SoylentNews

Phoenix666 writes:

With California in its fifth year of severe drought and many western states experiencing another year of unusually dry conditions, plants are stressed.

Agricultural crops, grasses and garden plants alike can get sick and die when factors such as drought and excess sun force them to work harder to survive.

Now, plants can better tolerate drought and other stressors with the help of natural microbes, University of Washington research has found. Specifically, plants that are given a dose of microbes stay green longer and are able to withstand drought conditions by growing more leaves and roots and using less water.

"Plants are less stressed if they have these natural microbes," said senior author Sharon Doty, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences. "They will help plants deal with environmental challenges, especially with climate change."

Reference: Zareen Khan, Hyungmin Rho, Andrea Firrincieli, Shang Han Hung, Virginia Luna, Oscar Masciarelli, Soo-Hyung Kim, Sharon L Doty. Growth enhancement and drought tolerance of hybrid poplar upon inoculation with endophyte consortia. Current Plant Biology, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.cpb.2016.08.001

It is very brown in California's Central Valley.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Two teams have separately achieved quantum teleportation over existing fiber networks:

[...] set-ups described in studies published in Nature Photonics journal could be seen as building blocks for a future "quantum internet". In one of the papers [DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.180] [DX], Dr Wolfgang Tittel and colleagues describe how they teleported the quantum state of a photon, or light particle, over 8.2km in the Canadian city of Calgary.

The process by which information - the quantum state of a photon - is teleported involves creating two photons at the University of Calgary (site B in the aerial photo). One of these photons is sent in a "classical" way along 11.1km of optical fibre to a building near Calgary City Hall (C in the photo), while the other remains behind at the university. Meanwhile, a photon is also sent to the City Hall site from site A (located in the neighbourhood of Manchester). This all results in the quantum state of the photon from site A being transferred to the photon which remained behind at the university (B) through quantum teleportation.

[...] In the other Nature Photonics study [DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.179] [DX], Qiang Zhang and Jian-Wei Pan from the University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai, used a different set-up to achieve teleportation over a 30km optical fibre network in the Chinese city of Hefei.

In 2012, Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna carried out quantum teleportation over 143km of free space between different Canary Islands. But Dr Tittel says his study uses a configuration that could serve as the benchmark for useful city-based quantum networks. Both studies demonstrate that teleportation works over several kilometres of the optical fibre used in metropolitan areas.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Having underemployed workers can lead to two outcomes that benefit an organization—creativity and commitment to the organization—according to a new study by management experts at Rice University, Chinese University of Hong Kong at Shenzhen and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Statistics have shown that a significant proportion of workers worldwide are underemployed or working at jobs that are below their capacity. Researchers have estimated that underemployment ranges from 17 percent to two-thirds of the workforce in Asia, Europe and North America, according to the study.

"Our results have important implications for managers," said study co-author Jing Zhou, the Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "Managers should not assume that employees will always respond negatively to their perception of being underemployed. Our results suggest that managers need to be vigilant in detecting perceptions of underemployment among employees.

"When managers notice that their employees feel underemployed, they should support employees' efforts to proactively change the boundaries or formal descriptions of their work tasks, such as changing the sequencing of the tasks, increasing the number of tasks that they do or enlarging the scope of the tasks," she said. "Because the perception of underemployment may be experienced by many employees, managers should provide support to sustain positive outcomes in these situations."

Not getting enough hours to qualify for benefits is a good thing?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have discovered a key mechanism that explains how compounds they're developing can suppress schizophrenia-like symptoms in mice without side effects.

On the basis of this discovery, reported this month in the journal Neuron, "we now have [a] much stronger understanding of the therapeutic potential and mechanism of action of compounds that are advancing to clinical development," said P. Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery.

An estimated 3 million Americans have schizophrenia, which is associated with excessive amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine in a part of the forebrain called the striatum.

Current medications reduce hallucinations and delusions, the hallmark of schizophrenia, by blocking dopamine receptors. But because they also block dopamine receptors in the cerebral cortex, they can worsen cognitive difficulties.

Daniel J. Foster, Jermaine M. Wilson, Daniel H. Remke, M. Suhaib Mahmood, M. Jashim Uddin, Jürgen Wess, Sachin Patel, Lawrence J. Marnett, Colleen M. Niswender, Carrie K. Jones, Zixiu Xiang, Craig W. Lindsley, Jerri M. Rook, P. Jeffrey Conn. Antipsychotic-like Effects of M4 Positive Allosteric Modulators Are Mediated by CB2 Receptor-Dependent Inhibition of Dopamine Release. Neuron, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.08.017

Good news for sufferers.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

University of Adelaide researchers have made a breakthrough in investigating salt tolerance in plants which could lead to new salt tolerant varieties of crops, and also answer unresolved questions in plant biology.

The researchers, also from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and in collaboration with the University's School of Medicine, have discovered that a protein known to control salt balance in animals works the same way in plants.

The research, published in the journal Plant Cell and Environment, found that in plants, as in animals, a group of proteins, a type of 'aquaporin', can transport salt ions as well as water.
...
The researchers believe these "double-barrelled" aquaporins may be the elusive proteins that let sodium ions─the toxic component of salt─in and out of plant roots. Since the early 1990s researchers have known that salt enters plant roots in saline conditions via pores in the membrane, but the identity of these pores has remained a mystery. This particular aquaporin is abundant on the surface of roots.

"We discovered that it has characteristics similar to the properties previously identified for the pores responsible for sodium ion transport," says co-lead author Dr Caitlin Byrt, Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine. "This finding opens new possibilities for modifying how plants respond to high salt and low water conditions."

Adjusting a plant species's uptake of salt could expand arable land or make use of salty water.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

My job was to examine blood lead data from our local Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint for spatial patterns, or neighborhood-level clusters of elevated levels, so we could quash the doubts of state officials and confirm our concerns. Unbeknownst to me, this research project would ultimately help blow the lid off the water crisis, vindicating months of activism and outcry by dedicated Flint residents.

As I ran the addresses through a precise parcel-level geocoding process and visually inspected individual blood lead levels, I was immediately struck by the disparity in the spatial pattern. It was obvious Flint children had become far more likely than out-county children to experience elevated blood lead when compared to two years prior.

How had the state so blatantly and callously disregarded such information? To me – a geographer trained extensively in geographic information science, or computer mapping – the answer was obvious upon hearing their unit of analysis: the ZIP code.

Their ZIP code data included people who appeared to live in Flint and receive Flint water but actually didn't, making the data much less accurate than it appeared.

ZIP codes – the bane of my existence as a geographer. They confused my childhood friends into believing they lived in an entirely different city. They add cachet to parts of our communities (think 90210) while generating skepticism toward others relegated to less sexy ZIP codes.

A tale to remind the scientists and technologists among us why it's important to do our jobs well.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The aptly named Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is remarkably Earth-like. Its diameter is only about 40% that of our planet, but Titan's nitrogen-rich, dense atmosphere and the geological activity at the moon's surface make comparisons between the two bodies inevitable.

This image, taken with the radar on the Cassini spacecraft, shows just how similar the features in Titan's surface are to Earth's landforms.

Aside from Earth, Titan is the only other body where we have found evidence of active erosion on a large scale. There are seas, lakes and rivers filled with liquid hydrocarbons – mainly methane and some ethane – that etch the moon's surface, in much the same way water erodes Earth's.

A striking example is Vid Flumina, the Nile-like, branching river system visible on the upper-left quadrant of the image. The river, in the moon's north polar region, flows into Ligeia Mare, a methane-rich sea that appears as a dark patch on the right side of the image.

Researchers in Italy and the US analysed Cassini radar observations from May 2013 and recently revealed that the narrow channels that branch off Vid Flumina are deep, steep-sided canyons filled with flowing hydrocarbons.

Do Titanians worry about too much oxygen in their atmosphere?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Chinese hackers have attacked Tesla electric cars from afar, using exploits that can activate brakes, unlock doors, and fold mirrors from up to 20 kilometres (12 miles) away while the cars are in motion.

Keen Security Lab senior researchers Sen Nie, Ling Liu, and Wen Lu, along with director Samuel Lv, demonstrated the hacks against a Tesla Model S P85 and 75D and say their efforts will work on multiple Tesla models.

The Shanghai, China-based hacking firm has withheld details of the world-first zero day attacks and privately disclosed the flaws to Tesla.

The firm worked on the attack for several months, eventually gaining access to the motor that moves the driver's seat, turning on indicators, opening the car's sunroof and activating window wipers.

The Chinese should not make Iron Man angry...

According to Ars Technica :

Tesla has already issued an over-the-air firmware patch to fix the situation.

Previous hacks of Tesla vehicles have required physical access to the car. The Keen attack exploited a bug in Tesla's Web browser, which required the vehicle to be connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot. This allowed the attackers to stage a "man-in-the-middle" attack, according to researchers. In a statement on the vulnerability, a Tesla spokesman said, "our realistic estimate is that the risk to our customers was very low, but this did not stop us from responding quickly." After Keen brought the vulnerability to Bugcrowd, the company managing Tesla's bug bounty program, it took just 10 days for Tesla to generate a fix.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The White Cliffs of Dover span England's southeastern coastline for 16 kilometers (10 miles) and reach as tall as 110 meters (350 feet) high. Facing the narrowest part of the English Channel, the cliffs have come to symbolize England since the time of Julius Caesar, often the first and last view travelers have of the country by sea.

The sheer cliffs are composed of white chalk, or calcite, made by coccolithophores – tiny, single-celled algae at the bottom of the marine food chain. Coccolithophores build hard, saucer-shaped calcite plates around themselves that sink and accumulate on the sea floor when the algae die, compacting and hardening into chalk. The White Cliffs' chalk was laid down in a shallow sea above present-day England almost 100 million years ago and thrust upward by movements of the Earth's crust.

Now, researchers outline in a new study the ocean conditions necessary for coccolithophores to flourish, conditions that likely allowed the White Cliffs to form nearly 100 million years ago. The new information comes from an unlikely source: a great bloom of coccolithophores in the Southern Ocean known as the Great Calcite Belt.
...
They found coccolithophores depend on concentrations of three key nutrients: nitrate, silicate, and iron. Diatoms need silicate to build glassy shells around themselves, so in areas where silicate was more abundant than nitrate, diatoms outcompeted coccolithophores. Coccolithophores, on the other hand, flourished where nitrate was more abundant than silicate. In these areas there was also enough iron for coccolithophores to thrive, but not enough for diatoms. Coccolithophores also grew better than most diatoms in low-iron regions, according to Balch.

Coccolithophores also flourish where different water masses diverge. At these boundaries, upwelling of deep water brings to the surface trace metals and nutrients coccolithophores need to survive, Balch said.

The upwelling of deep ocean water in the English Channel supplies the necessary nutrients for the lifeforms whose shells compress into chalk over time.

William M. Balch et al. "Factors regulating the Great Calcite Belt in the Southern Ocean and its biogeochemical significance", Global Biogeochemical Cycles (2016). DOI: 10.1002/2016GB005414

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/13/12890050/adblock-plus-now-sells-ads

A story at The Verge reveals the newest plan for the company behind Adblock Plus, they are entering the ad network business. In exchange for 20% of your revenue, you can get pre-approved ads that will show to users with acceptable ads enabled. While pitched as an easier alternative to the old process of getting ads approved, the ultimate goal is the same. Now, they will get a percentage of all acceptable ads though the program. The article points out that this is one big step closer to racketeering, as they are directly taking a 6% cut. Or, as the old gangsters would say, "would you rather pay me to keep 80% of something or keep 100% of nothing?"

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

People born without sight appear to solve math problems using visual areas of the brain.

A functional MRI study of 17 people blind since birth found that areas of visual cortex became active when the participants were asked to solve algebra problems, a team from Johns Hopkins reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"And as the equations get harder and harder, activity in these areas goes up in a blind person," says Marina Bedny, an author of the study and an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

In 19 sighted people doing the same problems, visual areas of the brain showed no increase in activity.

"That really suggests that yes, blind individuals appear to be doing math with their visual cortex," Bedny says.

Can they reduce math phobia while the subjects are in the MRI machines?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Fujitsu Laboratories and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI today announced the development of a new method to simultaneously convert the wavelengths of wavelength-division-multiplexed signals necessary for optical communication relay nodes in future wavelength-division-multiplexed optical networks, and have successfully tested the method using high-bandwidth signal transmission in the range of 1 Tbps.

In the conventional optical wavelength conversion method each individual optical wavelength is converted into an electrical signal and re-transmitted at a new wavelength, which is impractical for terabit-class processing as each wavelength requires its own O/E/O [Optical/Electrical/Optical] circuit. Using the new technology, the optical wavelength conversion and the polarization state are controlled at the same time, so simultaneous wavelength conversion of wide-band optical signals can be achieved without restrictions on the wavelengths of the optical input signal or the modulation formats. As a result, processing can be achieved with a single wavelength converter, regardless of the number of wavelengths multiplexed. Therefore, considering optical signals in excess of 1 Tbps multiplexed from ten wavelengths, for example, the new method can process them using just one-tenth of the power or less compared to previous technologies that required a separate circuit to convert each wavelength into an electrical signal and back.

The researchers assert the method will boost signal throughput.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A wildfire burning at a central California Air Force base on Sunday forced the postponement of a satellite launch, officials said.

An Atlas 5 rocket was to carry a satellite known as WorldView-4 into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellite is designed to produce high-resolution images of Earth from space.

The fire burning in a remote canyon didn't immediately threaten the space launch complex, Col. Paul Nosek said on the base's Facebook page. But he said firefighters needed to be redeployed from stand-by at the launch because of the blaze.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Researchers have found a skeleton on the Antikythera shipwreck and will attempt to extract DNA from it:

The researchers are on the tiny Greek island of Antikythera, a 10-minute boat ride from the wreckage of a 2,000-year-old merchant ship. Discovered by sponge divers in 1900, the wreck was the first ever investigated by archaeologists. Its most famous bounty to date has been a surprisingly sophisticated clockwork device that modelled the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets in the sky — dubbed the 'Antikythera mechanism'. But on 31 August this year, investigators made another groundbreaking discovery: a human skeleton, buried under around half a metre of pottery sherds and sand. "We're thrilled," says Brendan Foley, an underwater archaeologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and co-director of the excavations team. "We don't know of anything else like it."

[...] The skeleton uncovered in August consists of a partial skull with three teeth, two arm bones, several rib pieces and two femurs, all apparently from the same person. Foley's team plans further excavations to see whether more bones are still under the sand. That so many individuals have been found at Antikythera — when most wrecks yield none — may be partly because few other wrecks have been as exhaustively investigated. But the researchers think it also reveals something about how the ship sank. This was a huge vessel for its time, perhaps more than 40 metres long, says Foley, with multiple decks and many people on board. The wreck is close to shore, at the foot of the island's steep cliffs. He concludes that a storm smashed the ship against the rocks so that it broke up and sank before people had a chance to react. "We think it was such a violent wrecking event, people got trapped below decks."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When Australia's federal government finally revealed who had been given money to help pay for metadata retention efforts The Register was surprised to see eight Universities on the list.

So we've asked around and figured out why.

Universities have a metadata retention obligation thanks to the Section 187B(a) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015 which explains that service providers other than carriers and ISPs don't have to retain metadata the comms service they provide: (i)  is provided only to a person's immediate circle (within the meaning of section 23 of the Telecommunications Act 1997); or (ii)  is provided only to places that, under section 36 of that Act, are all in the same area; and

"Immediate circle" includes staff and students, so WiFi for students doesn't create a metadata retention obligation for the university, although of course the University's internet service provider does have that obligation.

Anne Kealley, CEO of the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT), told The Register that entities like a campus bookstore or privately-funded research outfit with on-campus offices fall outside the immediate circle. That kind of outfit often resides in university buildings and has little alternative other than to use university-provided telephony services. Contractors and charities are also beyond the immediate circle. And so are services like email accounts provided to alumni.

Hence Universities' metadata retention obligations.

[...] Australia has 43 accredited universities. It is unclear how many had no metadata retention obligations and how many found ways to avoid those obligations.

Original Submission