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takyon writes:

Hubble Observes Exoplanet That Snows Sunscreen

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found a blistering hot planet outside our solar system where it "snows" sunscreen. The problem is the sunscreen (titanium oxide) precipitation only happens on the planet's permanent nighttime side. Any possible visitors to the exoplanet, called Kepler-13Ab, would need to bottle up some of that sunscreen, because they won't find it on the sizzling hot, daytime side, which always faces its host star.

Hubble astronomers suggest that powerful winds carry the titanium oxide gas around to the colder nighttime side, where it condenses into crystalline flakes, forms clouds, and precipitates as snow. Kepler-13Ab's strong surface gravity — six times greater than Jupiter's — pulls the titanium oxide snow out of the upper atmosphere and traps it in the lower atmosphere.

Astronomers using Hubble didn't look for titanium oxide specifically. Instead, they observed that the giant planet's atmosphere is cooler at higher altitudes, which is contrary to what was expected. This finding led the researchers to conclude that a light-absorbing gaseous form of titanium oxide, commonly found in this class of star-hugging, gas giant planet known as a "hot Jupiter," has been removed from the dayside's atmosphere. The Hubble observations represent the first time astronomers have detected this precipitation process, called a "cold trap," on an exoplanet.

Without the titanium oxide gas to absorb incoming starlight on the daytime side, the atmospheric temperature grows colder with increasing altitude. Normally, titanium oxide in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters absorbs light and reradiates it as heat, making the atmosphere grow warmer at higher altitudes.

Evidence for Atmospheric Cold-trap Processes in the Noninverted Emission Spectrum of Kepler-13Ab Using HST/WFC3 (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aa899b) (DX)

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1

Despite early reports that there was no use of National Security Agency-developed exploits in this week's crypto-ransomware outbreak, research released by Cisco Talos suggests that the ransomware worm known as "Bad Rabbit" did in fact use a stolen Equation Group exploit revealed by Shadowbrokers to spread across victims' networks. The attackers used EternalRomance, an exploit that bypasses security over Server Message Block (SMB) file-sharing connections, enabling remote execution of instructions on Windows clients and servers. The code closely follows an open source Python implementation of a Windows exploit that used EternalRomance (and another Equation Group tool, EternalSynergy), leveraging the same methods revealed in the Shadowbrokers code release. NotPetya also leveraged this exploit.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/bad-rabbit-used-nsa-eternalromance-exploit-to-spread-researchers-say/

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

I don't think it needs introduction about the current hype that is going on with Blockchain, bitcoin, Ethereum and other initiatives. To get more feeling about what it is and how it works I decided to have a go with Ethereum as it promises to be a possible disruptive solution for lots of different use cases. Without going into the theoretical background of Blockchain or Ethereum (there are already lots of docs written about it) this post will focus on how I set up a private Ethereum network on my MacBook. I will use Docker containers as Ethereum nodes and use Mist browser on my Mac to 'connect' to the private network.

Source: https://pragmaticintegrator.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/set-up-private-blockchain-with-ethereum-part-1/

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BK writes:

This was posted on the consumerist website on Monday, October 30:

This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We're deeply proud of all the work we've done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders.

We've had a tremendous run as a standalone site. Now you'll be able to get the same great coverage of consumer issues as part of Consumer Reports, our parent organization.

Since they've defeated those secretive cable companies and payday lenders, I guess they had nothing left to do...

Additional coverage at the New York Post entitled "Consumerist site shuts down after alleged mismanagement".

Related: What happened to Consumerist's Worst Company in America contest?
Consumer Reports Proposes Open Source Security Standard
Consumer Reports Pulls Recommendation of Microsoft Surface Hardware Due to Poor Reliability

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Gaaark writes:

Alexa owners can now check their credit scores and ask credit related questions:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/30/technology/alexa-credit-score/index.html

On the heels of the Equifax security 'problems', Experian users who give Alexa the new 'Experian' skill can ask Alexa to tell them about their credit score and utilization, offer advice and -- for those who have access to Experian's credit lock product -- check whether their credit is locked, or lock it.

But, you have to give Alexa info: username, password and a personal key created when users enter their information. Users will have to repeat their pin after five minutes of inactivity. (Alexa, sudo make me a credit score sandwich)

The new service, though, might ring some alarm bells in light of the Equifax security breach, which exposed the personal information of up to 145.5 million people.

Is anyone up for this? Would you trust such info to an Internet connected device when you have to 'out loud' give your pin number?
Do you stand at an ATM and say your pin number out loud?

And will the Facebook crowd eat this up?

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyGuest31999

The hybrid study of quantum computers and artificial intelligence, or quantum machine learning, is still in its very early stages. Many of the machine learning algorithms are still theoretical and require large-scale quantum computers to be tested. Still, the marriage between the two has already proven fruitful.

[...] Quantum algorithms could solve problems within AI and vice versa. In addition, quantum theory could help develop more robust AI and help researchers formulate better algorithms. With this technology, we could see groundbreaking research in virtually all areas of study, from cancer research to geopolitics. We could use AI to help scientists solve incredibly nuanced and complex issues.

Source: https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/23/ai-and-quantum-algorithms-together-can-compute-a-better-world/

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takyon writes:

Star's magnetic field could turn habitable-zone planets into magma soup

[A] team of European researchers has identified something else that could have an immense effect on habitability: the star's magnetic field. Under the right conditions, planets close to a star will experience a strong but variable magnetic field, which can cause induction heating. In the case of one system with several habitable zone planets, the induction heating could be strong enough to convert them into oceans of magma.

[...] The European team behind the new report focused on M dwarf stars. Because these are small, relatively cool objects, their habitable zones are close to the star and well within the region where the star's magnetic field is quite strong. They also have magnetic fields that are strong to begin with, sometimes in the area of thousands of Gauss. The magnetic field of our Sun is typically 10 to 1,000 times weaker.

Not all M dwarfs rotate quickly enough for this to matter. Proxima Centauri, which hosts the closest known exoplanet, takes more than 80 days to complete a rotation. But there is a nearby M dwarf that completes a rotation in only three days: TRAPPIST-1, which hosts at least seven planets, three of them in the habitable zone. So, the team decided to model how much of an effect induction heating might have on these bodies.

[...] For TRAPPIST-1c, the third planet out from the star, induction heating reaches more than 60 percent of the heat released in the planet by radioactive decay. That's enough to melt the entire surface, turning it into a magma ocean in nearly all the different model conditions sampled. The same conditions are likely on TRAPPIST-1d, the one in the habitable zone, where induction heating can be above half the amount of heat released by radioactive decay.

Red dwarf exolife killer or a way to expand the habitable zone further out?

Magma oceans and enhanced volcanism on TRAPPIST-1 planets due to induction heating (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-017-0284-0) (DX)

Previously: Seven Earth-Sized Exoplanets, Including Three Potentially Habitable, Identified Around TRAPPIST-1
Powerful Solar Flares Found at TRAPPIST-1 Could Dim Chances for Life
TRAPPIST-1h Orbital Details Confirmed
TRAPPIST-1 Older than Our Solar System
Hubble Observations Suggest TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanets Could Have Water

Original Submission

Phoenix666 submitted this story:

Is ESPN done for?

ESPN pays $2 billion a year to the NFL for Monday Night Football and one NFL wild card playoff game. I've written for the past couple of years that as ESPN's business collapses that ESPN's decision on whether or not to bid to keep Monday Night Football would be the first big test of how rapidly that business is deteriorating.

What's a deteriorating business look like? In the month of October ESPN lost over 15,000 subscribers a day in October per the latest Nielson estimates.

15,000 a day!

Losing 15,000 subscribers per day is a lot, but is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting has finally reached a tipping point?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A NASA and German Aerospace Center mission using two spacecraft to map the strength of Earth's gravitational field has come to an end:

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission has come to an end after more than 15 years in Earth orbit. The twin satellites chronicled the changes of the Earth's water, ice, and land since the spacecraft were launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on March 17, 2002, on a mission that was originally only slated to last some five years. More than a decade after that, GRACE was still beaming data back to Earth when a technical issued forced mission planners to close out the program.

Similar in some aspects to other missions launched, GRACE made precise measurements via the two spacecraft – GRACE-1 and GRACE-2 – that comprised the mission. For GRACE's overall scientific objectives to be achieved the two satellites both had to be fully functional. However, this past September (2017), GRACE-2 encountered a battery issue that made it clear by mid-October that the battery would not allow scientists to operate its science instruments and telemetry transmitter. It was decided to decommission GRACE-2 and, in so doing, end GRACE's scientific mission.

[...] GRACE helped detail how our home world's changing seasons move water, ice, and even land (as a result of surface water mass changes) across the planet's surface, providing researchers with a better understanding of what drives the motion of these substances. Earth's climate, earthquakes, and our own activities all play their part in shaping the face of our world and GRACE provided insights into the dynamics of this change.

[Ed note: I debated whether or not to run this story. On the one hand, it rather thoroughly eviscerates a particular company, and I truly wish no harm to other's ventures. (Seeing what it takes to run this site, well, it's not as easy as it looks!.) On the other hand, it rather handily illustrates management issues I have seen before. On the gripping hand, I found the submission to be entertainingly written, and that tipped the scales for me: I decided to give it a try... and see what the community thinks. Have you ever worked at a company like this? How did that work out for you? Did the company successfully reinvent themselves? --martyb]

bradley13 writes:

WhenHub - a startup in search of an idea

As near as I can recall, the initial idea of WhenHub was that you could create a Whencast, which is basically a slideshow with slides shown in chronological order. You were supposed to embed this Whencast on your website. Aside from the sheer triviality of the idea, the embedding meant that visitors had to allow 3rd party cookies, so it didn't work for anyone with sensible security settings on their browser.

So they moved on: Next, they had an app that would let you share your location data with friends. For example, if you were heading to a meeting, and someone hadn't arrived yet, you could see that they were stuck in traffic (or maybe at the beach). Not a bad idea, but again trivial, and really better implemented by the mapping applications. Which they have done.

canopic jug writes:

Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE), which translates as European IP Networks, has the goal to ensure that the administrative and technical coordination necessary to maintain and develop the Internet continues.

The RIPE75 meeting took place from October 22^nd to the 26^th in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). The full archive of RIPE75 presentations is online as video and supplemented with slides and raw transcripts, for those that couldn't or wouldn't travel to the UAE. Presentations are non-commercial and avoid marketing and cover a wide range of topics related to large scale networking. The focus is on operational experience, research results, and case studies.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

news.bitcoin.com reports on a Samsung Initiative to repurpose older Samsung Galaxy devices rather than trash recycle them. From the article:

Samsung's new 'upcycling' initiative has seen the company repurpose outdated technology for novel and creative utilities, including the construction of a bitcoin mining rig from out of old smartphones. The 'Upcycling' Program Has Seen the Company Turn 40 Used Galaxy S5s Into a Bitcoin Mining Rig

[...] Samsung has reportedly claimed that eight Samsung Galaxy S5s can mine with superior energy efficiency compared to a standard desktop computer.

Of course in this age, GPU rigs are not even effective bitcoin miners, so beating a 'standard desktop' is complete nonsense. However, the later article has some actually interesting information:

Kyle Wiens, chief executive officer of iFixit – a company that is involved in repairing Galaxy S3s for Samsung's initiative – has given generous praise to the upcycling program. Wiens stated "what [Samsung] built is a layer between the hardware and you being able to install anything you want on it. It's a step lower than jailbreaking, it's removing Android entirely." Wiens describes the initiative... "the challenge with keeping old electronics running a long time is software," adding that "with phones in particular, the old software is insecure and doesn't run the new apps. So the question is, if you have this perfectly functional piece of hardware that doesn't have good software anymore and you want to keep it running for ten years, how do you do that?"

It is almost like this initiative would not even been needed if the hardware was not cryptographically locked down from running the owner's software of choice in the first place. At least there is this bit of relief:

The company has pledged to make plans for the showcased projects freely available online, in addition to the software that allowed Samsung's Creative Lab to unlock and repurpose old phones.

Anyone ready to place bets on whether the 'unlocking software' will be freely available or require onerous EULA acceptance?

Link to the Initiative: https://galaxyupcycling.github.io/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NASA "Twins Study" Shows How Spaceflight Changes Gene Expression

Space travel strongly affects the way genes are expressed, or turned on and off, preliminary results from NASA's "Twins Study" have revealed.

"Some of the most exciting things that we've seen from looking at gene expression in space is that we really see an explosion, like fireworks taking off, as soon as the human body gets into space," Twins Study principal investigator Chris Mason said in a statement.

"With this study, we've seen thousands and thousands of genes change how they are turned on and turned off," added Mason, who's based at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University's medical school. "This happens as soon as an astronaut gets into space, and some of the activity persists temporarily upon return to Earth." Specifically, Mason and his team found an increase in methylation, which involves slapping methyl groups onto stretches of DNA. This process commonly inhibits activation of the genes involved. (A methyl group consists of a carbon atom bonded to three hydrogen atoms.)

The Twins Study centers on former NASA astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly, who are identical twins and therefore share a DNA profile.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A small brain imaging study has found evidence of differences in the brains of people who think about suicide (or have attempted it in the past). Their reactions to certain words produce a distinctive "neural signature":

People who are thinking about killing themselves appear to have distinctive brain activity that can now be measured by a computer. In these people, words like "death" and "trouble" produce a distinctive "neural signature" not found in others, scientists report [DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0234-y] [DX] in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. More than 44,000 people commit suicide in the U.S. each year.

"There really is a difference in the way [suicidal] people think about certain concepts," says Marcel Just, an author of the paper and the D.O. Hebb professor of cognitive neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. That difference allowed a computer program to distinguish people who thought about suicide from people who did not, more than 90 percent of the time. It also allowed the computer program to distinguish people who had attempted suicide from people who had only thought about it.

The results come from a study of just 34 young adults and will need to be replicated, says Barry Horwitz, chief of brain imaging and modeling at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. But he says they hint at a future in which brain scans and computers can help assess a person's mental health. Horwitz was not involved in the study. "Just looking at behavior is probably inadequate for a lot of purposes," he says. "It's much better to be able to see what the brain is doing."

This represents a potential "biologic indicator of risk" rather than an "educated guess".

Also at The Verge, Suicidal American, and New Atlas.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1

Prior to this year, the most successful launches SpaceX had performed in any given year was eight. But in 2017 the company has been able to put together a more efficient production flow, a maturing Falcon 9 rocket, and an experienced workforce to put its launch capabilities into overdrive. On Monday, SpaceX will go for its 16th launch of the year, doubling its previous record.

This year has seen a number of firsts for the company—first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster, first reuse of a Dragon cargo spacecraft, first national security payload, and a remarkable dozen landings. But probably the biggest achievement has been finally delivering on the promise of a high flight rate.

"They have had a busy and perfect year in 2017, with launches, recovers, and reuses all executed well," said Greg Autry, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California. Moreover, the successes this year should set the stage for even greater achievements in years to come.

Autry said insurers no longer are charging a premium on SpaceX's reuse launches, which the company has performed three of in 2017. This suggests reuse is becoming more normal and accepted within the industry. "This should make the job of the SpaceX sales folks even easier," Autry said. "Barring any delays due to launch failures, I think we will see them grab an even bigger slice of the market and could actually approach a monopoly position in commercial launch."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/spacex-is-about-to-double-its-launch-output-for-any-previous-year/

Original Submission