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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Chemists are dreamers. Every day, they imagine molecules floating in space, with atoms moving about in a stately dance. They spin the structures mentally to examine them from all angles, perhaps twisting each molecule until a bond pops open and another snaps into place.

Such movies play inside the minds of most chemists because they offer a way to visualize how reactions happen. "The unifying thought experiment across all disciplines of chemistry is to imagine atoms moving in real time," says Dwayne Miller, a physical chemist at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany, and the University of Toronto in Canada. "This is a dream the entire field has."

Chemists have been dreaming like this for more than 150 years, ever since the idea of molecular structure was first conceived. But now these fantasies are becoming a reality. Researchers are directing molecular movies in the lab using a range of techniques, most of which illuminate the scene with incredibly brief pulses of light or electrons. Some rely on the atomic precision of scanning tunnelling microscopes (STMs), whereas others use intense bursts of X-rays to reveal their target's structure.

Their goal is to film events that take place in picoseconds (ps, 10⁻¹² s) or femtoseconds (fs, 10⁻¹⁵ s), with atoms moving mere picometres (a hydrogen atom is roughly 100 pm in diameter). At this resolution, researchers can for the first time directly observe a molecule writhing in slow motion, atomic bonds vibrating and breaking, or even electrons washing back and forth. As these techniques become more mainstream, the pay-offs could be huge. They could provide crucial information that leads to better catalysts, artificial forms of photosynthesis or new ways to manipulate the quantum properties of molecules for computing and communication.

-- submitted from IRC

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Startup OtoSense is working with major automakers on software that could give cars their own sense of hearing to diagnose themselves before any problem gets too expensive. The technology could also help human-driven and automated vehicles stay safe, for example by listening for emergency sirens or sounds indicating road surface quality.

OtoSense has developed machine-learning software that can be trained to identify specific noises, including subtle changes in an engine or a vehicle's brakes. French automaker PSA Group, owner of brands including Citroen and Peugeot, is testing a version of the software trained using thousands of sounds from its different vehicle models.

Under a project dubbed AudioHound, OtoSense has developed a prototype tablet app that a technician or even car owner could use to record audio for automated diagnosis, says Guillaume Catusseau, who works on vehicle noise in PSA's R&D department.

Tests have shown that the system can identify unwanted noises from the engine, HVAC system, wheels, and other components. It makes the correct diagnosis 95 percent of the time. Catusseau says PSA is now considering how what he dubs a "bionic ear" could be deployed to speed up repairs and make customers happier. "Buzz, squeak, or rattle is a great concern for car owners," he says. "The customer will perceive the vehicle as being of low quality, [and] this can affect repurchase intent."

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

In 2006, Greenpeace published a hard-hitting report called "Eating up the Amazon", showing that soy had become a serious driver of deforestation. The NGO accused fast food restaurants, supermarkets and agribusiness, of a "forest crime" for their failure to responsibly manage the 4,000-mile soy supply chain that started with the clearing of virgin Amazon forest and ended in U.S. poultry, pork, and beef feedlots, and on American and European dinner plates.

The story resonated with the international press. McDonalds, Walmart and other big transnational food corporations sought a way to shine up a tarnished public image. In a hasty attempt at damage control, they contacted the big grain traders, including Cargill and Bunge, and began talks with Greenpeace.

The result: the Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM), the first major voluntary zero-deforestation agreement achieved in the tropics. In the pact, 90 percent of companies in the Brazilian soy market agreed not to purchase soy grown on land deforested after 2006 within the Amazon biome, and also to blacklist farmers using slave labor.

[...] The question today: has the ASM truly played a key role in stemming Amazon deforestation, and was it ever designed to achieve that result? Or has it largely served as an industry PR tool that distracts global consumers from the environmental and social harm being done by large-scale Brazilian soy plantations?

https://news.mongabay.com/2017/03/amazon-soy-moratorium-defeating-deforestation-or-greenwash-diversion/

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory report that an ingestible electronic capsule, complete with a capsule-sized antenna capable of receiving a radio signal wirelessly, can safely power a device in the gastrointestinal tract in preclinical models. The new work makes wireless medical electronics for treating the gastrointestinal tract one step closer to reality.

[...] This work describes the first example of remote, wireless transfer of power to a system in the stomach in a large preclinical animal model -- a critical step toward bringing these devices into the clinic," said co-corresponding author Carlo "Gio" Traverso, MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at BWH.

Other medical devices -- such as cochlear implants or neural probes - use a well-established technique known as near-field coupling to deliver power wirelessly. But ingestible devices must be small enough to be swallowed and, moreover, lie a significant distance from the surface of the body, making this technique unattainable for most gastrointestinal electronics. A new technique known as mid-field coupling provides an alternative way to deliver power to deeply implanted devices. Mid-field coupling operates at higher frequencies to deliver power two to three times more efficiently.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Free Malaysia Today reports

At the [Malaysian] National Scholastic Chess Championship 2017, which took place in Putrajaya recently, the girl was informed that what she wore was "improper and had violated the dress code" for the tournament.

[...] The girl's chess coach, Kaushal Khandhar, wrote on Facebook, "In the middle of Round 2, (without stopping the clocks) Chief Arbiter informs my student that the dress she wore was improper and violated the dress code of the tournament.

"It was later informed (by Chief Arbiter) to my student and her mother, that the Tournament Director deemed my student's dress to be 'seductive' and a 'temptation from a certain angle far, far away'."

[...] Kaushal said after discussions with the chief arbiter, the girl was allowed to compete, provided she bought a pair of slacks for the next day, but that decision came at 10pm and with the event at Putrajaya, there was no way the girl's mother could buy anything for the 9am start the next day.

"Before the morning round next day, my student's mother called the tournament director regarding this matter. Initially he had replied that he was not aware of the situation but after a brief discussion, we realised he knew all the details on this incident prior to this phone call.

"He promised to return the call upon discussion with the chief arbiter, but this did not happen. He would further not answer or return any calls by my student's mother", Kaushal wrote, adding that the situation led to the inevitable decision of withdrawal from the tournament altogether."

We should perhaps note here that Malaysia is majority-Muslim.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

It's time out for Wikipedia in Turkey:

If you try to open Wikipedia in Turkey right now, you'll turn up a swirling loading icon, then a message that the server timed out.

Turkey has blocked Wikipedia. If you're inside the country, you can only access the online encyclopedia through a virtual private network connection to a system outside the country.

Turkish officials reportedly asked the online encyclopedia to remove content by writers "supporting terror."

Wikipedia "has started acting as part of the circles who carry out a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena, rather than being cooperative in fight against terror," ministry officials said, according to Al Jazeera. It tried to show Turkey "at the same level and in cooperation with terror groups."

Other coverage: https://turkeyblocks.org/2017/04/29/wikipedia-blocked-turkey/
http://aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/turkey-wikipedia-blocked-for-disregarding-the-law/808072

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SK Hynix is almost ready to produce GDDR6 memory with higher than expected per-pin bandwidth:

In a surprising move, SK Hynix has announced its first memory chips based on the yet-unpublished GDDR6 standard. The new DRAM devices for video cards have capacity of 8 Gb and run at 16 Gbps per pin data rate, which is significantly higher than both standard GDDR5 and Micron's unique GDDR5X format. SK Hynix plans to produce its GDDR6 ICs in volume by early 2018.

GDDR5 memory has been used for top-of-the-range video cards for over seven years, since summer 2008 to present. Throughout its active lifespan, GDDR5 increased its data rate by over two times, from 3.6 Gbps to 9 Gbps, whereas its per chip capacities increased by 16 times from 512 Mb to 8 Gb. In fact, numerous high-end graphics cards, such as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 and 1070, still rely on the GDDR5 technology, which is not going anywhere even after the launch of Micron's GDDR5X with up to 12 Gbps data rate per pin in 2016. As it appears, GDDR6 will be used for high-end graphics cards starting in 2018, just two years after the introduction of GDDR5X.

Previously: Samsung Announces Mass Production of HBM2 DRAM
DDR5 Standard to be Finalized by JEDEC in 2018

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SpaceX will attempt to launch a spy satellite for the first time on Sunday, breaking a 10-year United Launch Alliance monopoly on classified U.S. launches.

The two-hour launch window opens at 7:00 a.m. EDT (11:00 UTC), with a backup launch window the next day at the same time. SpaceX will attempt to recover the first stage rocket.

Also at NASASpaceFlight and The Verge. Falcon Heavy test firing begins soon.

[UPDATE 1: The launch is being live-streamed on YouTube . --martyb]

[UPDATE 2: Launch was scrubbed at T minus 1 minute due to "a sensor issue on the first stage" — launch now scheduled for same time tomorrow: Monday, May 1, 2017 at 0700 EDT / 1100 UTC. --martyb]

[UPDATE 3: The Monday launch is being live-streamed on YouTube. --martyb]

[UPDATE 4: The launch took place at 07:15 AM EDT (11:15 AM UTC). Launch was successful and the first stage booster had a successful return and landing at Landing Zone 1 near the launch site. --martyb]

Original Submission

a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- writes:

The continuing developments over Russian hackers, including the unfolding details of the yahoo breech includes the U.S. indicting agents of the Russian computer crime unit.

Mike Eckel, of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, notes that 3 of the FBI's cyber most wanted include Sushchin, Dokuchaev, and Belan, all who are noted to have worked with the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, ostensibly to catch cybercriminals, while committing crimes themselves, and using their connections to evade detection.

Dokuchayev, with whom the Americans met with during their 2009 meetings in Moscow, was once well-known in cybercircles under the nickname Forb. He worked with other FSB officers, including one named Igor Sushchin, to recruit hackers to cooperate with the Russian agency on cyberactivities. Among the recruits was Aleksei Belan, who has been wanted by the FBI since 2012 for alleged hacking and computer fraud.

[...] In March, Dokuchayev's name surfaced again when the U.S. Justice Department announced his indictment, and that of FSB officer Sushchin, in connection with the massive data breach at the Internet company Yahoo. Mikhailov's name does not appear in the indictments, although cyberexperts believe someone identified only as "FSB Officer 3" is, in fact, Mikhailov. Sushchin, according to the indictment, worked as an undercover officer at the investment bank Renaissance Capital.

Part of the problem may be with how Russia uses and recruits cybercriminals from time to time:

"Moscow still depends, to a considerable extent, on recruiting cybercriminals, or simply calling on them from time to time, in return for their continued freedom," Mark Galeotti, a Prague-based expert on Russian intelligence agencies, wrote in a report published on April 18."

"This all -- this all is a mess," Vrublevsky told RFE/RL. "And it's a mess to be dealt with in both countries. The sooner the better."

https://www.rferl.org/a/cyber-crime-us-russia-cooperation-mess/28459178.html

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

Popular Science tells the story of proposed legislation which would provide that (quoted from the bill)

The article seems to imply a broader ban, saying

The bill, it says, is motivated by studies indicating that oxybenzone (also known as benzophenone-3), can harm coral.

Related Stories:
Sunscreen: Coral Reef Killer?
Cloud Solution Proposed for Coral Bleaching
Severe Bleaching Hits the Great Barrier Reef for Second Year in a Row
Rising Global Temperatures and El Niño are Contributing to Coral Reef Loss
Great Barrier Reef Experiencing Worst Bleaching on Record

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

The Vancouver Sun reports that a Kamloops BC Yellow Cab company is threatening to outsource their dispatch operation to Pakistan. They blame the ruling Liberal government who, in a flurry of pre-election giveaways, decided to let Uber open shop in the province.

In a telephone interview with KTW from Pakistan, from where he emigrated decades ago, [Abdul] Rasheed placed blame at the foot of Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone, the province's transportation minister for the past four years.

The B.C. Liberals have pledged to bring in legislation and measures so ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft can operate legally before Christmas.

"Looking at that, I knew a small company like us can't survive a multi-billion company," Rasheed said, noting he is forced to look at his costs. "We're looking at all infrastructure," he said. "Overhead is high."

The Liberals have promised measures to help taxi companies compete with ride-sharing firms, including putting in $1 million to develop a competing smartphone app and attempting to level the playing field for insurance and driver qualification.

Some night dispatch for Kamloops Yellow Cabs is now being done out of Pakistan, what Rasheed, who is in the South Asian country working on the program, called it an experiment to determine if it is practical.

There are about four dispatchers who work for Yellow Cabs.

Original Submission

Lagg writes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/us/politics/nsa-surveillance-terrorism-privacy.html

The National Security Agency said Friday that it had halted one of the most disputed practices of its warrantless surveillance program, ending a once-secret form of wiretapping that dates to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 expansion of national security powers.

The agency is no longer collecting Americans' emails and texts exchanged with people overseas that simply mention identifying terms — like email addresses — for foreigners whom the agency is spying on, but are neither to nor from those targets.

The decision is a major development in American surveillance policy. Privacy advocates have argued that the practice skirted or overstepped the Fourth Amendment.

The change is unrelated to the surveillance imbroglio over the investigations into Russia and the Trump campaign, according to officials familiar with the matter. Rather, it stemmed from a discovery that N.S.A. analysts had violated rules imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court barring any searching for Americans' information in certain messages captured through such wiretapping.

Though I'm personally wondering why now.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/paper-about-how-microplastics-harm-fish-should-be-retracted-report-says

It took more then 10 months, but today the scientists who blew the whistle on a paper in Science about the dangers of microplastics for fish have been vindicated. An expert group at Sweden's Central Ethical Review Board (CEPN) has concluded that the paper's authors, Oona Lönnstedt and Peter Eklöv of Uppsala University (UU), committed "scientific dishonesty" and says that Science should retract the paper, which appeared in June 2016.

Science published an editorial expression of concern [DOI: 10.1126/science.aah6990] [DX]—which signals that a paper has come under suspicion—on 3 December 2016, and deputy editor Andrew Sugden says a retraction statement is now in preparation. (Science's news department, which works independently of the journal's editorial side, published a feature about the case in March.)

The report comes as a "huge relief," says UU's Josefin Sundin, one of seven researchers in five countries who claimed the paper contained fabricated data shortly after it came out.

Related: Study Demonstrates Harm to Fish Caused by Microplastics (oops)

Original Submission

mcgrew writes:

The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis was the "first US science fiction dime novel" despite the fact that it's short of today's novel's length by ten thousand words. The cover states "The American Novel" at the top and the title and author at the bottom of the cover. It was one hundred fifty years old in 2015, having been published in 1865.

The story is about a primitive steam-powered ten foot tall android. It tells a tale of a teenaged genius boy, dwarfed and hunchbacked, named Johnny Brainerd; a large, wealthy trapper named Baldy Bicknell; an Irishman named Micky McSquizzle; and a Connecticut Yankee named Ethan Hopkins.

It's an entertaining little book, with those mostly curiously named characters. Micky McSquizzle is an Irishman, and "Mick" used to be a derogatory word for those of that nationality. You have to remember that a century and a half ago, racism was far worse than any time in the next century or beyond. Everybody hated everybody back then. The Irish, Chinese, in fact all foreigners and those who looked or sounded foreign. Indigenous Americans (there are no native Americans, the original inhabitants of the Americas came here ten thousand years ago on the Siberia-Alaska land bridge) were hated more than any other race or nationality. Despite the racism of the time, the characters get along well, except when at one point the Yankee and the Irishman nearly come to blows over a trifling matter. Much of the story concerns battles with "red-skins", who history says were treated horribly by the European immigrants.

takyon writes:

Dark web sites don't link to each other very often:

Researchers have just conducted a comprehensive mapping of the dark web and found that it's not much of a web at all. They started with a few central hubs in the ".onion" domain (sort of like .com on the surface web) and used an algorithm to crawl along links from site to site, finding only 7178 sites, connected to each other through 25,104 links. (Sites with no inbound links couldn't be counted.) Their key finding is that 87% of these dark web sites don't link to any other sites. The dark web is more of a set of "dark silos," they write in a preliminary paper posted on arXiv yesterday. Dark websites linked to surface websites and to other dark websites at the same rate, ruling out dark sites' ephemerality as an explanation for their scant interconnections.

Original Submission