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A bot called Arthur has collected the following story from the RSS feeds:

Volkswagen is reversing course on the use of controversial weather-altering technology at a major Mexican car plant after local farmers complained that the system caused drought by preventing rainfall.

The German carmaker had installed hail cannons, which fire shockwaves into the atmosphere, at its Puebla site to prevent the formation of ice stones that had been damaging finished vehicles parked outside its facility.

But local farmers said the devices, which were set to fire automatically under certain weather conditions, caused a drought during the months that should have been Mexico’s rainy season.

Gerardo Perez, a farmers’ representative in the area, told the AFP agency that the cannons meant the “sky literally clears and it simply doesn’t rain”.

A group of local farmers claimed that 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of crops were affected, and filed a suit claiming 70 million pesos (€3.2m) in damages from the carmaker, AFP reported.

In response, VW said it would install netting above the cars to protect them from hailstorms in the future.

[...] The carmaker invested in the hail cannon technology to prevent damage to its vehicles earlier this year.

[...] Hail storms present significant problems for car manufacturers, which often have large numbers of finished vehicles parked outside at distribution centres or plants.

Also at UPI, C|Net, MSN, and Business Insider:

takyon writes:

Russian trolls 'spreading discord' over vaccine safety online

Bots and Russian trolls spread misinformation about vaccines on Twitter to sow division and distribute malicious content before and during the American presidential election, according to a new study.

Scientists at George Washington University, in Washington DC, made the discovery while trying to improve social media communications for public health workers, researchers said. Instead, they found trolls and bots skewing online debate and upending consensus about vaccine safety.

The study discovered several accounts, now known to belong to the same Russian trolls who interfered in the US election, as well as marketing and malware bots, tweeting about vaccines.

Russian trolls played both sides, the researchers said, tweeting pro- and anti-vaccine content in a politically charged context. "These trolls seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," Mark Dredze, a team member and professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins, which was also involved in the study, said. "By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases. Viruses don't respect national boundaries."

Also at NYT.

Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate (DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304567) (DX)

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

A company that markets cell phone spyware to parents and employers left the data of thousands of its customers—and the information of the people they were monitoring—unprotected online.

The data exposed included selfies, text messages, audio recordings, contacts, location, hashed passwords and logins, Facebook messages, among others, according to a security researcher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of legal repercussions.

Last week, the researcher found the data on an Amazon S3 bucket owned by Spyfone, one of many companies that sell software that is designed to intercept text messages, calls, emails, and track locations of a monitored device.

[...] The researcher said that the exposed data contained several terabytes of "unencrypted camera photos."

"There's at least 2,208 current 'customers' and hundreds or thousands of photos and audio in each folder," he told Motherboard in an online chat. "There is currently 3,666 tracked phones."

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

The Renaissance anatomist Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica ('On the fabric of the human body') is a foundational work of medicine in the West. Its more than 200 woodcuts revolutionized how people pictured the human body, flayed and cut to reveal musculature, nerves, organs and bones. Even now, 475 years after it was first published, the bold images of skeletons and skinless 'muscle men' in sinuous poses (by illustrator Jan Steven van Calcar) beguile.

More than 700 copies survive from the 1543 and 1555 editions, which Vesalius supervised. Of these, roughly two-thirds contain comments in the margins, bizarre doodles, and coloured-in and even defaced images, as we reveal in our book The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius. Early readers, on evidence, studied Vesalius's treatise diligently, yet had no compunction about scribbling in a hugely expensive volume.

Looking deeper, the marginalia tell two stories. One is that some found the images baffling, and attempted to clarify them in innovative ways. Another is that the pious found the figures' necessary nudity scandalous, and felt impelled to weigh in with ink and scissors. Our study of the reactions of hundreds of readers has taught us that medical communities do not always adopt innovative solutions quickly, even when they are presented in such an elegant format as the Fabrica. It takes time to get used to novelty. And we have learnt that even the most ingenious scientific minds can fail to predict how political and religious institutions will respond to their work.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05941-0

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

In the realm where science fiction, horror and fantasy meet lives the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who endures as one of the world's most imaginative writers. His mythos of interstellar deities and sinister forces has inspired generations of storytellers, with the word "Lovecraftian" used today to describe a specific, chilling tale. As with most people who are posthumously labeled geniuses in their fields, Lovecraft's work never took off during his short lifetime. Only after his death in 1937 did he gain the kind of popularity that's made him one of the most famous writers in the world.

[...] He created the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, and the fictional Miskatonic University, which show up again and again in his stories about the Necronomicon, a forbidden book of dark magic, and the Old Ones — the most famous of which, Cthulhu, is practically a meme. His stories appeared in pulp magazines like Weird Tales, sometimes serialized, never particularly popular while he lived, and he died having used up the remains of an inheritance down to the last penny. He was a visionary (with, uh, documented racist views); his work was influenced by a post-World War I awareness of the horrors men can inflict on other men, which inspired his darkest, most chilling tales of murder, suspense, and otherworldly evil.

Lovecraft was a pioneer of the "speculative fiction" genre, and started the Cosmicism movement, which is marked by the belief that there are interstellar beings far outside the realm of human perception, and humans are an insignificant part of a very large, very terrifying universe. His narrators are unreliable, often addicted to substances, their minds altered and broken by the horrors they've witnessed. Lovecraft's work traditionally features humans catching glimpses of a bigger universe our minds were never built to comprehend.

If you've ever wanted to dip a toe into this universe but never knew where to start, we've compiled a list of Lovecraft's best, weirdest, and most iconic tales to keep you up at night, questioning the nature of what's real and what's just your imagination.

Source: https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/23/17762378/hp-lovecraft-books-cthulhu-necronomicon-stories

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

In a report [PDF] put together by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, investigators looked at real-world internet offerings within a 30-mile radius of Rochester in Minnesota.

Rochester provides a useful contrast in that it has a heavily built-up center with a spread-out urban space surrounding it. It also claims to have no less than 19 companies that provide residents with broadband internet access – something that its local council has boasted about – and exists in a state whose leaders have set some ambitious broadband goals: 25Mbps for everyone by 2022; and 100Mbps by 2026.

However, as the investigation revealed this month, competition is something available only to a minority of people who live in the most dense areas, and access to fast internet access above federal minimums remains a virtual monopoly.

"We have 19 local broadband providers and, of those, we have two cable providers, six DSL providers, four fiber providers, three fixed wireless providers and four mobile providers," the report quotes City Council member Ed Hruska as saying.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/23/rochester_broadband/

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

On average worldwide, air pollution shaves a year off of human life expectancy, scientists report August 22 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. In more polluted regions of Asia and Africa, lives are shortened by 1.5 to two years on average.

The study, using 2016 country data from the Global Burden of Disease project, is the first major look at country-specific mortality impacts of fine particulate matter — bits of pollution, known as PM_2.5, that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers, or 30 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. And it's the first to present those impacts in terms of life expectancy, rather than death or disease rates (SN: 11/25/17, p. 5). The approach is aimed at making the risk more relatable, says Joshua Apte, an environmental scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/air-pollution-shaving-year-our-average-life-expectancy

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

Ceramic materials are used in nuclear, chemical and electrical power generation industries because of their ability to withstand extreme environments. However, at high temperatures, ceramics are susceptible to thermal-shock fractures caused by rapid temperature-changing events, such as cold water droplet contact with hot surfaces. In a novel interdisciplinary approach, engineers report the use of a cheap, simple, water-repelling coating to prevent thermal shock in ceramics.

Source: Improved thermal-shock resistance in industrial ceramics

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

World's biggest shipping firm to test Russian Arctic route

Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk said Thursday it will send a cargo vessel through the Russian Arctic for the first time as a result of melting sea ice.

[...] "I think it is important to underline that this is a one-off trial designed to explore an unknown route for container shipping and to collect scientific data—and not the launch of a new product," von Spalding said in an email to The Associated Press.

The Northern Sea Route could be a shorter route for journeys from East Asia to Europe than the Northwest Passage over Canada because it will likely be free of ice sooner due to climate change.

Experts say it could reduce the most commonly used East Asia-Europe route via the Suez Canal from 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles) to 12,800 kilometers (8,000 miles), cutting transit time by 10-15 days.

Von Spalding said the ship will leave Russia's Pacific port city of Vladivostok around Sept. 1 with a cargo of frozen fish and sail to St. Petersburg where it will arrive by the end of the month.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Somewhere in Western Australia, a government IT employee is probably laughing or crying or pulling their hair out (or maybe all of the above). A security audit of the Western Australian government released by the state’s auditor general this week found that 26 percent of its officials had weak, common passwords -- including more than 5,000 including the word “password" out of 234,000 in 17 government agencies.

The legions of lazy passwords were exactly what you -- or a thrilled hacker -- would expect: 1,464 people went for “Password123” and 813 used “password1." Nearly 200 individuals used “password” -- maybe they never changed it to begin with?

Almost 13,000 used variations of the date and season, and almost 7,000 included versions of “123.”

[...] The traditional guidelines for strong passwords -- make them long and complicated, use symbols and a mix of upper and lowercase letters, change them regularly -- were making it easier for hackers, Paul Grassi of the National Institute of Standards and Technology told NPR last June. The organization’s current guidelines for good passwords are that they should be simple, long and easy to remember. It suggests using normal English words and phrases that are easy for users but tougher on hackers.

If you want to keep your accounts secure, pick something that’s lengthy and memorable, and if you change it, switch more than a single letter or digit. And for heaven’s sake, don’t use the word “password.”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/22/western-australian-government-officials-used-password-their-password-cool-cool/?noredirect=on

Original Submission

A bot called Arthur has collected the following story from the RSS feeds:

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has released new recommendations on screening for cervical cancer. These latest recommendations continue the trend of decreasing participant burden by lengthening screening intervals, making the "annual Pap" a historical artifact. Since its introduction 75 years ago, exfoliative cytology commonly known as the Pap test has been the "gold-standard" screening test for cervical cancer.

In the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the USPSTF, an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention, updates its 2012 recommendations for cervical cancer screening with one important addition. This is the first time the USPSTF has recommended a method of cervical cancer screening that does not include the Pap test.

[...] The new USPSTF guidelines recommend that women ages 21 to 29 years be screened for cervical cancer every three years with the Pap test alone. This recommendation remains unchanged from 2012. For women ages 30 to 65 years, the USPSTF recommends screening for cervical cancer with primary high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) test alone every five years. As an option, they also recommend the previous guideline of hrHPV test and Pap test together (co-testing) every three years.

What was novel in the 2012 USPSTF recommendations was that women ages 30 to 65 years were given the option for the first time to be screened with hrHPV test and Pap test together every five years to lengthen their screening interval. The 2018 recommendations go one step further by including, for the first time, the option of hrHPV testing alone, without a Pap test, every five years.

The table in the new USPSTF recommendations also acknowledges an important trade-off. Co-testing is slightly better than primary hrHPV testing at detecting precancerous lesions but is associated with increased tests and diagnostic procedures that may not benefit the patient and have real costs to the health care system. Pap tests detect changes in cervical cells that could indicate the presence of pre-cancer or cancer, while HPV tests detect the genetic material or DNA of the high-risk types in cervical samples.

Journal Reference:
Lee A. Learman, Francisco A. R. Garcia. Screening for Cervical Cancer: New Tools and New Opportunities. JAMA, 2018 DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.11004

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Russian weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov has unveiled a sleek electric concept car that its creators say will compete with Elon Musk's market leader Tesla.

Based on the body of a Soviet hatchback Izh, Kalashnikov's CV-1 electric vehicle's 90 kilowatt hour battery gives it a range of 350 kilometers. The arms company says the car can accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 6 seconds.

The brand, best known for the AK-47 machine gun, on Thursday presented the retro-looking pale blue prototype, the CV-1 at a defence expo outside Moscow.

Earlier this week, online users ridiculed Kalashnikov's new bipedal combat robot. The golden-colour machine, reportedly named "Igoryok" in production stages, immediately became a subject of social media memes.

Is the car going to be a threat to troubled Tesla?

Original Submission

requerdanos writes:

NPR has an August 23rd, 2018 story about the original "A-TEAM" (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower), a 1965 project to replace migrant workers with high school kids on summer break.

The year was 1965. On Cinco de Mayo, newspapers across the country reported that Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz wanted to recruit 20,000 high schoolers to replace the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who had labored in the United States under the so-called Bracero Program. Started in World War II, the program was an agreement between the American and Mexican governments that brought Mexican men to pick harvests across the U.S. It ended in 1964, after years of accusations by civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez that migrants suffered wage theft and terrible working and living conditions.

But farmers complained — in words that echo today's headlines — that Mexican laborers did the jobs that Americans didn't want to do, and that the end of [the program] meant that crops would rot in the fields.

"exec" writes:

In the coming decades, many space agencies hope to conduct crewed missions to the Moon and even establish outposts there. In fact, between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, and the Indian and Chinese space agencies, there are no shortages of plans to construct lunar bases and settlements. These will not only establish a human presence on the Moon, but facilitate missions to Mars and deeper into space.

For instance, the ESA is planning on building an "international lunar village" on the Moon by the 2030s. As the spiritual successor to the International Space Station (ISS), this village would also allow for scientific research in a lunar environment. Currently, European researchers are planning how to go about constructing this village, which includes conducting experiments with lunar dust simulants to create bricks.

To put it simply, the entire surface of the Moon is covered in dust (aka. regolith) that is composed of fine particles of rough silicate. This dust was formed over the course of billions of years by constant meteorite impacts which pounded the silicate mantle into fine particles. It has remained in a rough and fine state due to the fact that the lunar surface experiences no weathering or erosion (due to the lack of an atmosphere and liquid water).

[...] before the ESA can sign off on lunar dust as a building material, a number of tests still need to be conducted. These include recreating the behavior of lunar dust in a radiation environment to simulate their electrostatic behavior. For decades, scientists have known that lunar dust is electrically-charged because of the way it is constantly bombarded by solar and cosmic radiation.

[...] At present, the ESA plans to build their international lunar village in southern polar region, where plentiful water ice has been discovered. To investigate this, the ESA will be sending their Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Commercial exploitation and Transportation (PROSPECT) mission to the Moon in 2020, which will be travelling as part of the Russian Luna-27 mission.

https://www.universetoday.com/139810/building-bricks-on-the-moon-from-lunar-dust/

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

DeathMonkey writes:

NSA leaker who mailed doc outlining Russian hacking gets 5 years in prison

Reality Winner, the intelligence contractor who leaked to The Intercept and was quickly caught in June 2017 thanks to microdot printing, was sentenced to 63 months in prison on Thursday. She had pleaded guilty on June 21 to a single count of unlawful retention and transmission of national defense information.

The information that Winner provided to The Intercept resulted in this June 5, 2017 news story: "Top-Secret NSA Report details Russian hacking effort days before 2016 election."

Previously: Feds Arrest NSA Contractor in Leak of Top Secret Russia Document
Reality Winner NSA Leak Details Revealed by Court Transcript
Reality Winner Pleads Guilty to Leaking NSA Election Hacking Data

Original Submission