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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AzumaHazuki

Lenovo Readies New ThinkBook Family of Laptops

Lenovo is gearing up to launch a new series of notebooks aimed at mainstream users. The new ThinkBook laptops were recently showcased at a trade show in China and are currently listed by at least two European retailers. Meanwhile, based on model numbers, it looks like that when they launch in the coming weeks, the new ThinkBooks will succeed certain IdeaPad models within Lenovo's laptop product stack.

[...] The flagship Lenovo ThinkBook S models are based on Intel’s Core i7-8565U (Whiskey Lake) processors and are paired with 16 GB of RAM as well as a 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Select models will also come with a discrete AMD Radeon 540X GPU, but expect this one to be available only inside premium SKUs. In fact, based on Lenovo’s usual approach, expect to see the Lenovo to release the ThinkBook S in a wide variety of configurations in order to cover several market segments.

Both demonstrated ThinkBook S models will also be outfitted with Lenovo’s Accutype keyboard, a rather large touchpad, a 720p webcam with IR sensors for Windows Hello, stereo speakers with Harman badge, a microphone array, three USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI output, and a 3.5-mm audio jack for headsets. As for dimensions and weight, the 13.3 and 14.1-inch machines feature 15.9 and 16.5-mm z-heights and weigh 1.34 and 1.5 kilograms respectively.

from the ideapads-but-with-higher-margins dept.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Late last year, Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr got an "earful" from remote Alaskan residents who were concerned with how poor their access to the internet is — and they weren't wrong. Alaska has, on average, some of the slowest internet connections in the country, primarily due to its distance from the rest of the continental United States.

But remote Alaskans may see faster speeds soon. MTA Fiber Holdings announced today that it would build the "first and only all-terrestrial" fiber optic network running from Alaska and into the Lower 48. The line will begin in North Pole, Alaska and will travel through Canada, connecting with Canadian carriers, where it will finally connect with "any major hub" in the US. A vast majority of Alaska's current connections to the global internet either run through a handful of submarine cables, satellites, or wireless connections.

"This is a major step for Alaska that will ensure future capacity requirements for MTA members and can support the continuing growth of broadband across the state of Alaska," MTA CEO Michael Burke said in a statement.

According to the press release, only internet traffic that both originates and terminates in the US will be carried over the network.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/1/18525866/alaska-fiber-optic-network-cable-continental-us-100-terabit

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Two proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions — misshapen proteins that spread through tissue like an infection by forcing normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded shape — according to new UC San Francisco research. 

Using novel laboratory tests, the researchers were able to detect and measure specific, self-propagating prion forms of the proteins amyloid beta (Aß) and tau in postmortem brain tissue of 75 Alzheimer’s patients. In a striking finding, higher levels of these prions in human brain samples were strongly associated with early-onset forms of the disease and younger age at death. 

Alzheimer’s disease is currently defined based on the presence of toxic protein aggregations in the brain known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles, accompanied by cognitive decline and dementia. But attempts to treat the disease by clearing out these inert proteins have been unsuccessful. The new evidence that active Aß and tau prions could be driving the disease – published May 1, 2019 in Science Translational Medicine — could lead researchers to explore new therapies that focus on prions directly. 

“I believe this shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that amyloid beta and tau are both prions, and that Alzheimer’s disease is a double-prion disorder in which these two rogue proteins together destroy the brain,” said Stanley Prusiner, MD, the study’s senior author and director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “The fact that prion levels also appear linked to patient longevity should change how we think about the way forward for developing treatments for the disease. We need a sea change in Alzheimer’s disease research, and that is what this paper does. This paper might catalyze a major change in AD research.” 

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martyb writes:

Qualcomm Will Pocket Almost $5 Billion from Apple Settlement this Quarter:

Qualcomm will make nearly $5 billion in the current quarter from the settlement of its licensing dispute with Apple.

During its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, the mobile chipmaker said it will record revenue of about $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion from Apple in its third fiscal quarter, which ends in June. That includes a cash payment from Apple and the release of money it had to reserve to pay or refund Apple and the contract manufacturers for certain customer-related liabilities.

Overall, Qualcomm's third-quarter revenue should total $9.2 billion to $10.2 billion, a 65% to 83% jump from the previous year when Apple wasn't paying Qualcomm's licensing fees.

"We believe the settlement is a win for both companies, and we are pleased with the result and pleased to have it behind us," Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during a call with analysts. "We are committed to a strong partnership with Apple."

Apple and Qualcomm last month settled their patent licensing battle, ending a two-year dispute the day after their trial kicked off in San Diego. The two sides announced the surprise agreement through a joint press release at the same time lawyers were presenting their opening arguments in a courthouse in Southern California. Apple and its contract manufacturers had given their statements, and Qualcomm's head lawyer had nearly finished his remarks when the courtroom buzzed with the unexpected news.

Excluding that benefit from Apple, though, Qualcomm expects its third-quarter revenue to slide from the previous year's $5.6 billion by as much as 16%. It cited a slowdown in the handset market, especially China. Qualcomm expects third-quarter revenue, excluding the Apple payment, to total $4.7 billion to $5.5 billion. Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance expected sales of $5.08 billion.

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

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martyb writes:

Hackers Went Undetected in Citrix's Internal Network for Six Months:

Hackers gained access to technology giant Citrix's networks six months before they were discovered, the company has confirmed.

In a letter to California's attorney general, the virtualization and security software maker said the hackers had "intermittent access" to its internal network from October 13, 2018 until March 8, 2019, two days after the FBI alerted the company to the breach.

Citrix said the hackers "removed files from our systems, which may have included files containing information about our current and former employees and, in limited cases, information about beneficiaries and/or dependents."

Initially the company said hackers stole business documents. Now it's saying the stolen information may have included names, Social Security numbers and financial information.

Citrix is big in digital workspaces, networking, and analytics. I imagine this breach caused many VeryNotGood days for a large number of company people.

Were you affected?

Original Submission

martyb writes:

What is 768K Day, and Will It Cause Internet Outages?

You might have heard about a topic that's gaining some attention in industry discussions (such as in the recent ZDnet.com article), about an event that could potentially cause significant disruptions across the Internet—the so-called "768k Day". This day is the point in time sometime in the near future (some speculate in the coming month) when the size of the global BGP[*] routing table is expected to exceed 768,000 entries. Why is this a big deal?

In 2014, on what we now know as "512k Day", the IPv4 Internet routing table exceeded 512,000 BGP routes when Verizon advertised thousands more routes to the Internet. Many ISP and other organizations had provisioned the size of the memory for their router TCAMs for a limit of 512K route entries, and some older routers suffered memory overflows that caused their CPUs to crash. The crashes on old routers, in turn, created significant packet loss and traffic outages across the Internet, even in some large provider networks. Engineers and network administrators scrambled to apply emergency firmware patches to set it to a new upper limit. In many cases, that upper limit was 768k entries.

[...] Fast forward five years later, and the upcoming 768k Day is an echo of 512k Day, just with a higher threshold. So, some are worried that the Internet could have similar problems.

[...] while nobody's exactly hyperventilating about 768k day, there are still a lot of smaller ISPs, data centers and other providers who are part of the fabric of the Internet. When you look at Internet paths, a good amount of service traffic transits through these 'soft spots' of Internet infrastructure, if you will—where maintenance on legacy routers and network equipment can be neglected or missed more easily. Given the sheer size and unregulated nature of the Internet, it's fair to say that things will be missed.

[*] BGP: Border Gateway Protocol.

There's something I do not understand. Why wait for things to fall over? Why not plan ahead to force the issue — temporarily — to flag the errant boxes. Pick a fixed date/time to publish, say, 5k new routes, and leave it up for, say, 30 minutes to an hour or so... and then roll back the changes.

I mean, who wouldn't prefer to just wait for the limit to occur all by itself... at noon (UTC), so that all of Europe is up-and-at-it, and the whole USA from west coast to east is along for the ride, too. Might as well include South America and Africa while you are at it. Or maybe 12 hours later, when all those sysadmins are going to get roused from their sleep, nevermind the people in Asia who are in the midst of their workday.

Alternatively, imagine a time when all of Asia is flying right along and then things come to a screeching stop.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Caribbean nation of St. Lucia has quarantined a cruise ship on the island after identifying a confirmed case of measles on board, a health official said.

Passengers and crew members aboard the large ship were not permitted to leave, Dr. Merlene Fredericks-James, the nation’s chief medical officer, said on Tuesday. The highly infectious disease, which can be mostly prevented by a common vaccination, is in the midst of its largest outbreak in a quarter-century in the United States, with more than 700 cases reported.

“Because of the risk of potential infection, not just from the confirmed measles case but from other persons who may be on the boat at the time, we thought it prudent to make a decision not to allow anyone to disembark,” she said in a statement.

Dr. Fredericks-James did not name the ship. But Victor Theodore, a St. Lucia Coast Guard sergeant, told NBC News that it was identified as “Freewinds,” which is reportedly owned and operated by the Church of Scientology. A ship by the same name was moored in St. Lucia on Thursday morning, according to online records.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/world/americas/measles-scientology-cruise-ship.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Chewbacca Actor Peter Mayhew From ‘Star Wars’ Dies at 74:

“Star Wars” actor Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in the original trilogy, died on Tuesday, his family announced on his Twitter. He was 74.

He died at his North Texas home surrounded by his family, read the Twitter statement.

[...] He was discovered by producer Charles H. Schneer while working as a hospital attendant in London, and cast in Ray Harryhausen’s “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.” The next year, he was cast as Chewbacca, the 200-year-old Wookiee.

[...] His height was not due to gigantism, but he measured 7 feet 3 inches at his highest. George Lucas originally had his eye on bodybuilder David Prowse, but Prowse decided to play Darth Vader instead and Lucas went with the even taller Mayhew.

RandomFactor writes:

Arsenic breathing bacteria have been located in the depths of the Tropical Pacific Ocean.

Arsenic is a deadly poison for most living things, but new research shows that microorganisms are breathing arsenic in a large area of the Pacific Ocean. A University of Washington team has discovered that an ancient survival strategy is still being used in low-oxygen parts of the marine environment.

Arsenic displays a raft of toxic effects ranging from DNA Methylation (adding a methyl group to DNA nucleotides) to replacing Phosphorous in various metabolic reactions.

The most common metabolic alternatives to Oxygen are Nitrogen and Sulfur, however Arsenic can also work.

Some humans have evolved significantly higher tolerances to Arsenic, and arsenic breathing microbes have been known to exist in hot springs and contaminated sites on land, but until now it was not known that this capability still existed in the open ocean.

Biologists believe the strategy is a holdover from Earth's early history. During the period when life arose on Earth, oxygen was scarce in both the air and in the ocean. Oxygen became abundant in Earth's atmosphere only after photosynthesis became widespread and converted carbon dioxide gas into oxygen.

Early lifeforms had to gain energy using other elements, such as arsenic, which was likely more common in the oceans at that time.

"We found the genetic signatures of pathways that are still there, remnants of the past ocean that have been maintained until today," [first author Jaclyn Saunders, who did the research for her doctoral thesis at the University of Washington] said.

The microbes were found in what are called marine oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs), which are naturally occurring layers in the ocean with no measurable oxygen.

We identified the presence and expression of genes for both arsenic reduction and oxidation in marine ODZs, suggesting the microbial community in these waters is also cycling arsenic for respiratory gain. The existence of an arsenic respiratory cycle in pelagic waters suggests microbial arsenic metabolisms may be underestimated in the modern ocean and were likely an even more significant contributor to biogeochemical cycles in the anoxic ancient oceans when arsenic concentrations were higher.

Journal Reference

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

On the night of April 26th, an unknown person or persons destroyed beehives that were home to over half a million bees in Alvin, Texas.

With the advent of Colony Collapse Disorder early this millennium, and the resulting drops in bee populations across the USA, Europe, and Asia, people and organizations have been making efforts to house, protect and nurture honeybee populations for the sake of their crops, the good of the environment, or as a service to humanity at large.

Use of the land for the bees destroyed was donated by a private citizen and the location is visible to the road so passers by can watch and enjoy the bee keepers working with the bees.

Then we get people that do things like this:

Over the weekend, someone set fire to two dozen bee colonies in Alvin, Texas belonging to the Brazoria County Beekeepers Association. The perpetrator also dumped some of the bee boxes into a nearby pond.

According to one of the beekeepers:

I broke down in tears when I saw a floating brood frame in the water with bees still caring for the brood.

It is expected that the perpetrators were very likely stung and the community is on the lookout for individuals with bee stings.

Perhaps more remarkably, this is not a completely new idea. Multiple Facebook comments speak of past attacks on bees elsewhere attributed to teenagers and rival bee keepers.

We've already seen bees persevering through fire and smoke, according to beekeepers the surviving bees are stressed and many will have lost their queens, but is also possible some hives will survive.

Previous coverage of Bee troubles:
Some Honeybee Colonies Adapt in Wake of Deadly Mites
Backyard Beekeeping Now Legal in Los Angeles
Honeybees Pick Up 'Astonishing' Number of Pesticides Via Non-crop Plants
Bees Dead from Aerial Zika Spraying in South Carolina
Pesticide Companies' Own Secret Tests Showed Their Products Harm Bees
Extensive Study Concludes Neonicotinoid Pesticides Harm Bees
EU Bans Outdoor Use of Pesticides That Harm Bees

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Which of Earth's features were essential for the origin and sustenance of life? And how do scientists identify those features on other worlds?

A team of Carnegie investigators with array of expertise ranging from geochemistry to planetary science to astronomy published this week an essay in Science urging the research community to recognize the vital importance of a planet's interior dynamics in creating an environment that's hospitable for life.

With our existing capabilities, observing an exoplanet's atmospheric composition will be the first way to search for signatures of life elsewhere. However, Carnegie's Anat Shahar, Peter Driscoll, Alycia Weinberger, and George Cody argue that a true picture of planetary habitability must consider how a planet's atmosphere is linked to and shaped by what's happening in its interior.

For example, on Earth, plate tectonics are crucial for maintaining a surface climate where life can thrive. What's more, without the cycling of material between its surface and interior, the convection that drives the Earth's magnetic field would not be possible and without a magnetic field, we would be bombarded by cosmic radiation.

Source: WHEN IT COMES TO PLANETARY HABITABILITY, IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS

Also Covered By: What makes a planet habitable

Basically, it is what is inside that counts — I've heard this numerous times from various teachers in school. This seems to be true for planets as well.

[See also: the Drake Equation, abiogenesis, anthropic bias, and the Fermi Paradox. --Ed.]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it has hit two individuals with bank fraud charges in connection to a system for depositing funds to cryptocurrency exchanges.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York alleged that Reginald Fowler of Arizona and Ravid Yosef, said to live in Tel Aviv, Israel, were part of a scheme that involved using bank accounts to move money into a series of unnamed cryptocurrency exchanges.

Court documents released by the Justice Department purport that the alleged money services business operated between February and October 2018. During that period, prosecutors say, the two "opened and used numerous bank accounts at financial institutions that were insured by the [FDIC]," including one based in Manhattan.

Two Charged With Running 'Shadow Banking' Service for Crypto Exchanges

AAF's initial lead investor is charged with bank fraud

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Fecal transplants may be best answer to antibiotic-resistant bacteria: Non-pharmaceutical treatment combats recurring Clostridium Difficile infections

Transplanting human donor fecal microbiota into the colon of a patient infected with Clostridiodes difficile (C. diff) may be the best treatment for those not helped by C. diff targeted antibiotics, according to an article in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

C. diff is the most common healthcare-acquired infection in the United States. It affects nearly half a million patients each year and becomes a recurring infection for nearly a third of them. If untreated, C. diff can lead to sepsis and death.

"Twenty five years ago C. diff infections were easier to manage and often resolved with discontinuation of the initiating antibiotic," says Robert Orenstein, DO, an infectious disease specialist at Mayo Clinic and lead author on this article. "However, these infections have become increasingly common and pernicious."

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Instagram helps top artists boost earnings

The money that artists receive when their tracks get played has just hit a record high.

In 2018 £746 million was paid out - a rise of 4% on 2017.

PRS for music, which collects the royalties for artists, counted songs used on Facebook and Instagram Stories for the first time.

But according to singer-songwriter Ruth-Anne Cunningham, "a lot of songwriters are making less than minimum wage".

Ruth-Anne, who's worked with Avicii, JoJo and John Legend, says "it's great everything is starting to get monetised" but adds, "unless you have a top 40 radio hit you don't make a substantial income".

The boss of PRS says the rise of streaming has made it harder for them to monitor what's being played - and agrees that those trying to earn a living from music are losing out.

"The very successful people are doing extremely well," Robert Ashcroft tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"The challenge is, if you're trying to make a living and you're not a performer it's getting more difficult."

Ruth-Anne says that despite performing as well as writing, that's something she's got experience of: "I've had that where I've had massive hits and made money, but then had to be a vocal coach too.

"Back in the day you could make money from being on an album, now people see streams and people see 10 million and think that's a lot - but a songwriter might make £400 from that."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Step Inside This Massive Cave Labyrinth Hidden Under Borneo:

Beneath the island's rainforest, explorers search for new discoveries deep within some of the Earth's largest, longest, and wildest caves.

Late on a sweltering morning in April, two slim British cavers named Frank and Cookie lowered themselves into a slick, humid pit deep below Borneo's rainforest.

Climbing down past an ancient heap of bird guano and pushing through a gallery of gleaming pillars the color of old bone, the pair were hoping to make history. They had crawled into Cave of the Winds, deep inside a cave system known as Clearwater, where they would search for a passage to Racer Cave, part of the Racer-Easter system.

Connecting the two would create a "super system," one of the longest subterranean labyrinths on the planet. As the men wormed down, drilling and hammering bolts into the slick rock to hold their climbing ropes, their odds of success seemed good.

Already they knew Clearwater stretched for 140 miles and that some of the caverns were lined with turbulent rivers, while the Racer-Easter system contained chambers so enormous that a jetliner could fit easily within its walls with plenty of room to spare. In other words, the limestone underlying this region, beneath Malaysia's Gunung Mulu National Park, is riddled with some of the biggest holes, widest tunnels, and most mind-blowing voids anywhere on Earth.

Now imagine them down there, Frank and Cookie, mud smeared and grinning, on the verge of joining two cave systems into a single, immense whole. Not your thing? Well, for cavers, it's the thing. And it's rare that such superlative connections are made. In the often obscure world of underground exploration, which is governed by international bodies with names such as the "Longest, Largest, and Deepest Committee," such a feat would be a very big deal.

Elsewhere far below the Earth's surface, in the entrails of Racer Cave, another team was slithering into place. They too carried hammers and a drill, and soon the two teams would begin banging on the cave walls and drilling into the rock, listening for each other, hoping noise would lead them to a connection and a spot in the record books.

What follows is the gripping tale of their explorations as well as stunning photos of absolutely gigantic caverns such as the Sarawak Chamber: nearly 500 feet (150 meters) tall, 2,000 feet (600 meters) long, and 1,400 feet (430 meters) wide. It has a volume of over 346 million ft³ or nearly 100 million cubic meters. By comparison, The Big Room in Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico (the largest cave chamber in the U.S.) would fit into Sarawak Chamber ten times!

Original Submission