence."

Timing and causes of mid-Holocene mammoth extinction on St. Paul Island, Alaska (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1604903113)

Related: Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced

Original Submission

Leebert writes:

Business Insider is reporting that Apple is changing its implementation of the "pistol" emoji (🔫 \U0001F52B; "🔫") from a revolver to a toy water gun. According to Apple's announcement, the change will take effect with the release of iOS 10 this fall. Apple's announcement didn't explicitly mention the change or its rationale but the change is, predictably, ruffling some feathers.

Original Submission