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Picasso painted over another artist's work—and then over his own, new imaging reveals
Hidden beneath the brush strokes of Pablo Picasso's 1902 oil painting La Miséreuse accroupie (The Crouching Beggar) lies the work of another Barcelona artist. And the underlying work seems to have inspired some of Picasso's artistry. Mountains in the original painting—a landscape scene—became the outline of the back of the subject in Picasso's work, which depicts a crouching, cloaked woman.
Experts have known about the hidden image since 1992, when the underlying layers of the painting were first probed using x-ray radiography. But new work, using modern imaging techniques, is revealing more detail—not only about the original painting, but also about Picasso's. Researchers discovered another hidden layer: Under the woman's cloak, Picasso painted an image of her hand clutching a piece of bread, the team announced here today at the annual meeting AAAS, which publishes Science.
The discovery allows us "to look inside Picasso's head and get a sense of how he was making decisions as he was painting the canvas," says Marc Walton, a cultural heritage scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a lead researcher on the study. "He reworked, he labored on painting this individual element, but then chose to abandon it at the end."
Related: The Picture Under the "Mona Lisa"
Particle Accelerator Reveals Hidden Degas Painting
The presence of large quantities of oxygen ions may be able to distinguish habitable exoplanets with life from barren exoplanets in the habitable zone (resembling Venus or Mars):
Like Earth, Venus and Mars are small rocky planets; they have permanent atmospheres like Earth, and their atmospheres are exposed to the same solar radiation as Earth's. Data from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Viking descent probe on Mars show that they have very similar ionospheres to each other—which don't contain a lot of atomic O+ ions. Know what else Venus and Mars are missing? Photosynthesis.
[Astronomy PhD candidate Paul] Dalba's contention is that photosynthesis on a planet's surface, which generates a surfeit of molecular oxygen, is the only thing that can account for these atomic O+ ions in a planet's ionosphere. The mere existence of life throws a planet's atmosphere out of chemical balance. O+ would be a neat biomarker because there isn't a numerical cutoff required—just the dominance of O+ among the ionic species in the upper atmosphere would indicate "thriving global biological activity" on the planet below.
Dalba claims that Venus and Mars act as negative controls, demonstrating that planets like Earth but lacking life don't have this O+ layer. Some may think that continuous volcanic activity on the surface could also generate enough oxygen, but Dalba doesn't. Chemistry involving water and UV light [open, DOI: 10.1038/srep13977] [DX] can also release oxygen. But the amount of water on Earth is insufficient to account for the requisite oxygen content, so he thinks that the presence of water on other planets wouldn't make enough oxygen there either.
Atomic oxygen ions as ionospheric biomarkers on exoplanets (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-017-0375-y) (DX)
Related: Nitrogen in Ancient Rocks a Sign of Early Life
Oxygen Ions From Earth Escape to the Moon
Researchers Suffocate Hopes of Life Support in Red Dwarf "Habitable Zones"
Seven Earth-Sized Exoplanets, Including Three Potentially Habitable, Identified Around TRAPPIST-1
Cosmic Methyl Chloride Detection Complicates the Search for Life on Exoplanets
Mars Colonists Could Produce Oxygen by Making a Plasma Out of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Analysis of Microfossils Finds that Microbial Life Existed at Least 3.5 Billion Years Ago
To Detect Life on Other Planets, Look for Methane, Carbon Dioxide, and an Absence of Carbon Monoxide
Facebook loses Belgian privacy case, faces fine of up to $125 million
A Belgian court threatened Facebook on Friday with a fine of up to 100 million euros ($125 million) if it continued to break privacy laws by tracking people on third-party websites.
In a case brought by Belgium's privacy watchdog, the court also ruled that Facebook had to delete all data it had gathered illegally on Belgian citizens, including people who were not Facebook users themselves.
Facebook, which will be fined 250,000 euros a day or up to 100 million euros if it does not comply with the court's judgment, said in a statement it would appeal the ruling.
Also at The Guardian.
[Update] There have been new developments to this story:
According to Techcrunch:
Yesterday, we wrote that Coinbase customers were being charged multiple times for past transactions.
While some speculated that the erroneous withdraws were down to a Coinbase engineering issue, Coinbase issued a statement saying it wasn’t liable for the duplicate charges. The blame, instead, rested with Visa for the way it handled a migration of merchant categories for cryptocurrencies, Coinbase said.
While you can read my post yesterday for an in-depth description of what happened, the basic gist is that about a month of old transactions were refunded and recharged under a different merchant category. Many users saw the recharge come through before the refund processed, making it look like they were double charged. Honestly, the issue was likely exacerbated by existing payment rails — it’s normal for refunds to take multiple days to show up on credit and debit statements.
Here is the joint statement by Visa and Worldpay (Coinbase):
Over the last two days, some customers who used a credit or debit card at Coinbase may have seen duplicate transactions posted to their cardholder accounts.
This issue was not caused by Coinbase.
Worldpay and Coinbase have been working with Visa and Visa issuing banks to ensure that the duplicate transactions have been reversed and appropriate credits have been posted to cardholder accounts. All reversal transactions have now been issued, and should appear on customers’ credit card and debit card accounts within the next few days. We believe the majority of these reversals have already posted to accounts. If you continue to have problems with your credit or debit card account after this reversal period, including issues relating to card fees or charges, we encourage you to contact your card issuing bank.
We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused customers.
The original story follows below.
A growing number of Coinbase customers are complaining that the cryptocurrency exchange withdrew unauthorized money out of their accounts. In some cases, this drained their linked bank accounts below zero, resulting in overdraft charges.
In a typical anecdote posted on Reddit, one user said they purchased Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin for a total of $300 on February 9th. A few days later, the transactions repeated five times for a total of $1,500, even though the user had not made any more purchases. That was enough to clear out this user's bank account, they said, resulting in fees.
"My bank account went from very comfortable to negatives balance, not to mention extra $5 charges, and overdraft fees," the user wrote. "As a result my rent check bounced, and my bank went further into negative for a NSF charge for $25. My landlord is not a nice person and is on my CASE and I have nothing to offer him. I am FREAKING OUT."
Coinbase representatives have been responding to similar complaints on Reddit for about two weeks, but the volume of complaints seems to have spiked over the last 24 hours. Similar complaints have popped up on forums and Twitter.
Source: The Verge
New studies zero in on roots of depression and why ketamine reverses it
[There's] been significant progress in unravelling the confusion over ketamine, with researchers identifying a ketamine derivative that tackles depression with far fewer side effects. And this week, a team of researchers at China's Zhejiang University announced that they've figured out where in the brain ketamine acts when it blocks depression, a finding that gives us significant insights into the biology of the disorder.
The new studies rely on the work of a number of other labs, which have identified a specific structure deep in the brain that's associated with depression. Called the lateral habenula, it's been associated with a variety of activities, the most relevant of which seems to be the processing of unpleasant outcomes and punishment. Electrodes implanted there have been used to relieve depression in at least one instance.
To test whether this might be the site of ketamine's activity, one team of researchers infused the drug directly into the lateral habenula of rats with depression-like symptoms; it blocked them. So did a separate chemical that inhibits the same proteins that ketamine acts on. Tracking the activity in the area, the researchers were able to show that there are bursts of activity in rats with symptoms of depression that are absent in healthy rats. The drugs that blocked depression suppressed these bursts.
Ketamine blocks bursting in the lateral habenula to rapidly relieve depression (DOI: 10.1038/nature25509) (DX)
Astroglial Kir4.1 in the lateral habenula drives neuronal bursts in depression (DOI: 10.1038/nature25752) (DX)
Related: FDA Designates MDMA as a "Breakthrough Therapy" for PTSD; Approves Phase 3 Trials
Study Suggests Psilocybin "Resets" the Brains of Depressed People
Ketamine Reduces Suicidal Thoughts in Depressed Patients
Riana Pfefferkorn, a Cryptography Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, has published a whitepaper on the risks of so-called "responsible encryption". This refers to inclusion of a mechanism for exceptional access by law enforcement to the cleartext content of encrypted messages. It also goes by the names "back door", "key escrow", and "golden key".
Federal law enforcement officials in the United States have recently renewed their periodic demands for legislation to regulate encryption. While they offer few technical specifics, their general proposal—that vendors must retain the ability to decrypt for law enforcement the devices they manufacture or communications their services transmit—presents intractable problems that would-be regulators must not ignore.
However, with all that said, a lot more is said than done. Some others would make the case that active participation is needed in the democratic process by people knowledgeable in use of actual ICT. As RMS has many times pointed out much to the chagrin of more than a few geeks, "geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone." Again, participation is needed rather than ceding the whole process, and thus its outcome, to the loonies.
Source : New Paper on The Risks of "Responsible Encryption"
Related:
EFF : New National Academy of Sciences Report on Encryption Asks the Wrong Questions
Great, Now There's "Responsible Encryption"
Intel Touts Silicon Spin Qubits for Quantum Computing
"Intel has invented a spin qubit fabrication flow on its 300 mm process technology using isotopically pure wafers sourced specifically for the production of spin-qubit test chips. Fabricated in the same facility as Intel's advanced transistor technologies, Intel is now testing the initial wafers. Within a couple of months, Intel expects to be producing many wafers per week, each with thousands of small qubit arrays," according to the Intel news brief posted online today.
The topic isn't exactly new. Use of quantum dots for qubits has long been studied. The new Nature paper, A programmable two-qubit quantum processor in silicon, demonstrated overcoming some of the cross-talk obstacles presented when using quantum dots.
[...] Intel emphasizes silicon spin qubits can operate at higher temperatures than superconducting qubits (1 kelvin as opposed to 20 millikelvin). "This could drastically reduce the complexity of the system required to operate the chips by allowing the integration of control electronics much closer to the processor. Intel and academic research partner QuTech are exploring higher temperature operation of spin qubits with interesting results up to 1K (or 50x warmer) than superconducting qubits. The team is planning to share the results at the American Physical Society (APS) meeting in March."
A programmable two-qubit quantum processor in silicon (DOI: 10.1038/nature25766) (DX)
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
A New York federal court has ruled that people can be held liable for copyright infringement if they embed a tweet posted by a third party. The case was filed by Justin Goldman, whose photo of Tom Brady went viral and eventually ended up at several news sites, which embedded these 'infringing' tweets.
Nowadays it's fairly common for blogs and news sites to embed content posted by third parties, ranging from YouTube videos to tweets.
Although these publications don't host the content themselves, they can be held liable for copyright infringement, a New York federal court has ruled.
The case in question was filed by Justin Goldman whose photo of Tom Brady went viral after he posted it on Snapchat. After being reposted on Reddit, it also made its way onto Twitter from where various news organizations picked it up.
Several of these news sites reported on the photo by embedding tweets from others. However, since Goldman never gave permission to display his photo, he went on to sue the likes of Breitbart, Time, Vox and Yahoo, for copyright infringement.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/embedding-a-tweet-can-be-copyright-infringement-court-rules-180216/
The EFF addresses some shortcomings in the recent report to policy makers by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) on encryption.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a much-anticipated report yesterday that attempts to influence the encryption debate by proposing a "framework for decisionmakers." At best, the report is unhelpful. At worst, its framing makes the task of defending encryption harder.
The report collapses the question of whether the government should mandate "exceptional access" to the contents of encrypted communications with how the government could accomplish this mandate. We wish the report gave as much weight to the benefits of encryption and risks that exceptional access poses to everyone's civil liberties as it does to the needs—real and professed—of law enforcement and the intelligence community.
The report via the link in the quote above is available free of charge but holds several hoops to hop through between you and the final PDF. The EFF recognizes that the NAS report was undertaken in good faith, but identifies two main points of contention with the final product. Specifically, the framing is problematic and the discussion of the possible risks to civil liberties is quite brief.
Source : New National Academy of Sciences Report on Encryption Asks the Wrong Questions
Anyone still reeling after Google snagged .dev for their own nefarious purposes will be relieved to learn that Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has decided (after 6 years) to reject the applications for .home, .corp, and .mail.
Twenty companies paid the $185,000 application fee to ICANN back in 2012 to oversee the top level domains.
Seventeen months later an ICANN commissioned report noted that .home, and .corp were by far the most frequently queried top level domains and argued that they should not be added to the public internet. Eleven months later they were formally designated as "high risk" extensions.
Further study, as well as a failed attempt by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to add the 3 to the official list banned from the internet took another 15 months.
Finally in late 2017, 15 months after prompting from the original applicants, they revisited the issue again and decided to reject the applications - and in the interest of fairness, fully refund the application fees.
So there you have it, you can now use .home, .corp, and .mail on your internal networks.
More info at The Register:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/12/icann_corp_home_mail_gtlds/
ICANN meeting minutes:
https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2018-02-04-en#2.c
Scientists Create a New Form of Light by Linking Photons
It's a glimpse of science fiction made fact: Scientists have created a new form of light that could someday be used to build light crystals. But before would-be Jedis start demanding their sabers, the advance is far more likely to lead to intriguing new ways of communicating and computing, researchers report this week in Science [DOI: 10.1126/science.aao7293] [DX].
Light is made up of photons—speedy, tiny packets of energy. Typically, photons do not interact with each other at all, which is why when using flashlights "you don't see the light beams bounce off each other, you see them go through each other," explains Sergio Cantu, a Ph.D. candidate in atomic physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In new experiments, however, the physicists coaxed individual photons to cozy up to each other and link, similar to the way individual atoms stick together in molecules.
[...] [Vaporizing] rubidium with a laser and keeping it ultracold creates a cloud the researchers contain in a small tube and magnetize. This keeps the rubidium atoms diffuse, slow moving and in a highly excited state. Then the team fires a weak laser at the cloud. The laser is so weak that just a handful of photons enter the cloud, a press release from MIT explains. The physicists measure the photons when they exit the other side of the cloud and that is when things get weird.
Normally the photons would be traveling at the speed of light—or almost 300,000 kilometers per second. But after passing through the cloud, the photons creep along 100,000 times slower than normal. Also, instead of exiting the cloud randomly, the photons come through in pairs or triplets. These pairs and triplets also give off a different energy signature, a phase shift, that tells the researchers the photons are interacting.
Also at Newsweek.
With new CRISPR inventions, its pioneers say, you ain't seen nothin' yet
[...] Some of the world's leading CRISPR labs have, independently, tweaked CRISPR — adding bursts of light here and rings of DNA there — in ways that could make it even more of a research powerhouse and, possibly, a valuable medical sleuth, able to detect Zika, Ebola, and cancer-causing viruses, or a cell's history of, say, exposure to toxins.
The inventions, which, like CRISPR itself, have been given clever acronyms — DETECTR, CAMERA, and SHERLOCK — show that scientists have yet to exhaust CRISPR's talents. The technology is beginning to look like a Swiss army knife (we told you that was the best metaphor) rather than a mere Word editor.
In fact, its potential utility — and profitability — as a molecular diagnostic tool and biosensor are enticing enough that the inventors of the three new uses of CRISPR have all filed for patents on them, and a fourth lab scrambled to post its own CRISPR-based biosensor invention on the bioRxiv preprint server at the exact second that the others were reported in the journal Science.
Also at Science Magazine (for CAMERA).
Diplomats and other victims of mysterious "sonic attacks" at the American embassy in Havana, Cuba are experiencing neurological symptoms months after being affected:
A preliminary case report on the victims of mysterious "health attacks" in Havana, Cuba details the results of extensive clinical evaluations, concluding that the individuals appear to have sustained "injury to widespread brain networks without an associated history of head trauma."
The report offers the first medical glimpse of the victims—US government personnel and their families who were serving on diplomatic assignment in Havana. From late 2016 to August 2017, they reported experiencing bizarre and inexplicable sonic and sensory episodes. The episodes tended to include directional, irritating sounds, such as buzzing and piercing squeals, as well as pressure and vibrations. Afterward, the victims developed a constellation of neurological symptoms.
In clinical evaluations of 21 of 24 individuals affected, an interdisciplinary team of doctors at University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine retrospectively pieced together symptoms—an average of 203 days after individuals were exposed. They found that the most common issues persisting more than three months after exposure were cognitive impairment (17/21); balance issues (15/21); visual (18/21) and hearing (15/21) problems; sleep impairment (18/21); and headaches (16/21).
Previously: U.S. State Department Pulls Employees From Cuba, Issues Travel Warning Due to "Sonic Attacks"
A 'Sonic Attack' on Diplomats in Cuba? These Scientists Doubt It
Transgender woman is first to be able to breastfeed her baby
A 30-year-old transgender woman has become the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby. An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a nausea drug and breast stimulation, enabled the woman to produce 227 grams of milk a day.
"This is a very big deal," says Joshua Safer of Boston Medical Center, who was not involved with the treatment. "Many transgender women are looking to have as many of the experiences of non-transgender women as they can, so I can see this will be extremely popular."
The transgender woman had been receiving feminising hormonal treatments for several years before she started the lactation treatment. These included spironolactone, which is thought to block the effects of testosterone, and progesterone and a type of oestrogen. This regimen enabled her to develop breasts that looked fully grown, according to a medical scale that assesses breast development based on appearance. She had not had any breast augmentation surgery.
When her partner was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, the woman sought medical treatment from Tamar Reisman and Zil Goldstein at Mount Sinai's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. Her partner had no interest in breastfeeding, she explained, so she would like to take on that role instead.
The milk produced was supplemented by formula because a baby typically needs 500 grams of milk per day at 5 days old.
Related: President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Says Transgender Women Could Give Birth
US rejects China-led bid for Chicago Stock Exchange
The US has rejected a proposed merger between the Chicago Stock Exchange and a Chinese-linked investor group. The decision comes after more than two years of reviews by officials.
The tie-up was initially approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, pending further approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But US politicians, including President Trump, have said letting a Chinese firm invest in a US exchange was a bad idea.
Under the proposal, the Chinese-led North America Casin Holdings group would have bought CHX Holdings, which owns the Chicago Stock Exchange. The exchange, which handles just 0.5% of US stock trades, had said the deal would have provided the exchange with "vital capital". That funding would have been used "to boost numerous initiatives designed to benefit the city of Chicago, the US economy and market structure as a whole".
Also at Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters, and CNN.