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An Anonymous Coward writes:

A recall for EpiPens will now extend to Asia, Europe, North America, and South America:

Generic drugmaker Mylan NV said on Friday that its manufacturing partner for EpiPen devices had expanded a recall of the life-saving allergy shot in the United States and other markets.

The announcement comes a week after Mylan said it had recalled about 81,000 EpiPen devices in countries outside the United States following two reports of the company's allergy treatment failing to work in emergencies.

[Ed. Note: This recall is limited to some lot numbers distributed in late 2015 and early-to-mid 2016. More information at the US FDA website.]

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takyon writes:

https://torrentfreak.com/dmca-helps-youtube-avoid-up-to-1bn-in-royalties-per-year-study-claims-170330/

The safe harbor provisions of the DMCA allow Internet platforms to avoid liability for the infringements of their users. However, it also helps them avoid paying for content, critics say. A new study from the US which aims to put a value on the revenues lost claims that the sums are huge, potentially up to $1 billion per year on YouTube alone.

[...] Exactly how much money is at stake is rarely quantified but a new study from the Phoenix Center in Washington claims to do just that. The numbers cited in 'Safe Harbors and the Evolution of Music Retailing' by authors T. Randolph Beard, PhD, George S. Ford, PhD, and Michael Stern, PhD, are frankly enormous. "Music is vital to YouTube's platform and advertising revenues, accounting for 40% of its views. Yet, YouTube pays the recording industry well-below market rates for this heavy and on-demand use of music by relying on those 'safe harbor' provisions," the paper begins.

Citing figures from 2016 provided by IFPI, the study notes that 68 million global subscriptions to music services (priced as a result of regular licensing negotiations) generated $2 billion in revenues for artists and labels at around $0.008 per track play. On the other hand, the 900 million users of ad-based services (like YouTube) are said to generate just $634 million in revenues, paying the recording industry just $0.001 per play. "It's plainly a huge price difference for close substitutes," the paper notes.

What follows in the 20-page study is an economist-pleasing barrage of figures and theories that peak into what can only be described as an RIAA-friendly conclusion. As an on-demand music service, YouTube should be paying nearer the same kinds of royalties per spin as its subscription-based rivals do, the paper suggests. "More rational royalty policies would significantly and positively affect the recording industry, helping it recover from the devastating consequences of the Digital Age and outdated public policies affecting the industry," the paper notes.

http://www.phoenix-center.org/PolicyBulletin/PCPB41Final.pdf

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Phoenix666 writes:

Metal 3-D printing has enormous potential to revolutionize modern manufacturing. However, the most popular metal printing processes, which use lasers to fuse together fine metal powder, have their limitations. Parts produced using selective laser melting (SLM) and other powder-based metal techniques often end up with gaps or defects caused by a variety of factors.

To overcome the drawbacks of SLM, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers, along with collaborators at Worchester[sic] Polytechnic Institute , are taking a wholly new approach to metal 3-D printing with a process they call direct metal writing, in which semisolid metal is directly extruded from a nozzle. The metal is engineered to be a shear thinning material, which means it acts like a solid when standing still, but flows like a liquid when a force is applied.

[...]Instead of starting with metal powder, the direct metal writing technique uses an ingot that is heated until it reaches a semi-solid state—solid metal particles are surrounded by a liquid metal, resulting in a paste-like behavior, then it's forced through a nozzle. The material is shear thinning because, when it's at rest, the solid metal particles clump up and cause the structure to be solid. As soon at the material moves, or is in shear, the solid particles break up and the system acts like the liquid matrix. It hardens as it cools, so there's less incorporated oxide and less residual stress in the part, the researchers explained.

[...]"The main issue was getting very tight control over the flow," said LLNL engineer Andy Pascall. "You need precise control of the temperature. How you stir it, how fast you stir it, all makes a difference. If you can get the flow properties right, then you really have something. What we've done is really understand the way the material is flowing through the nozzle. Now we've gotten such good control that we can print self-supporting structures. That's never been done before."

More information: Wen Chen et al. Direct metal writing: Controlling the rheology through microstructure, Applied Physics Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1063/1.4977555

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Phoenix666 writes:

When spring arrives in the Arctic, both snow and sea ice melt, forming melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice. Every year, as global warming increases, there are more and larger melt ponds.

Melt ponds provide more light and heat for the ice and the underlying water, but now it turns out that they may also have a more direct and potentially important influence on life in the Arctic waters.

Mats of algae and bacteria can evolve in the melt ponds, which can provide food for marine creatures. This is the conclusion of researchers in the periodical, Polar Biology.

More information:
Heidi Louise Sørensen et al. Nutrient availability limits biological production in Arctic sea ice melt ponds, Polar Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00300-017-2082-7

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takyon writes:

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has found that solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping away most of the Martian atmosphere, and that the rate of atmosphere loss was higher earlier in the history of the solar system:

Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world, according to new results from NASA's MAVEN spacecraft. "We've determined that most of the gas ever present in the Mars atmosphere has been lost to space," said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), University of Colorado in Boulder. The team made this determination from the latest results, which reveal that about 65 percent of the argon that was ever in the atmosphere has been lost to space. Jakosky is lead author of a paper on this research to be published in Science on Friday, March 31.

In 2015, MAVEN team members previously announced results that showed atmospheric gas is being lost to space today and described how atmosphere is stripped away. The present analysis uses measurements of today's atmosphere for the first estimate of how much gas was lost through time. Liquid water, essential for life, is not stable on Mars' surface today because the atmosphere is too cold and thin to support it. However, evidence such as features resembling dry riverbeds and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water indicates the ancient Martian climate was much different – warm enough for water to flow on the surface for extended periods.

It's time to stop it.

YouTube video attached to the article, and infographic. Also at University of Colorado Boulder.

Mars' atmospheric history derived from upper-atmosphere measurements of ³⁸Ar/³⁶Ar (DOI: 10.1126/science.aai7721) (DX)

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Fnord666 writes:

Two Bay Area tech executives are accused of filing false visa documents through a staffing agency in a scheme to illegally bring a pool of foreign tech workers into the United States.

An indictment from a federal grand jury unsealed on Friday accuses Jayavel Murugan, Dynasoft Synergy's chief executive officer, and a 40-year-old Santa Clara man, Syed Nawaz, of fraudulently submitting H-1B applications in an effort to illegally obtain visas, according to Brian Stretch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California.

The men are charged with 26 counts of visa fraud, conspiracy to commit visa fraud, use of false documents, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to prosecutors. Each charge can carry penalties of between two and 20 years in prison.

Murugan, 46, is co-owner of Dynasoft, an employment firm based in Fremont with an office in India, according to the indictment. Nawaz is believed to have worked for several Bay Area tech companies, including Cisco, Brocade Communications and Equinix.

Prosecutors say the men used fraudulent documents to bring workers into the U.S. and create a pool of H-1B workers to hire out to tech companies. The indictment charges that from 2010 to 2016, Dynasoft petitioned to place workers at Stanford University, Cisco and Brocade, but the employers had no intention of receiving the foreign workers named on the applications.

Source: The Mercury News

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takyon writes:

Amazon is shutting down several websites it acquired when it bought Quidsi. Quidsi's co-founder went on to launch an Amazon competitor which he sold to Walmart for $3.3 billion:

Amazon said on Wednesday that it is shutting down Quidsi, one of its largest-ever acquisitions, which runs six shopping sites, including Diapers.com, Soap.com and Wag.com. The shutdown will result in layoffs of 263 people, according to a New Jersey state filing. But Bloomberg, which first reported the news, said some of these employees would be able to apply for new positions at Amazon. In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson blamed the shutdown on profitability issues.

[...] Quidsi's co-founder and then-CEO Marc Lore worked at Amazon for a few years following the deal, but it is an open secret in the industry that he did not enjoy his time there. He went on to launch an Amazon competitor, Jet.com, in 2015, which he sold last year to Walmart for $3.3 billion.

Lore now runs all U.S. e-commerce operations for Walmart, Amazon's biggest competitor stateside. Last week, he told me in an onstage interview at Code Commerce that his long-term goal for Walmart is to win the U.S. e-commerce battle. I asked him if that means being the No. 2 player behind Amazon, since the Seattle giant has such a huge lead. "Win means win," Lore said.

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takyon writes:

Scientists have created a device called "EVATAR" that can mimic the human female reproductive cycle, culminating in the release of an egg:

Scientists say they've made a device in the lab that can mimic the human female reproductive cycle.

The researchers hope the device, assembled from living tissue, will lead to new treatments for many medical problems that plague some women, ranging from fibroids and endometriosis to infertility, miscarriages and gynecologic cancers.

The researchers described [open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14584] [DX] the device Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications and dubbed it the EVATAR. The name, they say, is a play on the word "avatar." "An avatar is kind of a digital representation of an individual in a virtual environment," says Teresa Woodruff, a biomedical engineer in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University who helped create the system. "So when we thought about this synthetic version of the female reproductive tract we thought of the word EVATAR."

To create the EVATAR, the researchers used tissues from human fallopian tubes, a uterus and cervix donated by women who had undergone surgery. The researchers placed each tissue type in separate plastic chambers that were connected through passageways that allows fluid to circulate among them. One chamber contained ovarian tissue from mice because human ovarian tissue is difficult to obtain.

The device is about the size of a paperback book. It also includes human liver tissue to filter toxins from the system. The researchers were able to trigger the system to produce the cascade of hormones that usually occur during a woman's 28-day reproductive cycle. The cycle culminated in the ovarian tissue releasing an egg. "We were able to recapitulate the full menstrual cycle — a complete menstrual cycle," Woodruff says.

[...] In the meantime, the Northwestern researchers have already started to work on a male equivalent of the EVATAR. They've created a system involving male testes and prostate tissue they call the "Dude Cube." They are working on a more complex system that would connect the Dude Tube to other parts of the anatomy — a system they dub the "ADATAR."

Step 1: Pretend you are researching infertility treatments. Step 2: ???. Step 3: Begin production of artificial wombs.

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takyon writes:

Corsair has released its first Vengeance RGB DRAM modules, which come with heat spreaders that feature LED lighting that can be controlled by Corsair Link software or GIGABYTE'S RGB Fusion app:

Corsair last week started to sell its first Vengeance RGB memory modules, equipped with full sets of RGB LEDs that can change their colors using OS software. Right now Corsair offers DDR4-2666 and DDR4-3000 modules, but eventually we expect the Vengeance RGB lineup will be expanded.

Just like other Vengeance memory modules, the Vengeance RGB DIMMs are based on Corsair's custom PCBs as well as preselected ICs. The modules come with aluminum heat spreaders featuring RGB LEDs that can change colors dynamically using the Corsair Link software, allowing users to synchronize colors of RGB lighting of their DIMMs and specific motherboard brands. Lighting of each module can be controlled separately as well. The lighting of the Vengeance RGB can also be controlled using GIGABYTE's RGB Fusion app and Corsair states that eventually other producers of LED-controlling software are expected to follow.

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takyon writes:

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is testing probes intended for use on Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and other icy moons:

Want to go ice fishing on Jupiter's moon Europa? There's no promising you'll catch anything, but a new set of robotic prototypes could help. Since 2015, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been developing new technologies for use on future missions to ocean worlds. That includes a subsurface probe that could burrow through miles of ice, taking samples along the way; robotic arms that unfold to reach faraway objects; and a projectile launcher for even more distant samples.

All these technologies were developed as part of the Ocean Worlds Mobility and Sensing study, a research project funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. Each prototype focuses on obtaining samples from the surface -- or below the surface -- of an icy moon.

"In the future, we want to answer the question of whether there's life on the moons of the outer planets -- on Europa, Enceladus and Titan," said Tom Cwik, who leads JPL's Space Technology Program. "We're working with NASA Headquarters to identify the specific systems we need to build now, so that in 10 or 15 years, they could be ready for a spacecraft."

Those systems would face a variety of challenging environments. Temperatures can reach hundreds of degrees below freezing. Rover wheels might cross ice that behaves like sand. On Europa, surfaces are bathed in radiation.

List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Business schools like to boast about how many of their graduates have become CEOs—Harvard especially, since it has the most. But how do these people do as CEOs: are the skills needed to perform there the same as those that get them there?

MBA students enter the prestigious business schools smart, determined, and often aggressive. There, case studies teach them how to pronounce cleverly on situations they know little about, while analytic techniques give them the impression that they can tackle any problem—no in-depth experience required. With graduation comes the confidence of having been to a proper business school, not to mention the "old boys" network that can boost them to the "top." Then what?

[...] Joseph Lampel and I studied the post-1990 records of all 19. How did they do? In a word, badly. A majority, 10, seemed clearly to have failed, meaning that their company went bankrupt, they were forced out of the CEO chair, a major merger backfired, and so on. The performance of another 4 we found to be questionable. Some of these 14 CEOs built up or turned around businesses, prominently and dramatically, only to see them weaken or collapse just as dramatically.

[...] Both sets of companies declined in performance after those cover stories—Miller commented later that "it's hard to stay on top"—but the ones headed by MBAs declined more quickly. This "performance gap remained significant even 7 years after the cover story appeared." The authors found that "the MBA degree is associated with expedients to achieve growth via acquisitions...[which showed] up in the form of reduced cash flows and inferior return on assets." Yet the compensation of the MBA CEOs increased, indeed about 15% faster than the others! Apparently they had learned how to play the "self-serving" game, which Miller referred to in a later interview as "costly rapid growth."

[...] MBA programs do well in training for the business functions, such as finance and marketing, if not for management. So why do they persist in promoting this education for management, which, according to mounting evidence, produces so much mismanagement?

The answer is unfortunately obvious: with so many of their graduates getting to the "top", why change? But there is another answer that is also becoming obvious: because at this top, too many of their graduates are corrupting the economy.

MBAs are good for you personally, but bad for companies, bad for the economy, and bad for the country.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Blue Origin has released photos of the crew capsule for its space tourism ride:

Private spaceflight company Blue Origin has released the first interior photos for the New Shepard, offering a glimpse at what the finished crew capsule will look like.

New Shepard is a reusable vehicle aimed at taking tourists to the edge of space, where they can float around weightless for a few minutes. The rocket has been successfully launched and landed five times already, but no people have ridden in the capsule yet. Blue Origin is planning to take its first paying customers to space by 2018, according to CEO Jeff Bezos.

The photos of New Shepard look quite different from the interior of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. But while the New Shepard focuses on tourism, the main purpose for Crew Dragon is to send astronauts to the International Space Station. (Though CEO Elon Musk recently announced that he plans to send two tourists around the moon in the spaceship in 2018.)

Also at Space.com. From the Blue Origin astronaut experience:

You'll also belong to an exclusive Blue Origin alumni network—a community of modern space pioneers. Make history with a suborbital flight, and you will receive early access to purchase tickets for our future orbital missions.

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charon writes:

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — Maine's state fire marshal says a man burned down his parents' house and killed three pets while trying to exterminate ants in his basement with matches.

Investigators say 21-year-old Devon Doucette was trying to incinerate the ants with wooden matches when one of them ignited combustible materials. The fire quickly spread to the rest of the house.

[...] Authorities say the fire killed two cats and one dog. They say charges are not likely.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

As wires of silver are made smaller and smaller, down to about 40 nanometers, they follow the expected trend: they get relatively stronger and more brittle. But earlier research by other scientists had shown that at even-more-extreme smallness—below 10 nanometers—silver does something weird. "It behaves like a Jello gelatin dessert," Sansoz say. "It becomes very soft when compressed, has very little strength, and slowly returns to its original shape."

Materials scientists hypothesize this happens because the crystals of silver are so small that most of their atoms are at the surface, with very few interior atoms. This allows diffusion of individual atoms from the surface to dominate the behavior of the metal instead of the cracking and slipping of organized lattices of atoms within. This causes these tiniest, but solid, silver crystals to have liquid-like behavior even at room temperature.

"So our question was: what's happening in the gap between 10 nanometers and 40 nanometers?" says Sansoz. "This is the first study to look at this range of diameters of nanowires."

[...] What the team of scientists found in the gap—using both an electron microscope and atomistic models on a supercomputer—is that "the two mechanisms coexist at the same time," Sansoz says. This gives silver wires in that little-explored zone both the strength of the "smaller-is-stronger" principle with the liquid-like weirdness of their smaller cousins. At this Goldilocks-like size, when defects form at the surface of the wire as it's pulled apart, "then diffusion comes in and heals the defect," Sansoz says. "So it just stretches and stretches and stretches—elongating up to two hundred percent."

More info: "Li Zhong et al. Slip-activated surface creep with room-temperature super-elongation in metallic nanocrystals," Nature Materials (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nmat4813."

There could be silver jello in your future.

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charon writes in with news of a story about dropped food from the Independent:

Food that has been dropped on the floor is usually safe to eat under the so-called "five-second rule", a scientist has said.

Germ expert Professor Anthony Hilton, from Aston University, said that although retrieving these morsels can never be completely without risk, there is little to be concerned about if the food is only there momentarily.

Professor Hilton will be demonstrating how the five-second rule works at The Big Bang Fair – a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people – which opens on Wednesday at the NEC in Birmingham.

He said: "Eating food that has spent a few moments on the floor can never be entirely risk-free. Obviously, food covered in visible dirt shouldn't be eaten, but as long as it's not obviously contaminated, the science shows that food is unlikely to have picked up harmful bacteria from a few seconds spent on an indoor floor."

Original Submission