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Turkey 'has recording proving Saudi murder'
Turkish officials have audio and video evidence that shows missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured and killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the BBC has learned.
Mr Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, has not been seen since he entered the building on 2 October.
Turkish intelligence had "documented evidence" of the murder, a source close to the investigation said.
Saudi Arabia denies the allegations. It says the journalist left the building.
Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance and reported death have prompted international outrage and dented business confidence in Saudi Arabia. Tycoon Sir Richard Branson has halted talks over $1bn Saudi investment in Virgin space firms and several top business leaders have pulled out of a Saudi investment conference later this month.
Also at CNN.
See also: CNBC withdraws from Saudi conference over concerns about journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance
If a Moon Has a Moon, Is Its Moon Called a Moonmoon?
A few years ago, an astronomer's son asked the type of question only kids and genius astrophysicists come up with: Can a moon have a moon? Juna Kollmeier of the Carnegie Institution Observatories couldn't answer her child's query, but she realized that investigating the idea could help answer questions about how moons form and even reveal some of the hidden history of the Solar System, reports Ryan F. Mandelbaum at Gizmodo.
The results, which she co-authored with astronomer Sean Raymond of the University of Bordeaux, were recently published in a short paper titled "Can Moons Have Moons?" on the preprint server arXiv.org, which hosts yet-to-be peer reviewed research. The study, however, has raised an even bigger question that now has the scientific Twitterverse riled up. Just what do you call the moon of a moon?
In their study, Kollmeier and Raymond looked at what would happen to a small submoon orbiting another moon. According to the paper, what they found is that in most cases there's just not enough space for a submoon to orbit another moon. Tidal forces would pull the little moon toward the host planet, ripping the mini moon to pieces.
For a submoon to survive, it needs to be small—about six miles in diameter or less. It also needs to orbit a large moon with enough gravity to hold it in place and must be far enough away from the host planet to complete its own orbit. It turns out that several moons in our own solar system fit the bill and could host submoons, including Titan and Iapetus, which orbit Saturn, and Callisto, which orbits Jupiter. Even our own moon is the right size and distance from Earth to potentially host its very own moon.
Also at ScienceAlert, Quartz, and Know Your Meme.
The dirty word: 'Android' wasn't said a single time during the Google Pixel 3 event
Android is the world's most ubiquitous OS and one of the most important parts of Google's business. But it's becoming clearer that the company no longer wants the word associated with its phones. The latest evidence is in the transcript for its event this week in New York City.
"Android" wasn't said a single time during the Made by Google 2018 keynote. It marks the first time ever that Google has held a public-facing hardware event like this — since the introduction of the operating system in 2008 — without at least mentioning it by name.
[...] While Android went unsaid, Google had no shame talking Chrome OS, which powers the new Pixel Slate tablet. Google told an entire story around Chrome OS, where it's come from, why it makes sense on the tablet, and touted it as a great desktop alternative to Windows and macOS. To me it seemed Chrome OS was clearly marketed as a standout feature of the Pixel Slate. To add insult to injury for Android, the "universe" of Android apps that can now run on Chrome were referred to as simply "apps" or "apps from the Google Play Store" during the keynote.
[...] It's understandable that, given the Android brand's association with "lower quality" non-premium phones that Google doesn't want to associate the name of that OS with its phones — at least not in terms of the public-facing marketing message. Android phones are made by dozens of scattered manufacturers, all with varying approaches to their products, their design, their features, etc. — which has lead to an arguably good thing: immense diversity of phones running Android today. But that means "Android" doesn't really have much meaning other than just being not-iPhone. [...] And it doesn't want the baggage of the Android connotation mucking up the image of a phone that competes with the iPhone and costs upwards of $1,000.
Also at BGR.
Related: Now Is the Time to Start Planning for the Post-Android World
C-section births rise rapidly to more than 20 percent worldwide
Rates of caesarean section births almost doubled between 2000 and 2015 – from 12 to 21 percent worldwide - new research has found, with the life-saving surgery unavailable to many women in poor countries while often over-used in richer ones.
The research, published in The Lancet medical journal on Thursday, found that 60 percent of countries overuse C-sections and 25 percent under-use them, suggesting that recommendations for their use in cases of medical need are widely ignored.
In at least 15 countries, more than 40 percent of all babies born are delivered by C-section. The highest rate, of 58.1 percent, was in the Dominican Republic.
Experts estimate that between 10 and 15 percent of births medically require a C-section due to complications such as bleeding, foetal distress, hypertension or a baby being in an abnormal position.
While the procedure can save lives - of both mothers and newborns - it can also create complications and side effects, including higher risks for future births.
"The large increases in C-section use – mostly in richer settings for non-medical purposes – are concerning because of the associated risks for women and children," said Marleen Temmerman, an expert from Aga Khan University in Kenya and Ghent University in Belgium who co-led the research.
Also at BBC, EurekAlert!, The Guardian, and Voice of America.
Global epidemiology of use of and disparities in caesarean sections (DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31928-7) (DX)
Rewriting reproduction: With stem cells and CRISPR, scientists breed mice with same-sex parents
For the first time, scientists said Thursday that they had bred mice with two genetic fathers, steering around biological hurdles that would otherwise prevent same-sex parents from having offspring. The researchers also bred mouse pups with two genetic mothers. Those pups matured into adults and had pups of their own, outpacing previous efforts to create so-called bimaternal mice. [...] The cells used to make the mouse embryos were profoundly manipulated. The vast majority of the embryos made did not result in births. And none of the bipaternal mouse pups — those with two genetic fathers — survived to adulthood.
[...] At issue is "genomic imprinting," an evolutionary feature found in mammals (and also flowering plants) that researchers believe blocks these species from producing progeny without both maternal and paternal DNA. In our genomes, there are two copies of each gene — one from mom, one from dad — and both get expressed to make us us. But there are some 100 genes where "imprints" stationed along the genome signal one copy to be active and one to be silent. "The other copy is there and it's presented and there's nothing wrong with the DNA sequence," said Manus Patten, an evolutionary biologist at Georgetown University, who was not part of the new research. "It's just turned off." Mammals still need both sets, though, to have their full suite of genetic instructions. IGF2, for example, is a gene crucial for growth and development, but only the paternal copy is normally active. If we just inherited DNA maternally then, we wouldn't grow or develop properly; that gene would simply remain off. On the flip side, there are a number of these genes for which we rely on our mothers.
But scientists started challenging nature's way a decade and a half ago. The trick was to cajole certain maternal genes to act like paternal genes in terms of their activity, or vice versa. In 2004, a team of Japanese researchers for the first time created mice [DOI: 10.1038/nature02402] [DX] with two mothers by toying with imprint signals, though only one of the 10 mice born in that study — out of more than 400 embryos — grew to adulthood. To try to improve on past results, the researchers in the new study manipulated imprint instructions even more extensively.
Today, it's a proof of concept. Tomorrow, it will be refined.
Also at BBC and Popular Science.
Generation of Bimaternal and Bipaternal Mice from Hypomethylated Haploid ESCs with Imprinting Region Deletions (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2018.09.004) (DX)
Easter Island Inhabitants Collected Freshwater from the Ocean's Edge in Order to Survive:
Ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) maintained a society of thousands by utilizing coastal groundwater discharge as their main source of "freshwater," according to new research from a team of archaeologists including faculty at Binghamton University, State University at New York.
The team, which included Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo, measured the salinity of coastal water around the island of Rapa Nui, in order to determine whether or not the water close to the shores had a salt concentration low enough for humans to safely drink.
The process of coastal groundwater discharge makes it possible for humans to collect drinkable freshwater directly where it emerges at the coast of the island.
By measuring the percentage of salt in the coastal waters, and finding it safe for human consumption, and by eliminating other options as primary sources of drinking water, the researchers concluded that groundwater discharge was a critical factor in the sustenance of the large population the island is thought to have harbored.
"The porous volcanic soils quickly absorb rain, resulting in a lack of streams and rivers," Lipo said. "Fortunately, water beneath the ground flows downhill and ultimately exits the ground directly at the point at which the porous subterranean rock meets the ocean. When tides are low, this results in the flow of freshwater directly into the sea. Humans can thus take advantage of these sources of freshwater by capturing the water at these points."
Lipo said the freshwater mixes with the saltwater slightly, creating what's called brackish water, but not enough for the water to contain harmful levels of salt to human consumers. It does, however, mean that the islanders rarely used salt on their foods, because the water they drank contributed so drastically to their daily salt intake.
I wonder how the inhabitants found out where and when it was safe to drink the water?
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
James Murdoch could become the next head of Tesla's board of directors. He is "the favourite" to replace Elon Musk, who currently serves as both board chairman and chief executive, the Financial Times has reported. However, Mr Musk said on Twitter that the FT report was "incorrect" without providing any further detail.
Mr Musk agreed to give up the chairmanship last month to resolve claims of fraud brought by US financial regulators. The settlement requires Tesla to install an independent chairman, among other penalties. It is intended to create more oversight of Mr Musk, who provoked the charges when he claimed on Twitter that he had secured funding and might take the firm private.
The terms of the settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission are awaiting court approval. A federal judge is due to review the settlement on Thursday. The FT report cited two anonymous sources, but added that other names remain under consideration.
[...] Mr Murdoch is currently chief executive of the US media giant 21st Century Fox, but he will step down after the firm completes the sale of much of its business to Walt Disney. He resigned from the board of Sky this week, following Comcast's successful bid for the European satellite broadcaster.
-- submitted from IRC
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A top Homeland Security Investigations official has told a federal court that it remains the agency's policy that officers can install a GPS tracking device on cars entering the United States "without a warrant or individualized suspicion" for up to 48 hours.
There is no such time limit, HSI Assistant Director Matthew C. Allen also told the court, for putting such trackers on "airplane, commercial vehicles, and semi-tractor trailers, which has a significantly reduced expectation of privacy in the location of their vehicles."
Such an assertion comes over a month after a federal judge recently told the Department of Justice that such a practice—at least in one drug-trafficking case—is unconstitutional. His decision is based on a landmark 2012 Supreme Court ruling involving GPS tracking, known as Jones.
Prosecutors had claimed that installing such a tracker was valid under the "border doctrine" exception to the Fourth Amendment, which finds that limited, warrantless searches at the border are allowed. US District Judge Jesus G. Bernal disagreed in an August 24, 2018 ruling.
Allen continued, saying that HSI believes that its policy is "consistent" with both the Jones decision and a case from 2004 case known as Flores-Montano. In that instance, the Supreme Court ruled that there is a "diminished" expectation of privacy at the border.
Legal experts find this newly disclosed HSI policy to be troubling.
"It is hard to square with the [Supreme] Court's decision in Jones," wrote Michael Price, an attorney with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, in an email to Ars.
[...] Government lawyers have asked Judge Bernal to amend his August 24 order simply to include that the FBI agent and Los Angeles Police Department officer involved in the arrest should not be reprimanded for what turned out to be bad legal advice.
On Friday, Steven Gruel and Marilyn Bednarski, attorneys for the defendants, filed a motion to the court, arguing against the government's position.
"If the federal government does in fact have such a policy and is training law enforcement agents to act as the policy suggests, which is a violation of the 4th amendment, the government should be deterred and the agencies' internal policies and training should be revealed and scrutinized," they wrote.
The two sides will be back in court on November 5 at 2pm to discuss the matter.
-- submitted from IRC
Take off for the longest non-stop flight
The world's longest commercial flight has left Singapore for New York, beginning a journey expected to cover more than 15,000km in almost 19 hours.
Singapore Airlines is relaunching the service five years after it was cut because it had become too expensive.
A spokeswoman for Singapore Airlines said Flight SQ22 departed at approximately 15:35GMT with 150 passengers and 17 crew.
The flight from Changi Airport to Newark took off amid much fanfare.
The flight time is about 90 minutes longer than the previous longest non-stop service.
Qantas launched a 17-hour non-stop service from Perth to London earlier this year, while Qatar runs a 17.5-hour service between Auckland and Doha.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) said there was demand for customers for non-stop services which help cut travelling times compared with flights which have a stopover.
Ahead of the take-off, the airline told the BBC that business class seats for the flight were fully booked, and there were "a very limited number" of premium economy seats left.
The airline is not planning to offer any economy bookings on the route.
A business class ticket will entitle passengers to two meals, and the choice of when they are served, plus refreshments in between. They will also have a bed to sleep in.
Premium economy fares will get three meals at fixed times, with refreshments in between.
Do people want to fly for 19 hours?
The movie First Man opens in theaters in the US on Friday, October 12. A local theater had two showings Thursday so I was able to get an advance look. Wikipedia summarizes the movie quite succinctly:
First Man is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Damien Chazelle and written by Josh Singer, based on the book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, alongside Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Ciarán Hinds, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, and Lukas Haas, and follows the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969. Steven Spielberg serves as an executive producer.
I've always seemed to have had a fascination with space. Maybe it was due to my good fortune in having grown up in the suburbs and having gone on many camping trips where the moon and stars were visible in all their glory. I'm old enough to have followed the "space race" from the late days of the Gemini program through Apollo and onward. With that as a backdrop, I found myself quite surprised at what unfolded in the movie. Various mishaps and catastrophes were tastefully addressed, most notably the fire on the launch pad which consumed Apollo 1. Nothing about the details of the missions trouble me. It was how the film thoughtfully portrayed the human side of things that got to me. The toll it took on the astronauts themselves and on their families. Ongoing battles for funding with Congress and the general public. The come-from-behind challenge as the USSR kept besting the US with one after another 'firsts' in space. Yet, through it all, Gosling's portrayal of Neil Armstrong was riveting in how driven and focused the first man to walk on the moon truly was. That said, he was human after all, and the movie graphically portrays moments of intense feeling which are made all the more dramatic for their infrequency of occurrence. It brought tears to my eyes more than once.
I had a few nits with some of the filming and sound work, but those were minor blemishes on this strong production. I know it has already forced me to revisit long-cherished memories from that era with a new insight and perspective. It changed me. Strongly recommended... I give it 8 out of 10.
NOTE: I have tried to avoid spoilers in this review. Please feel free to discuss the movie in the comments, but I suggest using <spoiler>to hide things you don't want immediately visible</spoiler> like this:
to hide things you don't want immediately visible
for those who may not have yet seen the movie.
This is a review by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) of the hype around blockchain. They conclude that most people, surprise surprise, don't need a blockchain. There is a very simple graphic of the flowchart and a summary of their report here:
Enjoy the actual review here:
https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2018/NIST.IR.8202.pdf
As usual, KISS wins the day.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Chemical spills put Italy's underground physics lab in jeopardy
Scientists fear for the future of Gran Sasso National Laboratory, a world-leading underground physics lab in central Italy, after prosecutors charged four lab leaders with endangering drinking water supplies. Sparked by a number of accidental spills that released small amounts of toxic chemicals into groundwater feeding a local aqueduct, the 28 September legal action could lead to at least two major Gran Sasso experiments being shut down.
Gianpaolo Bellini, a particle physicist at the University of Milan in Italy and a former spokesperson for Borexino, one of the lab experiments in jeopardy, says fears of contamination are “groundless.” But he says the lab itself is in a “very delicate situation.” He worries that research groups, particularly from abroad, might be put off by the possibility of legal action and delays to their work. “This [investigation] damages the reputation of the lab,” he says. “People will be more cautious about coming and therefore more cautious about investing their money.”
A small but increasing number of children in the United States are not getting some or all of their recommended vaccinations. The percentage of children under 2 years old who haven't received any vaccinations has quadrupled in the last 17 years, according to federal health data released Thursday.
Overall, immunization rates remain high and haven't changed much at the national level. But a pair of reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about immunizations for preschoolers and kindergartners highlights a growing concern among health officials and clinicians about children who aren't getting the necessary protection against vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, whooping cough and other pediatric infectious diseases.
The vast majority of parents across the country vaccinate their children and follow recommended schedules for this basic preventive practice. But the recent upswing in vaccine skepticism and outright refusal to vaccinate has spawned communities of undervaccinated children who are more susceptible to disease and pose health risks to the broader public.
[...] The data underlying the latest reports do not explain the reason for the increase in unvaccinated children. In some cases, parents hesitate or refuse to immunize, officials and experts said. Insurance coverage and an urban-rural disparity are likely other reasons for the troubling rise.
Among children aged 19 months to 35 months in rural areas, about 2 percent received no vaccinations in 2017. That is double the number of unvaccinated children living in urban areas.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
US military grounds all F-35 jets
The US military has temporarily grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets in the wake of a crash in South Carolina last month.
Inspections are to be carried out on faulty fuel tubes.
An official report questioned earlier this year whether the F-35 was ready for combat after dozens of faults were found.
[...] In a statement, the F-35 Joint Program Office said the US and its international partners had suspended flight operations while a fleet-wide inspection of fuel tubes was conducted.
"If suspect fuel tubes are installed, the part will be removed and replaced. If known good fuel tubes are already installed, then those aircraft will be returned to flight status.
"Inspections are expected to be completed within the next 24 to 48 hours."
The aircraft, which uses stealth technology to reduce its visibility to radar, comes in three variants.
The crash in South Carolina involved an F-35B, which is able to land vertically and costs around $100m (£75m).
The pilot in that incident ejected safely but the aircraft was destroyed.
The plane, manufactured by Lockheed Martin but including parts made in several other countries, has been sold to a number of nations, including the UK, Japan, Italy, Turkey and South Korea.
[...] The Ministry of Defence in London said the UK had decided to "pause some F-35 flying as a precautionary measure while we consider the findings of an ongoing enquiry".
But the MOD said F-35 flight trials from the aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, were continuing and the programme remained on schedule to provide UK armed forces with "a game-changing capability".
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Researchers say a medium severity bug should now be rated critical because of a new hack technique that allows for remote code execution on MikroTik edge and consumer routers.
A new hacking technique used against vulnerable MikroTik routers gives attackers the ability to execute remote code on affected devices. The technique is yet another security blow against the MikroTik router family. Previous hacks have left the routers open to device failures, cyptojacking and network eavesdropping.
The hacking technique, found by Tenable Research and outlined on Sunday at DerbyCon 8.0 in Louisville, Kentucky, is tied to the existing directory traversal bug (CVE-2018-14847) found and patched in April. That vulnerability was rated medium in severity and impacted Winbox, which is a management component and a Windows GUI application for MikroTik's RouterOS software.
Tenable Research says it has found a new attack technique that exploits the same bug (CVE-2018-14847) that allows for unauthenticated remote code execution. "By exploiting the flaw, the remote attacker can get a root shell on the device as well as bypass the router's firewall, gain access to the internal network, and even load malware onto victims' systems undetected," Tenable Research said in a blog post accompanying the presentation.
The underlying flaw is tied to a Winbox Any Directory File that allows threat actors to read files that flow through the router without authentication. The new technique, found by Jacob Baines, researcher at Tenable Research, goes one step further allowing an adversary to write files to the router. Baines also created a proof of concept of the attack outlined Sunday.
"The licupgr binary has an sprintf that an authenticated user can use to trigger a stack buffer overflow. The sprintf is used on the following string:
GET /ssl_conn.php?usrname=%s&passwd=%s&softid=%s&level=%d&pay_typ'e=%d&board=%d HTTP/1.0
"Where the user has control of the username and password strings, an authenticated user can exploit this to gain root access to the underlying system," he wrote.
This is as bad as it gets, Baines told Threatpost. "This bug was reported in April, but we are now able to show how an attacker can use it to get root shell on a system. It uses CVE-2018-14847 to leak the admin credentials first and then an authenticated code path gives us a back door."
Also at The Register:
Tenable's blog post noted that: "As of October 3, 2018, approximately 35,000 – 40,000 devices display an updated, patched version," discovered through a Shodan.io search. Baines' presentation estimated that 67.8 per cent of MikroTik routers currently remain unpatched.
MikroTik patched the security cockups in Router OS versions 6.42.7, 6.40.9, and 6.43 in late August. So, if you haven't already done so, grab and install those as soon as you can – before your router becomes someone else's router.
-- submitted from IRC