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Runaway1956 writes:

Armor-Piercing Bullet Turned to Dust When Fired at Composite Metal Foam

Essentially a metal sponge consisting of hollow metal beads within solid metal, composite metal foam (CMF) generally retains some physical properties of its base materials. While its defining characteristic is ultra-high porosity, CMF boasts 5 to 6 times greater strength as well as over 7 times higher energy absorption than previously developed metal foams. Typically created by melting aluminum around hollow metal spheres, it is impressively 70% lighter than sheet metal and 80 times more energy absorbent than steel.

The foam is claimed to be non-toxic, resistant to radiation, fire and heat resistant.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/04/21/watch-armor-piercing-bullet-turned-to-dust-when-fired-at-composite-metal-foam/

Youtube video (13 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWmFu-_54fI

Related video (2:30) demonstrates automotive and other applications https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uE_f9rXLlk

Slightly different coverage at https://newatlas.com/metal-foam-bullets/42731/

Another Youtube video, demonstrating an explosion - https://youtu.be/yMVEQh5Akcc

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google has published code and details for VR180, a video/photo format intended for simpler devices to capture or display content for virtual reality:

For Google's VR180 to become successful, manufacturers and developers have to be onboard, creating devices and churning out videos and apps that use the format. That's why the tech giant is now opening it up to hardware-makers and devs by publishing the remaining details on how they can start engaging with the format and offer VR180 products. When Google-owned platform YouTube introduced VR180 last year, it introduced the format as a way for creators to shoot immersive photos and videos for VR headsets that still have a normal perspective when viewed on a phone or PC.

From Google's blog:

Today, we're publishing the remaining details about creating VR180 videos on github and photos on the Google Developer website, so any developer or manufacturer can start engaging with VR180.

For VR180 video, we simply extended the Spherical Video Metadata V2 standard. Spherical V2 supports the mesh-based projection needed to allow consumer cameras to output raw fisheye footage. We then created the Camera Motion Metadata Track so that you're able to stabilize the video according to the camera motion after video capture. This results in a more comfortable VR experience for viewers. The photos that are generated by the cameras are written in the existing VR Photo Format pioneered by Cardboard Camera.

The Lenovo Mirage VR180 camera is set to launch on May 4 for $300. The Yi Horizon VR180 is set to launch sometime in the summer for $400.

Good news for the stereoscopic 3D imaging enthusiasts out there.

Previously: Google Bisects VR

Related: Virtual Reality Audiences Stare Straight Ahead 75% of the Time

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow9228

For one brave man, eating one of the hottest peppers in the world came with an unexpected side effect: Days of splitting headaches that prompted a trip to the emergency room.

The unusual case, detailed in The BMJ on Monday, began immediately after the 34-year-old man took part in a chili pepper eating contest. He ate a Carolina Reaper, the pepper christened as the world's hottest by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2013 (though there have been several unofficial challengers to the title since).

Immediately after eating the pepper, he started dry heaving. Then he felt excruciating neck pain that soon radiated throughout his entire head. For the next several days, he would experience short but incredibly painful bursts of head pain known as thunderclap headaches. The episodes got so bad that he eventually visited the ER.

Thankfully, a brain scan didn't reveal any major neurological issues, such as a bulged blood vessel (aneurysm) or bleeding. But several of his arteries did appear to narrow significantly, a condition called reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS).

RCVS is known to cause thunderclap headaches, and can be brought on by reactions to drugs, including cocaine and certain antidepressants. No case of RCVS has ever been associated with pepper-eating, but the main ingredient that accounts for a pepper's spiciness—capsaicin—is known to interact with our blood vessels, either by constricting or dilating them, the doctors noted. And cayenne peppers have been rarely linked to heart attacks or suddenly constricted arteries near the heart.

Source: https://gizmodo.com/worlds-hottest-pepper-sends-man-to-the-er-with-thunderc-1825110311

The Carolina Reaper was the world's hottest pepper at the time of the incident, but two varieties have surpassed it unofficially: Dragon's Breath, developed by Neal Price, NPK Technology, and Nottingham Trent University for anesthetic research, and Pepper X, created by the breeder of the Carolina Reaper, Ed Currie.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Higgs factory a 'must for big physics'

A top physicist says the construction of a "factory" to produce Higgs boson particles is a priority for the science community. In an exclusive interview, Nigel Lockyer, head of America's premier particle physics lab, said studying the Higgs could hasten major discoveries. He said momentum in the physics community was gathering for a machine to be built either in Europe or Asia. "Our field uniformly agrees that would be a good thing," he told the BBC. The Fermilab director added: "The Higgs is such an interesting particle - a unique particle."

[...] Physicists had hoped that the LHC would turn up evidence of physics phenomena not explained by the Standard Model. So far, efforts to detect new physics have come away empty-handed, but studying the Higgs in more detail might break the impasse.

A successor to the Large Hadron Collider would be designed in a way that allows scientists to zero in on the Higgs boson. The LHC works by smashing beams of proton particles together, but the collisions that produce the Higgs also produce many other particles. This makes it complicated to work out which collisions produce the Higgs boson. A different type of particle smasher, called an electron-positron collider, should produce only a Higgs and another particle called a Z boson.

This makes it more suitable for detailed study of the Higgs' properties. Dr Lockyer said there were currently discussions over a new electron-positron collider in China, and a linear collider that could function as a Higgs factory in Japan. Alternatively, it could be housed at Cern after the Large Hadron Collider comes to the end of its operating lifetime. [...] But he stressed that there was still plenty to come from the LHC, which will undergo a major upgrade in the 2020s.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Common Dreams reports

Environmental and indigenous groups are cheering after Kinder Morgan announced Sunday [April 8] it was halting most work on its controversial Trans Mountain expansion pipeline project, citing continuing opposition. Map of proposed route

"This is a sign that organizing works, and it could well be the beginning of the end for this dangerous pipeline", declared Clayton Thomas-Muller, a Stop-it-at-the-Source campaigner with 350.org.

"This is huge", added British Columbia-based advocacy group Dogwood.

In the company's statement announcing the move, chairman and CEO Steve Kean said Kinder Morgan was suspending "all non-essential activities and related spending" as a result of the "current environment" that puts shareholders at risk.

"A company cannot resolve differences between governments", he added, referencing resistance from B.C. lawmakers that is at odds with support for the project coming from Ottawa and neighboring Alberta. "While we have succeeded in all legal challenges to date, a company cannot litigate its way to an in-service pipeline amidst jurisdictional differences between governments", Kean said.

Unless legal agreements are reached by May 31, Kean said that "it is difficult to conceive of any scenario in which we would proceed with the project". (There are still 18 pending court cases that could thwart the project, the Wilderness Committee notes.)

canopic jug writes:

Photographers Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic of SKYGLOW have made and released a composited video to illustrate what New York City would look like if there were no light pollution blocking out the night sky.

The 3-minute video is in honor of the upcoming Dark Sky Week. Dark Sky Week is coming up from April 15^th through the 21^st this year. SKYGLOW is an ongoing project that raises awareness for endangered night skies and shows the dangers of light pollution.

Original Submission

SomeGuy writes:

The Verge is reporting:

Microsoft is releasing the source code for its original Windows File Manager from nearly 28 years ago. While it's a relic from the past, you can still compile the source code Microsoft has released and run the app on Windows 10 today.

The source code is available on GitHub, and is maintained by Microsoft veteran Craig Wittenberg under the MIT license. Wittenberg copied the File Manager code from Windows NT 4 back in 2007, and has been maintaining it before open sourcing it recently. It's a testament to the backward compatibility of Windows itself, especially that this was originally included in Windows more than 20 years ago.

A port of Microsoft's File Manger made its first appearance in OS/2 1.1 and then became the primary file manager in Windows 3.0.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Caltech scientists have created a strain of bacteria that can make small but energy-packed carbon rings that are useful starting materials for creating other chemicals and materials. These rings, which are otherwise particularly difficult to prepare, now can be "brewed" in much the same way as beer.

The bacteria were created by researchers in the lab of Frances Arnold, Caltech's Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, using directed evolution, a technique Arnold developed in the 1990s. The technique allows scientists to quickly and easily breed bacteria with the traits that they desire. It has previously been used by Arnold's lab to evolve bacteria that create carbon-silicon and carbon-boron bonds, neither of which is found among organisms in the natural world. Using this same technique, they set out to build the tiny carbon rings rarely seen in nature.

"Bacteria can now churn out these versatile, energy-rich organic structures," Arnold says. "With new lab-evolved enzymes, the microbes make precisely configured strained rings that chemists struggle to make."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Facebook should adopt stringent EU data protection rules as a global "baseline" for all of the social network's services, consumer activists say in an open letter that contends the rules will help ensure the company is accountable and transparent.

The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, a coalition of US and European consumer groups, called on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to adopt the EU's General Data Protection Regulation to govern his company's platform. The sweeping regulation, known by the abbreviation GDPR, gives Europeans more control over their personal data and compels companies to notify consumers of data breaches within 72 hours. It also expands the types of information that are considered personal data.

"The GDPR provides a solid foundation for data protection, establishing clear responsibilities for companies that collect personal data and clear rights for users whose data is gathered," TCD said in its letter. "These are protections that all users should be entitled to no matter where they are located."

[...] In its letter, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue suggested the GDPR represents the gold standard in data protection, telling Zuckerberg that "there is simply no reason for your company to provide less than the best legal standards currently available to protect the privacy of Facebook users."

It urged Zuckerberg to express his commitment "to global compliance with GDPR and provide specific details on how the company plans to implement these changes" in his Congressional testimony. 

[...] Facebook declined to comment for this story, but executives have previously commented on GDPR and similar subjects.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Novartis International AG has acquired AveXis, Inc. in order to gain access to its main drug, AVXS-101, a gene therapy treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, and bolster its gene therapy expertise. Novartis's CEO expects AVXS-101 to generate billions in sales:

Novartis AG agreed to acquire AveXis Inc. for $8.7 billion to gain a promising drug to treat a rare disease that afflicts infants, hastening a shift toward gene therapy and precision medicines. Shareholders of the Bannockburn, Illinois-based company will receive $218 a share in cash in a tender offer, Novartis said in a statement Monday. The price is 88 percent above where AveXis closed Friday.

The transaction is Novartis's second deal to advance in gene therapy this year -- and the first led by new Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan. The Swiss drugmaker is redeploying some of the $13 billion in proceeds from the sale of its stake in a consumer-health joint venture to partner GlaxoSmithKline Plc to gain more firepower in prescription medicines before some of its existing best-sellers lose patent protection. "Our goal is to build on a core of medicines as a medicines company powered by data and digital," Narasimhan said in a conference call with investors. "A deal like this fits right in that sweet spot."

AveXis is developing a product to treat spinal muscular atrophy, an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a defect in a single gene, which shows the potential to become a blockbuster, according to Novartis.

About 1 in 10,000 people are affected by a type of spinal muscular atrophy. AVXS-101 currently has "breakthrough therapy" designation in the U.S.

Also at Reuters.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for fyngyrz

A year ago, I visited the Apple campus in Cupertino to figure out where the hell the new Mac Pro was. I joined a round table discussion with Apple SVPs and a handful of reporters to get the skinny on what was taking so long. The answer, it turns out, was that Apple had decided to start completely over with the Mac Pro, introduce completely new pro products like the iMac Pro and refresh the entire MacBook Pro lineup.

[...] In that discussion a year ago, Apple SVP Phil Schiller acknowledged that pro customers, including developers, were hungry for evidence that Apple was paying attention to their needs. "We recognize that they want to hear more from us. And so we want to communicate better with them. We want them to understand the importance they have for us, we want them to understand that we're investing in new Macs — not only new MacBook Pros and iMacs but Mac Pros for them, we want them to know we are going to work on a display for a modular system," Schiller said.

[...] While there are no further details on the exact shape that the Mac Pro will take, Boger says they are still very much in the modular mindset. [...]What shape that modularity takes is another matter entirely, of course. I know some people have been pining for the days of internal expansion card configurations with standardized hardware — and maybe that is the way that this will go. But on Tuesday I also got a tour of the editing suites where Mac hardware and software is pushed to the limits, including extensive use of eGPU support, and a different vision emerges.

[...] All we currently know about the Mac Pro is that it's modular and that it's being shaped by the feedback from those pros in-house, as well as external conversations with developers and professional users.

[...] As a side note, by the way, I wouldn't expect to see any more info about Mac Pro at WWDC in June. Maybe Apple will surprise on that front, but I think for anything further about Mac Pro we're going to have to wait for next year.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/apples-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Northrop Grumman, rather than SpaceX, is reportedly responsible for the loss of a secret satellite (reportedly) worth $3.5 billion:

In early January, SpaceX adamantly denied rumors that it had botched the launch of a classified spy satellite called Zuma, and now, a new government probe has absolved the company of blame for the spacecraft's loss. Government investigators looking into the mission determined that a structure on top of the rocket, called the payload adapter, failed to deploy the satellite into orbit, The Wall Street Journal reports. That adapter was built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman, which means SpaceX isn't at fault for Zuma's demise.

This scenario aligns with what many speculated at the time. SpaceX launched Zuma on top of its Falcon 9 rocket on January 7th, and just a day later, reports started to surface that the satellite had fallen back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere after the mission. However, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell claimed that the rocket performed as it was supposed to. "For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night," she said in a statement. "If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false."

[...] Meanwhile, the payload adapter failure isn't a good look for Northrop Grumman, which is having a difficult time piecing together another important spacecraft right now: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Northrop is the main contractor of the telescope and is currently integrating large pieces of the spacecraft at the company's facilities in Redondo Beach, California. However, NASA recently announced that James Webb's launch will have to be delayed until 2020, due to a number of mistakes and delays that were made at Northrop during the construction process.

SpaceX should demand to use its own payload adapters for any new classified/national security launches, because it will probably be granted in light of this "Beltway bandit" fiasco.

Also at CNBC and LA Times.

Previously: SpaceX's Mysterious Zuma Mission May Soon Take Flight
Rumors Swirl Around the Fate of the Secret "Zuma" Satellite Launched by SpaceX
Zuma Failure Emboldens SpaceX's ULA-Backed Critics; Gets Support from US Air Force [Updated]

Related: GAO: James Webb Space Telescope Launch Date Likely Will be Delayed (Again)
Launch of James Webb Space Telescope Delayed to May 2020, Could Exceed Budget Cap

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

One of England's top police officers, Shaun Sawyer, wants citizens to go after internet giants that have wronged them.

Sawyer, who is chief constable in Devon and Cornwall and is national lead for human trafficking and modern slavery, made the suggestion in an interview with The Sunday Times, published over the weekend.

In a paywalled article, he told the Murdoch organ that if someone is a victim of an “Internet-enabled crime”, they should sue the platform involved.

Describing the internet as a “safe space for organised crime”, he said Silicon Valley company abuses were “becoming a human injustice”.

The comments coincidentally (?) came after American authorities last week shuttered Backpage.com, a site accused of supporting human trafficking by allowing publication of advertisements for "escorts".

Sawyer believes platforms like Facebook need more policing, and he also criticised “liberal” laws.

So it's down to users, apparently: if people with the resources of the person in the street start suing the platforms, he argued, they would start using their resources to spot abuse.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Hematopoietic stem cells, that form mature blood cells, require a very precise amount of protein to function -- and defective regulation of protein production is common in certain types of aggressive human blood cancers. Now, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has uncovered a completely new mechanism that controls how proteins are produced to direct stem cell function.

"Our research is potentially important for life-threatening blood cancers characterised by dysfunctional stem cells -- which are common in elderly people. High protein synthesis levels could represent an Achilles' heel to eradicating cancer-initiating cells," explains Cristian Bellodi, research team leader at Lund University's Department of Laboratory Medicine.

Dr. Bellodi's laboratory uncovered a new important function of pseudouridine, the most common type of RNA modification in human cells.

[...] The team's key discovery was that stem cells lacking an enzyme responsible for pseudouridine modification of RNA, known as PUS7, produce abnormal amounts of protein. This protein overload leads to unbalanced stem cell growth and dramatically blocks differentiation to blood cells.

They uncovered that the PUS7 enzyme is capable of introducing a pseudouridine modification into previously uncharacterized, non-coding-protein RNA molecules that they denoted as miniTOGs (mTOGs). The presence of pseudouridine "activates" mTOGs to strongly suppress the stem cell protein synthesis machinery. This ensures that the correct amount of proteins is made.

"Our work illustrates that this exquisite control mechanism -- regulated by PUS7 and pseudouridine -- is critical to adjusting the amount of proteins needed for human stem cells to grow and produce blood," says Cristian Bellodi.

Since pseudouridine modifications may affect various RNA molecules in different types of normal and malignant cells, "our discoveries pave the way for future avenues of research aimed at exploring the role of pseudouridine in human development disease," concludes Cristian Bellodi.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

One of the silliest bugs on record emerged late last week, when Debian project leader Chris Lamb took to the distro's security to post an advisory that the little [beep] utility had a local privilege escalation vulnerability.

The utility lets either a command line user control a PC's speaker, or – more usefully – a program can pipe the command out to the command line to tell the user something's happened. If, of course, their machines still have a beeper-speaker, which is increasingly rare and raises the question why the utility still exists. Since beep isn't even installed by default, it's not hard to see the issue would have gone un-noticed.

News of the bug emerged at holeybeep.ninja/, a site that combines news of the bug with attempts at satirising those who brand bugs and put up websites about them.

But the joke's on holeybeep.ninja because according to the discussion at the Debian mailing list, the fix the site provided didn't fix all of beep's problems. As Tony Hoyle wrote: “The patch vulnerability seems more severe to me, as people apply patches all the time (they shouldn't do it as root, but people are people) … It's concerning that the holeybeep.ninja site exploited an unrelated fault for 'fun' without apparently telling anyone.”

German security researcher and journalist Hanno Böck alerted the OSS-sec list to further issues on Sunday.

[...] Böck's note also linked to an integer overflow and a bug in the patch supposed to fix the original issue.

As a result, Böck wrote, beep should probably be discarded: it needs a proper code review, and there's no much point to the effort “for a tool talking to the PC speaker, which doesn't exist in most modern systems anyway.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A team of engineers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) recently discovered that a naturally occurring bacterium, Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum TG57, isolated from waste generated after harvesting mushrooms, is capable of directly converting cellulose, a plant-based material, to biobutanol.

A research team led by Associate Professor He Jianzhong from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at NUS Faculty of Engineering first discovered the novel TG57 strain in 2015. They went on to culture the strain to examine its properties.

Assoc Prof He explained, "The production of biofuels using non-food feedstocks can improve sustainability and reduce costs greatly. In our study, we demonstrated a novel method of directly converting cellulose to biobutanol using the novel TG57 strain. This is a major breakthrough in metabolic engineering and exhibits a foundational milestone in sustainable and cost-effective production of renewable biofuels and chemicals."

[...] Moving forward, the research team will continue to optimise the performance of the TG57 strain, and further engineer it to enhance biobutanol ratio and yield using molecular genetic tools.

The team published the findings of the study in the scientific journal Science Advances on 23 March 2018.

Original Submission