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An Anonymous Coward writes:

MLive reports:

The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks Sunday night into early Monday, and is expected to remain strong for the next few evenings, so don't miss your chance to spot some fireballs shooting across the night sky.

[...] "The Perseids are best seen between about 2 a.m. your local time and dawn," NASA said in a Perseid blog this week. "If those hours seem daunting, not to worry! You can go out after dark, around 9 p.m. local time, and see Perseids. Just know that you won't see nearly as many as you would had you gone out during the early morning hours."

According to Wikipedia:

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle. The meteors are called the Perseids because the point from which they appear to hail (called the radiant) lies in the constellation Perseus.

[...] The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity between 9 and 14 August, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky; however, because of the shower's radiant in the constellation of Perseus, the Perseids are primarily visible in the Northern Hemisphere.[⁸] As with many meteor showers the visible rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since more meteoroids are scooped up by the side of the Earth moving forward into the stream, corresponding to local times between midnight and noon [...] Some can also be seen before midnight, often grazing the Earth's atmosphere to produce long bright trails and sometimes fireballs. Most Perseids burn up in the atmosphere while at heights above 80 kilometres (50 mi).

Also at: space.com, NASA, Time, and National Geographic.

Original Submission

Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million in California Roundup cancer trial

ilPapa writes:

A California jury on Friday found Monsanto liable in a lawsuit filed by a man who alleged the company's glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, caused him cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages.

The case of school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson was the first lawsuit alleging glyphosate causes cancer to go to trial. Monsanto, a unit of Bayer AG following a $62.5 billion acquisition by the German conglomerate, faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits across the United States.

The jury at San Francisco's Superior Court of California deliberated for three days before finding that Monsanto had failed to warn Johnson and other consumers of the cancer risks posed by its weed killers.

It awarded $39 million in compensatory and $250 million in punitive damages.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/10/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-289m-in-california-roundup-cancer-trial.html

Monsanto Ordered to Pay $289 Million to Man Who Claimed Glyphosate Caused His Cancer

takyon writes:

Monsanto ordered to pay $289m damages in Roundup cancer trial

Chemical giant Monsanto has been ordered to pay $289m (£226m) damages to a man who claimed herbicides containing glyphosate had caused his cancer.

In a landmark case, a Californian jury found that Monsanto knew its Roundup and RangerPro weedkillers were dangerous and failed to warn consumers. It's the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging a glyphosate link to cancer.

Monsanto denies that glyphosate causes cancer and says it intends to appeal against the ruling. "The jury got it wrong," vice-president Scott Partridge said outside the courthouse in San Francisco.

The claimant in the case, groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, is among more than 5,000 similar plaintiffs across the US.

Monsanto? Never heard of it. Did you mean Bayer AG?

Previously: Cancer Hazard vs. Risk - Glyphosate
Monsanto Faces First US Trial Over Roundup Cancer Link
Monsanto Cancer Trial Begins in San Francisco

Related: Glyphosate Linked to Liver Damage

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Our digital lives may be making us more distracted, distant and drained, according to research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

For instance, even minor phone use during a meal with friends was enough to make the diners feel distracted and reduced their enjoyment of the experience, one study found.

"People who were allowed to use their phones during dinner had more trouble staying present in the moment," said Ryan Dwyer, MA, of the University of British Columbia, lead author of a study that was presented during a symposium on how digital technology is affecting relationships. "Decades of research on happiness tell us that engaging positively with others is critical for our well-being. Modern technology may be wonderful, but it can easily sidetrack us and take away from the special moments we have with friends and family in person."

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180810161553.htm

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Australian honey, produced from domesticated European honey bees mostly foraging in native vegetation, is unique. Under the microscope, most Australian honey samples can be distinguished from honey produced in other countries.

That's the conclusion of our study, the first systematic examination of pollen contained within Australian honey.

We collaborated with two major honey retailers to survey the pollen content of a large number of unprocessed honey samples. We found that a unique mix of native flora gives Australian honey a distinctive pollen signature.

As fears grow about "counterfeit" or adulterated food, especially high-value foods like olive oil, coffee, saffron and honey, there's enormous benefit in preserving Australia's international reputation for high-quality products.

Original Submission

MichaelDavidCrawford writes:

He stole a 76-seat Bombardier Q400 from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Two NORAD F-15s scrambled from Portland. He was in contact with Air Traffic Control, apologized to his family. Said he was unwilling to land at a military base because "they would rough me up". Directed out over the Pacific by the fighters, crashed on an uninhabited island in Puget Sound.

A witness claimed he did a loop-de-loop but I didn't see it in his video.

I am completely convinced that suicidal depression can always be cured.

'Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose,' says man after taking passenger plane that crashed near Seattle

He had all the proper security credentials. He had been working his shift and was believed to still be in uniform. The baggage handler didn't seem out of place at all — until he was taxiing down the runway and taking off in a stolen passenger plane.

Media outlets identified him as Richard Russell, a 27-year-old who sparked a combination of amazement and fear as he flew — alone — a 76-seat Horizon Air Q400 plane for more than an hour before it crashed on a wooded area on Ketron Island south of Seattle.

He did a barrel roll. A daring swoop. Officials said they didn't believe he even had a pilot's license. "Incredible," Horizon Air President and Chief Executive Gary Beck said Saturday.

But investigators are still trying to understand why he decided to take the plane for a what appeared to be joy ride Friday evening from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The act also reignited discussions about airport and aviation security, with Alaska Airlines Chairman and CEO Brad Tilden repeating several times Saturday that passenger and employee safety was — and is — the company's primary concern.

Also at CNN.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A team of researchers led by Costanza Argiroffi, an astronomer at the University of Palermo in Italy, has found evidence of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star that was not our sun—the first ever observed. They reported their findings at this year's Cool Stars 20 meeting in Massachusetts.

A coronal mass ejection occurs when a star spews a glob of plasma and charged particles from its corona into surrounding space. They quite often occur with our sun following a solar flare. In this new effort, the researchers found evidence of a CME from a large star (approximately three times the mass of the sun) called HR 9024—it is approximately 450 light-years from Earth.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

[...] The use of various OTC drugs and dietary supplements is highly prevalent in Europe and patients are often not willing to disclose this information to laboratory staff and the ordering physician as a survey published in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, published by De Gruyter in association with the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM), shows.

The study reports on the results of a survey of patients in 18 European countries which shows that those taking OTC products and dietary supplements are not aware of the potential effects on laboratory test results they may have. In addition, patients do not believe that they need to disclose this use to medical and/or laboratory staff.

The study shows that dietary supplements and OTC drugs are more frequently used by middle-aged patients -- especially women -- with the most common being multivitamins, multiminerals, cranberry and aspirin. All of these compounds, if consumed shortly before blood sampling, may cause changes in lab test results, thus leading to interpretation difficulties and possibly incorrect diagnoses.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180810091520.htm

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Sleep is essential for brain functionality and overall health but understanding how sleep delivers its beneficial effects remains largely unknown. Sleep researchers are exploring new and unbiased approaches that can take sleep to a systems level. In one such approach, referred to as 'systems genetics', inferences about biological phenomena can be made by linking together several levels of information from DNA to phenotype via gene expression, proteins and metabolism at the level of a population. Systems genetics offers a global and interconnected view of biological phenomena and is therefore considered critical towards predicting disease susceptibility.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180809141231.htm

Original Submission

Previously: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Set to Launch Next Week on its Journey to the Sun

Let's try this again. The Parker Solar Probe is set for launch on Sunday, aboard a Delta IV Heavy:

Parker Solar Probe (previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus, or Solar Probe+, abbreviated PSP) is a planned NASA robotic spacecraft to probe the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 8.86 solar radii (6.2 million kilometers or 3.85 million miles) from the "surface" (photosphere) of the Sun and will travel, at closest approach, as much as 700,000 km/h (430,000 mph).

It's the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person (Eugene Parker).

NASA Live:

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is set to launch tonight, Sunday, Aug. 12 at 3:31 a.m. Eastern. The launch window is 60 minutes. Watch NASA TV live beginning at 3 a.m. Parker Solar Probe will launch aboard a Delta IV-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will travel directly into the Sun's atmosphere about 4 million miles from our star's surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it.

NASA stream on YouTube. NASA TV page. NYT and Florida Today.

You may also want to check out the Perseids meteor shower this weekend.

Walzmyn writes:

Saw this article on Reddit. Apparently the JPEG is considering blockchain to insert DRM in the photo format.

The Joint Photographic Experts Group is a working group of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). They're best known for the JPEG standard for image compression, and for various related image standards.

They had their 78th quarterly meeting from 27 January to 2 February 2018 — with the press release afterwards prominently namedropping "blockchain."

The Twitter reaction was "lol what," and even the cryptocurrency press ignored it — but there's more to this than slapping on a buzzword, and it's not good. They seem to think they can advance the cause of DRMed JPEGs with a bit of applied blockchain.

The Quarterly meeting and official announcement were back in February, so this article is a bit behind, but I had not heard anything of this.

As a photog who routinely plasters watermarks all over photos of my children before releasing them to the wilds of social media I can sympathize with the desire to protect photos, but on the surface this seems an odd way to go about it. For now, though, it's just something they're "exploring".

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

US chipmaking giant Qualcomm on Friday agreed a sharply reduced fine with Taiwan after officials said it had harmed market competition and manipulated prices, as it faces a number of probes worldwide.

Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission last year fined the firm Tw$23.4 billion ($763 million) saying the world's biggest handset chip supplier had violated fair trade rules for at least seven years.

The authorities found that Qualcomm had refused to offer licences to rival manufacturers that are essential for making chipsets and had imposed unfair contracts on smartphone makers.

But under a deal struck between the two sides, the commission said the US firm will not have to pay more than the Tw$2.73 billion of the original fine already stumped up.

The company also agreed to renegotiate disputes with Taiwanese mobile licencees "in good faith" and will not withhold supply of chips, according to the commission's statement.

[...] Qualcomm confirmed the "mutually agreed settlement" in a statement Friday and said it had pledged a five-year plan to invest in mobile technology in Taiwan and to establish an operations centre there.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

DNC serves WikiLeaks with lawsuit via Twitter

The Democratic National Committee on Friday officially served its lawsuit to WikiLeaks via Twitter, employing a rare method to serve its suit to the elusive group that has thus far been unresponsive.

As CBS News first reported last month, the DNC filed a motion with a federal court in Manhattan requesting permission to serve its complaint to WikiLeaks on Twitter, a platform the DNC argued the website uses regularly. The DNC filed a lawsuit in April against the Trump campaign, Russian government and WikiLeaks, alleging a massive conspiracy to tilt the 2016 election in Donald Trump's favor.

All of the DNC's attempts to serve the lawsuit via email failed, the DNC said in last month's motion to the judge, which was ultimately approved.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Hacker lore is littered with tales of mysterious attackers breaking into hotels—perhaps at a conference—to get their hands on someone’s laptop with the goal of installing malware on it by physically connecting to the machine. That’s why the more careful hackers never leave their laptops unattended at events, or bring disposable computers with little to nothing valuable on them.

These types of attacks are called evil maid attacks in the infosec world, because the imaginary attacker is someone who has access to your room and malicious intentions. Pwning a laptop via physical access is a true and tested method to hack someone. But there’s no better way to be reminded of how effective and sometimes effortless these attacks can be than an actual demo.

In early July, security firm Eclypsium posted a video showing how Mickey Shkatov, one of its researchers, hacks into a laptop by opening it up, connecting a device directly to the chip that contains the BIOS, and installing malicious firmware on it—all in just over four minutes. That easy. (In some cases hackers don’t even need to open up the laptop).

“Physical attacks are hard to defend against and most people aren’t doing anything to defend against them,” John Loucaides, Eclypsium’s vice president of engineering, told me. “It’s not that hard of a attack to pull of as most people think. It takes less time and less effort than most people realize.”

[...] The good news is that while it’s relatively easy to hack a laptop once you get your hands on it, it’s all the work that is required to get there (monitoring a target to see where they live or are sleeping, breaking into their room, etc) makes these attacks likely rare.

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3q374/hacker-bios-firmware-backdoor-evil-maid-attack-laptop-5-minutes

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A Paris court on Thursday ordered Twitter to change its smallprint, according to a consumer group which accused the tech giant of having "abusive" clauses in its terms and conditions.

UFC-Que Choisir claimed victory in its case against the US social media platform, saying "the conviction has a gigantic scope for the protection of users' personal data". The consumer association had called on the high court "to recognise the abusive or illegal nature" of 256 clauses contained in Twitter's terms and conditions that it said breached users' privacy.

In particular, UFC-Que Choisir said the court's decision guarantees Twitter users that their photos and tweets can no longer be "commercially exploited" if they have not given their consent. "By ticking a small box to accept the terms of service, the consumer has not expressly accepted their data can be exploited," the group said.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

These half-billion-year-old creatures were animals—but unlike any known today

So-called Ediacaran organisms have puzzled biologists for decades. To the untrained eye they look like fossilized plants, in tube or frond shapes up to 2 meters long. These strange life forms dominated Earth's seas half a billion years ago, and scientists have long struggled to figure out whether they're algae, fungi, or even an entirely different kingdom of life that failed to survive [DOI: 10.1144/gsjgs.149.4.0607] [DX]. Now, two paleontologists think they have finally established the identity of the mysterious creatures: They were animals, some of which could move around, but they were unlike any living on Earth today.

Scientists first discovered the Ediacaran organisms in 1946 in South Australia's Ediacara Hills. To date, researchers have identified about 200 different types in ancient rocks across the world. Almost all appear to have died out by 541 million years ago, just before fossils of familiar animals like sponges and the ancestors of crabs and lobsters appeared in an event dubbed the Cambrian explosion. One reason these creatures have proved so tricky to place in the tree of life is that some of them had an anatomy unique in nature. Their bodies were made up of branched fronds with a strange fractal architecture [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1408542111] [DX], in which the frond subunits resembled small versions of the whole frond.

Ediacaran biota.

Cambrian petalonamid Stromatoveris phylogenetically links Ediacaran biota to later animals (open, DOI: 10.1111/pala.12393) (DX)

Original Submission