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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Nancy Grace Roman, 'Mother Of Hubble' Space Telescope, Has Died, At Age 93

When Nancy Grace Roman was a child, her favorite object to draw was the moon. Her mother used to take her on walks under the nighttime sky and show her constellations, or point out the colorful swirls of the aurora. Roman loved to look up at the stars and imagine. Eventually, her passion for stargazing blossomed into a career as a renowned astronomer. Roman was one of the first female executives at NASA, where she served as the agency's first chief of astronomy. Known as the "Mother of Hubble," for her role in making the Hubble Space Telescope a reality, Roman worked at NASA for nearly two decades. She died on Dec. 25 at the age of 93.

[...] From the get-go, Roman promoted space-based astronomy, where instrumentation is based in space unlike traditional ground-based astronomy equipment, such as telescopes. The reason behind this push is that looking through the Earth's atmosphere blurs or lessens the quality of the observation. [...] Her efforts helped lead to the creation of the Hubble Space Telescope. In her role at NASA, Roman developed and planned the Hubble Space Telescope, which is famous for its stunning images of space.

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el_oscuro writes:

From Motherboard

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, movies, songs, and books created in the United States in 1923—even beloved cartoons such as Felix the Cat—will be eligible for anyone to adapt, repurpose, or distribute as they please.

A 20-year freeze on copyright expirations has prevented a cache of 1923 works from entering the public domain, including Paramount Pictures' The Ten Commandments, Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim, and novels by Aldous Huxley.

Such a massive release of iconic works is unprecedented, experts say—especially in the digital age, as the last big dump predated Google.

In 2013, Paul Heald, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, conducted a survey of books for sale on Amazon. He found that more books were for sale from the 1880s than the 1980s.

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realDonaldTrump writes:

"Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ resignation, which shocked Washington’s national security establishment and rattled America’s allies, was sealed in a fateful 18-hour period that saw President Trump resolve to withdraw troops from Syria – alarming Pentagon officials who see America’s role in the region as crucial." foxnews.com/politics/behind-the-scenes-of-the-mattis-bombshell-more-resignations-expected-after-protest-exit

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takyon writes:

Chinese draft law would prevent forced technology transfers:

A draft law aiming at protecting foreign investment and preventing the forced transfer of technology has been submitted for review at a Chinese legislators' meeting starting Sunday, People's Daily reported.

The country will protect the intellectual property rights of overseas investors, encourage voluntary technology transfers but forbid forced transfers using administrative measures, Minister of Justice Fu Zhenghua told lawmakers, according to the newspaper.

Also at CNBC, Reuters, Nikkei Asian Review, and Engadget.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Ibuprofen alters human testicular physiology to produce a state of compensated hypogonadism:

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 23;115(4):E715-E724. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1715035115. Epub 2018 Jan 8.

Concern has been raised over increased male reproductive disorders in the Western world, and the disruption of male endocrinology has been suggested to play a central role. Several studies have shown that mild analgesics exposure during fetal life is associated with antiandrogenic effects and congenital malformations, but the effects on the adult man remain largely unknown. Through a clinical trial with young men exposed to ibuprofen, we show that the analgesic resulted in the clinical condition named "compensated hypogonadism," a condition prevalent among elderly men and associated with reproductive and physical disorders. In the men, luteinizing hormone (LH) and ibuprofen plasma levels were positively correlated, and the testosterone/LH ratio decreased. Using adult testis explants exposed or not exposed to ibuprofen, we demonstrate that the endocrine capabilities from testicular Leydig and Sertoli cells, including testosterone production, were suppressed through transcriptional repression. This effect was also observed in a human steroidogenic cell line. Our data demonstrate that ibuprofen alters the endocrine system via selective transcriptional repression in the human testes, thereby inducing compensated hypogonadism.

tl;dr: ibuprofen can reduce testosterone production and interfere with fertility.

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Devices and security systems are increasingly using biometric authentication to let users in and keep hackers out, be that fingerprint sensors or perhaps the iPhone's FaceID. Another method is so-called "vein authentication", which, as the name implies, involves a computer scanning the shape, size, and position of a users' veins under the skin of their hand.

But hackers have found a workaround for that, too. On Thursday at the annual Chaos Communication Congress hacking conference in Leipzig, Germany, security researchers described how they created a fake hand out of wax to fool a vein sensor.

"It makes you feel uneasy that the process is praised as a high-security system and then you modify a camera, take some cheap materials and hack it," Jan Krissler, who goes by the handle starbug, and who researched the vein authentication system along with Julian Albrecht, told Motherboard over email in German.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microsoft drops brain teasers from employee interview process

The interview process for Silicon Valley developer jobs has always had a reputation of being an arcane trial by fire exercise designed to weed down thousands of applicants to just the selected few antisocial geniuses.

Microsoft has however been making an effort to improve their hiring process to make it more useful and inclusive, and in a blog post John Montgomery, partner director of program management at Microsoft, explained the changes Microsoft has made to the process, which has meant cutting out such as questions as how many golf balls will fit into a 747.

Rethinking how we interview in Microsoft's Developer Division.

Also at Business Insider.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

China Ends Freeze on Video-Game Licensing, FT Says

China has approved 80 new video game titles in the first batch of licenses granted by the media regulator after the end of a nine-month freeze.

The initial games were mostly local, mobile titles and didn't include any from industry giants Tencent Holdings Ltd. or Netease Inc. The notice of approvals was posted online by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

China's gaming industry, which generates more than $30 billion of revenue, has been hammered this year after regulators froze the approval process for new games, preventing companies from making money off hit titles. That threw Tencent into disarray, spurring its first profit drop in at least a decade and wiping about $200 billion off its market value since a January peak.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sugar is Sweet, Essential to Life — and It's Probably in Deep Space

[...] New research suggests that the sugar molecule that puts the "D" in DNA — 2-deoxyribose — could exist in the far reaches of space. A team of NASA astrophysicists were able to create DNA's sugar in laboratory conditions that mimic interstellar space.

The researchers believe their results, published on Tuesday [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07693-x] [DX] in Nature Communications, show that yet another of life's critical chemical building blocks could be widespread in the universe and potentially seed other planets as well.

"We don't yet know whether life is common in the universe, but we're pretty sure the presence of life's building blocks is not a limiting factor," said Michel Nuevo, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley and the lead author of the paper.

The results represent the first solid evidence of the formation of DNA's sugar in an astrophysical setting.

Deoxyribose.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Californian law change means pet shops can sell only rescued animals

California is set to become the first state in the US to ban the sale of non-rescue animals in pet shops.

The new law, known as AB 485, takes effect on 1 January. Any businesses violating it face a $500 (£400) fine.

The change means cats, dogs and rabbits sold by retailers cannot be sourced from breeders, only from animal shelters.

Animal rights groups have heralded it as a step forward against so-called "kitten factories" and "puppy mills".

Previously: California Commercial Pet Breeding Law Passed, Signed

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Twitter security flaw uses text spoofing to hijack UK accounts

A Twitter security flaw gives hackers a way to post unauthorized tweets via text messaging, and British cybersecurity firm Insinia has proven its existence by hijacking some celebrities' accounts. The company was able to post tweets as other people without having to enter their passwords by spoofing their mobile numbers. It's easy to forget the feature if you have data and a smartphone, but Twitter still allows you to tweet via SMS. You simply have to link your digits to your account and then text what you want to post to a number Twitter designated for your country and carrier.

A Twitter spokesperson explained to The Guardian that the bug "allowed certain accounts with a connected UK phone number to be targeted by SMS spoofing." It's not entirely clear what makes certain accounts susceptible to the bug, but as Gizmodo explains, Insinia was able to send out unauthorized tweets using "longcodes." See, Twitter uses two kinds of numbers for tweeting via SMS: longcodes and shortcodes. The former looks like a typical phone number, while the latter is just three to five digits. It's different for every country and, sometimes, every carrier -- the USA uses a shortcode (40404), for instance, while the UK uses both shortcodes and a longcode (+447624800379).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Chinese scientist who allegedly created the first genetically engineered babies is being detained

The Chinese scientist who shocked the world with claims of creating the first genetically engineered babies is being detained in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, according to a report in The New York Times.

[...] The Southern University of Science and Technology, based in Shenzhen, has denied the reporting around Dr. He's whereabouts and fate, telling the Times, "Right now nobody's information is accurate, only the official channels are." Meanwhile, the official channels are staying silent.

Reporters found security personnel blocking access to the residence where Dr. He is reportedly staying and others denying access to the former offices Dr. He used to conduct his research. The scientist's name and biography remains on a board listing staff in the university’s biology department.

Previously: Chinese Scientist Claims to Have Created the First Genome-Edited Babies (Twins)
Furor Over Genome-Edited Babies Claim Continues (Updated)
Chinese Gene-Editing Scientist's Project Rejected for WHO Database (Plus: He Jiankui is Missing)

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The European Union will foot the bill for bug bounty programs for 14 open source projects, EU Member of Parliament Julia Reda announced this week.

The 14 projects are, in alphabetical order, 7-zip, Apache Kafka, Apache Tomcat, Digital Signature Services (DSS), Drupal, Filezilla, FLUX TL, the GNU C Library (glibc), KeePass, midPoint, Notepad++, PuTTY, the Symfony PHP framework, VLC Media Player, and WSO2.

The bug bounty programs are being sponsored as part of the third edition of the Free and Open Source Software Audit (FOSSA) project.

EU authorities first approved FOSSA in 2015, after security researchers discovered a year earlier severe vulnerabilities in the OpenSSL library, an open source project used by many websites to support HTTPS connections.

Announcement.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Our universe: An expanding bubble in an extra dimension

According to string theory, all matter consists of tiny, vibrating "stringlike" entities. The theory also requires there to be more spatial dimensions than the three that are already part of everyday knowledge. For 15 years, there have been models in string theory that have been thought to give rise to dark energy. However, these have come in for increasingly harsh criticism, and several researchers are now asserting that none of the models proposed to date are workable.

In their article, the scientists propose a new model with dark energy and our Universe riding on an expanding bubble in an extra dimension. The whole Universe is accommodated on the edge of this expanding bubble. All existing matter in the Universe corresponds to the ends of strings that extend out into the extra dimension. The researchers also show that expanding bubbles of this kind can come into existence within the framework of string theory. It is conceivable that there are more bubbles than ours, corresponding to other universes.

Journal Reference:
Souvik Banerjee, Ulf Danielsson, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Suvendu Giri, Marjorie Schillo. Emergent de Sitter Cosmology from Decaying Anti–de Sitter Space. Physical Review Letters, 2018; 121 (26) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301

Original Submission

martyb writes:

First off, it's been a week since we published Meta: The End of the Year is Nigh; End-of-the-Year Summary and Subscription Request and I am pleased to report we have received nearly $1000 in site subscriptions. Please accept my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all who have contributed! We are looking for another $1000 to make our funding goal. If you can help out either by starting a subscription, or extending a current one, that would be greatly appreciated! We have had a few people subscribe for $100; any amount you can provide will mean a lot.

As for IRC: it was brought to our attention a couple days ago that there was an issue in gaining access to SoylentNews' IRC securely.

tl;dr: Secure access to IRC should be functional; please reply in comments (with steps to reproduce) if you are still having issues. Read on for the scoop.