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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/mozilla-launches-a-vpn-brings-back-the-firefox-test-pilot-program/

Mozilla today announced that it is bringing back the Firefox Test Pilot program to allow users to try out new features before they are ready for mainstream usage. While the name is familiar, though, the overall goals of the new program are a bit different from the last iteration and the focus is less on crazy experiments and more on beta testing products that are almost ready for public consumption.

The first new project in the Test Pilot program is the beta of the Firefox Private Network VPN service, which is now available for Firefox desktop users in the U.S.

Sign up now for a Firefox account today so you can use this totally private free VPN.

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RandomFactor writes:

For the first time, water has been detected on an exoplanet orbiting in its star's habitable zone.

A new study by Professor Björn Benneke of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal, his doctoral student Caroline Piaulet and several of their collaborators reports the detection of water vapour and perhaps even liquid water clouds in the atmosphere of the planet K2-18b.

The planet is nine times the mass of Earth and circling more closely to its smaller M3 dwarf star with, a year length of only 33 days. K2-18b "receives virtually the same amount of total radiation from its host star" as Earth.

Scientists currently believe that the thick gaseous envelope of K2-18b likely prevents life as we know it from existing on the planet's surface.

Still, according to Professor Benneke "This represents the biggest step yet taken towards our ultimate goal of finding life on other planets, of proving that we are not alone."

Journal Reference
Björn Benneke, Ian Wong, Caroline Piaulet, Heather A. Knutson, Ian J.M. Crossfield, Joshua Lothringer, Caroline V. Morley, Peter Gao, Thomas P. Greene, Courtney Dressing, Diana Dragomir, Andrew W. Howard, Peter R. McCullough, Eliza M.-R. Kempton Jonathan J. Fortney, Jonathan Fraine. Water Vapor on the Habitable-Zone Exoplanet K2-18b. Astronomical Journal (submitted), 2019 [link]

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canopic jug writes:

Web developer Ukiah Smith wrote a blog post about which compression format to use when archiving. Obviously the algorithm must be lossless but beyond that he sets some criteria and then evaluates how some of the more common methods line up.

After some brainstorming I have arrived with a set of criteria that I believe will help ensure my data is safe while using compression.

• The compression tool must be opensource.
• The compression format must be open.
• The tool must be popular enough to be supported by the community.
• Ideally there would be multiple implementations.
• The format must be resilient to data loss.

Some formats I am looking at are zip, 7zip, rar, xz, bzip2, tar.

He closes by mentioning error correction. That has become more important than most acknowledge due to the large size of data files, the density of storage, and the propensity for bits to flip.

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aristarchus writes:

From WIRED, again. Sometimes they have good stuff.

In the early 1970s, people studying general relativity, our modern theory of gravity, noticed rough similarities between the properties of black holes and the laws of thermodynamics. Stephen Hawking proved that the area of a black hole's event horizon—the surface that marks its boundary—cannot decrease. That sounded suspiciously like the second law of thermodynamics, which says entropy—a measure of disorder—cannot decrease.

Yet at the time, Hawking and others emphasized that the laws of black holes only looked like thermodynamics on paper; they did not actually relate to thermodynamic concepts like temperature or entropy.

Then in quick succession, a pair of brilliant results—one by Hawking himself—suggested that the equations governing black holes were in fact actual expressions of the thermodynamic laws applied to black holes. In 1972, Jacob Bekenstein argued that a black hole's surface area was proportional to its entropy, and thus the second law similarity was a true identity. And in 1974, Hawking found that black holes appear to emit radiation—what we now call Hawking radiation—and this radiation would have exactly the same "temperature" in the thermodynamic analogy.

[...] But what if the connection between the two really is little more than a rough analogy, with little physical reality? What would that mean for the past decades of work in string theory, loop quantum gravity, and beyond? Craig Callender, a philosopher of science at the University of California, San Diego, argues that the notorious laws of black hole thermodynamics may be nothing more than a useful analogy stretched too far.

After what Hawking said about philosophy, I think that astrophysicists need a bit more perspective.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An international team of astronomers has detected a new high-mass gamma-ray binary (HMGB) in the Milky Way galaxy. The newly found HMGB, designated 4FGL J1405.1-6119, is one of only a handful of such objects discovered to date. The discovery was announced in a paper published August 28 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

HMGBs consist of an OB star in orbit with a compact object. In these systems, interactions between the two objects result in an emission with spectral energy distribution (SED) peaks above 1.0 MeV. They are assumed to be precursors to high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). HMGBs are very rare objects. Astronomers estimate that there are about 100 still undetected HMGBs residing in our home galaxy. Moreover, many known gamma-ray sources of as-yet unknown nature, could potentially be high-mass gamma-ray binaries.

A group of astronomers led by Robin Corbet of the University of Maryland has recently conducted a search for gamma-ray binaries. They have analyzed the data collected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard NASA's Fermi gamma-ray space telescope, aiming to find signs of periodic modulation in gamma-ray light curves of various sources. The study, complemented by data from NASA's Swift spacecraft and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), allowed the researchers to determine that one particular source identified by LAT is an HMGB.

"We report the identification from multi-wavelength observations of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) source 4FGL J1405.1-6119 (= 3FGL J1405.4-6119) as a high-mass gamma-ray binary," the astronomers wrote in the paper.

More information: R. H. D. Corbet, et al. Discovery of the Galactic High-Mass Gamma-ray Binary 4FGL J1405.1-6119, arXiv:1908.10764v1 [astro-ph.HE]: arxiv.org/abs/1908.10764

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canopic jug writes:

A new study finds that there are actually three species of electric eel.

For hundreds of years, scientists had thought there was just one species of Electrophorus, the electric eel, swimming through Amazonian waterways. Turns out, there’s three. And one of the newly described taxa delivers an electric discharge of 860 volts, “making it the strongest living bioelectricity generator,” the authors write in their report, published in Nature Communications today (September 10). 

[...] Carl Linnaeus described Electrophorus electricus 250 years ago, and since then it's been the lone species in the genus. Then along comes Carlos David de Santana. As a kid, he watched electric eels swim in the Amazon River, and now as an ichthyologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, he studies its—or rather, their—natural history.

Also at The Atlantic, The Truth About Electric Eels Has Long Been Overlooked.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow2718

IoT security: Now dark web hackers are targeting internet-connected gas pumps

Cyber criminals are increasingly turning their attention to hacking Internet of Things devices as connected products proliferate – and there's one smart device in particular that is catching hackers' attention. While routers remain the top target for IoT-based cyberattacks, there's a lot of discussion in underground forums about compromising internet-connected gas pumps. This new target was uncovered by by researchers at Trend Micro, which carried out an examination of dark web marketplaces in five different languages – Russian, Portuguese, English, Arabic, and Spanish.

One way this is already being achieved is by hackers selling modified smart meters, following on from Russian government legislation mandating that all electricity meters in the country should be replaced by online smart meters. Criminals are already modifying the firmware of these devices – although currently these alterations appear to be based around exploiting the devices to trick them into recording lower readings, meaning users will have lower bills.

However, users of Russian underground forums are also requesting information on how to hack gas pumps, with tutorials available on the inner workings of commercial pumps, including those with programmable logic controllers. These controllers are often found in factories and other industrial environments and can be used to help with managing equipment remotely.

Researchers also note that posts on gas pump hacking also frequently appear in Portuguese language forums, even featuring an in-depth, step-by-step technical tutorial on how to hack gas pumps for Brazilian users. In one case, a user demonstrates how they were able to remotely change the name of a pump.

While it's possible that these attacks are being discussed for similar reasons to those on smart meters – to receive resources at a cheaper price – it's entirely possible that gas pumps could be compromised for more destructive purposes.

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martyb writes:

The Marist Mindset List for the Entering College Class of 2023:

The Marist Mindset List for the Entering College Class of 2023

Born in 2001 the incoming class of college students never shared the earth with Joey Ramone, George Harrison, Timothy McVeigh, or Ken Kesey.

Among their classmates could be Billie Eilish, Sasha Obama, or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's daughter Simone.

1. Like Pearl Harbor for their grandparents, and the Kennedy assassination for their parents, 9/11 is an historical event. 
2. Thumb, jump, and USB flash drives have always pushed floppy disks further into history.
3. The primary use of a phone has always been to take pictures.
4. The nation's mantra has always been: "If you see something, say something."
5. The Tech Big Four--Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google -- are to them what the Big Three automakers were to their grandparents.
6. Their smart pens may write and record faster than they can think.
7. Nearly half of their generation is composed of people of color.
8. When they pulled themselves up off the floor for the first time, they may have been hanging onto the folks' brand-new Xbox.
9. There have always been indecisive quadrennial debates regarding the future of the Electoral College.
10. Oklahoma City has always had a national memorial at its center.
11. [...]

Created by Tom McBride and Ron Nief at Beloit College in 1998, the list was meant to reflect the world view of entering first year students—and to help faculty understand incoming classes—the list started with the members of the class of 2002, born in 1980.

There are 50 more items on the list of things that have been either always or never true for the list's Entering College Class.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14861/western-digital-reveals-20-tb-hdd-a-halo-product-for-datacenters

As operators of cloud datacenters need more storage capacity, higher capacity HDDs are being developed. As data hoarders need more capacity, higher capacity HDDs are needed. Last week Western Digital introduced its new Utrastar DC HC650 20 TB drives - hitting a new barrier in rotating data.

The drives feature shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology, which layers data on top of another much like a shingled roof, and therefore is designed primarily for write once read many (WORM) applications (e.g., content delivery services). Western Digital's SMR hard drives are host managed, so they will be available only to customers with appropriate software.

Western Digital's Utrastar DC HC650 20 TB is based on the company's all-new nine-platter helium-sealed enterprise-class platform, a first for the company. The new 3.5-inch hard drives feature a 7200 RPM spindle speed and will be available with a SATA 6 Gbps or SAS 12 Gbps interface depending on the SKU. Since the product is not expected to be available immediately, the manufacturer does not disclose all of its specifications just yet, but has stated that key customers are already in the loop.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/11/health/trypophobia-iphone-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

Apple unveiled its new iPhone models on Tuesday -- but while some tech fans applauded the new phones' design and specifications and others weighed in on their pricing, another feature has caught the eye of trypophobia sufferers everywhere.

The Pro and Pro Max phones feature three camera lenses. And while the design is likely to appeal to photography fans, some social media users say it is triggering their trypophobia -- an intense, irrational fear of small holes and clusters of circles and bumps, such as those in a honeycomb, lotus flower or bubble bath.

Research into trypophobia is limited. Geoff Cole, a visual scientist at the University of Essex in the UK, told CNN that while it might seem "a little bit odd" for people to feel uncomfortable at the sight of holes clustered together, for people with trypophobia, the images can cause a range of reactions, with varying levels of severity.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

MATLAB and Python are both rather popular languages. Real Python has an overview of the two with an eye towards encouraging use of Python. There is a lot to say when comparing languages, so this is a long read.

MATLAB® is widely known as a high-quality environment for any work that involves arrays, matrices, or linear algebra. Python is newer to this arena but is becoming increasingly popular for similar tasks. As you’ll see in this article, Python has all of the computational power of MATLAB for science tasks and makes it fast and easy to develop robust applications. However, there are some important differences when comparing MATLAB vs Python that you’ll need to learn about to effectively switch over.

In this article, you’ll learn how to:

• Evaluate the differences of using MATLAB vs Python
• Set up an environment for Python that duplicates the majority of MATLAB functions
• Convert scripts from MATLAB to Python
• Avoid common issues you might have when switching from MATLAB to Python
• Write code that looks and feels like Python

Earlier on SN:
Python's Guido van Rossum Steps Down (2018)
What's Today's Top Language? Python... no, Wait, Java... no, C (2017)
GNU Octave - Open Source Answer to Matlab - Hits 4.0.0 (2015)
You Want MatLab on Your Resume to Get a Job at Google (2014)
Why Python is Slow: Looking Under the Hood (2014)

Original Submission

martyb writes:

The Secret Strength of Gnashing Teeth:

The strength of teeth is told on the scale of millimeters. Porcelain smiles are kind of like ceramics—except that while china plates shatter when smashed against each other, our teeth don't, and it's because they are full of defects.

Those defects are what inspired the latest paper led by Susanta Ghosh, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics. The research came out recently in the journal Mechanics of Materials. Along with a team of dedicated graduate students—Upendra Yadav, Mark Coldren and Praveen Bulusu—and fellow mechanical engineer Trisha Sain, Ghosh examined what's called the microarchitecture of brittle materials like glass and ceramics.

"Since the time of alchemists people have tried to create new materials," Ghosh said. "What they did was at the chemical level and we work at the microscale. Changing the geometries—the microarchitecture—of a material is a new paradigm and opens up many new possibilities because we're working with well-known materials."

[...] Stronger glass brings us back to teeth—and seashells. On the micro level, the primary hard and brittle components of teeth and shells have weak interfaces or defects. These interfaces are filled with soft polymers. As teeth gnash and shells bump, the soft spots cushion the hard plates, letting them slide past one another. Under further deformation, they get interlocked like hook-and-loop fasteners or Velcro, thus carrying huge loads. But while chewing, no one would be able to see the shape of a tooth change with the naked eye. The shifting microarchitecture happens on the scale of microns, and its interlocking structure rebounds until a sticky caramel or rogue popcorn kernel pushes the sliding plates to the breaking point.

That breaking point is what Ghosh studies. Researchers in the field have found in experiments that adding small defects to glass can increase the strength of the material 200 times over. That means that the soft defects slow down the failure, guiding the propagation of cracks, and increases the energy absorption in the brittle material.

"The failure process is irreversible and complicated because the architectures that trap the crack through a predetermined path can be curved and complex," Ghosh said. "The models we work with try to describe fracture propagation and the contact mechanics at the interface between two hard-brittle building blocks."

Better to bend than break.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

How Prohibition Tossed a Wet Blanket on America’s Inventors

New research reveals the link between bars and new inventions.

In Silicon Valley, it’s only a six-mile drive from the Googleplex to Facebook HQ. In Manhattan, Madison Avenue has long been lined with renowned advertising firms. And in San Francisco, the city’s best burrito joints are clustered in the Mission District.

A few years ago, Mike Andrews became interested in this human geography—the way that innovation and invention emerge from specific places. This phenomenon of the best coders, ad men, and burrito chefs clustering together interests everyone from economists to sociologists.

[...] “If you press economists on this when they’re giving talks, and ask why it matters that everyone’s in the same city or within a few blocks, they’ll say something like, ‘People get together and talk at the bar,’” says Andrews. “I’ve actually heard this multiple times. [But] I don’t think direct evidence of that has ever existed before.”

So, during his PhD days, Andrews came up with the idea of finding that evidence. He’d do it by looking at that time the United States shuttered all its bars overnight: Prohibition.

[...] The result? A 15 percent decrease in the number of patents. The areas whose saloons shuttered had become less inventive.

[...] A careful researcher, Andrews road-tested his theory and results. He looked at patents received by women, who were generally unwelcome in pubs and taverns at the time, after local laws against alcohol went into effect. As expected, the decline was much smaller for female inventors. Similarly, he looked at serial inventors, who often worked for companies and might be more inspired by in-office conversation and collaboration. They too were less affected by prohibition.

It's a good thing patents are a direct measure of true innovation.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

In the U.S., prepare to shiver with below-normal winter temperatures from the Heartland westward to the Pacific and in the Desert Southwest, Pacific Southwest, and Hawaii but above normal winter temperatures elsewhere. The cold will continue through Valentine’s Day—providing the perfect excuse to stay indoors and snuggle! But be warned: Winter will not be over yet!

For some parts of the country, frigid and frosty conditions will last well into spring, bringing little relief to the winter-weary. “This could feel like the never-ending winter, particularly in the Midwest and east to the Ohio Valley and Appalachians, where wintery weather will last well into March and even through the first days of spring,” says Almanac editor Janice Stillman.

[...] In the U.S., this winter will be remembered for strong storms bringing a steady roofbeat of heavy rain and sleet, not to mention piles of snow. The 2020 Old Farmer’s Almanac is calling for frequent snow events—from flurries to no fewer than seven big snowstorms from coast to coast, including two in April for the Intermountain region west of the Rockies.

This snow-verload will include storms pummeling Washington state and points eastward across the northern-tier states into Michigan. For the normally rain-soaked Northwest, this could mean a repeat of last winter’s record-breaking extremes, including the Snowpocalypse that dumped 20.2 inches on Seattle in February.

https://www.almanac.com/old-farmers-almanac-2020-winter-forecast

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

British Airways pilots began a 48-hour strike on Monday, grounding most of the airline's flights and disrupting thousands of travelers' plans in unprecedented industrial action over a pay dispute.

The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) last month gave the airline notice of three days of industrial action in September, in what is the first ever strike by BA pilots.

Following the strikes on Sept. 9 and 10, another day of industrial action is scheduled for Sept. 27.

BALPA has said that British Airways (BA) should share more of its profits with its pilots. BA has said the strike action is unjustifiable as its pay offer was fair.

Thousands of customers have had to seek alternative travel arrangements, and the airline has come in for criticism over how it handled communications with passengers ahead of the strikes.

"This strike will have cost the company considerably more than the investment needed to settle this dispute," BALPA General Secretary Brian Strutton said in a statement on the eve of the strike.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission