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DannyB writes:

NSA Starts Contributing Low-Level Code to UEFI BIOS Alternative

The NSA has started assigning developers to the Coreboot project, which is an open source alternative to Windows BIOS/UEFI firmware. The NSA's Eugene Myers has begun contributing SMI Transfer Monitor (STM) implementation code for the x86 processor. Myers works for NSA’s Trusted Systems Research Group, which according to the agency’s website, is meant to “conduct and sponsor research in the technologies and techniques which will secure America's information systems of tomorrow.”

Myers published a paper about STM last year on how NSA’s STM implementation could work. All Coreboot code, including all the STM contributions from the NSA, are open source, so anyone could verify that there is no backdoor in there -- in theory.

In practice, the NSA could have also written the code in a less-than-secure way with vulnerabilities that are hard to detect without more experienced security researchers. Alternatively, the NSA could also update this implementation years later, when there are less eyes on the STM implementation and the update would no longer make headlines.

Better to avoid coreboot and feel secure that the hardware could never subvert my expectations of security and privacy. /s

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

New Atlas:

While Saturn's ostentatious rings have been known since 1610, Uranus's faint ring system is a relatively recent discovery, only made in 1977, and more rings were discovered when Voyager 2 whizzed past for a closer look in 1986. The rings only reflect a small amount of light in the optical and near-infrared parts of the spectrum, which normally makes them hard to see.

That historical dimness makes the new shots, snapped by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT), all the more astounding. In these thermal emission images, the first ever taken of Uranus, the rings are clearly visible around the smelly, unfortunately-named planet. The dark bands in the upper atmosphere are thanks to large amounts of molecules that absorb radio waves, while the bright spot at the north pole indicates an area mostly devoid of these molecules.

[...]The study also helped to confirm that Uranus's brightest and densest ring, the epsilon ring, is very different to other known systems. Saturn gets its trademark bling thanks to a ring system made up of differently-sized objects, from microscopic dust particles to roughly house-sized boulders. But Uranus's rings are mostly made up of relatively large objects.

Uranus's rings are hard to see and comprise large chunks.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

New Atlas:

Scientists at Linköping University have blurred the line between robot and organism by developing an artificial muscle that runs off of glucose and oxygen like its organic counterpart. Made of a special polymer, the new plastic muscles open the promise of implantable artificial muscles and micro-robots that can be powered like living organs.
...
the Linköping team led by Edwin Jager, senior lecturer in Sensor and Actuator Systems in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, turned to muscles made out of a "polymer actuator" made from polypyrrole.
...
To make an artificial muscle, the researchers formed the polymer into two layers with a thin membrane between them. When a charge is developed on one side, the ions in the polymer are expelled across the membrane and the sheet shrinks. Meanwhile, the sheet on the other side absorbs the electrons and expands. This makes the whole thing bend like a contracting muscle.

According to Linköping, this charge can be applied from a battery, but it can also be derived from glucose and oxygen by doping the polymer with enzymes that enhance the reaction, burning the glucose for energy the same as a muscle does.

What would you do with artificial muscles?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

[Updated (20190624_230722 UTC) Added link to live stream a link to the press kit, noted plans to recover all 3 cores, and added links to NWS current conditions and hourly forecast pages. --martyb]

SpaceX is about to launch 152 dead people's remains into orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket

[...] rocket will propel 24 satellites into orbit around Earth — as well as the ashes of 152 dead people. The launch of cremated remains is facilitated by a company called Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, which purchases available room on spacecraft, installs a container, then packs it with small metal capsules filled with ashes. It refers to these as "participants."

martyb writes:

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is currently the world's largest operational rocket. It has a center core comprising a modified Falcon-9 rocket with an additional Falcon-9 core on either side. The four-hour flight window of its third-ever flight is scheduled for the night of Tuesday June 24 into the morning of Wednesday, June 25. According to SpaceX:

The Department of Defense (DoD) Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission, managed by the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), is targeting launch on June 24, 2019, with the launch window opening at 11:30 p.m. ET. Lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this mission will deliver 24 satellites to space on the DoD's first ever SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. The STP-2 mission will be among the most challenging launches in SpaceX history with four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits, a final propulsive passivation maneuver and a total mission duration of over six hours. In addition, the U.S. Air Force plans to reuse side boosters from the Arabsat-6A Falcon Heavy launch, recovered after a return to launch site landing, making it the first reused Falcon Heavy ever.

An attempt will be made during this flight to land all 3 cores; the side boosters are to return to the launch site (at Landing Zones 1 and 2) and center booster is to land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship which will be located 1200 km downrange.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

NASA's Curiosity rover makes surprising methane discovery on Mars

NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, has detected the largest amount of methane yet measured during its seven years on the Red Planet. It's a particularly riveting discovery because the methane levels discovered by the rover are about three times higher than previous detections, leading to some speculation the gas may be biological in origin.

A report by the New York Times on Saturday first revealed the curious finding after obtaining an internal email from Ashwin Vasavada, a project scientist on the mission. On Sunday, NASA released a statement confirming the discovery, explaining how Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of instruments had detected methane at 21 parts per billion units by volume -- much higher than ever before.

[...] Scientists have detected hints of methane on the surface of Mars in the past, including as far back as the Viking missions in the 1970s. Thus, the discovery of more methane doesn't necessarily mean we've stumbled upon life. Spikes in Mars' methane levels aren't unusual, with a study reporting last June on seasonal variations in the molecule's atmospheric concentration.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate, has cautioned against jumping straight to the E.T. solution on Twitter, noting methane can be created by geological processes. And sadly, as far as we know, rocks are not living beings.

Also at BBC and New Atlas.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B has been launched, despite months of tricky misdirection implying that it wouldn't be on the market until 2020. The technical specifications include two micro HDMI ports, two USB3 ports, two USB2 ports, dual band Wi-fi, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet, and either 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of RAM. Power consumption is noticeably higher than similar earlier models and the power can be supplied over USBC.

From the spec sheet:

• Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz
• 1GB ($35), 2GB ($45), or 4GB LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM ($55)
• 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz IEEE 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 5.0, BLE
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 2 USB 3.0 ports; 2 USB 2.0 ports.
• Raspberry Pi standard 40 pin GPIO header (fully backwards compatible with previous boards)
• 2 × micro-HDMI ports (up to 4kp60 supported)
• 2-lane MIPI DSI display port
• 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port
• 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port
• H.265 (4kp60 decode), H264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode)
• OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics
• Micro-SD card slot for loading operating system and data storage
• 5V DC via USB-C connector (minimum 3A*)
• 5V DC via GPIO header (minimum 3A*)
• Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled (requires separate PoE HAT)
• Operating temperature: 0 – 50 degrees C ambient

takyon: Review at Tom's Hardware. Cons: "Key software doesn't work at launch, Poor high-res video playback". Cases for the previous Pi don't work due to the new micro-HDMI ports. Tom's measured nearly ten times better storage performance using one of the new USB 3.0 ports, and the gigabit Ethernet port can actually reach nearly 1 Gbps (943 Mbps vs. 237 Mbps for the previous model).

Also at The Verge and Ars Technica.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harvesting-organs-from-detainees-uk-tribunal-concludes:

An independent tribunal sitting in London has concluded that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing, and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement.

The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a unanimous determination at the end of its hearings it was “certain that Falun Gong as a source - probably the principal source - of organs for forced organ harvesting”.

“The conclusion shows that very many people have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason, that more may suffer in similar ways and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, for the time being, running a country with one of the oldest civilisations known to modern man.”

He added: “There is no evidence of the practice having been stopped and the tribunal is satisfied that it is continuing.”

[...] China announced in 2014 that it would stop removing organs for transplantation from executed prisoners and has dismissed the claims as politically-motivated and untrue.

[...] There have been calls for the UK parliament to ban patients from travelling to China for transplant surgery. More than 40 MPs from all parties have backed the motion. Israel, Italy, Spain and Taiwan already enforce such restrictions.

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

Jon Brodkin over at Ars Technica is reporting on a scheduled vote next month (10 July 2019) at the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The decision would invalidate San Francisco's Article 52[PDF], which requires property owner-owned cable plant to be shared by multiple ISPs.

As Brodkin reports:

The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on whether to preempt a San Francisco city ordinance that was designed to promote broadband competition in multi-unit buildings.

San Francisco's Article 52, approved in December 2016, lets Internet service providers use the existing wiring inside multi-unit residential and commercial properties even if the wiring is already used by another ISP that serves the building. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and then-Mayor Ed Lee approved it in order to spur competition in multi-unit buildings where occupants often have only one option for Internet service.

The ordinance only applies when the inside wiring belongs to the property owner. Under the rule, property owners who have outfitted their buildings with Internet wiring cannot deny access to ISPs, making it harder for them to strike exclusive deals with Internet providers.

[...] When San Francisco passed its rule, the city argued that property owners were sidestepping a federal law that "bans property owners, landlords, and property managers from entering into exclusive agreements with service providers."

Despite that federal law, "local ISPs estimate that approximately 500 multi-dwelling unit buildings, representing more than 50,000 units, have limitations in place that effectively deny them the opportunity to provide Internet access," the city's Board of Supervisors said at the time. The new ordinance was written to "clos[e] these glaring loopholes... and establish parameters and requirements for how and when qualified ISPs can provide service to multi-unit buildings."

Also, Linode is planning some server reboots over the next week or so. We will try to give advance notice and keep downtime to a minimum.

Update: Everything seems to have quieted down. Many many thanks to NotSanguine for jumping in and lending his expertise to help identify and isolate where things were borked.

Indications are that a bad BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) route was published causing a relatively small AS (Autonomous System) to have all traffic to/from a large fraction of the internet attempt to go through its routers.

Fnord666 writes:

Early Sunday morning, all of mainland Argentina lost power in an "unprecedented" blackout event that left most of the country's 44 million citizens in the dark until the evening. The blackout also extended to Uruguay (which is connected to Argentina's power grid) and limited parts of Chile. Although the exact cause of the blackout is still being investigated, Argentina experienced heavy rains over the weekend, and there is reason to believe that the inclement weather played a starring role in the largest blackout in recent history.

Extreme weather events are a leading cause of blackouts around the world, and the blackout in Argentina is a reminder that our electric grids aren't ready to handle the increasing intensity of storms resulting from climate change. Although the United States isn't likely to see a nationwide blackout like the one that hit Argentina, localized blackouts in the United States have increased in both frequency and duration in recent years. This is due in no small part to massive forest fires, snow storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes that cause localized blackouts often affecting tens of thousands of people.

"There is clear evidence that extreme weather events have increased over the past 20 years, and so have the number of outages and the number of customer hours out of service," says Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant and previous advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "We need to accept this and do a better job at helping customers and communities survive these growing outages and threats."

https://www.wired.com/story/argentinas-blackout-and-the-storm-battered-future-of-the-grid/

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Hackers exploited a pair of potent zero-day vulnerabilities in Firefox to infect Mac users with a largely undetected backdoor, according to accounts pieced together from multiple people.

Mozilla released an update on Tuesday that fixed a code-execution vulnerability in a JavaScript programming method known as Array.pop. On Thursday, Mozilla issued a second patch fixing a privilege-escalation flaw that allowed code to break out of a security sandbox that Firefox uses to prevent untrusted content from interacting with sensitive parts of a computer operating system. Interestingly, a researcher at Google's Project Zero had privately reported the code-execution flaw to Mozilla in mid April.

On Monday, as Mozilla was readying a fix for the array.pop flaw, unknown hackers deployed an attack that combined working exploits for both vulnerabilities. The hackers then used the attack against employees of Coinbase, according to Philip Martin, chief information security officer for the digital currency exchange.

"We've seen no evidence of exploitation targeting customers," Martin added. "We were not the only crypto org targeted in this campaign. We are working to notify other orgs we believe were also targeted." Martin also published cryptographic hashes of code used in the attack, along with IP addresses the code contacted.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/potent-firefox-0day-used-to-install-undetected-backdoors-on-macs/

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

At Micron's memory chip fabrication facility in the Washington, DC, suburb of Manassas, Virginia, the entire manufacturing area is blanketed in electronic detectors in all their various forms. But the primary purpose isn't to keep intruders out or anything so prosaic. "A lot of them are microphones," a spokesman for Micron said. "They listen to the robots."

It turns out that there are thousands of microphones throughout the facility, or "fab," as silicon manufacturing plants are commonly known. There are microphones inside the giant $70 million cameras that imprint the component layout on the silicon surface of a memory chip. There are microphones lining the tracks of the robot controlled railways that carry colorful plastic FOUPs (front opening universal pods) along the ceiling throughout the plant. There are microphones near essentially every moving part in the facility.

All those thousands of microphones are listening for signs of wear—for variances to develop in the noises made by the machines—so that maintenance can be scheduled before anything breaks and causes downtime. Downtime, as you might imagine, is about the worst thing that can happen to an automated chip-making facility.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/manufacturing-memory-means-scribing-silicon-in-a-sea-of-sensors/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Move Over, Goat Yoga. Alaskans Now Have Reindeer Yoga

If you want to incorporate quality time with animals into your yoga practice, you have a lot of options these days. There's puppy yoga, cat yoga, and perhaps the most famous — goat yoga.

Now, in Fairbanks, Alaska, there's a new offering: a yoga class with fauna particular to the cold northern climes of the subarctic. Reindeer.

In a grassy pen at the Running Reindeer Ranch, adult and baby reindeer are milling around — grazing, nosing curiously at water bottles, and pawing yoga mats as people shake them out for class.

The air is buzzing with mosquitoes, and the sky is threatening rain, but a good two dozen or so people have shown up for this petting zoo and exercise experience.

"I've wanted to do goat yoga, but this is like one step up," says Tarah Hoxsie, one of the attendees. "This is like the ultimate, OK. So while everybody's doing goat yoga in the lower 48, we're doing reindeer yoga, which is way cooler."

Unrelated: Regular Meditation More Beneficial Than Vacation
Reindeer Collision Avoidance App
Norway to Exterminate Reindeer Herd to Combat Chronic Wasting Disease
Reindeer Are Eating Seaweed to Survive Climate Change, Scientists Say

[Ed. Note: Yes, this story submission has nothing to do with STEM. But, it did give me a chuckle. And it reminded me of a quote by George Carlin “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” So it's good to be aware of what some people think is a "good idea(TM)" and have a good laugh once in a while, too.]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Supreme Court Overturns Precedent In Property Rights Case. A Sign Of Things To Come?

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that property owners can go directly to federal court with claims that state and local regulations effectively deprive landowners of the use of their property.

The 5-to-4 decision overturned decades of precedent that barred property owners from going to federal court until their claims had been denied in state court.

Federal courts are often viewed as friendlier than state courts for such property claims. The decision, with all five of the court's conservatives in the majority, may have particular effects in cities and coastal areas that have strict regulations for development.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

DC is shutting down Vertigo label, will brand comics by age-appropriateness

DC will shut down three major imprints in January 2020, including Vertigo, Zoom, and Ink amidst a reorganization. They will be replaced by a new branding scheme that sorts comics into age groups for younger and older readers called DC Kids, DC, and DC Black Label.

DC created its Vertigo imprint as a way for the publisher to explore more mature themes, and included ongoing titles such as DMZ, Hellblazer, iZombie, Lucifer, Preacher, The Sandman, Swamp Thing, Y: The Last Man, and standalone graphic novels. Those titles brought considerable critical acclaim. In 2012, DC announced that founder Karen Berger would leave the company, and in 2018, DC Comics "relaunched" Vertigo as DC Vertigo, along with a number of new titles, which would be "modern, socially relevant, high-concept, [and] inventive." DC Black Label came about late last year as an outlet for mature stories and reprints, and it appears that the publisher will seat the stories for older readers under the new Black Label.

Also at Bleeding Cool and io9.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AP-NORC poll: Asteroid watch more urgent than Mars trip

Americans prefer a space program that focuses on potential asteroid impacts, scientific research and using robots to explore the cosmos over sending humans back to the moon or on to Mars, a poll shows.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, released Thursday, one month before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, lists asteroid and comet monitoring as the No. 1 desired objective for the U.S. space program. About two-thirds of Americans call that very or extremely important, and about a combined 9 in 10 say it's at least moderately important.

The poll comes as the White House pushes to get astronauts back on the moon, but only about a quarter of Americans said moon or Mars exploration by astronauts should be among the space program's highest priorities. About another third called each of those moderately important.

"More than 80% say the United States is not leading the world in space exploration."

Original Submission