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takyon writes:

Rocket Lab tests key maneuver needed for reusability during 10th flight to space

Small satellite launcher Rocket Lab successfully flew its 10th mission this morning from New Zealand, sending seven small spacecraft into orbit above Earth. While the primary goal of the flight was a success, Rocket Lab also used the mission to test out a key maneuver with its rocket — one that could allow the company to reuse its vehicles in the future.

Rocket Lab's one and only rocket is the Electron, a 55-foot-tall vehicle designed to send relatively small payloads into space. [...] After deploying satellites into orbit, the rocket falls back to Earth and is basically out of commission. But in August, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck announced that the company was going to try things differently. The team is now working toward recovering part of the Electron after each flight in order to fly the vehicles back to space again. That way, the company can save itself from having to build an entirely new rocket for each mission, potentially making it cheaper for its customers to fly.

[...] Rocket Lab is still a long way off from catching the Electron with helicopters. But today, the company was able to test out one part of the recovery process: the guided reentry. It was a particularly difficult task since the rocket creates heated shockwaves when coming back to Earth, which risks tearing the vehicle apart. To combat these challenges, this particular Electron was outfitted with guidance and navigation systems that helped collect data during the rocket's fall. It also had a control system that helped to reorient the vehicle as it descended. Ultimately, it came back to Earth in one piece, which is what Rocket Lab was hoping for.

List of Electron rocket launches.

Also at CNBC and TechCrunch.

Previously: Rocket Lab Will Attempt to Recover First Stages Using a Helicopter

Original Submission

takyon writes:

In an interview with Tom's Hardware (adwalled), AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster has hinted that the 16 cores of the "mainstream" Ryzen 9 3950X CPU is not a stopping point for the company. Zen 3, Zen 4, or Zen 5 based Ryzen CPUs could feature up to 24 or 32 cores:

There are a lot of interesting details that Mark has mentioned in the interview in particular to the next-generation technologies that would be featured on their processor lineup ranging from Ryzen and EPYC CPUs. The most significant detail and the one I would start this article is with the fact that AMD isn't stopping at just 16 cores. According to AMD, there are now many applications that can scale across multiple cores and threads. The addition of cores is entirely relative to the number of applications that can take advantage of those cores so as long as this balance exists, there would not be a saturation point of cores on next-generation CPUs, whether these be mainstream or the HPC server parts.

[...] In the coming Zen iterations, Mark has stated that Infinity Fabric would continue to evolve to keep up with higher-bandwidth interfaces such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 (already confirmed for 2021) that would be featured on AMD's lineup around 2021-2022.

[...] AMD is also looking into integrating BFloat 16 on their next-gen EPYC lineup much like Intel's 14nm Cooper Lake CPUs which are expected to launch around mid of 2020. As for SMT4, it all boils down to whether there's enough demand or workloads that can take advantage of it.

SMT4 = simultaneous multithreading with 4 threads per core. The feature has been rumored to appear on Zen 3 or Zen 4 CPUs, although it may be included with Threadripper or Epyc instead of Ryzen CPUs.

A rumor based on a China Times report suggests that TSMC's "5nm" node is ahead of schedule and that AMD Zen 4 CPUs based on the process node could appear in "early 2021" instead of late 2021 or early 2022. The increased transistor density of the "5nm" node should allow for at least 50% higher core counts.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The US announced slightly stricter rules Thursday on the use of devices called "cyanide bombs," which are meant to protect livestock from wild predators, after the government reinstated their use in August.

The devices, known as M-44s, are implanted in the ground, resembling lawn sprinklers. They use a spring-loaded ejector to release sodium cyanide when an animal tugs on a baited capsule holder.

They are meant to target foxes, coyotes and feral dogs but can ensnare other animals too, such as raccoons and skunks.

The government halted the use of the devices last year after one of them was responsible for injuring a boy and killing his dog in Idaho.

[...]The new rules announced Thursday require a 600-foot (180-meter) buffer around residences where no M-44s can be placed, and call for the equipment to be installed at least 300 feet away from roads and paths—an increase from the previous 100-foot rule.

And each M-44 must now be accompanied by two signs within 25 feet, warning of their placement.

[...]"This appalling decision leaves cyanide traps lurking in the wild to threaten people, pets and imperiled animals," Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement in response to the EPA's decision.

According to government data, M-44s killed 6,579 animals in 2018—including more than 200 "nontarget" animals, such as opossums, raccoons, skunks and a bear.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

At least 63 people, most of them children, have died since the outbreak began in mid-October and the country on Friday entered a second day of lockdown as it administers compulsory vaccinations in a desperate bid to stop the virus.

Al Jazeera's Jessica Washington, reporting from the Samoan capital, Apia, on Friday said that so far, an estimated 16,000 people have been vaccinated during the first day of the mass immunisation on Thursday.

[...]"The anti-vaxxers, unfortunately, have been slowing us down," he told TVNZ.

"We've had children who have passed away after coming to the hospital as a last resort, and then we find out the anti-vaccine message has got to their families and that's why they've kept these kids at home," he said.

He warned anti-vaxxers "don't get in the way, don't contribute to the deaths".

"We will advise police to act when we have no choice," Attorney General Lemalu Hermann Retzlaff added in a statement.

The government-backed its tough rhetoric by arresting vocal anti-vaccination campaigner Edwin Tamasese late on Thursday and charging him with incitement.

Officials said Tamasese had been warned about his activities previously but posted a message to social media regarding the immunisation drive saying: "I'll be here to mop up your mess. Enjoy your killing spree."

The government has additional powers after declaring a state of emergency to deal with the measles crisis and the Samoa Observer reported that Tamasese could face two years in jail.

It also said that US-based anti-vaxxers were swamping government websites with material that Tupai described as "nonsense".

He said the first day of the shutdown was a success, with more than 10,000 people, or five percent of the entire 200,000 population, receiving their jabs.

Previously:
Samoa Shuts Down in Unprecedented Battle Against Measles
Measles Cases in Samoa More Than Double Over Past Week as Death Toll Rises

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbrackethas found the following story:

The Airbus team is training a prototype rover to recognise and pick up small cylinders off the ground. It's a rehearsal for a key part of a multi-billion-dollar project now being put together by the US and European space agencies - Nasa and Esa.

Returning rock and dust materials to Earth laboratories will be the best way to confirm if life exists on Mars. It is, though, going to take more than a decade to achieve.

The small tubes - about the size of whiteboard markers - being manipulated by the Airbus prototype represent the Martian samples.

The idea is that these will have been selected, packaged and cached on the surface of the Red Planet at various locations by the Americans' next big rover, which launches in seven months' time. It would then be the job of a later European robot, launching in 2026, to run around and pick up the cylinders. This "fetch rover" would deliver the tubes to a handling station, from where they could be despatched to Earth. They would arrive home in 2031.

Original Submission

quietus writes:

"A meat-eater with a bicycle is much more environmentally unfriendly than a vegetarian with a Hummer."
--Dr Mark Post

The world's largest food concern, Unilever, has opened a new research lab at the world's most prestigious agricultural university, the University of Wageningen (the Netherlands). Unilever will locate all elements of its foods R&D there. A spokeswoman on Dutch radio stressed plant-based meat alternatives as an important research subject.

Wageningen University has strong credentials in that respect, with the development of shear cell technology.

Shear cell technology strings plant proteins together in tightly controlled fibers, resulting in a meat substitute where texture (fibrousness, bite, mouthfeel) can easily be controlled, and changed at will. This, combined with 3D food printing, offers the possibility of creating multiple meat (substitute) variations in future.

Unilever's food campus is open to startups, innovators and partners. One of the first to have build its own lab on the same grounds is Symrise, an industrial flavours and scents group.

About half of Dutch people call themselves 'flexitarians'. This means that they don't eat meat with their main meal at least three times a week. The proportion of vegetarians is stable, at just under five percent of the Dutch population.

Wageningen researchers believe, however, that feeding 9 billion people with animal meat will not be sustainable for the planet.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyGuest10360.

In February 2017, the Canadian Broadcasting Company's Marketplace DNA tested six different pieces of chicken from five fast food restaurants - finding that poultry from A&W, McDonald's, Tim Hortons, and Wendy's contained between 88.5% and 89.4% chicken DNA.

Subway?

53.6% for their oven roasted chicken contained actual chicken, and 42.8% of their chicken strips. According to the CBC, the rest of it was soy protein, according to VICE.

Needless to say, Subway was a little upset - filing a $210 lawsuit against the CBC, claiming the study was "recklessly and maliciously" published and that the DNA test "lacked scientific rigor."

The company claims lost customers, lost reputation, and that they had lost a "significant" amount of sales according to the report.

"The accusations made by CBC Marketplace about the content of our chicken are absolutely false and misleading," the company said after the report was published.

Nearly three years later, the suit has been tossed.

Source: ZeroHedge

Also at Vice

Original Submission

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

Ahhh, we've waited our entire life for this. A hot cheese dispenser gun thingy! It's easy to use, affordable, and will deck out any dish you pair it with. Pour it on your nachos, tacos, crackers, or doodle it on any of your favorite foods and voila! You'll have yourself a food masterpiece! 'Instantly improve any dish by dousing it with this hot cheese dispensing gun. After filling the hollow cartridge with your favorite cheese, the gun will quickly heat up and melt the cheese so that you can easily spray it over any dish, or simply create fun cheesy doodles.

Could this be the most brilliant use of electricity ever assembled? Yes, I believe it could.

Source: http://canyouactually.com/cheese-dispenser/

Original Submission

stormwyrm writes:

The RSA numbers are a set of numbers that are each the product of two large primes generated by RSA in 1991 as part of the RSA Factoring Challenge, to foster research in computational number theory and the practical challenges in factoring large numbers. While the Challenge was declared inactive in 2007 and RSA will no longer award prize money for it, researchers continue to try their hardware and software against the numbers. It has just been announced that a team including Fabrice Boudot, Pierrick Gaudry, Aurore Guillevic, Nadia Heninger, Emmanuel Thomé and Paul Zimmermann has just factored RSA-240, a 795-bit number, taking 900 core-years on a 2.1 GHz Intel Xeon Gold 6130 CPU. They also demonstrated the calculation of a 795-bit discrete logarithm on the same hardware. The previous records were for RSA-768 in 2009 and a 768-bit discrete logarithm in 2016. The speed improvements that led to this work were attributable more to algorithmic improvements than better hardware.

Dear number theorists,

We are pleased to announce the factorization of RSA-240, from RSA's challenge list, and the computation of a discrete logarithm of the same size (795 bits):

RSA-240 = 124620366781718784065835044608106590434820374651678805754818788883289666801188210855036039570272508747509864768438458621054865537970253930571891217684318286362846948405301614416430468066875699415246993185704183030512549594371372159029236099 = 509435952285839914555051023580843714132648382024111473186660296521821206469746700620316443478873837606252372049619334517 * 244624208838318150567813139024002896653802092578931401452041221336558477095178155258218897735030590669041302045908071447

[...] The previous records were RSA-768 (768 bits) in December 2009 [2], and a 768-bit prime discrete logarithm in June 2016 [3].

It is the first time that two records for integer factorization and discrete logarithm are broken together, moreover with the same hardware and software.

Both computations were performed with the Number Field Sieve algorithm, using the open-source CADO-NFS software [4].

The sum of the computation time for both records is roughly 4000 core-years, using Intel Xeon Gold 6130 CPUs as a reference (2.1GHz).

[...] The acceleration can be attributed to various algorithmic improvements that were implemented for these computations. The CADO-NFS implementation was also vastly improved.

We used computer resources of the Grid'5000 experimental testbed in France (INRIA, CNRS, and partner institutions) [5], of the EXPLOR computing center at Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France [6], an allocation of computing hours on the PRACE research infrastructure using resources at the Juelich supercomputing center in Germany [7], as well as computer equipment gifted by Cisco Systems, Inc. to the University of Pennsylvania.

More details will be given in a forthcoming scientific publication.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Meet the Guy Behind the Libgen Torrent Seeding Movement

Libgen and Sci-Hub, regularly referred to as the 'Pirate Bay of Science', are continually under fire. However, if all of the important data is decentralized, almost any eventuality can be dealt with. Today we meet the guy leading a new movement to ensure that Libgen's archives are distributed via the highest quality torrent swarms possible.

[...] [The] torrents used by Libgen were not in good shape so 'shrine' began a movement to boost the quality of their swarms. The project was quickly spotted and then supported by two companies (Seedbox.io and UltraSeedbox.com) that offer 'seedboxes', effectively server-based torrent clients with plenty of storage space and bandwidth available – perfect for giving swarms a boost.

The project gained plenty of traction and as a follow-up thread details, considerable success. Today we catch up with 'shrine' for some history, background information, and an interesting status report.

"Ironically this all started when I saw the TorrentFreak article about [Libgen] mirrors getting taken down. I immediately decided I wanted to find a way to preserve and protect the collection," 'shrine' says.

[...] "Scientists in the Reddit threads are sharing stories of how LibGen made their research possible. Unnamed cloud providers have pledged 100TB allocation on their servers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive from everyone."

Previously:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Elsevier Cracks Down on "Pirate" Science Search Engines
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram"
Elsevier Wants $15 Million Piracy Damages from Sci-Hub and Libgen
US Court Grants Elsevier Millions in Damages From Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub Faces $4.8 Million Piracy Damages and ISP Blocking
Virginia District Court Demands that ISPs and Search Engines Block Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub Bounces from TLD to TLD
Sci-Hub Proves That Piracy Can be Dangerously Useful
Paywall: A Documentary About the Movement for Open-Access Science Publishing

Original Submission

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

Egyptian Government Plans To Track The Movement Of 10 Million Vehicles With Low-Cost RFID Stickers:

Just under three years ago, Techdirt wrote about China's plan to install satnav tracking devices on vehicles in Xinjiang. That was just one of several early signs of the human rights abuses happening there. Today, people are finally waking up to the fact that the indigenous turkic-speaking Uyghur population is subject to some of the harshest oppression anywhere on the planet. Tracking huge numbers of vehicles might seem to be a typically over-the-top, money-no-object Chinese approach to total surveillance. Unfortunately, there are signs the idea is starting to spread, as this story in RFID Journal explains:

Egypt's Ministry of Interior (MOI) plans to identify millions of vehicles as they travel on the country's roads, using an RFID solution from Go+[1], with hardware and software provided by Kathrein Solutions[2] in cooperation with Wireless Dynamics[3]. The system, which will be implemented across approximately 10 million of the country's vehicles throughout the next five years, consists of passive UHF RFID stickers attached to each car's windshield, as well as tags on headlamps that respond to interrogation from readers installed above roadways, even at high speeds.

One justification for the move is to provide information on traffic flows. Another is to identify drivers who have been found guilty of traffic violations, and who should therefore not be on the roads. But plans to send all the data to a cloud-based data center will create a database that will eventually track every vehicle in the country. That will clearly be an invaluable resource for the country's police and security forces, which unfortunately seem to take China's approach to anyone who voices opposition to the authorities.

[...] As well as the negative impact on human rights in Egypt, there is another troubling aspect to this move. According to the RFID Journal article, the company providing the new system, Go+, is "in discussions with four other countries about the possibility of implementing this solution once the Egyptian system is fully deployed." [...]If the roll-out is successful, it could encourage other governments to adopt a similar approach, to the detriment of civil liberties in those countries.

[1] Go+
[2] Kathrein Solutions
[3] Wireless Dynamics

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

After years of hearing critics blast the models' accuracy, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather decided to see just how good they have been. He tracked down 17 models used between 1970 and 2007 and found that the majority of them predicted results that were "indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

[...] Ten of the 17 were close to the temperatures that actually happened, said Hausfather, lead author of a study in Wednesday's journal Geophysical Research Letters.

[...] Climate models are based on two main assumptions. One is the physics of the atmosphere and how it reacts to heat-trapping gases. The other is the amount of greenhouse gases put into the air.

A few times, scientists were wrong in their predictions about the growth of carbon pollution, saying there would be more of the gases than there actually were, Hausfather said. If they got the amount of heat-trapping gases wrong, they then got the temperatures wrong.

So Hausfather and colleagues, including NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, looked at how well the models did on just the pure science, taking out the emissions factor. On that count, 14 of the 17 computer models accurately predicted the future.

The scientists also gave each computer simulation a "skill score" that essentially gave a percentage grade to each one. The average grade was a 69%.

One of the earliest computer models, made in 1970, got a 91%. What's so impressive about that is that at the time, climate change wasn't noticeable in the yearly temperature records like it is now, Hausfather said.

Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, who wasn't part of the study, called the work creative and the results striking.

"Even without knowing what the current level of greenhouse gas concentrations would be, the climate models predicted the evolution of global temperature quite well," Diffenbaugh said.

More information: Zeke Hausfather et al. Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections, Geophysical Research Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1029/2019GL085378

Original Submission

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

FCC Says Wireless Carriers Lie About Coverage 40% of the Time

A new FCC study confirms what most people already knew: when it comes to wireless coverage maps, your mobile carrier is often lying to you.

If you head to any major wireless carrier website, you'll be inundated with claims of coast to coast, uniform availability of wireless broadband. But, as countless studies have shown, these claims usually have only a tenuous relation to reality, something you've likely noticed if you've ever driving across the country or stopped by mobile carrier forums.

But just how bad is the disconnect? A new FCC study released this week suggests that wireless carriers may be lying about mobile coverage 40 percent of the time or more.

The full study, part of the FCC's efforts to beef up wireless subsidies ahead of fifth-generation (5G) deployments, states that FCC engineers measured real-world network performance across 12 states. Staffers conducted a total of 24,649 tests while driving more than 10,000 miles.

[...] "Only 62.3% of staff drive tests achieved at least the minimum download speed predicted by the coverage maps—with U.S. Cellular achieving that speed in only 45.0% of such tests, T-Mobile in 63.2% of tests, and Verizon in 64.3% of tests," the FCC said.

[...] So why is the Ajit Pai FCC—with a history of cozying up to the whims of major carriers—suddenly changing its tune? As states vie for their slice of billions in looming rural wireless deployment subsidies, Senators have started to get irritated by the fact we don't actually know where wireless is, making it hard to know which areas need the most help.

At an FCC oversight hearing last year, Montana Senator Jon Tester said the FCC's broadband maps "stink," adding that "we've got to kick somebody's ass" and fix the problem.

In short the backlash to the government and industry's dysfunction has become so obvious, even the industry-friendly FCC has acknowledged that something needs to be done about it if taxpayers are going to keep footing the bill.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In a recent study from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, scientists have used sunlight and a catalyst largely made of copper to transform carbon dioxide to methanol. A liquid fuel, methanol offers the potential for industry to find an additional source to meet America's energy needs.

The study describes a photocatalyst made of cuprous oxide (Cu­₂O), a semiconductor that when exposed to light can produce electrons that become available to react with, or reduce, many compounds. After being excited, electrons leave a positive hole in the catalyst's lower-energy valence band that, in turn, can oxidize water.

Previous attempts to use photocatalysts, such as titanium dioxide, to reduce carbon dioxide tended to produce a whole mish-mash of various products, ranging from aldehydes to methane. The lack of selectivity of these reactions made it difficult to segregate a usable fuel stream, [Distinguished Fellow Tijana] Rajh explained.

[...] By switching from titanium dioxide to cuprous oxide, scientists developed a catalyst that not only had a more negative conduction band but that would also be dramatically more selective in terms of its products. This selectivity results not only from the chemistry of cuprous oxide but from the geometry of the catalyst itself.

barbara hudson writes:

The Guardian is reporting on the closest ever approach to the sun of any space probe.

Nasa's Parker Solar Probe, which has flown closer to the sun than any spacecraft, has beamed back its first observations from the edge of the sun's scorching atmosphere.

The first tranche of data offers clues to long-standing mysteries, including why the sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, is hundreds of times hotter than its surface, as well as the precise origins of the solar wind.

[...] The observations also point to an explanation for why the corona is so blisteringly hot.

"The corona is a million degrees, but the sun's surface is only thousands," said Prof Tim Horbury, a co-investigator on the Parker Solar Probe Fields instrument at Imperial College London. "It's as if the Earth's surface temperature were the same, but its atmosphere was many thousands of degrees. How can that work? You'd expect to get colder as you moved away."

Parker's sidelong observations revealed that the particles in the solar wind appeared to be released in explosive jets, rather than being radiated out in a steady stream. "It's bang, bang, bang," said Horbury.

This rapid release of energy from the sun's interior into its atmosphere could help explain why the atmosphere is so staggeringly hot compared to the solar surface, he said.