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Phoenix666 writes:

To fight overpopulation, ban holidays?:

It's often wryly observed that birth rates peak in September, with many studies citing seasonal changes in human biology to explain this post-holiday "baby boom." But new research from scientists at Indiana University and the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal finds that spikes in pregnancies are actually rooted in society, not biology.

The evidence was discovered in the "collective unconscious" of web searches and Twitter posts that researchers now use to reveal our hidden desires and motivations.
...
The analysis revealed that interest in sex peaks significantly during major cultural or religious celebrations—based upon a greater use of the word "sex" or other sexual terms in web searches. These peaks broadly corresponded to an increase in births nine months later in countries with available birth-rate data.

Moreover, the effect was observed in two different cultures, with the greatest spike occurring during major holiday celebrations: Christmas in Christian-majority countries and Eid-al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, in Muslim-majority countries.

What is it about Santa Claus and his elves that gets people so hot and heavy?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Here's one for techno-archeologists:

In this article I describe repairing an IBM 029 keypunch that wouldn't punch numbers. Keypunches were a vital component of punch card computing, recording data as holes in an 80-column card. Although keypunches have a long history, dating back to the use of punch cards in the 1890s, the IBM 029 keypunch is slightly more modern, introduced in 1964. The repair turned out to be simple, but in the process I learned about the complex mechanical process keypunches used to encode characters.

A couple weeks ago, I was using the 029 keypunch in the Computer History Museum's 1401 demo room and I found that numbers weren't punching correctly. The keyboard has a "Numeric" key that you press to punch a number or special character. (Unlike modern keyboards with a row of numbers at the top, numbers on the 029 keyboard share keys with letters.) When I tried to type a number, I got the corresponding letter; the keypunch was ignoring the "Numeric" key. The same happened with special characters that required "Numeric".

Frank King, an expert on repairing vintage IBM computers, showed me how to fix the keyboard. The first step was to remove the keyboard from the desk. This was surprisingly easy—you just rotate the keyboard clockwise and lift it up.

Remember, kids, do not "fold, spindle, or mutilate."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russia got caught running a state-sponsored doping program for athletes competing in various sports events from 2011-2015. Russia has been banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. However, individual athletes can compete under the Olympic flag if they are cleared by a panel featuring representatives from the International Olympic Commission (IOC), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and the Doping Free Sport Unit of the Global Association of International Sports Federations. They also have to wear a simple English logo:

Russian athletes who compete in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics must wear a simple logo that reads "Olympic Athlete from Russia" — and their uniforms can't include other words or references to their home country, an International Olympic Committee panel said Wednesday.

The IOC's Olympic Athlete from Russia Implementation Group released guidelines for uniforms, accessories and equipment two weeks after Russia was effectively banned from the upcoming Olympics because of a widespread and organized doping campaign.

The ban includes provisions for Russian athletes who are declared "clean" to participate in South Korea. Russian officials say 200 or more athletes could meet the criteria.

The logos are sure to create a stir at the Olympics, an event that is heavy on both symbolism and patriotism. At recent events in Russia, the country's athletes have worn clothes with logos that say their nationality resides in their hearts.

The IOC says the restrictions will apply to competition and training uniforms, along with casualwear, and will cover Russian athletes, coaches and team officials. In addition to limiting the contingent to one or two colors, the fonts "should be in English and as generic as possible," the panel said.

Previously: Former Russian Anti-Doping Boss Dies Suddenly
Sports Doping Agency WADA Says Hackers Lifted Olympic Athletes' Medical Records
Betteridge Asks: Will Russian Doping Scandal Lead to Reform of the Olympics?

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666_

[...] The attackers were able to bypass protections provided by HTTPS-based encryption by first using their control of the Fox-IT domain to obtain a new transport layer security certificate. The process happened in the first 10 minutes of the attack, during which time all Fox-IT email was rerouted to the attackers. With that in place, the attackers were able to decrypt all incoming traffic and to cryptographically impersonate the hijacked domain. After intercepting and reading incoming traffic, the attackers forwarded it to Fox-IT in an attempt to prevent company engineers from detecting the attack.

The detailed account underscores just how easily hacks can succeed, even against security-savvy parties with relatively robust practices in place. It wouldn't be surprising to see the same techniques succeed against scores or even hundreds of other companies that use the same industry-standard countermeasures.

Source: Hackers take control of security firm’s domain, steal secret data

Original Submission

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Seems we've hit one of those rare days where circumstances have conspired to keep all the eds busy enough that the story queue ran dry, so I figured I'd go ahead and tell you lot about the upcoming December site update just so they have a little less time to fill now that a couple of them have appeared and started refilling the queue.

It's mostly just a minor bug-fix update, stuff I could get coded quickly and didn't require extensive testing that martyb doesn't have much time for right now, so don't get your hopes too high. Most of the good stuff is currently slated for spring of next year. Here's what we've currently got up on dev for testing with an expected release date of between Christmas and New Years Eve:

• Add an admin-configurable minimum karma requirement for a journal entry to show up in the Most Recent Journal Entries slashbox. Should eliminate having to see journal spam by folks who don't otherwise contribute anything to the site.
• Fixed the <spoiler> and a couple other unnoticed tags to work properly in journal entries.
• Removed the size limit on Editor Notes (the admin page ones, not the ones Eds add to the bottom of a story). Should make takyon happy.
• Put a link to the submission queue on the left sidebar.
• Fixed the spacing around <ol> and <ul> lists.
• Made chromas have to work harder to post comments with no apparent subject or text.
• Fixed an annoying bug in the admin interface that was trying to use a comment mode no longer in existence.

Like I said, not a whole lot there on account of us not having time to thoroughly test much what with the holidays coming up. Here's the list (using tinyurl due to a Rehash bug that will definitely make the Spring 2018 cut) of what we'd like to get done for this spring if you're curious though.

Them of you of the disposition to celebrate Christmas, have a merry one. Them of you who celebrate otherwise, happy whatever you're celebrating. Them of you who don't celebrate at all, have a happy rest of December.

[Ed note: I nudged the time this story was due to be released by just a few minutes so that it coincided with the beginning of the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere... and the Summer Solstice for those of you who are south of the equator. Maybe we can get the next release out at the start of the equinox (2018-03-20 @ 16:15:00 UTC). --martyb]

takyon writes:

NASA has selected two finalists for the fourth New Frontiers mission: a spacecraft that would retrieve a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and a drone that would explore multiple locations on Saturn's moon Titan:

In the first proposed mission, Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return, or Caesar, a spacecraft would go to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, previously explored by the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, and bring back a small chunk to Earth for closer study.

In the second mission, named Dragonfly, a robotic drone would be sent to Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which has a seas of hydrocarbons. The drone would be able to fly from one location to another and to perform detailed explorations of various terrains.

[...] Each team now will get $4 million and about one year to flesh out its idea. NASA will decide in mid-2019 which one of the two to build. The selected mission is to launch by the end of 2025.

The CAESAR mission to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko would scoop up 100 grams of material and return it to Earth... by 2038. CAESAR would be aided by Rosetta's precise measurements of the comet. The Dragonfly mission would make most of its observations on the ground of Titan, but would be able to fly hundreds of kilometers through Titan's atmosphere to land repeatedly. Flight on Titan is significantly easier than on Earth due to its 1.45 (Earth) atmospheres of pressure and 0.14g surface gravity.

The Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) and Venus In Situ Composition Investigations (VICI) concepts will also receive funding for technology development.

The previous New Frontiers missions were:

• The New Horizons flyby mission to Pluto, launched on January 19, 2006, which is currently en route to 2014 MU₆₉.
• The Juno mission to Jupiter, launched on August 5, 2011. Perijove 10 (9th science flyby) was on December 16, and Perijove 11 will occur on February 7, 2018.
• The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched on September 8, 2016, which will arrive at the 0.5 km asteroid 101955 Bennu in August 2018 and return a sample to Earth by 2023.

Also at NASA, The Verge and Air & Space.

Original Submission

DeathMonkey writes:

One of the NSA’s most important surveillance authorizations is set to expire on December 31st, and all year, reformers have been looking at the reauthorization as a way to pare back the agency’s powers. But after months of negotiating terms, Congress is now preparing a bill with none of the proposed limits, and a number of troubling new measures that say could greatly expand the agency’s power.

Submitted by Rep. Nunes on Tuesday afternoon, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 is based on a previous bill submitted by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), generally seen as the most NSA-friendly of the proposals. The current bill is narrower than Burr’s proposal in some areas, but makes a significant expansion to “about” collection, which allows the NSA to search communications that mention a given target but was not sent or received by the target. In practical terms, that could mean searching a message simply because it contains an email address, phone number, or other string of characters associated with a target.

[...] The bill would also codify the backdoor search loophole, which allows for intelligence agencies to search communications to and from US citizens without obtaining a warrant, as long as those communications were intercepted overseas. While that loophole is most associated with the NSA, it also includes domestic agencies like the FBI, which the current bill says “has the discretion to seek a warrant” if the bureau deems it necessary.

A vote is expected this week.

Congress is sneaking through a major expansion of NSA surveillance powers

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket sets up at Cape Canaveral ahead of launch

SpaceX won't hit its 2017 target for a test flight of its new, huge Falcon Heavy rocket – but the massive launch craft is now in place at Cape Canaveral in Florida, where it will undergo testing including a full static test fire, as well as final assembly, before attempting its inaugural launch early next year.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared images of the Falcon Heavy set up in a Cape Canaveral facility, nearly complete minus some remaining elements like the fairing and payload that will top the rocket.

Here's hoping for a successful test flight of Falcon Heavy.

Original Submission

djh2400 writes:

After a long wait, AMD is finally delivering on their two-year promise of open-sourcing their AMD Vulkan driver for Linux!

Ahead of the Vulkan 1.0 debut nearly two years ago, we heard that for AMD's Vulkan Linux driver it was initially going to be closed-source and would then be open-sourced once ready. At the time it sounded like something that would be opened up six months or so, but finally that milestone is being reached! Ahead of Christmas, AMD is publishing the source code to their official Vulkan Linux driver.

What Is This Driver?

This Vulkan driver they are open-sourcing is their "official" Vulkan driver as found for Linux users already within the AMDGPU-PRO driver. It's also the shared code-base to their Vulkan Windows driver. Basically, it's their full-featured Vulkan driver that AMD has been investing in the past 2+ years.

With this being the official AMD Vulkan driver and from their shared code-base, it's important to note that this is NOT a driver living within Mesa. This AMD Vulkan driver lives in its own code-base and is not using or dependent upon Mesa/Gallium3D but rather just interfacing with libdrm / AMDGPU DRM / LLVM directly.

... With this official Vulkan driver being shared across platforms, I was curious if this open-source access would allow it to be built on Microsoft Windows or if they are not opening up all of the bits for the Windows integration, etc. The AMD response to this question was, no, the code they are pushing out was stripped down to just their Linux code.

Fnord666 writes:

We're not sure what to make of this one. With the variety of smartwatches and fitness trackers out there, we can't be surprised by what sort of hardware ends up strapped to wrists these days. So a watch with an RPN calculator isn't too much of a stretch. But adding a hex editor? And a disassembler? Oh, and while you're at it, a transceiver for the 70cm ham band? Now that's something you don't see every day.

The mind boggles at not only the technical prowess needed to pull off what [Travis Goodspeed (KK4VCZ)] calls the GoodWatch, but at the thought process that led to all these features being packed into the case of a Casio calculator watch. But a lot of hacking is more about the "Why not?" than the "Why?", and when you start looking at the feature set of the CC430F6137 microcontroller [Travis] chose, things start to make sense.

Source: A Watch Only A Ham Can Use

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

After more than a decade of work, government researchers in the U.S. are ready to test an unusual birth control method for men—a topical gel that could prevent the production of sperm.

And no, gentlemen, you don't rub it on your genitals.

The clinical trial, which begins in April and will run for about four years, will be the largest effort in the U.S. to test a hormonal form of birth control for men.

[...] The new gel contains two synthetic hormones, progestin and testosterone. Progestin blocks the testes from making enough testosterone to produce normal levels of sperm. The replacement testosterone is needed to counteract the hormone imbalances the progestin causes but won't make the body produce sperm.

[...] The gel can suppress sperm levels for about 72 hours, so if men forget a dose, "there is a bit of forgiveness," says Régine Sitruk-Ware, distinguished scientist at the Population Council, a nonprofit for reproductive health that is sponsoring the trial alongside the NIH.

[...] Even if the trial is successful, Blithe says it will likely be several years before the gel would be available to the public.

Source: A Contraceptive Gel for Men Is About to Go on Trial (archive)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microsoft will no longer force the use of arbitration agreements for its employees who file sexual harassment claims, and will support new federal legislation to ban the use of the agreements in sexual harassment cases. In early December, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Lindsey Graham introduced the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017, that would make "no predispute arbitration agreement [...] valid or enforceable if it requires arbitration of a sex discrimination dispute":

This week Microsoft has altered a longstanding corporate policy, eliminating forced arbitration agreements for employees who file claims of sexual harassment—it is believed to be the largest such tech firm to make this notable change. "The silencing of people's voices has clearly had an impact in perpetuating sexual harassment," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, told The New York Times on Tuesday. In a blog post, Smith also said that the company would support new federal legislation to end the use of arbitration in sexual harassment cases.

[...] Just last week, Bloomberg reported on previously sealed court filings brought by a former Microsoft intern that stated she was raped by a fellow intern who was later hired at the company.

[...] Arbitration is a private, quasi-legal procedure originally designed to expedite disputes between corporations. But over time, it has evolved into a system where individuals are compelled for a variety of reasons to agree to arbitration decisions versus seeking a court decision. The net result is that disputes that normally would have been adjudicated via the public court process are often processed via private arbitration, which generally favors corporations over individuals.

NYT called the move largely symbolic because only hundreds of employees in Microsoft's senior ranks were subject to the arbitration requirement.

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have developed a "brain-on-a-chip" device aimed at testing and predicting the effects of biological and chemical agents, disease or pharmaceutical drugs on the brain over time without the need for human or animal subjects.

The device, part of the Lab's iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-Based Human Investigational Platform) project, simulates the central nervous system by recording neural activity from multiple brain cell types deposited and grown onto microelectrode arrays. The platform, described in the journal PLOS One, could help scientists understand how brain cells connect and interact, combat brain disorders, determine how soldiers are affected by exposure to chemical and biological weapons and develop antidotes to counteract those effects.

"While we're not close to the point where we can fully recapitulate a brain outside of the body, this is an important step in terms of increasing complexity of these devices and moving in the right direction," said co-lead author and LLNL research engineer Dave Soscia. "The idea is that eventually the community gets to a point where people are confident enough in the devices that the effects they see from putting chemicals or pharmaceutical drugs into the platform environment are similar to the results we would see in the human body."

Controlled placement of multiple CNS cell populations to create complex neuronal cultures (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188146) (DX)

'Brain-on-a-chip' to test effects of biological and chemical agents, develop countermeasures

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Purdue University researchers have demonstrated a transistor using a negative capacitor made with hafnium zirconium oxide:

Researchers have experimentally demonstrated how to harness a property called negative capacitance for a new type of transistor that could reduce power consumption, validating a theory proposed in 2008 by a team at Purdue University.

[...] Capacitance, or the storage of electrical charge, normally has a positive value. However, using the ferroelectric material in a transistor's gate allows for negative capacitance, which could result in far lower power consumption to operate a transistor. Such an innovation could bring more efficient devices that run longer on a battery charge.

[...] Properly switching off [transistors] is of special importance to ensure that no electricity "leaks" through. This switching normally requires a minimum of 60 millivolts for every tenfold increase in current, a requirement called the thermionic limit. However, transistors that harness negative capacitance might break this fundamental limit, switching at far lower voltages and resulting in less power consumption.

Steep-slope hysteresis-free negative capacitance MoS₂ transistors (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-017-0010-1) (DX)

2014: Negative capacitance in a ferroelectric capacitor (DOI: 10.1038/nmat4148) (DX)

2008: Use of Negative Capacitance to Provide Voltage Amplification for Low Power Nanoscale Devices (DOI: 10.1021/nl071804g) (DX)

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Recently, Solartech Universal made headlines as part of solar machine maker Meyer Burger's heterojunction (HJT) solar cell and SmartWire (SWT) hardware announcements. Meyer Burger announced their new hardware manufacturing lines using a Solartech Universal solar panel. The 'champion module' hit 334.9W – a 20.5% solar panel efficiency. The cells used in the panel hit as high as 24.02% – higher than JinkoSolar's 23.45% (albeit with a different cell type).

Solartech Universal says this panel should be available in 2018 as the company works through the challenges of integrating the new manufacturing hardware into the current line (see Solartech Universal panel assembly video at end of article). The specification page for the panel family is available on the website – it peaks at 330W models, and notes being available soon.

[...] Meyer Burger calls heterojunction 'the Solar Cell of the Future (pdf).' An actual heterojunction solar cell just hit 26.6% efficiency in November. Again, well beyond, Jinko's 23.45%. This greater efficiency is partially because of additional layers of solar material – amorphous silicon – that grabs a different wavelength of light to make electricity.

Source: https://electrek.co/2017/12/19/florida-company-solar-cell-of-the-future-500w-heterojunction/

Original Submission