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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for guy_

A former commander of the USS John S. McCain pleaded guilty Friday to dereliction of duty when the destroyer collided with a commercial tanker, killing 10 people and injuring five in the Straits of Singapore last August.

Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, who has served in the Navy for more than 20 years, testified during a special court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard, Stars and Stripes reported.

“I am ultimately responsible and stand accountable,” Sanchez said. “I will forever question my decisions that contributed to this tragic event.”

Per disciplinary proceedings, Sanchez agreed to retire from service, forfeit $6,000 in wages, and was issued a letter of reprimand.

Sanchez claimed responsibility for the deadly collision. He said had failed to put a well-rested, well-trained crew in place to steer the destroyer into the Straits.

The former commander, who was immediately reassigned after the collision, initially faced negligent homicide charges, CBS News reported.

According to Sanchez, an 18-year-old undertrained helmsman had been navigating the destroyer, known as "Big Bad John," leading up to the collision.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/27/former-commander-uss-john-s-mccain-pleads-guilty-retires-after-deadly-collision.html

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

FiveThirtyEight takes a look inside the balls used in major league baseball using X-rays to see what has been pysically changed in recent times. The physical changes are probably the main cause of the upswing in home runs noticed. Multiple independent investigations have shown differences in the characteristics of the balls and the way they perform.

MLB and its commissioner, Rob Manfred, have repeatedly denied rumors that the ball has been altered in any way — or "juiced" — to generate more homers. But a large and growing body of research shows that, beginning in the middle of the 2015 season, the MLB baseball began to fly further. And new research commissioned by "ESPN Sport Science," a show that breaks down the science of sports, suggests that MLB baseballs used after the 2015 All-Star Game were subtly but consistently different than older baseballs. The research, performed by the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and Kent State University's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, reveals changes in the density and chemical composition of the baseball's core — and provides our first glimpse inside the newer baseballs.

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takyon writes:

Alan Bean, the 4th person to walk on the moon, dies at 86

Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the moon and the last surviving member of the Apollo 12 mission, died Saturday in Houston, according to his family and NASA. He was 86.

[...] His first mission to space was in November 1969 as a member of the Apollo 12 crew, the second to land on the moon, it said. He became the fourth man -- and one of only 12 in history -- to walk on the moon.

Bean also commanded the second crewed flight to the first US space station Skylab in July 1973.

Alan Bean.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

Ad-blocking tool Ghostery suffered from a pretty impressive, self-inflicted screwup Friday when the privacy-minded company accidentally CCed hundreds of its users in an email, revealing their addresses to all recipients.

Fittingly, the inadvertent data exposure came in the form of an email updating Ghostery users about the company's data collection policies. The ad blocker was sending out the message to affirm its commitment to user privacy as the European Union's digital privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), goes into effect.

The email arrived in inboxes with the subject line "Happy GDPR Day — We've got you covered!" In the body of the email, the company informed users, "We at Ghostery hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to users' privacy, and have implemented measures to reinforce security and ensure compliance with all aspects of this new legislation."

Source: https://gizmodo.com/ad-blocker-ghostery-celebrates-gdpr-day-by-revealing-hu-1826338313

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

We have a lot of respect for the hackers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). When their stuff has a problem, it is often millions of miles away and yet they often find a way to fix it anyway. Case in point is the Curiosity Mars rover. Back in 2016, the probe's rock drill broke. This is critical because one of the main things the rover does is drill into rock samples, collect the powder and subject it to analysis. JPL announced they had devised a way to successfully drill again.

The drill failed after fifteen uses. It uses two stabilizers to steady itself against the target rock. A failed motor prevents the drill bit from retracting and extending between the stabilizers. Of course, sending a repair tech 60 million miles is not in the budget, so they had to find another way. You can see a video about the way they found, below.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/05/25/nasa-remotely-hacks-curiositys-rock-drill/

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BsAtHome writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/doctor-slammed-by-med-board-for-selling-5-homeopathic-sound-waves-for-ebola/

The California medical board is threatening to revoke the license of Dr. William Edwin Gray III for selling homeopathic sound files over the Internet that he claims—without evidence or reason—can cure a variety of ailments, including life-threatening infections such as Ebola, SARS, swine flu, malaria, typhoid, and cholera.

If that can cure me of my old age too, I'm all game! Which button must I press?

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Bloomberg reports

Fiat Chrysler wanted to use software in its diesel engines that was capable of "cycle detection", meaning it could sense when the vehicle was undergoing emissions evaluations and activate controls to pass tests, Sergio Pasini, the controls and calibration director at supplier VM Motori, wrote in a 2010 email to colleagues. An employee within the automaker's powertrain division had tried to convince him the software, called "t_engine", didn't count as cycle detection.

The automaker's emissions control "will be managed mainly on t_engine which is, no matter what Fiat says, a cycle detection", Pasini wrote in an email, according to a court document that was unsealed on [May 16].

[...] The lawsuit, filed on behalf of consumers as a class action, claims that Fiat Chrysler misled buyers of its Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicles and Ram 1500 pickups by touting the fuel economy and performance of its EcoDiesel engines while cheating on emissions tests to win regulatory approval.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released some bad news today: the GOES-17 weather satellite that launched almost two months ago has a cooling problem that could endanger the majority of the satellite's value.

GOES-17 is the second of a new generation of weather satellite to join NOAA's orbital fleet. Its predecessor is covering the US East Coast, with GOES-17 meant to become "GOES-West." While providing higher-resolution images of atmospheric conditions, it also tracks fires, lightning strikes, and solar behavior. It's important that NOAA stays ahead of the loss of dying satellites by launching new satellites that ensure no gap in global coverage ever occurs.

The various instruments onboard the satellite have been put through their paces to make sure everything is working properly before it goes into official operation. Several weeks ago, it became clear that the most important instrument—the Advanced Baseline Imager—had a cooling problem. This instrument images the Earth at a number of different wavelengths, including the visible portion of the spectrum as well as infrared wavelengths that help detect clouds and water vapor content.

The infrared wavelengths are currently offline. The satellite has to be actively cooled for these precision instruments to function, and the infrared wavelengths only work if the sensor stays below 60K—that's about a cool -350°F. The cooling system is only reaching that temperature 12 hours a day. The satellite can still produce visible spectrum images, as well as the solar and lightning monitoring, but it's not a glorious next-gen weather satellite without that infrared data.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/newest-noaa-weather-satellite-suffers-critical-malfunction/

Original Submission

stretch611 writes:

NPR reports: Law Firms Send Ads To Patients' Phones Inside ERs

Most consumers realize that their phones are basically a tracking device, says Bill McGeveran, an attorney who teaches Internet and technology law at the University of Minnesota. It is one thing to feel targeted in a grocery store, he says, but it feels far more intrusive when it creeps into other parts of daily life.

Geofencing, or placing a digital perimeter around a specific location, has been deployed by retailers for years to offer coupons and special offers to customers as they shop. Bringing it into health care spaces, however, is raising alarm among privacy experts.

Lawyers are now using the technology to send ads targeting people sitting in hospitals, chiropractors, and pain clinics. Once someone crosses the digital fence the ads can show up for more than a month — and on multiple devices.

Is it legal? For the most part, yes... HIPAA applies to hospitals and clinics and doctors and insurance companies, not to the lawyers and the marketers working on their behalf. However, the Massachusetts AG has successfully gone after this type of marketing before.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941

Apple issued one of its bi-annual transparency reports today, and apart from the usual numbers on account takedown requests, the company issued a statement saying that it'll soon start reporting government requests to take down apps from the App Store. These requests will relate to alleged legal and / or policy provision violations, Apple says.

These numbers will tell us just how often governments are trying to block access to certain apps, and how many of those orders are actually obeyed. Google doesn't yet report these numbers specifically for the Play Store. I'd be interested to know why the requests were filed and what apps were affected, but Apple hasn't said if it'll call apps out by name.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17396512/apple-transparency-report-app-takedown-requests

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed tiny valves that enable individual nanoparticles in liquids to be separated and sorted. The valves can be used for a very broad range of tiny particles, including individual metal and semiconductor nanoparticles, virus particles, liposomes and larger biomolecules such as antibodies.

The nanovalves work differently than classic valves, which are used to mechanically close and open flow in pipelines, as in a tap. "These mechanical valves can be miniaturised, but not as far as we would need for nanoscale applications," explains ETH professor Poulikakos. "If channels are thinner than a few dozen micrometres, they cannot be mechanically closed and opened with any regularity."

takyon writes:

Samsung has replaced planned "6nm" and "5nm" nodes with a new "5nm" node on its roadmap, and plans to continue scaling down to "3nm", which will use gate-all-around transistors instead of Fin Field-effect transistors. Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) will be required for everything below "7nm" (TSMC and GlobalFoundries will start producing "7nm" chips without EUV initially):

Last year Samsung said that its 7LPP manufacturing technology will be followed up by 5LPP and 6LPP in 2019 (risk production). The new roadmap does not mention either processes, but introduces the 5LPE (5 nm low power early) that promises to "allow greater area scaling and ultra-low power benefits" when compared to 7LPP. It is unclear when Samsung plans to start using 5LPE for commercial products, but since it is set to replace 7LPP, expect the tech to be ready for risk production in 2019.

[...] Samsung will have two 4 nm process technologies instead of one — 4LPE and 4LPP. Both will be based on proven FinFETs and usage of this transistor structure is expected to allow timely ramp-up to the stable yield level. Meanwhile, the manufacturer claims that their 4 nm nodes will enable higher performance and geometry scaling when compared to the 5LPE, but is not elaborating beyond that (in fact, even the key differences between the three technologies are unclear). Furthermore, Samsung claims that 4LPE/4LPP will enable easy migration from 5LPE, but is not providing any details.

[...] The most advanced process technologies that Samsung announced this week are the 3GAAE/GAAP (3nm gate-all-around early/plus). Both will rely on Samsung's own GAAFET implementation that the company calls MBCFET (multi-bridge-channel FETs), but again, Samsung is not elaborating on any details. The only thing that it does say is that the MBCFET has been in development since 2002, so it will have taken the tech at least twenty years to get from an early concept to production.

MBCFETs are intended to enable Samsung to continue increasing transistor density while reducing power consumption and increasing the performance of its SoCs. Since the 3GAAE/GAAP technologies are three or four generations away, it is hard to make predictions about their actual benefits. What is safe to say is that the 3GAAE will be Samsung's fifth-generation EUV process technology and therefore will extensively use appropriate tools. Therefore, the success of the[sic] EUV in general will have a clear impact on Samsung's technologies several years down the road.

Previously: Samsung Plans a "4nm" Process

Related: IBM Demonstrates 5nm Chip With Horizontal Gate-All-Around Transistors
"3nm" Test Chip Taped Out by Imec and Cadence
TSMC Details Scaling/Performance Gains Expected From "5nm CLN5" Process

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Researchers from McMaster University and the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, together with colleagues at other partnering institutions, have developed a new method to treat severe asthma. In a study of over 200 participants with severe asthma, the new treatment was shown to have improved asthma symptoms and lung function, while reducing the need for corticosteroids by up to 70%.

[...] Current treatments for severe asthma often include high doses of corticosteroids, such as prednisone, to control exacerbations. Reducing the need for corticosteroids with alternative treatments is preferable, since these medications are associated with serious side effects from prolonged use -- including multi-organ toxicities and immunosuppression.

Dr. Parameswaran Nair, staff respirologist at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and professor of medicine at McMaster University, along with a team of researchers found that an antibody called dupilumab is effective in treating severe asthma in place of high doses of prednisone. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world's most influential medical publications.

[...] Dupilumab works to treat asthma by blocking two specific proteins (called interleukin-4 and interleukin-13) that are associated with inflammation of the airways.

This technique was based on Dr. Nair's previous work published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 and in 2017. Those studies found that blocking another protein, interleukin-5, allowed patients with high eosinophil levels in their blood and airways to reduce their corticosteroid dose. Eosinophils are a type of white blood cell involved with the production of interleukins. High eosinophil levels are directly linked to an increased risk of severe asthma.

Journal reference: Klaus F. Rabe, Parameswaran Nair, Guy Brusselle, Jorge F. Maspero, et al. Efficacy and Safety of Dupilumab in Glucocorticoid-Dependent Severe Asthma. New England Journal of Medicine, 2018; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1804093

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Dinosaur dandruff reveals first evidence of skin shedding

An analysis of fossilised dandruff fragments has given scientists their first evidence of how dinosaurs and early birds shed their skin.

Found among the plumage of these ancient creatures, the 125-million-year-old flakes are almost identical to those found in modern birds.

It shows that these dinosaurs shed their skins in small pieces, and not all at once like many modern reptiles.

It's more evidence that early birds had limited flying skills, the authors say.

Also at The Guardian.

Fossilized skin reveals coevolution with feathers and metabolism in feathered dinosaurs and early birds (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04443-x) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Scientists plan DNA hunt for Loch Ness monster next month

A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland's fabled monster really does, or did, exist.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks. Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine. "This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms," said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand.

[...] Gemmell's team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt. "While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness," Gemmell said on his university website.

Also at Time.

Original Submission