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takyon writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/microsoft-quantum-toolkit/

At its Ignite conference today, Microsoft announced its moves to embrace the next big thing in computing: quantum computing. Later this year, Microsoft will release a new quantum computing programming language, with full Visual Studio integration, along with a quantum computing simulator. With these, developers will be able to both develop and debug quantum programs implementing quantum algorithms.

[...] Microsoft's quantum programming language—as yet unnamed—offers a more familiar look to programming quantum computers, borrowing elements from C#, Python, and F#. Developers will still need to use and understand quantum logic gates and their operations, but they'll be able to use them to write functions, with variables and branches and other typical constructs.

[...] It will have quite significant memory requirements. The local version will offer up to 32 qubits, but to do this will require 32GB of RAM. Each additional qubit doubles the amount of memory required. The Azure version will scale up to 40 qubits.

Also at Fossbytes.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 submitted:

With the help of privacy activist Paul-Olivier Dehaye from personaldata.io and human rights lawyer Ravi Naik, I [Judith Duportail] emailed Tinder requesting my personal data and got back way more than I bargained for.

Some 800 pages came back containing information such as my Facebook "likes", my photos from Instagram (even after I deleted the associated account), my education, the age-rank of men I was interested in, how many times I connected, when and where every online conversation with every single one of my matches happened ... the list goes on.

"I am horrified but absolutely not surprised by this amount of data," said Olivier Keyes, a data scientist at the University of Washington. "Every app you use regularly on your phone owns the same [kinds of information]. Facebook has thousands of pages about you!"

As I flicked through page after page of my data I felt guilty. I was amazed by how much information I was voluntarily disclosing: from locations, interests and jobs, to pictures, music tastes and what I liked to eat. But I quickly realised I wasn't the only one. A July 2017 study revealed Tinder users are excessively willing to disclose information without realising it.

Um, duh?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at Tohoku University have developed an innovative method for fabricating semitransparent and flexible solar cells with atomically thin 2-D materials. The new technology improves power conversion efficiency of up to 0.7 percent, the highest value for solar cells made from transparent 2-D sheet materials.

Transparent or semi-transparent solar cells with excellent mechanical flexibility have attracted much attention as next-generation smart solar cells. They can be used on the surfaces of windows, front display panels of personal computers and cellphones, and human skin. But issues remain with regard to improving their power conversion efficiency, optical transparency, flexibility, stability and scalability.

Led by Associate Professor T. Kato, the team showed easy and scalable fabrication of semi-transparent and flexible solar cells using transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), an atomically thin 2-D material. Using a Schottky-type configuration, power conversion efficiency can be increased up to 0.7 percent, which is the highest value reported with few-layered TMDs. Clear power generation was also observed for a device fabricated on a large transparent and flexible substrate.

0.7 percent solar power conversion efficiency isn't much.

Toshiki Akama et al, Schottky solar cell using few-layered transition metal dichalcogenides toward large-scale fabrication of semitransparent and flexible power generator, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-12287-6

Original Submission

FakeBeldin writes:

Bleeping Computer reports that researchers looked into the settings of Amazon S3 servers... and found that the default setting is open (configured to allow public access),

This means that anyone with a link to the S3 server could access, view, or download its content.

Sure, you still need to have the unique link... but there's stuff on Github that enables you to "enumerate Amazon S3 buckets" - i.e., get at the secret links. So yeah....

According to statistics by security firm Skyhigh Networks, 7% of all S3 buckets have unrestricted public access, and 35% are unencrypted, meaning this is an endemic problem of the entire Amazon S3 ecosystem.

Oops.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

CBS premiered its new Star Trek series "Discovery" on Sunday. The first episode was made available on OTA (over-the-air) CBS stations — but it and all subsequent episodes are available strictly on CBS's All Access streaming service. Cost is $6/month with ads, $10/month ad-free. (NOTE: The second episode was made available immediately after episode 1 aired. Episodes 3-7 will be released weekly, there will be a break, and then the remaining episodes will again be released weekly early in 2018.)

Ars Technica has a review that mostly praised the new show. (There were at least two technical inaccuracies in the review concerning the first episode.)

For those who may not yet have seen it, I kindly ask folks who comment on this story to make liberal use of the <spoiler>don't show this unless they click here</spoiler> tags.

What did you think? Was it entertaining? Did it hold closely [enough] to existing Star Trek canon? Was any 'ideology' change you saw sufficiently warranted?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

After three field seasons, the Black Sea Maritime Archaeological Project is drawing to a close, but the things the team has discovered on the sea floor will keep researchers busy for a generation. Over the course of the expedition, researchers found 60 incredibly well-preserved ships from the medieval, Roman, Byzantine and ancient Greek eras, which are rewriting what historians know about ancient trade and shipbuilding reports Damien Sharkov at Newsweek.

The project, begun in 2015, wasn't originally about finding ancient ships. According to a press release, the team set out to use remote operated vehicles laser scanners to map the floor of the Black Sea off Bulgaria to learn more about the changing environment of the region and fluctuations in sea level since the last glacier cycle. But they couldn't help but locate ships too. Last year, they found 44 ancient vessels during their survey representing 2,500 years of history. "The wrecks are a complete bonus, but a fascinating discovery, found during the course of our extensive geophysical surveys," Jon Adams, principle investigator and director of the University of Southampton's Centre for Maritime Archaeology, said at the time.

During the latest field season, which just ended, the expedition discovered another batch of ancient ships. "Black Sea MAP now draws towards the end of its third season, acquiring more than 1300km of survey so far, recovering another 100m of sediment core samples and discovering over 20 new wreck sites, some dating to the Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic periods," Adams tells Aristos Georgiou at The International Business Times. "This assemblage must comprise one of the finest underwater museums of ships and seafaring in the world."

St. Julien Perlmutter is all over this. The finds are even more exciting than the nautical knowledge to be gained, because many of the ships' cargos are intact.

Original Submission

FakeBeldin writes:

Surgery to embed a nerve-stimulating implant in a patient in a persistent vegetative state (15 years), resulted in the patient reverting to a "minimally conscious" state.

After lying in a vegetative state for 15 years, a 35-year-old male patient in France appears to have regained minimal consciousness following months of vagus nerve stimulation, researchers report today in Current Biology.

The patient, who suffered severe brain damage in a car crash, had shown no signs of awareness or improvement before. He made no apparent purposeful movements and didn't respond to doctors or family at his bedside. But after researchers surgically implanted a device that stimulates the vagus nerve, quiet areas of his brain began to perk up—as did he.

His eyes turned toward people talking and could follow a moving mirror. He turned his head to follow a speaker moving around his bed. He slowly shook his head when asked. When researchers suddenly drew very close to his face, his eyes widened as if he was surprised or scared. When caregivers played his favorite music, he smiled and shed a tear.

Note that "respond" is on the level of "turning his head when asked, though that took a minute."

A few thoughts on this:

• Medical advances are COOL!
  • Hopefully, this advance can help some folks.
• This makes ethical questions concerning patients in persistent vegetative states more urgent:
  • (e.g. the question of whether/when to pull the plug has become even more confusing)
• This introduces some new ethical questions:
  • Is it ethical to "bring back" someone after 15 years? (the world has changed quite significantly)
  • Is it ethical to "bring back" someone to a state where they're might just barely be conscious enough to realise how much their state sucks?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Britain will need to boost its generation of electricity by about a quarter, Scottish Power has estimated.

The energy firm said electric cars and a shift to electric heating could send demand for power soaring.

Its chief executive also said there would have to be a major investment in the wiring necessary to handle rapid charging of car batteries.

Is the net demand for energy really spiking, or is it merely shifting from one source to another?

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/09/24/ohio-bill-would-bar-abortion-when-prenatal-test-is-positive-for-down-syndrome/

an Ohio bill [would] ban abortions in cases where a pregnant woman has had a positive test result or prenatal diagnosis indicating Down syndrome. Physicians convicted of performing an abortion under such circumstances could be charged with a fourth-degree felony, stripped of their medical license and held liable for legal damages. The pregnant woman would face no criminal liability.

Several other states have considered similar measures, triggering emotional debate over women's rights, parental love, and the trust between doctor and patient.

The Ohio bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Sen. Frank LaRose, said Republican lawmakers accelerated the measure after hearing a mid-August CBS News report on Iceland's high rate of abortions in cases involving Down syndrome. The report asserted Iceland had come close to "eradicating" such births.

Phoenix666 writes:

Mr Khosrowshahi, who took over at the firm less than a month ago, wrote: "While Uber has revolutionised the way people move in cities around the world, it's equally true that we've got things wrong along the way.

[...] In a letter addressed to Londoners, the new boss said the firm "won't be perfect, but we will listen to you".

"On behalf of everyone at Uber globally, I apologise for the mistakes we've made."

[...] Mr Khan, who is also chairman of TfL [Transport for London], told the BBC: "What you can't do is have a situation where unfair pressure is brought on a quasi-judicial body, where there are officials working incredibly hard.

"I appreciate Uber has an army of PR experts, I appreciate Uber has an army of lawyers - they've also made aggressive threats about taking us to court."

Wielding the coercive power of government is stressful enough without people fighting back?

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://aluminiuminsider.com/researchers-confirm-discovery-floating-aluminium/

Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water and, as a result, floats upon it.

Research conducted by Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and published in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has yielded just such a crystalline form using computational modeling.

“My colleagues’ approach to this challenge was very innovative,” explained Boldyrev. “They started with a known crystal lattice, in this case, a diamond, and substituted every carbon atom with an aluminum tetrahedron.”

Boldyrev’s colleagues, namely Iliya Getmanskii, Vitaliy Koval, Rusian Minyaev, and Vladimir Minkin of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on Don, Russia, confirmed the structure which is metastable and has a density of 0.61 grams per cubic centimeter. By comparison, conventional aluminium possesses a density of 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-moon-lunar-village.html (AFP)

By 2040, a hundred people will live on the Moon, melting ice for water, 3D-printing homes and tools, eating plants grown in lunar soil, and competing in low-gravity, "flying" sports.

To those who mock such talk as science fiction, experts such as Bernard Foing, ambassador of the European Space Agency-driven "Moon Village" scheme, reply the goal is not only reasonable but feasible too.

At a European Planetary Science Congress in Riga this week, Foing spelt out how humanity could gain a permanent foothold on Earth's satellite, and then expand.

He likened it to the growth of the railways, when villages grew around train stations, followed by businesses.

By 2030, there could be an initial lunar settlement of six to 10 pioneers—scientists, technicians and engineers—which could grow to 100 by 2040, he predicted.

"In 2050, you could have a thousand and then... naturally you could envisage to have family" joining crews there, Foing told AFP .

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://time.com/4952886/china-world-first-dental-surgery-robot-implant/ (Note: Javascript may be required.)

In China, a robot dentist installed two dental implants for a woman last Saturday, in what could be the world's first fully automated dental implant surgery, reports the South China Morning Post. Human doctors supervised the whole procedure but did not actively intervene. The surgery, which took place in the city of Xi'an, was first reported by the state-run Science and Technology Daily.

According to the report, the robot followed a set of pre-programmed commands to install the dental implants. Experts said that the implants were fitted within a margin of error of 0.2-0.3 mm—matching the standards required for this type of procedure, reports the Post.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.popsci.com/beelzebufo-devil-frog-bite-force-dinosaur

Beelzebufo ampinga, so named for the ancient deity often called the "Lord of the Flies," was a devilish frog indeed. The species, which lived on the island of Madagascar around 70 million years ago, was likely the biggest frog that ever hopped about the Earth (National Geographic describes it, delightfully, as "beach-ball-size"). And according to new research on its modern cousins published in Scientific Reports, Beelzebufo ampinga may have had jaws powerful enough to obliterate small dinosaurs.

[...] When you bump up the scale to match the size of Beelzebufo ampinga fossils, the estimated bite force shoots up to 2,200 Newtons—which is comparable to what you see in predators like lions.

"At this bite force, Beelzebufo would have been capable of subduing the small and juvenile dinosaurs that shared its environment," study author Marc Jones, researcher at the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Sciences and honorary researcher at the South Australian Museum, said in a statement.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

So much for making the recipe more natural. People would rather eat artificial ingredients than give up vibrant colors.

The people have spoken. They've had enough of General Mills' attempts to make its breakfast cereal more natural and want the old version back. In a surprising announcement made last Thursday, the company said it would do precisely that -- reintroduce its classic Trix cereal, in all its artificial glory, because that's what people want.

[...] Ever since General Mills announced in 2015 that it would start phasing out artificial colors and flavors from all its cereals (an announcement that boosted sales by 6 percent in early 2016 and pleased many shoppers and scientists who have concerns about the health effects of these petroleum-sourced food dyes), there has been a parallel outpouring of protest from committed cereal lovers. People weren't happy with the way the cereal looked or tasted.

"Petroleum-sourced food dyes," it's what's for breakfast!

Original Submission