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Fnord666 writes:

Circuit City [Ed:Circuit City was a multinational consumer electronics retail company that operated stores across the United States] is coming back, and this time, the license holders propping up the ancient big-box retail chain say they mean it.

Following a tease of a CES announcement, current company CEO Ronny Shmoel confirmed on Monday that something called Circuit City will arrive as "a new, more personalized online shopping experience" starting February 15. The announcement event, which was reported by tech-business outlet Twice, included promises of AI-driven recommendations fueled by IBM's Watson platform, plus unexplained "augmented reality" and "search by photo" features.

[...] With this news in mind, we're keeping an eye on Radio Shack's own shambling corpse. That company currently lives as a license granted to one of the former company's creditors when nobody else bid more for the rights in 2017.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/the-corpse-of-circuit-city-will-rise-again-on-february-15/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A District Judge, the Illinois Attorney General's office, and Schaumburg School District 54 have agreed to exempt an 11-year-old from an Illinois law prohibiting medically prescribed cannabis at schools:

In a decision that may have sweeping effects, a judge has allowed an 11-year-old Illinois girl to use medical marijuana at school.

Medical marijuana is legal in Illinois, and it is against current law for students to use it in school or have school nurses administer it. Now, Ashley Surin is the sole exemption. She overcame a leukemia diagnosis at 2 years old with extensive chemotherapy, but some of her treatments eventually led to having semi regular seizures. Her mother, Maureen Surin, told NPR that since starting medical marijuana treatment, her seizures have immensely declined in number. "We're amazed with her progress," Surin said.

Her parents filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday against Schaumburg School District 54 and the State of Illinois, claiming that the state's ban on taking the drug at school violates the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). On Friday, a judge ruled in their favor after hearing from the school district, which reportedly had concerns that its employees may be subject to legal penalties for helping Ashley with her medications.

"What people seem to misunderstand here is that medical marijuana is a prescription like any other drug," [the family's attorney, Steven Glink, said]. "Prohibiting it in school would be the same as prohibiting other medications such as Ritalin, Adderall or Concerta."

Phillip writes:

Linux system manufacturer System76 introduced a beautiful looking Linux distribution called Pop!_OS. But is Pop OS worth an install? Read the Pop OS review and find out yourself.

More at : https://itsfoss.com/pop-os-linux-review/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SPARCS, a NASA-funded CubeSat mission led by Arizona State University, will monitor nearby red dwarf stars for flare activity and sunspots in order to assess their habitability:

In 2021, a spacecraft the size of a Cheerios box will carry a small telescope into Earth orbit on an unusual mission. Its task is to monitor the flares and sunspots of small stars to assess how habitable the space environment is for planets orbiting them.

The spacecraft, known as the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, or SPARCS for short, is a new NASA-funded space telescope. The mission, including spacecraft design, integration and resulting science, is led by Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE).

"This is a mission to the borderland of astrophysics and astrobiology," said Evgenya Shkolnik, assistant professor in SESE and principal investigator for the SPARCS mission. "We're going to study the habitability and high-energy environment around stars that we call M dwarfs."

[...] Because M dwarfs are so plentiful, astronomers estimate that our galaxy alone contains roughly 40 billion — that's billion with a B — rocky planets in habitable zones around their stars. This means that most of the habitable-zone planets in our galaxy orbit M dwarfs. In fact, the nearest one, dubbed Proxima b, lies just 4.2 light-years away, which is on our doorstep in astronomical terms.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

UCLA Bioengineering leads development of stingray-inspired soft biobot

UCLA bioengineering professor Ali Khademhosseini has led the development of a tissue-based soft robot that mimics the biomechanics of a stingray. The new technology could lead to advances in bio-inspired robotics, regenerative medicine and medical diagnostics. The study [DOI: 10.1002/adma.201704189] [DX] was published in Advanced Materials.

The simple body design of stingrays, specifically, a flattened body shape and side fins that start at the head and end at the base of their tail, makes them ideal to model bio-electromechanical systems on.

The 10-millimeter long robot is made up of four layers: tissue composed of live heart cells, two distinct types of specialized biomaterials for structural support, and flexible electrodes. Imitating nature, the robotic stingray is even able to "flap" its fins when the electrodes contract the heart cells on the biomaterial scaffold.

Original Submission

"MrPlow" writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The Satanic Temple, an activist group based in Salem, Massachusetts, is threatening to sue Twitter for religious discrimination after one of its co-founders had his Twitter account permanently suspended.

Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple's co-founder and spokesman, said his Twitter account was permanently suspended without any notice after he asked his followers to report a tweet that called for the Satanic Temple to be burned down.

"We're talking to lawyers today," Greaves said Friday about whether he planned to take legal action.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/satanic-temple-threatens-sue-twitter-over-religious-discrimination-780148

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Visualizing cellular components and processes at the molecular level is important for understanding the basis of any biological activity. Fluorescent proteins (FPs) are one of the most useful tools for investigating intracellular molecular dynamics.

However, FPs have usage limitations for imaging in low pH environments, such as in acidic organelles, including endosomes, lysosomes, and plant vacuoles. In environments of pH less than 6, most FPs lose their brightness and stability due to their neutral pK_a. pK_a is the measure of acid strength; the smaller the pK_a is, the more acidic the substance is.

"Although there are reports of several acid-tolerant green FPs (GFPs), most have serious drawbacks. Furthermore, there is a lack of acid-tolerant GFPs that are practically applicable to bioimaging," says Hajime Shinoda, lead author of an Osaka University study that aimed to design acid-tolerant monomeric GFP that is practically applicable to live-cell imaging in acidic organelles. "In the current study, we developed an acid-tolerant GFP. We called it Gamillus."

[... ] X-ray crystallography (a technique used for determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in this case, a Gamillus crystal) and point mutagenesis suggest the acid tolerance of Gamillus is attributed to stabilization of deprotonation in its chemical structure. The findings were published in Cell Chemical Biology.

"The applicability of Gamillus as a molecular tag was shown by the correct localization pattern of Gamillus fusions in a variety of cellular structures, including ones that are difficult to target," corresponding author Takeharu Nagai says. "We believe Gamillus can be a powerful molecular tool for investigating unknown biological phenomena involving acidic organelles, such as autophagy."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Netflix, Amazon and Hollywood Sue Kodi-Powered Dragon Box Over Piracy

Several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix have filed a lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, branding it a supplier of pirate streaming devices. The companies accuse Dragon of using the Kodi media player in combination with pirate addons to facilitate mass copyright infringement via its Dragon Box device. [...] In recent months these boxes have become the prime target for copyright enforcers, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies.

After suing Tickbox last year a group of key ACE members have now filed a similar lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, which sells the popular Dragon Box. The complaint, filed at a California federal court, also lists the company's owner Paul Christoforo and reseller Jeff Williams among the defendants.

According to ACE, these type of devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright infringing content. That also applies to Dragon Box, they inform the court. "Defendants market and sell 'Dragon Box,' a computer hardware device that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of the copyrighted motion pictures and television shows," the complaint, picked up by HWR, reads.

JoeMerchant writes:

Wim Hof first caught the attention of scientists when he proved he was able to use meditation to stay submerged in ice for 1 hour and 53 minutes without his core body temperature changing. Since then, he's climbed Mount Everest in his shorts, resisted altitude sickness, completed a marathon in the Namib Desert with no water and proven under a laboratory setting that he's able to influence his autonomic nervous system and immune system at will.

Almost everything Wim has done was previously thought to be impossible - but he's not a freak of nature.

To demonstrate that any human can learn his methods, Wim offered to teach Matt Shea and Daisy-May Hudson to climb a freezing cold mountain in their shorts without getting cold.

Buddhist breathing techniques repackaged for westerners? There's an app for that.

Original Submission

"MrPlow" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Teckla

There is increasing evidence linking Russia to the Shadow Brokers leaks, which is "one of the worst security debacles ever to befall American intelligence."

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/experts-link-nsa-leaks-shadow-brokers-russia-kaspersky-144840962.html

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NASA Team First to Demonstrate X-ray Navigation in Space

In a technology first, a team of NASA engineers has demonstrated fully autonomous X-ray navigation in space — a capability that could revolutionize NASA's ability in the future to pilot robotic spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond.

The demonstration, which the team carried out with an experiment called Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT, showed that millisecond pulsars could be used to accurately determine the location of an object moving at thousands of miles per hour in space — similar to how the Global Positioning System, widely known as GPS, provides positioning, navigation, and timing services to users on Earth with its constellation of 24 operating satellites.

[...] The SEXTANT technology demonstration, which NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate had funded under its Game Changing Program, took advantage of the 52 X-ray telescopes and silicon-drift detectors that make up NASA's Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER. Since its successful deployment as an external attached payload on the International Space Station in June, it has trained its optics on some of the most unusual objects in the universe.

"We're doing very cool science and using the space station as a platform to execute that science, which in turn enables X-ray navigation," said Goddard's Keith Gendreau, the principal investigator for NICER, who presented the findings Thursday, Jan. 11, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington. "The technology will help humanity navigate and explore the galaxy."

Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer

Previously: NASA to Study Neutron Stars; Sends New Instrument to ISS; SpaceX Launch Sat @ 2107 UTC (1707 EDT)

Related: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' Of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong

Original Submission

takyon writes:

"Decorated" Stem Cells Could Offer Targeted Heart Repair

Although cardiac stem cell therapy is a promising treatment for heart attack patients, directing the cells to the site of an injury – and getting them to stay there – remains challenging. In a new pilot study using an animal model, North Carolina State University researcher Ke Cheng and his team show that "decorating" cardiac stem cells with platelet nanovesicles can increase the stem cells' ability to find and remain at the site of heart attack injury and enhance their effectiveness in treatment.

"Platelets can home in on an injury site and stay there, and even in some cases recruit a body's own naturally occurring stem cells to the site, but they are a double-edged sword," says Cheng, associate professor of veterinary medicine and associate professor in the NC State/UNC Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. "That's because once the platelets arrive at the site of injury, they trigger the coagulation processes that cause clotting. In a heart-attack injury, blood clots are the last thing that you want."

Cheng and his associates wondered if it would be possible to co-opt a platelet's ability to locate and stick to an injury site without inducing clotting. They found that adhesion molecules (a group of glycoproteins) located on the platelet's surface were responsible for its ability to find and bind to an injury. So the team created platelet nanovesicles from these molecules, and then decorated the surface of cardiac stem cells with the nanovesicles.

[...] In a proof-of-concept study involving a rat model of myocardial infarction, twice as many platelet nanovesicle decorated cardiac stem cells, or PNV-CSCs, were retained in the heart than non-decorated cardiac stem cells. The rodents were monitored for four weeks. Overall, the rats in the PNV-CSC group showed nearly 20 percent or higher cardiac function than the control CSC group. A small pilot study in a pig model also demonstrated higher rates of stem cell retention with PNV-CSCs, though the team did not perform functional studies. A future follow-up study is planned.

Targeted repair of heart injury by stem cells fused with platelet nanovesicles (DOI: 10.1038/s41551-017-0182-x) (DX)

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

It's been about a month since American Express and Mastercard decided to stop requiring signatures for EMV chip credit cards. Now Visa is joining their ranks, making signatures optional for chipped transactions in North America.

"Visa is committed to delivering secure, fast and convenient payments at the point of sale," said VIsa's Dan Sanford in a statement. "Our focus is on continually evolving the market towards dynamic authentication methods such as EMV chip, as well as investing in emerging capabilities that leverage advanced analytics and biometrics. We believe making the signature requirement optional for EMV chip-enabled merchants is the responsible next step to enhance security and convenience at the point of sale."

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/12/visa-signatures-optional-credit-cards-emv/

Original Submission

realDonaldTrump writes:

Thiel Makes a Bid for Gawker.com, a Site He Helped Bankrupt

Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire, submitted a bid this week to purchase Gawker.com, the remaining unsold property from the Gawker Media gossip empire that was nearly destroyed in 2016 by a lawsuit largely bankrolled by Mr. Thiel.

If approved, the acquisition could be the last step in a yearslong effort by Mr. Thiel to finish an independent journalism outfit that angered him in 2007 when it reported, without his permission, that he is gay, a fact widely known at the time in Silicon Valley.

Gawker.com has received other offers, and it is not clear if Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, will prevail. A winning bid is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, if representatives of Gawker.com do not take the site off the market.

Previously: Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel Wants to Buy Gawker!

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Chelsea Manning eyes U.S. Senate seat for Maryland

Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army soldier who served seven years in military prison for leaking classified data, is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland, according to Federal election filings seen on Saturday.

[...] Democratic Senator Ben Cardin was elected in 2006 to that seat and is expected to run for re-election this year. He is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Cardin was easily re-elected in 2012, beating his Republican challenger by 30 points in the heavily-Democratic state.

Previously: Chelsea Manning Released from Prison, Remains on Active Duty Pending Appeal
Harvard Dean Rescinds Chelsea Manning's Visiting Fellow Invitation, Calling It a 'Mistake'

Original Submission