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takyon writes:

JEDEC Updates Groundbreaking High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) Standard

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of an update to JESD235 High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) DRAM standard.

[...] JEDEC standard JESD235B for HBM leverages Wide I/O and TSV technologies to support densities up to 24 GB per device at speeds up to 307 GB/s. This bandwidth is delivered across a 1024-bit wide device interface that is divided into 8 independent channels on each DRAM stack. The standard can support 2-high, 4-high, 8-high, and 12-high TSV stacks of DRAM at full bandwidth to allow systems flexibility on capacity requirements from 1 GB – 24 GB per stack.

This update extends the per pin bandwidth to 2.4 Gbps, adds a new footprint option to accommodate the 16 Gb-layer and 12-high configurations for higher density components, and updates the MISR polynomial options for these new configurations.

Some existing High Bandwidth Memory products already had a per pin bandwidth of 2.4 Gbps. However, the increase in stack size and density could allow a product with 96 GB of DRAM using just four stacks (16 Gb DRAM × 12 × 4), up from 32 GB (8 Gb DRAM × 8 × 4).

This update apparently applies to HBM2 and is not considered a third or fourth generation of HBM.

Also at Wccftech and AnandTech.

Previously: Samsung Increases Production of 8 GB High Bandwidth Memory 2.0 Stacks

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

New strains of hepatitis C found in Africa: Study could inform hepatitis C treatment and vaccine development worldwide

Published in the Journal Hepatology, the discovery of the new strains could inform hepatitis C treatment and vaccine development worldwide, and assist the World Health Organisation's aim of eliminating hepatitis C globally.

[...] Dr George S. Mgomella, joint first author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, said: "In the largest study of hepatitis C in the general population in sub-Saharan Africa to date, we found a diverse range of hepatitis C virus strains circulating, and also discovered new strains that had never been seen before. Further research is needed as some antiviral drugs are effective against specific strains of hepatitis C virus and may not work as well in these populations."

Dr Emma Thomson, a senior author on the paper from Glasgow University, said: "It is important that there is a concerted effort to characterise hepatitis C strains in sub-Saharan Africa at a population level in order to assist countries to select optimal treatments for national procurement. It will also be important to inform vaccine design which would catalyse the elimination of hepatitis C by 2030."

The researchers discovered that current screening methods using antibody detection were inaccurate in Uganda and that detection of the virus itself would likely be a superior method for diagnosing the infection in high-risk populations. The researchers found that many of the strains present carry mutations in genes known to be associated with resistance to some commonly used antiviral drugs, proving that careful approaches are needed to diagnose and treat HCV effectively in Africa.

Dr Manj Sandhu, a senior author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, said: "Our study highlights the need for more investment on people in Africa and developing parts of the world. We show there are clear differences in HCV across the world, underlining the need for understanding HCV globally. Our work will help inform public health policy and reveals that further studies and clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa are urgently needed if the WHO is to achieve its vision of eliminating hepatitis C by 2030."

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takyon writes:

NASA Research Reveals Saturn is Losing Its Rings at "Worst-Case-Scenario" Rate

New NASA research confirms that Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 & 2 observations made decades ago. The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.

"We estimate that this 'ring rain' drains an amount of water products that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool from Saturn's rings in half an hour," said James O'Donoghue of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years, but add to this the Cassini-spacecraft measured ring-material detected falling into Saturn's equator, and the rings have less than 100 million years to live. This is relatively short, compared to Saturn's age of over 4 billion years." O'Donoghue is lead author of a study on Saturn's ring rain appearing in Icarus [DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2018.10.027] [DX] December 17.

Scientists have long wondered if Saturn was formed with the rings or if the planet acquired them later in life. The new research favors the latter scenario, indicating that they are unlikely to be older than 100 million years, as it would take that long for the C-ring to become what it is today assuming it was once as dense as the B-ring. "We are lucky to be around to see Saturn's ring system, which appears to be in the middle of its lifetime. However, if rings are temporary, perhaps we just missed out on seeing giant ring systems of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, which have only thin ringlets today!" O'Donoghue added.

It's time to mine the rings.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

A pair of researchers, one with the Public University of Navarre, the other with the University of Bristol, has developed a system of holographic acoustic tweezers that can be used to manipulate multiple objects simultaneously in 3-D space. Asier Marzo and Bruce Drinkwater describe their tweezers and possible uses for them in their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Holographic laser tweezers are familiar to researchers, but they can only be used to move around micro-scale objects. In this new effort, Marzo and Drinkwater take the idea of holographic tweezers into the realm of sound and in so doing have created a system capable of manipulating a host of larger objects simultaneously.

The article shows various macro-scale objects the researchers have been able to manipulate. They suggest the technology can be refined to perform non-invasive surgery, among other applications.

Sonic screwdrivers, here we come?

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Unrelated events are linked in memory when they happen close together

When two events occur within a brief window of time they become linked in memory, such that calling forth memory of one helps retrieve memory for the other event, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This happens even when temporal proximity is the only feature that the two events share.

"Our research shows that people are constantly recording information about the order in which events happen, even if those events are unrelated. They can then use the order to help search memory," explains psychological scientist M. Karl Healey of Michigan State University.

In one online study, Healey and coauthor Mitchell G.Uitvlugt collected and analyzed data following Election Day in 2016. The study participants had 7 minutes to recall as many election-related news stories as they could -- for each story, they also drafted a short newspaper-style headline.

Healey and Uitvlugt identified actual news stories that corresponded with the headlines generated by the participants, noting the date that the stories appeared. For their analyses, the researchers did not include stories that were not associated with specific election-related events. This process yielded 7,759 headlines from 855 participants.

The researchers then calculated a lag score that measured the transition, in days, from one headline in a participant's story sequence to the next.

The results showed that participants tended to recall stories in time-based clusters: Short transitions between stories (0 to 10 days) were much more common than would be expected according to chance. Furthermore, long transitions of more than 50 days were less frequent than one would expect by chance. The analyses showed that what participants remembered wasn't due to news events naturally clustering close together in time but rather the clustering of stories together in memory.

Is this what makes positive reinforcement effective?

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Air Force requirements will keep SpaceX from landing Falcon 9 booster after GPS launch – Spaceflight Now

The demands of launching the first in an upgraded line of U.S. Air Force GPS navigation satellites, including a late load of extra fuel for the spacecraft and a military policy of reserving fuel to eliminate space junk, will keep SpaceX from recovering the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket following liftoff Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, according to mission managers.

[...] The rocket's first stage will fly without the four landing legs and aerodynamic grid fins used to bring the booster back to Earth intact, according to Lee Rosen, SpaceX's vice president of customer operations and integration. The mission will be the first by SpaceX to dispose of a Falcon 9's first stage since June, and the first time one of the company's new Block 5 boosters has ever been intentionally discarded.

[...] Instead of heading due east from Cape Canaveral, as the Falcon 9 rocket does with most of its commercial communications satellite payloads, the SpaceX launcher will fly to the northeast over the Atlantic Ocean, following a trajectory roughly parallel to the U.S. East Coast. Launching toward the northeast reduces the extra boost in speed a rocket naturally receives from Earth's eastward rotation, meaning it needs to burn more propellant accelerate the GPS satellite into the proper orbit.

Air Force and SpaceX officials cited those factors, along with the weight of the first GPS 3-series satellite — designated GPS 3 SV01 — and "uncertainty" in the Falcon 9's performance to such an orbit, as reasons for deciding to forego a landing of the Falcon 9 booster on Tuesday's mission.

The Air Force also has to comply with a government policy instituted in recent years to avoid leaving spent rocket stages in orbit, and the Falcon 9's upper stage will reignite after releasing the GPS 3 SV01 satellite to target a controlled destructive re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere a few hours later. Mission designers had to set aside some of the rocket's fuel for the de-orbit burn to satisfy the Air Force requirement, which is aimed at preventing space junk.

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martyb writes:

Elon Musk's SpaceX Is Raising $500 Million in Funding

Elon Musk's rocket company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is set to raise $500 million at a $30.5 billion valuation, in a bid to help get its internet-service business off the ground, according to people familiar with the fundraising.

The Hawthorne, Calif., company, known as SpaceX, is raising the capital from existing shareholders and new investor Baillie Gifford & Co., one of the people said. The Scottish money-management firm is one of the largest investors in another Musk-led company, Tesla with about a 7.6% stake, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

SpaceX and the investors have agreed on the financing terms, but the money hasn't been sent to the company yet, this person said. SpaceX could announce the deal by year-end.

SpaceX was last valued by investors at about $28 billion in a funding round in April. The investors are paying $186 per share for new stock in the latest funding round, this person said. That is up about 10% from the $169-per-share paid during the April fundraising, according to SpaceX data compiled by private-company analytics firm Lagniappe Labs.

Including this round, SpaceX has raised about $2.5 billion of equity funding, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Last month it raised $250 million via its first high-yield loan sale.

[...] SpaceX investors are optimistic about the potential of Starlink, according to a person familiar with their thinking. SpaceX projects the constellation could balloon to more than 11,000 satellites. The largest current telecommunications constellation has 65 satellites.

However, as at Tesla, Mr. Musk has a history of missing projections at SpaceX. In early 2016 SpaceX projected that it would launch 44 rockets this year, according to internal documents previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. On Tuesday, the company was scheduled to launch its 21st rocket but minutes before scheduled liftoff it was scrubbed for technical reasons and rescheduled for Wednesday.

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takyon writes:

Scientists Proposed a Nuclear 'Tunnelbot' to Hunt Life in Europa's Hidden Ocean

A group of scientists wants to send a nuclear-powered "tunnelbot" to Europa to blaze a path through the Jovian moon's thick shell of ice and search for life. [...] On Friday (Dec. 14) at the 2018 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, the researchers presented a proposal for a "tunnelbot" that would use nuclear power to melt a path through Europa's shell, "carrying a payload that can search for... evidence for extant/extinct life."

The tunnelbot, the researchers reported, could use either an advanced nuclear reactor or some of NASA's radioactive "general-purpose heat bricks" to generate heat and power, though the radiation would present some design challenges.

Once on the frozen moon, the tunnelbot would move through the ice, also hunting for smaller lakes inside the shell or evidence that the ice itself might contain life. As it burrows deeper, it would spit out a long fiber-optic cable behind itself leading up to the surface and deploy communications relays at depths of 3, 6 and 9 miles (5, 10 and 15 kilometers). Once it reaches the liquid ocean, to keep from "falling through," it would deploy cables or a floatation device to lock itself in place, the researchers wrote.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Rosetta witnesses birth of baby bow shock around comet

A new study reveals that, contrary to first impressions, Rosetta did detect signs of an infant bow shock at the comet it explored for two years – the first ever seen forming anywhere in the Solar System.

From 2014 to 2016, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft studied Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and its surroundings from near and far. It flew directly through the 'bow shock' several times both before and after the comet reached its closest point to the Sun along its orbit, providing a unique opportunity to gather in situ measurements of this intriguing patch of space.

Comets offer scientists an extraordinary way to study the plasma in the Solar System. Plasma is a hot, gaseous state of matter comprising charged particles, and is found in the Solar System in the form of the solar wind: a constant stream of particles flooding out from our star into space.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

The rules for Canada's notice-and-notice regime will change following the passing of C-86, the Budget Implementation Act. Moving forward, rightsholders will not be allowed to send copyright infringement notices for ISPs to pass onto their customers, if they contain a direct or indirect offer to settle. The development effectively ends Rightscorp-style business models in Canada.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/canada-prohibits-piracy-settlement-demands-in-isp-copyright-notices-181218/

See Also:
https://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isps-want-ban-on-piracy-settlement-notices-181022/
https://torrentfreak.com/canada-introduces-bill-to-ban-piracy-settlement-notices-181030/

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Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

This research indicates that the Vikings were not the worst invaders to land on English shores at that time. That title goes to the Anglo-Saxons, 400 years earlier.
...
One support for this contention is the impact, or rather the lack of impact, that the Viking Old Norse had on contemporary Old English language of the Anglo Saxons in the ninth and 10th centuries. This should be compared to the absence of Celtic language in England in the fifth and sixth centuries after the Anglo-Saxons had arrived.

In the fifth and sixth centuries, Old English wiped out the earlier Celtic language in a similar way that modern English eradicated the language of the Native Americans in U.S. in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is clear in the almost non-existent impact that Native American words have on the English spoken today in the U.S. Modern American English has retained around 40 Native American words. Similarly, only a dozen Celtic words made it into the Old English of the Anglo Saxons.
...
If the Anglo-Saxons eradicated the Celtic language, the Viking's impact was significantly less. Linguists do see some influence from the Old Norse of the Vikings in the Old English language. But it doesn't come close to the eradication of Celtic by the Anglo-Saxons.

Hmm, perhaps, but the Vikings did introduce 900 glorious ways to say, "I smite thee!"

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takyon writes:

Judge rules against New York state ban on nunchucks

A federal court has ruled that that a New York state ban on possessing nunchucks is unconstitutional. Judge Pamela Chen issued the ruling about the famous martial arts weapon last Friday in a Brooklyn federal court, according to The Associated Press.

The news service noted that Chen's ruling recounted the history of the nunchucks ban, which was instituted in New York in 1974 "out of a concern that, as a result of the rising popularity 'of 'Kung Fu' movies and shows,′ 'various circles of the state's youth' — including 'muggers and street gangs' — were 'widely' using nunchaku to cause 'many serious injuries.'"

The plaintiff in the case, James Maloney, was charged with possession of nunchucks, two rigid rods connected at one end by a chain or rope, in his home in 2000. Maloney initially filed a complaint in 2003. The AP notes that he was mainly focused on getting that part of the law that bans nunchucks even in private homes overturned.

Chen said in her ruling that the court couldn't just take that part out of the existing law. She ruled that the state law as it pertained to possessing the weapon was in violation of the Second Amendment.

The judge also found that banning the manufacturing, transport, or disposal of nunchaku was unconstitutional.

Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

General Motors has announced it's shuttering five production facilities and killing six vehicle platforms by the end of 2019 as it reallocates resources towards self-driving technologies and electric vehicles.

[...] North American car production hit 17.5 million vehicles in 2016, and dropped marginally to 17.2 million in 2017. Interesting, but perhaps not significant.

More telling are changes in driver behaviour. In North America, for example, fewer teens are getting driver's licences. In 1983, 92 per cent of teens were licensed, while by 2014, that number had dropped to 77 per cent. In Germany, the number of new licences issued to drivers aged 17 to 25 has dropped by 300,000 over the last 10 years.

Are we over our love affair with cars?

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takyon writes:

Cuomo Moves to Legalize Recreational Marijuana in New York Within Months

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he would push to legalize recreational marijuana next year, a move that could generate more than $1.7 billion in sales annually and put New York in line with several neighboring states. The highly anticipated proposal came in a speech in Manhattan on Monday, in which the governor outlined his agenda for the first 100 days of his third term. Mr. Cuomo framed the speech as a reflection on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt — the former president who was once a New York governor himself — would do today, mixing sweeping rhetoric about American ideals with grim warnings about the Trump administration.

The speech, which seemed delivered with a national audience in mind, could prolong slow-burning speculation about Mr. Cuomo's presidential ambitions. It also showed, in striking detail, the governor's leftward evolution in his eight years in office, from a business-friendly centrist who considered marijuana a "gateway drug," to a self-described progressive championing recreational marijuana, taxes on the rich and a ban on corporate political donations.

"The fact is we have had two criminal justice systems: one for the wealthy and the well off, and one for everyone else," Mr. Cuomo said before introducing the cannabis proposal, describing the injustice that had "for too long targeted the African-American and minority communities. "Let's legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all," he added.

Ten other states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana, spending the new tax revenue on a range of initiatives, including schools and transportation.

Legalizing marijuana is now one of Cuomo's priorities. He's been resisting it for years.

Cuomo's Monday message was his strongest public endorsement of recreational marijuana to date. It marks a substantial shift from his prior opposition, as recently as last year when he called it a "gateway drug." The change in policy stance also follows a bitter battle for the Democratic gubernatorial primary against Cynthia Nixon, who supported legalization.

In 2018, Vermont became the first (and so far, only) U.S. state to legalize recreational use of cannabis by an act of the legislature, following a vetoed attempt in 2017. Lawmakers in New Jersey and Illinois may follow suit, although opposition remains.

Also at CBS.

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takyon writes:

How a country suddenly went 'crazy rich'

Indonesia, the nation with the world's largest Muslim population, is home to a rapidly growing middle class. As Rebecca Henschke reports from Jakarta, this has given rise to a striking phenomenon - the so-called "Crazy Rich" Indonesians.

[...] The hashtag #crazyrichsurabayans started trending on social media after a local teacher at an elite school shared anecdotes about the family of one of her students - tales of them travelling to get their vaccinations done in Japan and of holidays in Europe. She is now writing a book about it and there is talk of a movie.

Recently, the luxurious lavish wedding of a couple from Surabaya was dubbed the ultimate Crazy Rich Surabayans event by local media. Hundreds of guests from Indonesia and abroad attended, it was reported, and all were said to have been entered into a prize draw for a Jaguar sports car. The groom, it's understood, had proposed with the assistance of a flash mob in front of hundreds of total strangers at the Venetian Macao resort. Many members of Indonesia's growing upper-middle class, concentrated solely in the west of the country, have money their parents would never have dreamed of - and most think it's normal, and perhaps even essential, to show it off.

Following a massive reduction in the country's poverty rate in the last two decades, one in every five Indonesians now belongs to the middle class. They're riding a commodities boom - the burning and churning-up of this vast archipelago's rich natural resources, including logging, palm oil, coal, gold and copper. This, combined with aggressive domestic spending, low taxes and little enforcement of labour laws, means that those who know how to play the system are raking it in.

"Surabaya is the capital of East Java province in Indonesia. Surabaya is the second-largest city in Indonesia with a population of over 3 million within the city proper and over 10 million in the Greater Surabaya metropolitan area, known as Gerbangkertosusila."

Indonesia is the world's 4th most populous country with over 261 million people as of 2016.

Recently:
Palm Oil was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead it Unleashed a Catastrophe

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