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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Pressure on FAA to approve its 737 Max jets backfires for Boeing:

A bust-up between Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, the US regulator, has backed the aviation giant into a corner over the future of its 737 Max aircraft.

The aerospace group said last week that it would halt production of the plane in January after the FAA refused to authorise its return to service until 2020. The Max was grounded around the world in March following two fatal crashes, blamed on new anti-stall software, that claimed 346 lives.

Sandy Morris, an aerospace analyst at Jefferies, said the FAA's tougher stance with Boeing and its refusal to rush the plane back into service suggested the Max would not be approved until summer at the earliest.

"My guess is that it's at least another six months [until certification] and may even be longer. It could be a year. If there were another incident, Boeing would be toast. So it feels like it's going to get done properly."

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An Anonymous Coward writes in with the following story:

The SDR revolution has brought a bonanza of opportunities for experimentation to the radio enthusiast, but with it has come a sometimes-confusing array of software for which even installation can be a difficult prospect for an SDR novice. If you’re bamboozled by it all then help may be at hand courtesy of [Luigi Cruz], who has packaged a suite of ready-to-go popular SDR software in an OS image for the Raspberry Pi.

On board the Raspbian-based OS image are SDR Angel, Soapy Remote, GQRX, GNURadio, LimeUtil, and LimeVNA. In hardware terms the RTL-SDR is supported, along with the LimeSDR, PlutoSDR, Airspy, and Airspy HF. All are completely ready-to-go and even have desktop shortcuts, so if the CLI scares you then you can still dive in and play. More importantly it’s designed for use with SDR transmitters as well as receivers, so the barrier for full SDR operation for radio amateurs has become significantly lower too.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Merck receives FDA approval for Ebola vaccine:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it approved drugmaker Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) Ebola vaccine Ervebo, making it the first FDA-authorised vaccine against the deadly virus.

The vaccine was used by the World Health Organization and Democratic Republic of the Congo as an investigational vaccine to help reduce Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks in few West African countries from 2014 to 2016.

[...] The vaccine, which is administered as a single-dose injection, will help to prevent EVD caused by Zaire ebolavirus in patients aged 18 years and older, the regulator said in a statement.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

U.S. Justice Department and FCC fight state effort to block merger of Sprint, T-Mobile:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission filed in court on Friday to support a merger of T-Mobile (TMUS.O) and Sprint (S.N), the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers.

A group of state attorneys general has asked a judge to stop the $26 billion deal, saying it would lead to higher prices for customers. The case is being heard in federal court in New York and could wrap up on Friday.

In their filing, the Justice Department and FCC argued that if the states, led by New York and California, succeed in killing the deal the end result will be that rural areas of the United States will be slower to get access to 5G, the next generation of wireless.

“Specifically, T-Mobile has committed to providing 5G coverage to 85% of the rural population within three years, and 90% of the rural population within six years,” the agencies said in the filing.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Archaeologists unearth gold-lined Mycenaean royal tombs in Greece:

Archaeologists recently discovered two magnificent 3,500-year-old royal tombs in the shadow of the palace of the legendary King Nestor of Pylos. It's not clear exactly who the tombs' owners were, but their contents—gold and bronze, amber from the Baltic, amethyst from Egypt, and carnelian from the Arabian Peninsula and India—suggest wealth, power, and far-flung trade connections in the Bronze Age world. And the images engraved on many of those artifacts may eventually help us better understand the Mycenaean culture that preceded classical Greece.

The larger tomb is 12m (36 feet) wide and 4.5 meters (15 feet) deep, and stone walls would once have stood that height again above ground. Domes once covered the underground chambers, but the roofs and upper walls have long since collapsed, burying the tombs beneath thousands of melon-sized stones and a tangle of grape vines. University of Cincinnati archaeologists Jack Davis, Sharon Stocker, and their colleagues had to clear away vegetation and then remove the stones by hand.

"It was like going back to the Mycenaean period," Stocker said. "They had placed them by hand in the walls of the tomb, and we were taking them out by hand. It was a lot of work."

Beneath the rubble, gold leaf litters the burial pits' floors in gleaming flakes; once, it lined the walls and floors of the chambers. The tombs don't appear to have contained the remains of the their occupants (there's some evidence that the tombs were disturbed in the distant past), but they were interred with jewelry and other opulent artifacts of gold, bronze, and gemstones, as well as a commanding view of the Mediterranean Sea.

For archaeologists, the real treasure in the Mycenaean tombs isn't all the gold leaf or polished gemstones but the imagery engraved in those artifacts and what it can tell us about Mycenaean culture and beliefs.

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RandomFactor writes:

Phys.org reports on a recent study draughted for the pages of the journal Chemical Communications "which solve[s] a long-standing mystery related to the lifetime of foams."

Lead researcher Dr. Richard Campbell from The University of Manchester says his findings...could be useful for the development of a range of products that improve the creamy topping on a flat white coffee, the head on a pint of beer, shampoos we use every day, firefighting foams or even oil absorbent foams used to tackle environmental disasters.

Campbell tapped the Institut Laue-Langevin in France for its high intensity neutron beams to illuminate liquid foams and study their ingrained properties:

The team studied mixtures containing surfactant—a compound that lowers surface tension—and a polymer—used in shampoos—to come up with a new way of understanding the samples that could help product developers formulate the ideal foam.

[...] The scientists got to grips with the problem by studying the building blocks of the bubbles themselves, known as foam films.

Through reflecting neutrons off their liquid samples, they devised a new way to relate the stability of foam films to the way in which the additives arrange themselves at the surface of the liquid coating of bubbles to provide the stability needed to prevent them from bursting.

"Foams are used in many products—and product developers have long tried to improve them so they are better equipped for the task they are designed to tackle", added Dr. Campbell.

"But researchers have simply been on a different track, thinking of general surface properties and not about the structures created when different molecules assemble at the surface of bubbles.

"It was only through our use of neutrons at a world-leading facility that it was possible to make this advance because only this measurement technique could tell us how the different additives arrange themselves at the liquid surface to provide foam film stability.

The frothy researchers

think this work represents a clear first indication that our new approach could be applied to a range of systems to aid the development of products that can make an impact in materials science and on the environment.

It is hopped that scientists who had it wrong all these years won't be bitter.

Journal: Chemical Communications
DOI: 10.1039/C9CC08470C

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Physicists measured forces behind why Cheerios clump together in your bowl:

Those who love their Cheerios for breakfast are well acquainted with how those last few tasty little "O"s tend to clump together in the bowl: either drifting to the center, or to the outer edges. It's been dubbed the "Cheerios effect," although I can state with confidence the phenomenon can also observed in a bowl of Froot Loops. Now a team of physicists has made the first direct measurements of the various forces at work in the phenomenon, described in a new paper in Physical Review Letters.

"There have been a lot of models describing this Cheerios effect, but it's all been theoretical," said co-author Ian Ho, an undergraduate at Brown University. "Despite the fact that this is something we see every day and it's important for things like self-assembly [for micro robotics], no one had done any experimental measurements at this scale to validate these models. That's what we were able to do here."

The Cheerios effect is found elsewhere in nature, such as grains of pollen (or, alternatively, mosquito eggs) floating on top of a pond, or small coins floating in a bowl of water. A 2005 paper in the American Journal of Physics outlined the underlying physics, identifying the culprit as a combination of buoyancy, surface tension, and the so-called "meniscus effect."

It all adds up to a type of capillary action. Basically, the mass of the Cheerios is insufficient to break the milk's surface tension. But it's enough to put a tiny dent in the surface of the milk in the bowl, such that if two Cheerios are sufficiently close, they will naturally drift towards each other. The "dents" merge and the "O"s clump together. Add another Cheerio into the mix, and it, too, will follow the curvature in the milk to drift towards its fellow "O"s.

DOI: Physical Review Letters, 2019. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.254502 (About DOIs).

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Foreign Minister Saifuddin says Malaysia's decision to take South China Sea claim to UN is its 'sovereign right'. Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Saifuddin Abdullah said late on Friday that Kuala Lumpur has the "sovereign right to claim whatever that is there that is within our waters".

"For China to claim that the whole of South China Sea belongs to China, I think that is ridiculous," Saifuddin said in response to an Al Jazeera question about Malaysia's decision last week to take its case to the United Nations.

"It is a claim that we have made, and we will defend our claim. But of course, having said that, anyone can challenge and dispute, which is not something unusual."

The move has angered China, which claims "historic rights" over all of South China Sea. It has also blamed the United States for raising tensions in the area.

In response, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral John Aquilino accused China of "bullying" its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Malaysia and China are both signatories of the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which codifies the rights and responsibilities of independent states' use of the oceans.

Under the UNCLOS, coastal states like Malaysia are entitled to an EEZ. Beyond that is considered the high seas, common to all nations. UNCLOS also defines rules in case of overlapping EEZs.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Changes in the immune system explain why belly fat is bad for thinking

These findings could lead to new treatments that help maintain mental flexibility in aging adults with obesity, sedentary lifestyles, or muscle loss that naturally happens with aging.

The study, led by Auriel Willette, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, and Brandon Klinedinst, a PhD student in neuroscience, looked at data from more than 4,000 middle-aged to older UK Biobank participants, both men and women. The researchers examined direct measurements of lean muscle mass, abdominal fat, and subcutaneous fat, and how they were related to changes in fluid intelligence over six years.

Willette and Klinedinst discovered people mostly in their 40s and 50s who had higher amounts of fat in their mid-section had worse fluid intelligence as they got older. Greater muscle mass, by contrast, appeared to be a protective factor. These relationships stayed the same even after taking into account chronological age, level of education, and socioeconomic status.

"Chronological age doesn't seem to be a factor in fluid intelligence decreasing over time," Willette said. "It appears to be biological age, which here is the amount of fat and muscle."

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

FDA warns of breathing risks with popular nerve drugs:

U.S. health regulators are warning that popular nervous system medications can cause dangerous breathing problems when combined with opioids and certain other drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it would add new warnings to packaging for Neurontin, Lyrica and generic versions, which are used to treat seizures, nerve pain, restless leg syndrome and other conditions.

The new labels will warn doctors against prescribing the drugs with other medications that can slow breathing, including opioid painkillers. The breathing risks also apply to elderly patients and those with existing lung problems.

The medications, known generically as gabapentin and pregabalin, are among most prescribed in the U.S. Both physician prescribing and misuse have increased as doctors, hospitals and other health care providers have scaled back their use of opioids amid a national epidemic.

Poison control centers have reported increased calls involving the nerve drugs, which are often abused in combination with opioids, cocaine and marijuana. Neurontin and related drugs have long been considered nonaddictive and are not tracked as closely by regulators.

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for FatPhil

Year in Review: Digital Events in 2019

What happened in the world of IT? Who deserves notoriety for their behavior? It is time to review 2019, and, while we are at it, make a mockery of the most noteworthy.  After all, the world is already messed up, so at least let’s have a bit of fun.

Reminder: The awards generate no money, no distinction, and only a fleeting mention on the Google search engine. There is no appeal process or double-checking of the votes by certified public accountants. As with prior years, three criteria determine an award. The event must occur in 2019. It must have something to do with digital technology. The event must deserve at least one sassy and snarky comment.

This year the awards are nicknamed "The IMP" to honor the fifty-year anniversary of the first internet message in October of 1969.  Those pioneers used Interface Message Processors (IMPs) to achieve their login. Just trying to be, well, impish.

Enough said. Time for the awards!

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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Saccharin received a bad rap after studies in the 1970s linked consumption of large amounts of the artificial sweetener to bladder cancer in laboratory rats. Later, research revealed that these findings were not relevant to people. And in a complete turnabout, recent studies indicate that saccharin can actually kill human cancer cells. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry have made artificial sweetener derivatives that show improved activity against two tumor-associated enzymes.

Journal Reference:

Silvia Bua, et. al.“A Sweet Combination”: Developing Saccharin and Acesulfame K Structures for Selectively Targeting the Tumor-Associated Carbonic Anhydrases IX and XII. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2019; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.9b01669

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

'Grow and prune' AI mimics brain development, slashes energy use:

It may come as a shock to parents facing the daily chaos of toddler life, but the brain's complexity peaks around age three.

The number of connections between neurons virtually explodes in our first few years. After that the brain starts pruning away unused portions of this vast electrical network, slimming to roughly half the number by the time we reach adulthood. The over-provisioning of the toddler brain allows us to acquire language and develop fine motor skills. But what we don't use, we lose.

Now this ebb and flow of biological complexity has inspired a team of researchers at Princeton to create a new model for artificial intelligence, creating programs that meet or surpass industry standards for accuracy using only a fraction of the energy. In a pair of papers published earlier this year, the researchers showed how to start with a simple design for an AI network, grow the network by adding artificial neurons and connections, then prune away unused portions leaving a lean but highly effective final product.

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einar writes:

The Inquirer is shutting down. After nearly two decades of witty technology news, the inq comes to an end. This is a pity. Many enjoyed the website for their refreshingly honest look at technology. In a time when far too many technology sites bent over backwards to get access to samples and early access, the inq felt different. Critical journalism, not just blogging. Armed with an utter lack of respect for anyone. Never condescending but often hilariously mocking. The inquirer was fun to read. The website will be missed. https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3084741/the-inquirer-reaches-end-of-life

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When Andreas Gal, CEO of Silk Labs and a US citizen, returned to the US from a business trip in Europe last year, he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for secondary screening. He claims he was threatened with unwarranted charges, denied access to an attorney, and told he had to unlock his electronic devices before he would be allowed to leave.

[...] Despite being told he had no right to an attorney, he says he refused to answer questions and was eventually allowed to go without unlocking his devices, though his Global Entry card – a subscription-based biometric border entry program to facilitate travel – was taken from him.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued CBP claiming that the agency maintains secretive units to "detain, search, question, and/or deny entry to people with valid travel documents who present no security risk."

The ACLU complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York, seeks CBP documents under the Freedom of Information Act that the agency has refused to produce.

It contends that these Tactical Terrorism Response Teams (TTRTs) have operated for the past few years and target individuals, including US citizens, "who do not present a security risk but may hold information or have a connection to individuals of interest to the US government."

"The public has a right to know how these teams operate, how their officers are trained, and whether the guidelines that govern their activities contain civil liberties and privacy safeguards," the ACLU said in a statement announcing its lawsuit.

The complaint says TTRTs target people without valid cause, based on hunches and instinct, raising the likelihood that travelers are subject to profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or proxies for those attributes. As such, TTRTs may be violating protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.

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