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takyon writes:

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has thanked President Trump and the Central Intelligence Agency for information that he said helped prevent a terrorist attack on the Kazan Cathedral and other locations:

President Vladimir V. Putin called President Trump on Sunday to thank him for the work of the Central Intelligence Agency in helping prevent an Islamic State attack in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg.

In rare words of praise for the C.I.A., Mr. Putin said the agency had provided information that "helped detain terrorists planning explosions," the Kremlin said in a statement posted on its website. The attackers planned to strike crowded sites including Kazan Cathedral, a landmark Orthodox Christian church, the statement said.

"The information received from the C.I.A. was sufficient to search for and detain criminals," the statement said. "The head of the Russian state asked the American president to convey words of thanks to the director of the C.I.A. and the American intelligence officers who received this information."

The attack was described as imminent. It was said to be planned for Sunday — just two days after the first arrests were made on Friday. It was not clear when the C.I.A. provided the tip.

Also at BBC, USA Today, the Washington Post (archive), CNN, and RT.

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Microscopes enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) could help clinical microbiologists diagnose potentially deadly blood infections and improve patients' odds of survival, according to microbiologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). In a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, the scientists demonstrated that an automated AI-enhanced microscope system is "highly adept" at identifying images of bacteria quickly and accurately. The automated system could help alleviate the current lack of highly trained microbiologists, expected to worsen as 20 percent of technologists reach retirement age in the next five years.

"This marks the first demonstration of machine learning in the diagnostic area," said senior author James Kirby, MD, Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. "With further development, we believe this technology could form the basis of a future diagnostic platform that augments the capabilities of clinical laboratories, ultimately speeding the delivery of patient care."

[...] While human technologists routinely provide highly accurate diagnoses, demand for these highly skilled workers exceeds supply in the United States. Nine percent of lab technologists remain unfilled, and that number is expected to dramatically increase as technologists of the Baby Boomer generation begin to retire in droves, according to a 2014 survey from the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

What's more, these images can be sent remotely, bringing the highest level expertise anywhere the internet reaches. That's critical, as rapid identification and delivery of antibiotic medications is the key to treating bloodstream infections, which can kill up to 40 percent of patients who develop them. Each day a patient goes untreated is linked with an increased risk of mortality.

In addition to its clinical uses, the new tool could also have applications in microbiology training and research, Kirby noted.

"The tool becomes a living data repository as we use it," he said. "And could be used to train new staff and ensure competency. It can provide unprecedented level of detail as a research tool."

Kenneth P. Smith, Anthony D. Kang, James E. Kirby. Automated Interpretation of Blood Culture Gram Stains using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 2017; JCM.01521-17 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.01521-17

Source: http://www.bidmc.org/News/PRLandingPage/2017/December/Kirby.aspx

Original Submission

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

So, apparently around November 5th we stopped posting to Twitter. We didn't find out until around the end of that month and when we did nobody had the time and/or ability to look into why until this past week.

Now how we get our headlines over to Twitter is overly complicated and, frankly, idiotic. It's done by one of our IRC bots pulling headlines from the RSS feed and posting them on Twitter as @SoylentNews. The bot was written back in 2014 with hand-rolled (as opposed to installed via package manager) Python libraries and hasn't been updated since. This was breakage that should absolutely have been expected to happen. Twitter's penchant for arbitrarily changing their unversioned API means you either keep on top of changes or expect things to break for no apparent reason.

Here's the question: do we even care? We can either find someone who's willing to rewrite the bot to a new Twitter library, do it the sane way as either a cron or slashd job, or just say to hell with it since we only have two hundred or so followers on Twitter anyway. What say you, folks?

[TMB Note]: Twitter's who-to-follow algorithms really impressed me this morning when I logged in to manually post this story. How did they know we were all huge @JustinBieber and @BarackObama fans?

[Update]: We're again annoying Twitter users by spreading relative intelligence across their platform of choice. Credit goes to Crash for wisely pointing out that we don't have to code everything ourselves.

takyon writes:

Google has made some changes to try and tackle "fake news":

Google moved to strip from its news search results publications that mask their country of origin or intentionally mislead readers, a further step to curb the spread of fake news that has plagued internet companies this year.

To appear in Google News results, websites must meet broad criteria set out by the company, including accurately representing their owners or primary purposes. In an update to its guidelines released Friday, the search giant added language stipulating that publications not "engage in coordinated activity to mislead users." Additionally the new rules read: "This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises."

A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet. Russian Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed organization, used that technique to reach an audience of nearly 500,000 people, spread primarily through Twitter accounts, Bloomberg reported earlier.

Also at Engadget.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

UNSW Proposes 7nm Silicon DRAM-Like Architecture For Quantum Chips

The University of New South Wales (UNSW), a leading quantum computing research university from Australia, proposed an architecture for a silicon-based quantum computer processor based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, which should make it easier to integrate quantum and classical chips.

[...] The engineers at UNSW have proposed the first practical architecture for parallel addressing of silicon spin qubits. Silicon spin qubits promise to have a higher stability rate compared to competing quantum computing architectures, while also promising to bring quantum computers to existing manufacturing processes.

The researchers said that this type of chip could be built on upcoming 7nm process technologies, although the smaller the transistors, the easier it will be to build a powerful quantum computer. However, once we reach 480 qubits, which can be implemented into a DRAM-like 20x24 qubit array chip, we could just multiply the 480-qubit modules to scale the quantum chip.

The researchers also said that they will need error-correction code employing multiple real qubits to build one "logical qubit," a method that's also currently used by most other quantum computing developers. They added that they developed a new type of error-correcting code that should work across millions of qubits in the future. This method is the first of its type that can be integrated in silicon.

The UNSW quantum computing team has received $83 million in funding from the university, the Australian government, and a few other companies, to develop a 10-qubit silicon quantum chip by 2022.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A report has recommended that online/tech companies and social media platforms be held more liable by the UK government for the content that users post:

A report published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life advises the UK government to bring forward legislation "to shift the liability of illegal content online towards social media companies" upon Brexit. While the report's focus is on the problem of online intimidation, the advice envisages the UK moving away from the safe harbors offered by the EU's E-Commerce Directive.

[...] The protection offered by the E-Commerce Directive is a hot topic right now, one which necessarily involves the UK. However, with the UK due to leave the EU at 11pm local time on Friday 29 March, 2019, it will then be free to make its own laws. It's now being suggested that as soon as Brexit happens, the UK should introduce new laws that hold tech companies liable for "illegal content" that appears on their platforms.

The advice can be found in a new report published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Titled "Intimidation in Public Life", the report focuses on the online threats and intimidation experienced by Parliamentary candidates and others. However, the laws that currently protect information society service providers apply to a much broader range of content, including that alleged to be copyright-infringing.

"Currently, social media companies do not have liability for the content on their sites, even where that content is illegal. This is largely due to the EU E-Commerce Directive (2000), which treats the social media companies as 'hosts' of online content. It is clear, however, that this legislation is out of date," the report reads. "Facebook, Twitter and Google are not simply platforms for the content that others post; they play a role in shaping what users see. We understand that they do not consider themselves as publishers, responsible for reviewing and editing everything that others post on their sites. But with developments in technology, the time has come for the companies to take more responsibility for illegal material that appears on their platforms."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NASA could use an engine developed by Blue Origin instead of the four RL-10 engines currently used by the Space Launch System (SLS):

[One] problem with legacy hardware, built by traditional contractors such as Orbital ATK and Aerojet Rocketdyne, is that it's expensive. And while NASA has not released per-flight estimates of the expendable SLS rocket's cost, conservative estimates peg it at $1.5 to $2.5 billion per launch. The cost is so high that it effectively precludes more than one to two SLS launches per year.

[...] [The RL-10] engines, manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, are also costly. (Ars understands that NASA paid an average of $17 million for each RL-10 engine for the maiden Exploration Upper Stage vehicle). So in October, to power the EUS, the space agency issued a request for information to the aerospace community for "a low cost drop-in replacement engine to minimize program cost." According to the document, the initial set of four engines would be needed in mid-2023 to prepare for the third flight of the SLS rocket, known as Exploration Mission-3.

Then, after an extension of the deadline for responses beyond mid-November, NASA revised the RFI on December 1. The revised document no longer seeks a "drop-in replacement" for the RL-10 engine, rather it asks for a "low-cost replacement engine." Although this seems like a subtle change, sources within the aerospace industry indicated to Ars that it is significant. According to NASA, it was done to increase the number of responses.

[...] That would probably include Blue Origin's BE-3U engine, which the company plans to use for its upper stage on the New Glenn heavy lift rocket. This is a modified version of the BE-3 engine that powers the New Shepard rocket, which has now flown successfully seven times. Blue Origin has previously marketed the BE-3U to Orbital ATK for its Next Generation Launch System, which is looking for an upper stage engine. A single BE-3U provides about 120,000 pounds of thrust, which exceeds the 100,000 pounds of thrust provided by four RL-10 engines.

Just cancel SLS and give that money to SpaceX, Blue Origin, or anybody willing to launch competitively.

Related: Maiden Flight of the Space Launch System Delayed to 2019
First SLS Mission Will be Unmanned
Commercial Space Companies Want More Money From NASA
Trump Space Adviser: Mars "Too Ambitious" and SLS is a Strategic National Asset
Boeing CEO Says His Company Will Carry Humans to Mars Before SpaceX
President Trump Signs Space Policy Directive 1

Original Submission

takyon writes:

RFID tags can be used to monitor the vital signs of many people simultaneously:

Replacing devices based on 19th-century technology* and still in use, Cornell University engineers have developed a simple method for gathering blood pressure, heart rate, and breath rate from multiple patients simultaneously. It uses low-power radio-frequency signals and low-cost microchip radio-frequency identification (RFID) "tags" — similar to the ubiquitous anti-theft tags used in department stores.

The RFID tags measure internal body motion, such as a heart as it beats or blood as it pulses under skin. Powered remotely by electromagnetic energy supplied by a central reader, the tags use a new concept called "near-field coherent sensing." Mechanical motions (heartbeat, etc.) in the body modulate (modify) radio waves that are bounced off the body and internal organs by passive (no battery required) RFID tags.

The modulated signals detected by the tag then bounce back to an electronic reader, located elsewhere in the room, that gathers the data. Each tag has a unique identification code that it transmits with its signal, allowing up to 200 people to be monitored simultaneously.

The tricorder just got cheap.

*Footnote refers to the sphygmomanometer (aka blood pressure cuff or blood pressure meter) which was invented in 1881.

Monitoring vital signs over multiplexed radio by near-field coherent sensing (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41928-017-0001-0) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Engineers create plants that glow

Imagine that instead of switching on a lamp when it gets dark, you could read by the light of a glowing plant on your desk. MIT engineers have taken a critical first step toward making that vision a reality. By embedding specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, they induced the plants to give off dim light for nearly four hours. They believe that, with further optimization, such plants will one day be bright enough to illuminate a workspace.

"The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp — a lamp that you don't have to plug in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself," says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.

This technology could also be used to provide low-intensity indoor lighting, or to transform trees into self-powered streetlights, the researchers say.

Also at TechCrunch and New Atlas.

A Nanobionic Light-Emitting Plant (DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04369) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sci-Hub is a web hydra, not unlike The Pirate Bay:

Sci-Hub is often referred to as the "Pirate Bay of Science," and this description has become more and more apt in recent weeks.

Initially, the comparison was made to illustrate that Sci-Hub is used by researchers to download articles for free, much like the rest of the world uses The Pirate Bay to get free stuff.

There are more parallels though. Increasingly, Sci-Hub has trouble keeping its domain names. Following two injunctions in the US, academic publishers now have court orders to compel domain registrars and registries to suspend Sci-Hub's addresses.

Although there is no such court order for The Pirate Bay, the notorious torrent site also has a long history of domain suspensions. Both sites appear to tackle the problem in a similar manner. They simply ignore all enforcement efforts and bypass them with new domains and other circumvention tools. They have several backup domains in place as well as unsuspendable .onion addresses, which are accessible on the Tor network.

Since late November, a lot of Sci-Hub users have switched to Sci-Hub.bz when other domains were suspended. And, when the .bz domain was targeted a few days ago, they moved to different alternatives. It's a continuous game of Whack-a-Mole that is hard to stop.

Don't forget Library Genesis .

Previously: The Research Pirates of the Dark Web
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram"
Elsevier Wants $15 Million Piracy Damages from Sci-Hub and Libgen
US Court Grants Elsevier Millions in Damages From Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub Faces $4.8 Million Piracy Damages and ISP Blocking
Virginia District Court Demands that ISPs and Search Engines Block Sci-Hub

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Instead of using balloons or drones, Alphabet/Google X plans to create a backbone of fixed boxes that communicate using lasers in order to deliver Internet access in Andhra Pradesh. Users would connect to the end points wirelessly:

Alphabet's X Lab has cooked up yet another Internet connectivity scheme, according to a report from Reuters. Past efforts have involved floating Internet balloons and laying lots of fiber optic cable, but this Internet delivery system sends data over laser beams! This isn't an experimental system like Project Loon; India's Andhra Pradesh state government has signed an agreement with Alphabet to bring the technology to millions of people starting next year.

[...] Alphabet's rollout in India will involve fitting "2,000 boxes installed as far as 20 kilometers (12 miles) apart on posts and roofs" according to the report. The optical system is expected to hit 20 Gbit/s from box to box and would serve as a backbone, replacing more expensive technologies like fiber optics. The final connection to users would happen over Wi-Fi or cellular.

Related: Google May Test Balloon Internet Service Over the United States
Google Kills Off Titan Internet Drone "Moonshot"
Alphabet Deploys Project Loon Balloons to Puerto Rico
Balloons Provide Internet Service to 100,000 People in Puerto Rico

Original Submission

takyon writes:

This Japanese space startup raised $90.2 million to put the first billboard on the moon

iSpace[sic], a Tokyo-based startup company has raised $90 million Series A funding to send a spacecraft into lunar orbit by 2019, and then land a year later after orbiting the Moon. The funding was led by Japan Airlines Co. and Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings Inc. Other investors in the Series A funding included Development Bank of Japan, Konica Minolta, Shimizu, Real Tech Fund, KDDI, Suzuki Motor, SPARX, Dentsu and and Toppan Printing. The investors will also be providing technology and other support to ispace, said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and chief executive of ispace. According to Bloomberg, Ispace plans on offering a "projection mapping service" which will serve as a small billboard on the moon. The company hopes to complete this mission by the year 2020.

It doesn't sound like the billboard is projected from an orbiter, but that it will involve a small display landed on the surface, photographed by the spacecraft:

Ispace[sic] says the initial business opportunity is mostly in marketing, including slapping corporate logos on its spacecrafts and rovers, and delivering images to be used in advertising. A successful landing will also let the company offer what it calls a "projection mapping service" -- a small billboard on the moon's surface. The startup says there will be demand from corporations looking to show off their logos with Earth in the background.

Hack that.

ispace, inc.'s website and its mission plans.

[Ed note: The proper capitalization of the company's name noted on their web site is "ispace, inc."]

Also at Space News and The Space Reporter.

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Drinking a cup of hot tea at least once a day may be linked to a significantly lower risk of developing the serious eye condition, glaucoma, finds a small study published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

But drinking decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated tea, iced tea and soft drinks doesn't seem to make any difference to glaucoma risk, the findings show.

[...] After taking account of potentially influential factors, such as diabetes and smoking, hot tea-drinkers were 74 per cent less likely to have glaucoma.

But no such associations were found for coffee -- caffeinated or decaffeinated -- decaffeinated tea, iced tea or soft drinks.

This is an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, and the absolute numbers of those with glaucoma were small. Information on when glaucoma had been diagnosed was also unavailable.

Connie M Wu, Annie M Wu, Victoria L Tseng, Fei Yu, Anne L Coleman. Frequency of a diagnosis of glaucoma in individuals who consume coffee, tea and/or soft drinks. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 2017; DOI: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2017-310924

Source: http://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/drinking-hot-tea-every-day-linked-to-lower-glaucoma-risk/

Original Submission

wrought_plastic writes:

MacRumors reports Restoring a Bricked iMac Pro Requires a Second Mac and Configurator 2:

"If an iMac Pro becomes unresponsive and requires restoring, like if there's a power failure during a software update, there are a special set of instructions iMac Pro users must follow, which require a secondary Mac."

As outlined in an Apple Configurator 2 support page, an iMac Pro restore requires a second Mac running macOS High Sierra with internet access and Apple Configurator 2.6 or later installed.

[...] This restore process is similar to what must be done for an iPhone or iPad that is unresponsive, and it is necessary due to the extra security afforded by the Apple-designed T2 chip ... [which] integrates the system management controller, image signal processor for the camera, audio controller, SSD controller, a Secure Enclave, and a hardware encryption engine.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program

In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. Which was how the Pentagon wanted it. For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon's C Ring, deep within the building's maze.

The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.