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takyon writes:

Here's an achievement that will have bioethicists reaching for their banhammers: the recreation of the horsepox virus using DNA ordered in the mail (from a German company):

Eradicating smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in history, took humanity decades and cost billions of dollars. Bringing the scourge back would probably take a small scientific team with little specialized knowledge half a year and cost about $100,000.

That's one conclusion from an unusual and as-yet unpublished experiment performed last year by Canadian researchers. A group led by virologist David Evans of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says it has synthesized the horsepox virus, a relative of smallpox, from genetic pieces ordered in the mail. Horsepox is not known to harm humans—and like smallpox, researchers believe it no longer exists in nature; nor is it seen as a major agricultural threat. But the technique Evans used could be used to recreate smallpox, a horrific disease that was declared eradicated in 1980. "No question. If it's possible with horsepox, it's possible with smallpox," says virologist Gerd Sutter of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

Evans hopes the research—most of which was done by research associate Ryan Noyce—will help unravel the origins of a centuries-old smallpox vaccine and lead to new, better vaccines or even cancer therapeutics. Scientifically, the achievement isn't a big surprise. Researchers had assumed it would one day be possible to synthesize poxviruses since virologists assembled the much smaller poliovirus from scratch in 2002. But the new work—like the poliovirus reconstitutions before it—is raising troubling questions about how terrorists or rogue states could use modern biotechnology. Given that backdrop, the study marks "an important milestone, a proof of concept of what can be done with viral synthesis," says bioethicist Nicholas Evans—who's not related to David Evans—of the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.

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takyon writes:

A federal judge has ruled that Utah's ban on secretly filming farm and slaughterhouse operations is unconstitutional:

[U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby] rejected the state's defense of the law, saying Utah had failed to show the ban was intended to ensure the safety of animals and farm workers from disease or injury.

In his ruling, Shelby noted that one of the bill's sponsors in the state legislature, Rep. John Mathis, said the ban was a response to "a trend nationally of some propaganda groups ... with a stated objective of undoing animal agriculture in the United States." The judge noted that another sponsor, Sen. David Hinkins said it targeted "vegetarian people that [are] trying to kill the animal industry."

Ag-gag is a term used to describe a class of anti-whistleblower laws that apply within the agriculture industry.

Previously: Dairy Lobbyist Crafted Idaho's "Ag-Gag" Legislation
Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho's "Ag-Gag" Law

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cafebabe writes:

On a slow news day, the BBC "reports" some rules about a summer hit tune. In summary:

1. It has to be simple.
2. It should make you feel like you're on holiday.
3. Novelty is everything.
4. Radio-friendly songs make bigger hits.
5. It should be released before the summer.
6. But it should have the word "summer" in the title.

If simplicity and novelty are the most important then this summer's hit could be Beep! Beep! I'm A Sheep!

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday after months of talks in the face of strong opposition from nuclear-armed states and their allies. Only the Netherlands, which took part in the discussion, despite having US nuclear weapons on its territory, voted against the treaty.

All of the countries that bear nuclear arms and many others that either come under their protection or host weapons on their soil boycotted the negotiations. The most vocal critic of the discussions, the US, pointed to the escalation of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme as one reason to retain its nuclear capability. The UK did not attend the talks despite government claims to support multilateral disarmament.

[...] The 10-page treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons will be open for signatures from any UN member state on 20 September during the annual general assembly. While countries that possess nuclear weapons are not expected to sign up any time soon, supporters of the treaty believe it marks an important step towards a nuclear-free world by banning the weapons under international law.

[...] Previous UN treaties have been effective even when key nations have failed to sign up to them. The US did not sign up to the landmines treaty, but has completely aligned its landmines policy to comply nonetheless. “These kinds of treaties have an impact that forces countries to change their behaviour. It is not going to happen fast, but it does affect them,” Fihn said. “We have seen on all other weapons that prohibition comes first, and then elimination. This is taking the first step towards elimination.”

Under the new treaty, signatory states must agree not to develop, test, manufacture or possess nuclear weapons, or threaten to use them, or allow any nuclear arms to be stationed on their territory.

[...] Instead of scrapping their nuclear stocks, the UK and other nuclear powers want to strengthen the 1968 nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), a pact that aims to prevent the spread of the weapons outside the original five nuclear powers: the US, Russia, Britain, France and China. It requires countries to hold back from nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for a commitment from the nuclear powers to move towards nuclear disarmament and to provide access to peaceful nuclear energy technology. The new treaty reflects a frustration among non-nuclear states that the NPT has not worked as hoped.

-- submitted from IRC

For perspective, see the 14m25s video on YouTube: "1945-1998" by ISAO HASHIMOTO which depicts the over 2000 atomic bomb blasts that occurred within that period, with each month of time depicted in one second.

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mrpg writes:

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/07/06/malware-as-a-service-outfit-charged/

As Crackas With Attitude hacker "Incursio" got handed a 2-year prison sentence for gaining unauthorized access to government computers and online accounts of a number of US government officials (including then-CIA Director John Brennan), his hacking colleagues are either awaiting sentencing in the US or prosecution by the UK Crown Prosecution Service.

In the meantime, 18-year-old UK student Jack Chappell has been charged with running a web business supplying malware that was used to attack websites of companies like T-Mobile, Vodafone, BBC, BT, Amazon, Netflix, Virgin Media, NatWest, as well as that of the UK National Crime Agency.

According to the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit, Chappell supplied Denial of Service software and ran an online helpdesk for hackers as part of the operation.

Two Latvian men have also been charged this week for running a Malware-as-a-Service operation for over a decade.

Ruslans Bondars and Jurijs Martisevs allegedly developed various hacking software – malware toolkits, remote access Trojans, keyloggers, malware obfuscation kits – and offered it for sale through a hidden service accessible via the Tor network.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Velonews reports that a recent Tour de France stage was won by 5mm,
http://www.velonews.com/2017/07/tour-de-france/figure-won-stage-7_443075 which they convert to 0.0003 seconds. The article then goes on to describe the finish line camera:

The judges use a camera placed on the finish line that shoots at 10,000 frames per second. This allows them to confidently pick a winner even when differences are far too small to spot with the naked eye.
...
The cameras don’t work like a normal video camera though. They work more like a scanner.

Rather than shoot frames that are thousands of pixels wide using some sort of shutter and digital sensor (the modern replacement for film), the finish line camera is a slit camera. Old slit cameras run film behind a lens. In the timing camera’s case, the design exposes a digital sensor.

A flatbed scanner is a type of slit camera. So imagine pointing one of those at the finish line and scanning the riders coming across. Frame rates can be so high because there is no shutter to close and the cameras only record a one-pixel wide image at a time (10,000 times per second). This type of camera, pointed at a finish line, is guaranteed to show you who or what got to that finish line first, because it shows almost every moment. This is also the source of the distortion we associate with finish line photos. The scanner has a set speed, and anything going slower gets elongated — anything faster gets squished.

No shutter means nothing is missed (because shutters close, and you miss that part). That’s good when the riders are crossing the line .0003 seconds apart from each other.

Anyone know about this technology? Somehow the explanation above doesn't seem all that clear.

[Ed. addition] Maybe one of these recommendations by mrpg might help? https://gearpatrol.com/2016/07/21/tour-de-france-timed/
https://cyclingtips.com/2012/06/how-time-gaps-are-calculated/

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

As the Larsen C ice shelf moves closer to calving one of the largest icebergs on record, there are clear signs of changes in the part of the shelf which is about to calve. In late June 2017, the soon-to-be iceberg tripled in speed, producing the fastest flow speeds ever recorded on Larsen C, and seemed to be on the verge of breaking free.

The latest data from 6th July reveal that, in a release of built-up stresses, the rift branched several times. Using data from ESA’s Sentinel-1 satellites, we can see that there are multiple rift tips now within 5 km of the ice edge. We expect that these rifts will lead to the formation of several smaller icebergs, as well as the large iceberg which we estimate will have an area of 5,800 sq km. Despite this, the iceberg remains attached to the shelf by a thin band of ice. It is remarkable how the moment of calving is still keeping us waiting.

http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/multiple-branches/

There is a nice animation showing the rift growth since just last year: http://www.projectmidas.org/assets/rift_insar_animation_july.gif

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canopic jug writes:

After a two week survey period, Phoronix has published the results from their inaugural Linux Laptop Survey. There were 30,171 responses and while there may be some additional follow-up articles in the days/weeks ahead, the initial review has been published. One goal of the survey was to gather feedback about the current state of GNU/Linux hardware compatibility. Overall the situation is better than it was even a few years ago, but there are still many problems here and there. The situation is summed up in two pages, complete with diagrams, over at Phoronix.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

CHICAGO — To graduate from a public high school in Chicago, students will soon have to meet a new and unusual requirement: They must show that they’ve secured a job or received a letter of acceptance to college, a trade apprenticeship, a gap year program or the military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/chicago-wont-allow-high-school-students-to-graduate-without-a-plan-for-the-future/2017/07/03/ac197222-5111-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html

To make this stranger, all the students automatically meet this requirement since they are pre-approved for a community college:

A top CPS official also acknowledged, however, that every Chicago public high school graduate essentially already meets the new standard because graduation guarantees admittance to the City Colleges of Chicago community college system.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-rahm-emanuel-high-school-requirement-met-20170405-story.html

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canopic jug writes:

Benjamin Pollack has blogged about why he hates the proprietary chat tool, Slack, which competes with IRC. He covers six points as to why you should too:

"Yeah, that’s right: there’s finally something I feel so negatively about that I’m unsatisfied hating it all by myself; I want you to hate it, too. So let’s talk about why Slack is destroying your life, piece by piece, and why you should get rid of it immediately before its trail of destruction widens any further—in other words, while you still have time to stop the deluge of mindless addiction that it’s already staple-gunned to your life."

[Ed. addition] I had troubles accessing the site, even wget failed to download anything... but lynx.exe on Windows 7 Pro worked on the first try!?! For the curious, here are the six points from the blog post alluded to above:

1. It encourages use for both time-sensitive and time-insensitive communication
2. It cannot be sanely ignored
3. It cannot be sanely organized
4. It's proprietary and encourages lock-in
5. Its version of Markdown is just broken
6. It encourages use for both business and personal applications

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takyon writes:

A study using Cassini's radar observations of Titan's surface has estimated the roughness of its hydrocarbon lakes and seas:

The liquid-hydrocarbon lakes and seas on Titan are incredibly calm, suggesting that future missions to the huge Saturn moon could enjoy a smooth ride to the surface, a new study reports.

The waves rippling the three largest lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are tiny, according to the study — just 0.25 inches (1 centimeter) high by about 8 inches (20 cm) long.

"There's a lot of interest in one day sending probes to the lakes, and when that's done, you want to have a safe landing, and you don't want a lot of wind," study lead author Cyril Grima, a research associate at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), said in a statement. "Our study shows that because the waves aren't very high, the winds are likely low."

From older observations:

Calculations of the waves' height suggested they were a puny few centimetres high.

Another way to explore Titan would be to use winged drones or quadcopters, which would be capable of generating more lift than on Earth.

Also at University of Texas at Austin.

Surface roughness of Titan's hydrocarbon seas (DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2017.06.007) (DX)

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takyon writes:

The European Space Agency has shown off BepiColombo, a spacecraft containing a pair of Mercury orbiters that is expected to launch in October 2018 and arrive at Mercury in 2025:

After almost 20 years of development, the European Space Agency has finally unveiled the BepiColombo Mercury orbiters and confirmed the mission is on track for an October 2018 launch.

The 1.65-billion-euro mission, a joint venture between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is Europe's first attempt to enter the orbit around scorching Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.

[...] The 4,100-kilogram BepiColombo consists of two orbiters that will launch together — the ESA-managed Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the JAXA-owned Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). The two spacecraft will be delivered to the orbit around Mercury stacked on top of each other by the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). During the seven-year journey, the MMO will be shielded from the sun by the MMO Sunshield and Interface Structure (MOSIF), which will also serve as a mechanical and electrical interface between the two orbiters.

[...] BepiColombo will cover some 8.9 billion kilometers on its journey to Mercury, which it is expected to reach in December 2025.

ESA said Bepi Colombo[sic] features a more complex design than NASA's Messenger that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015. Bepi Colombo is expected to provide higher-resolution imagery than Messenger, ESA said. However, its mission is only expected to last one year with a possible one-year extension.

Also at The Guardian.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

AlterNet reports

On June 27, 2016, Jack and Peter DeCoster, former owners of a Quality Egg Co. (not kidding), were ordered to begin serving time in jail.

The pair previously had been sentenced to three months each in jail for their role in a salmonella poisoning outbreak in 2010. The culprits admitted to knowingly shipping eggs with false processing and expiration dates to fool state regulators and retail customers about their age, and to bribing a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspector at least twice to approve sales of poor-quality eggs.

In sentencing the egg operators, U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett said, "Given the defendants' careless oversight and repeated violations of safety standards, there is an increased likelihood that these offenses, or offenses like these, could happen again. The punishment will also serve to effectively deter against the marketing of unsafe foods and widespread harm to public health by similarly situated corporate officials and other executives in the industry." A "litany of shameful conduct" occurred under the DeCosters' watch, Judge Bennett told NBC News.

The Supreme Court refused¹ to hear an appeal.

[...] for consumers and honest egg producers, the sentences are both long overdue, and far too weak given Quality Egg's history, which includes at least 10 deaths and 500 people made ill from salmonella-infected eggs produced by the DeCoster-owned egg operations.

takyon writes:

Brown dwarfs may be as common as stars in the Milky Way galaxy, according to the astronomers behind a survey of a "nearby" star cluster:

It seems that for every star that ignites, there may be a failed star. A recent study by international researchers, including scientists at York University, found that the Milky Way may be home to 100 billion brown dwarfs — which matches the projected head count of 100 billion stars in our galaxy.

[...] The researchers performed an extensive survey of RCW 38, an ultra-dense star-forming cluster around 5,500 light-years away. Most stars that form in the region live fast, gain mass, and die young in a supernova explosion. But within the cluster, the researchers found the same ratio of brown dwarfs as in five other surveyed clusters going back to 2006, many without the same extreme conditions as RCW 38. In other words, there seems to be a fairly uniform distribution of brown dwarfs across the galaxy, regardless of environment.

"We've found a lot of brown dwarfs in these clusters. And whatever the cluster type, the brown dwarfs are really common," Alex Scholz, an astronomer at University of St. Andrews, said in a press release. "Brown dwarfs form alongside stars in clusters, so our work suggests there are a huge number of brown dwarfs out there."

Many nearby objects are brown dwarfs. Luhman 16, the third closest system to our own solar system, is comprised of two brown dwarfs about 6.6 light years away, yet was only discovered in 2013.

Also at the Royal Astronomical Society and Space.com.

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takyon writes:

Officials at the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, South Carolina say that a prisoner escaped by using wire cutters flown in by a drone:

A fugitive South Carolina inmate recaptured in Texas this week had chopped his way through a prison fence using wire cutters apparently dropped by a drone, prison officials said Friday. Jimmy Causey, 46, fled the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, S.C., on the evening of July 4th after leaving a paper mache doll in his bed to fool guards into thinking he was asleep. He was not discovered missing until Wednesday afternoon.

[...] The director said he and other officials have sought federal help for years to combat the use of drones to drop contraband into prison. "It's a simple fix," Stirling said. "Allow us to block the signal. Allow us to stop them to have unfettered access ... They are physically incarcerated, but they are not virtually incarcerated." "As long as they have access to cellphones, this is just going to keep on happening and happening and happening," he said, The Post and Courier reported.

Also at LA Times and The Washington Post.

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