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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk//life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/alien-life-exoplanet-solar-system-near-a8966076.html

Two previously undiscovered Earth-like planets have been hiding in a solar system neighbouring ours, according to scientists.

Their sun, known as "Teegarden's star", is only 12.5 light years from us. It is also one of the smallest and dimmest known stars – making it, and the planets that it supports, very difficult to spot.

[Ed. addition follows.]

A search for this star on-line lead to this Wikipedia article which, in turn, lead to:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/uog-vot061819.php:

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

How we tune out distractions

In a 2015 paper, [assistant professor Michael] Halassa and his colleagues explored how attention can be consciously shifted between different types of sensory input, by training mice to switch their focus between a visual and auditory cue. They found that during this task, mice suppress the competing sensory input, allowing them to focus on the cue that will earn them a reward.

This process appeared to originate in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is critical for complex cognitive behavior such as planning and decision-making. The researchers also found that a part of the thalamus that processes vision was inhibited when the animals were focusing on sound cues. However, there are no direct physical connections from the prefrontal cortex to the sensory thalamus, so it was unclear exactly how the PFC was exerting this control, Halassa says.

In the new study, the researchers again trained mice to switch their attention between visual and auditory stimuli, then mapped the brain connections that were involved. They first examined the outputs of the PFC that were essential for this task, by systematically inhibiting PFC projection terminals in every target. This allowed them to discover that the PFC connection to a brain region known as the striatum is necessary to suppress visual input when the animals are paying attention to the auditory cue.

[...] Using a similar experimental setup, the researchers also identified a parallel circuit that suppresses auditory input when animals pay attention to the visual cue. In that case, the circuit travels through parts of the striatum and thalamus that are associated with processing sound, rather than vision.

The findings offer some of the first evidence that the basal ganglia, which are known to be critical for planning movement, also play a role in controlling attention, Halassa says.

[...] The researchers also found that the same circuits are employed not only for switching between different types of sensory input such as visual and auditory stimuli, but also for suppressing distracting input within the same sense — for example, blocking out background noise while focusing on one person’s voice.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

It's quiet out there: scientists fail to hear signals of alien life

Astronomers have come up empty-handed after scanning the heavens for signs of intelligent life in the most extensive search ever performed.

Researchers used ground-based telescopes to eavesdrop on 1,327 stars within 160 light years of Earth. During three years of observations they found no evidence of signals that could plausibly come from an alien civilisation.

[...] During the three-year effort, the astronomers scanned billions of radio channels and filtered out any signals that appeared to come from nature or equipment on Earth. Having dismissed millions of signals this way, the team was left with only a handful of "events". On closer inspection, these too turned out to have prosaic explanations.

The Breakthrough Listen team described their latest attempt to track down ET in two papers released on Tuesday, which made all the data available to the public. "There could be a signal in the data that we didn't detect this time around, but others can now look through it to see if we missed anything," Price said.

Also at Astrobiology and The Register.

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Observations of 1327 Nearby Stars over 1.10–3.45 GHz

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Public Data, Formats, Reduction and Archiving

UC Berkeley SETI Program GitHub

Data archives.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Realtek Demonstrates RTD2893: A Platform for 8K Ultra HD TVs

Just like with any other major transitions, the shift to 8K Ultra HD TVs will require not only new display panels (and even new display technologies), new cables, and new media, but also new codecs as well as new SoCs. To this end, Realtek demonstrated its first platform for 8K televisions and Ultra HD set-top-boxes/players at Computex.

Realtek's RTD2983 SoC can support decoding 8K resolution videos encoded using the AV1, HEVC, and VP9 codecs. The chip can process all HDR formats, reduce noise, upscale, and perform all the other functions common for processors for televisions and digital media players. The RTD2983 has PCIe and USB 3.0 interfaces, it can receive data via an HDMI 2.1 48 Gbps interface, and transmit pixel data over Vby1 wires. One advantage the RTD2983 has is embedded memory, which eliminates necessity to use external DRAM devices, lowering the BOM costs for finished products.

Vby1 = V-by-One HS.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1).

See also: Vimeo adds support for the royalty-free AV1 video codec

Related: A New Wave of 8K TVs is Coming
YouTube and Netflix Upload AV1-Encoded Videos for Testing
LG Announces its 2019 OLED TV Lineup, Plus an 8K Monstrosity
Intel Releases Open Source Encoder for AV1 Codec

Original Submission

takyon writes:

New study identifies molecular aging 'midlife crisis'

Working with first author Jamie Timmons, Ph.D., of King's College London and Stirling University Science Park, United Kingdom, and an international group of researchers on human aging, Dr. Wahlestedt made a striking observation: Key molecular programs known to promote longevity do not last beyond midlife.

The study provides a possible new reason why the human disease burden increases so sharply from the sixth decade of life onward as health-protective mechanisms disappear. Which raises the question: If one wishes to boost these established "anti-aging" programs with drugs, nutrients, or lifestyle choices, is it too late to start by the time you reach your 60s? Possibly, said Dr. Wahlestedt — at least if you hope to benefit fully from such interventions.

"For over a decade, it has been clear that key biochemical events regulate the longevity of small short-lived animals such as worms, flies, and mice, but these mechanisms had not been observed to be active in humans," Dr. Wahlestedt said. "In this international clinical and genomic study, we report for the first time that humans use these same biochemical pathways during aging. Surprisingly, however, humans appear to stop using these pathways from about 50 years of age onward. Therefore, how long and how 'hard' each person regulates these pathways may influence human lifespan."

[...] "We've demonstrated that the most valid of 'anti-aging' programs are naturally active in humans and for some reason stop when we reach our 50s," Dr. Wahlestedt said. "This not only provides a specific time window to now study human aging, it also indicates that these established anti-aging strategies may no longer be effective (if too active there can be side effects), and so new approaches will be needed in long-lived humans."

takyon writes:

PCI Express Bandwidth to Be Doubled Again: PCIe 6.0 Announced, Spec to Land in 2021

When the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) first announced PCIe 4.0 a few years back, the group made it clear that they were not just going to make up for lost time after PCI 3.0, but that they were going to accelerate their development schedule to beat their old cadence. Since then the group has launched the final versions of the 4.0 and 5.0 specifications, and now with 5.0 only weeks old, the group is announcing today that they are already hard at work on the next version of the PCIe specification, PCIe 6.0. True to PCIe development iteration, the forthcoming standard will once again double the bandwidth of a PCIe slot – a x16 slot will now be able to hit a staggering 128GB/sec – with the group expecting to finalize the standard in 2021.

[...] PCIe 6.0, in turn, is easily the most important/most disruptive update to the PCIe standard since PCIe 3.0 almost a decade ago. To be sure, PCIe 6.0 remains backwards compatible with the 5 versions that have preceded it, and PCIe slots aren't going anywhere. But with PCIe 4.0 & 5.0 already resulting in very tight signal requirements that have resulted in ever shorter trace length limits, simply doubling the transfer rate yet again isn't necessarily the best way to go. Instead, the PCI-SIG is going to upend the signaling technology entirely, moving from the Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ) tech used since the beginning, and to Pulse-Amplitude Modulation 4 (PAM4).

[...] PCIe 6.0 will be able to reach anywhere between ~8GB/sec for a x1 slot up to ~128GB/sec for a x16 slot (e.g. accelerator/video card). For comparison's sake, 8GB/sec is as much bandwidth as a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, so over the last decade and a half, the number of lanes required to deliver that kind of bandwidth has been cut to 1/16th the original amount.

Previously: PCIe 4.0 to be Available This Year, PCIe 5.0 in 2019
Version 0.9 of the PCI Express 5.0 Specification Ratified
PCIe 5.0 Specification Finalized (yes, that was 3 weeks ago)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Seaweed feed additive cuts livestock methane but poses questions

"Asparagopsis taxiformis -- a red seaweed that grows in the tropics -- in short-term studies in lactating dairy cows decreased methane emission by 80 percent and had no effect on feed intake or milk yield, when fed at up to 0.5 percent of feed dry-matter intake," said Alexander Hristov, distinguished professor of dairy nutrition. "It looks promising, and we are continuing research."

If seaweed feed supplement is a viable option to make a difference globally, the scale of production would have to be immense, Hristov noted. With nearly 1.5 billion head of cattle in the world, harvesting enough wild seaweed to add to their feed would be impossible. Even to provide it as a supplement to most of the United States' 94 million cattle is unrealistic.

[...] "To be used as a feed additive on a large scale, the seaweed would have to be cultivated in aquaculture operations," he said. "Harvesting wild seaweed is not an option because soon we would deplete the oceans and cause an ecological problem."

There are also questions about the stability over time of the active ingredients -- bromoforms -- in the seaweed. These compounds are sensitive to heat and sunlight and may lose their methane-mitigating activity with processing and storage, Hristov warned.

Palatability is another question. It appears cows do not like the taste of seaweed -- when Asparagopsis was included at 0.75 percent of the diet, researchers observed a drop in the feed intake by the animals.

Also, the long-term effects of seaweed on animal health and reproduction and its effects on milk and meat quality need to be determined. A panel judging milk taste is part of ongoing research, Hristov said.

[...] "It is pretty much a given that if enteric methane emissions are decreased, there likely will be an increase in the efficiency of animal production," said Hristov. Seaweed used in the Penn State research was harvested from the Atlantic Ocean in the Azores and shipped frozen from Portugal. It was freeze-dried and ground by the researchers. Freeze drying and grinding 4 tons of seaweed for the research was "a huge undertaking," Hristov said.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

One of the questions facing any company as it brings a new rocket to market is what to put on top of the booster. After all, things can sometimes go all explodey with inaugural flights. So the first flight of any rocket typically serves as a demonstration mission, to prove via an actual test flight that all of a company's modeling and ground testing were correct. SpaceX famously put Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster on the first flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket.

Despite a sometimes whimsical payload, however, first flights demonstrate a number of capabilities to potential customers. (In the case of the Falcon Heavy, the rocket's upper stage performed a six-hour coast in space before re-firing its upper stage-engine to demonstrate the ability to directly inject key satellites into geostationary space for the US military.)

As the Austin, Texas-based rocket company Firefly nears the first flight of its Alpha rocket, the company also faces such a payload decision. It has an (undisclosed) customer for the flight, but the smallsat launcher also has some unused capacity for the mission—the Alpha rocket has about twice as much lift as an existing competitor, Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle.

So on Monday, Firefly announced that it will accept some academic and educational payloads free of charge on the Alpha flight. "We've wanted to do something like this on our first flight from the beginning," Markusic said. The payloads will fly to a 300km circular orbit, with a 97-degree inclination.

The initiative is part of Firefly's efforts to make space more affordable for everyone, said company founder Tom Markusic in an interview with Ars. As part of this DREAM program—that's Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission—the company will accept anything from a child's drawing to college experiments, or even a startup company's CubeSat. Applications will be accepted through the end of June, 2019.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Consumers Urged to Junk Insecure IoT Devices

A security researcher who disclosed flaws impacting 2 million IoT devices in April – and has yet to see a patch or even hear back from the manufacturers contacted – is sounding off on the dire state of IoT security.

More than 2 million connected security cameras, baby monitors and other IoT devices have serious vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed for more than two months – yet they are still without a patch or even any vendor response.

Security researcher Paul Marrapese, who disclosed the flaws in April and has yet to hear back from any impacted vendors, is sounding off that consumers throw the devices away. The flaws could enable an attacker to hijack the devices and spy on their owners – or further pivot into the network and carry out more malicious actions.

“I 100 percent suggest that people throw them out,” he told Threatpost in a podcast interview. “I really, I don’t think that there’s going to be any patch for this. The issues are very, very hard to fix, in part because, once a device is shipped with a serial number, you can’t really change that, you can’t really patch that, it’s a physical issue.”

Marrapese said that he sent an initial advisory to device vendors in January, and after coordinating with CERT eventually disclosed the flaws in April due to their severity. However, even in the months after disclosure he has yet to receive any responses from any impacted vendors despite multiple attempts at contact. The incident points to a dire outlook when it comes to security, vendor responsibility, and the IoT market in general, he told Threatpost.

b-b-b-b-but it is still working!

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Scientists Amazed as Canadian Permafrost Thaws 70 Years Early:

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

[...] With governments meeting in Bonn this week to try to ratchet up ambitions in United Nations climate negotiations, the... findings, published on June 10 in Geophysical Research Letters, offered a further sign of a growing climate emergency.

The paper was based on data Romanovsky and his colleagues had been analyzing since their last expedition to the area in 2016. The team used a modified propeller plane to visit exceptionally remote sites, including an abandoned Cold War-era radar base more than 300 km from the nearest human settlement.

Diving through a lucky break in the clouds, Romanovsky and his colleagues said they were confronted with a landscape that was unrecognizable from the pristine Arctic terrain they had encountered during initial visits a decade or so earlier.

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for RandomFactor.

Groundbreaking climate change discovery made by, sigh, Boaty McBoatface

Great Job Internet

Climate change is real, and many would argue the most serious existing threat to humanity. Today, British scientists announced a major new discovery about how climate change is affecting sea levels that will most likely cause climate scientists to reconfigure their projection models. This discovery was made due to the efforts of, ugh, Boaty McBoatface.

[...] Now, as part of the Attenborough's maiden voyage, Boaty McBoatface has made a major discovery, published in the journal PNAS, for which we must unfortunately give it credit. In short, the submersible traversed the waters of Antarctica measuring temperature, salinity, and current. What it found was that increasingly strong winds in the Antarctic are causing cold water at the bottom of the ocean to mix with warmer water from the middle levels. That, in turn, is causing overall ocean temperatures to rise, which contributes to rising sea levels. Previously unaware of this process, climate scientists will now need to adjust their sea-level forecasts.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

"Frontiersman" Cray Snags $50m Storage Contract for 'Largest Single Filesystem':

Cray has won a $50m-plus contract to provide 1 exabyte of ClusterStor storage for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) Frontier exascale supercomputer in the United States.

Frontier is a $600m-plus Cray-AMD exascale system, rated at up to 1.5 exaFLOPS, due to be delivered in 2021 with acceptance in 2022. It will be a follow-on to ORNL's 200 petaFLOPS Summit supercomputer.

Cray won the Frontier bid with its Shasta supercomputer, powered by AMD EPYC processors and Radeon Instinct GPUs in May, so the associated storage contract is not unexpected.

[...] It will have 1 exabyte of ClusterStor hybrid flash and disk storage in 40 cabinets with a direct Slingshot connection to the compute nodes. The ClusterStor nodes will run the Lustre parallel file system with ZFS local volumes all in POSIX-compliant global namespace. The system will output 10TB/sec, four times that of Summit's 2.5TB/sec Spectrum Scale storage.

Cray claimed it will be the largest single filesystem in the world. The flash will be used for high-speed scratch space with the disk being the capacity store. Files will be tiered between the two types of storage and the system is designed to cope with random, small file access and large file streaming. There will be a new software stack for tiering and improved manageability. It will help scaling across both compute and storage.

Let's see here. Kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, ... How far we have come! My first personal computer had 4 KB of memory and stored programs to cassette tape. These days, most cell phones have at least 8 or 16 GB of storage, often 32 or 64 GB, and one can even buy 1 TB microSD cards. That is not even close to what is mentioned in this announcement. You would need 1,000,000 of these 1 TB cards to provide the storage announced here.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Massive superflares have been seen erupting from stars like the sun

It isn't only young stars that spit high-energy superflares. Older stars, such as the sun, can also send out bursts of energy that could be powerful enough to strip away planetary atmospheres in close orbit, researchers report.

Such superflares can be seen from hundreds of light-years away. Astrophysicists had assumed that only young stars had these outbursts. But a team of researchers has documented superflares erupting from middle-aged stars, each with a similar temperature and radius to the sun. These massive flares can be at least 100 to 1,000 times as powerful as the average solar flares that Earth normally experiences.

But flares from these older stars are rare. "We have found superflares erupting once every 2,000 to 3,000 years in sunlike stars," says study coauthor Yuta Notsu of the University of Colorado Boulder, who presented the findings June 10 at the American Astronomical Society meeting. By contrast, superflares from younger stars erupt much more frequently, about once every few days.

Also at ScienceAlert.

Do Kepler Superflare Stars Really Include Slowly Rotating Sun-like Stars?—Results Using APO 3.5 m Telescope Spectroscopic Observations and Gaia-DR2 Data (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab14e6) (DX)

Original Submission

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyCow4463.

iOS 13's newly expanded NFC support will be useful for more than just hopping on the subway. Germany is taking advantage of the upcoming software's support for Apple-approved NFC identification documents to let residents scan their ID cards and use them both online and for check-ins at international airports. You'll need to wait for both the release of iOS 13 (likely in September) and the German government's AusweisApp2 to make everything work, but this might just save you the trouble of pulling out your wallet to prove who you are.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/17/germany-ios-13-id-card-nfc-support/

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

ACLU: Police must get warrants to obtain personal data from cars

You might not think of your car as a treasure trove of personal data, but it frequently is -- performance data, phone contacts and location info may be sitting under the hood. And the American Civil Liberties Union wants to be sure police can't just take it. The organization is appearing as a friend of the court in Georgia's Supreme Court on June 19th to argue that personal data on cars is protected by the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment and thus requires a warrant. The appearance is tied to a case, Mobley vs. State, where police used a car's "black box" to level more serious charges.

After a deadly car crash, Georgia police downloaded data from the Event Data Recorder on Mobley's car to determine his speed before the crash, using that to level more severe accusations against him. Georgia has contended that this was legal under the Fourth Amendment's "vehicle exception" allowing searches for physical items, but the ACLU believes this doesn't count for digital data. It likened this to requiring a warrant for phone data -- just because the device holding the data is obtainable without a warrant doesn't mean the data is also up for grabs.

Original Submission