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takyon writes:

New 'CacheOut' attack targets Intel processors, with a fix arriving soon

Researchers have discovered and published information on what they're calling CacheOut, a vulnerability in most Intel CPUs that allows an attacker to target more specific data, even stored within Intel's secured SGX enclave.

Intel assigned what's known as the CVE-2020-0549 vulnerability a threat level of "medium," acknowledging the danger of a targeted attack. The company noted that CacheOut has never been used outside of a laboratory environment.

Among the threats CacheOut poses is to cloud providers, and leaking data from hypervisors (virtual machine monitors) and the virtual machines running on them. Because the researchers disclosed the CacheOut vulnerability privately to Intel some time before making it public, those cloud providers have already deployed countermeasures against CacheOut.

Intel said that it plans to release mitigations to address the issue in the near future. These normally are sent to users in the form of BIOS or driver updates.

Virtually all Intel processors are potentially affected by CacheOut, save for processors released after the fourth quarter of 2019. AMD processors are not affected, according to details released on a dedicated CacheOut site. Processors made by IBM and ARM may be affected, but have not been confirmed. The paper, by lead author researcher Stephan van Schaik of the University of Michigan and colleagues, has also been made public.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Current model for storing nuclear waste is incomplete: Study finds the materials -- glass, ceramics and stainless steel -- interact to accelerate corrosion:

The materials the United States and other countries plan to use to store high-level nuclear waste will likely degrade faster than anyone previously knew because of the way those materials interact, new research shows.

The findings, published today in the journal Nature Materials, show that corrosion of nuclear waste storage materials accelerates because of changes in the chemistry of the nuclear waste solution, and because of the way the materials interact with one another.

“This indicates that the current models may not be sufficient to keep this waste safely stored,” said Xiaolei Guo, lead author of the study and deputy director of Ohio State’s Center for Performance and Design of Nuclear Waste Forms and Containers, part of the university’s College of Engineering. “And it shows that we need to develop a new model for storing nuclear waste.”

The team’s research focused on storage materials for high-level nuclear waste — primarily defense waste, the legacy of past nuclear arms production. The waste is highly radioactive. While some types of the waste have half-lives of about 30 years, others — for example, plutonium — have a half-life that can be tens of thousands of years. The half-life of a radioactive element is the time needed for half of the material to decay.

The United States currently has no disposal site for that waste; according to the U.S. General Accountability Office, it is typically stored near the plants where it is produced. A permanent site has been proposed for Yucca Mountain in Nevada, though plans have stalled. Countries around the world have debated the best way to deal with nuclear waste; only one, Finland, has started construction on a long-term repository for high-level nuclear waste.

martyb writes:

Red Sea huge source of air pollution, greenhouse gases: study:

Hydrocarbon gases bubbling from the bottom of the Red Sea are polluting the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to the emissions of some large fossil fuel exporting countries, researchers said Tuesday.

The gases seeping from the waters—which are ringed by the resorts and ports of several countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—then mix with emissions from industrial shipping and turned into noxious pollutants that are very harmful to human health.

The Middle East holds more than half of the world's oil and gas reserves[. The intense] fossil fuel exploitation that takes place there [means] the region releases enormous amounts of gaseous pollutants into the atmosphere.

But during a 2017 expedition around the Gulf, researchers at the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry noticed that levels of ethane and propane in the air above the Northern Red Sea were up to 40 times higher than predicted, even accounting for regional manmade emissions.

The team analysed possible sources for the gas emissions, including traffic, agriculture, burning of biomass, and power generation from hydrocarbons.

They came to an unexpected conclusion: the two gases had to be seeping out of the sea bed after escaping natural subterranean oil and gas reservoirs.

They were then carried by currents to the surface, where they mix with another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, which is emitted in high amounts by industrial shipping.

The resulting gas compounds are extremely harmful to human health, according to the team's study, published in Nature Communications.

Journal Reference:
Bourtsoukidis, E., Pozzer, A., Sattler, T. et al. The Red Sea Deep Water is a potent source of atmospheric ethane and propane. Nat Commun 11, 447 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14375-0, www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14375-0

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Astronaut craves salsa and surf after record 11 months aloft:

After nearly 11 months in orbit, the astronaut holding the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman can't wait to dig into some salsa and chips, and swim and surf in the Gulf of Mexico.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch told The Associated Press on Tuesday—her 319th consecutive day in space—that taking part in the first all-female spacewalk was the highlight of her mission. She's been living on the International Space Station since March and returns to Earth on Feb. 6, landing in Kazakhstan with two colleagues aboard a Russian capsule.

Koch said she and fellow astronaut Jessica Meir appreciated that the Oct. 18 spacewalk "could serve as an inspiration for future space explorers."

"We both drew a lot of inspiration from seeing people that were reflections of ourselves as we were growing up and developing our dreams to become astronauts," Koch told The Associated Press from the space station. "So to recognize that maybe we could pay that forward and serve the same for those that are up and coming was just such a highlight."

[...] Koch's 328-day mission will be the second-longest by an American, trailing Scott Kelly's flight by 12 days. She's already set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

She took time out for a pair of news interviews Tuesday, the 34th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident that claimed all seven lives on board.

She said she loves her work—she conducted five spacewalks and tended to science experiments—but she also misses her friends and family.

[...] Her biggest surprise is how easily and quickly she adapted both mentally and physically to weightlessness.

"I don't even really realize that I'm floating any more," she said.

Why do chips and salsa top her most-missed food list? Crunchy food like chips are banned on the space station because the crumbs could float away and clog equipment. "I haven't had chips in about 10 1/2 months," she explained, "but I have had a fresh apple" thanks to regular cargo deliveries.

Anyone want to take a crack at figuring out how far she has traveled while on the ISS?

Original Submission

martyb writes:

How do men and women store fat differently? Ask the fruit fly:

People and fruit flies are astonishingly alike genetically. In fact, nearly 75 percent of disease-causing genes in humans can be found in the [fruit] fly in a similar form.

In a new study, recently published in PLOS Biology, researchers from UBC's[*] faculty of medicine used fruit flies to make a fundamental genetic discovery about differences between how males and females store and metabolize fat.

[...] A lot of research has identified hundreds of fat metabolism genes that are influenced by sex hormones and sex chromosomes, but less is known about which of these genes cause the male-female difference in fat storage.

[...] We identified a fat metabolism gene that regulates the male-female difference in fat storage. In flies without this gene, the males and females store exactly the same amount of fat. This discovery paves the way for identifying metabolic genes that control male-female differences in other aspects of development and physiology.

[...] Our studies take place at the earliest stage of the discovery process. But we hope that by identifying genes that explain why males and females have different amounts of fat, we will be better able to understand why men and women have differences in the risk of diseases associated with abnormal fat storage, such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Knowing which genes affect fat storage and metabolism is also an important first step in developing more precise treatments to tackle metabolic disease. At present, not many drugs are available to treat abnormal fat metabolism, and those that are available often work better in either men or women. By identifying genes that influence fat storage in male and female flies, we will gain vital information on developing new therapies that are tailored to women, and to men, in treating abnormal fat metabolism.

[*] UBC: University of British Columbia .

Journal Reference:
Lianna W. Wat et al. A role for triglyceride lipase brummer in the regulation of sex differences in Drosophila fat storage and breakdown, PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000595)

Original Submission

darkfeline writes:

A new version of the venerable roguelike game NetHack has been released. This release is primarily a security release:

NetHack 3.6.5 is the official release of NetHack that follows NetHack 3.6.4.

This release primarily corrects security issues present in NetHack versions 3.6.0, 3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.6.3 and 3.6.4. For details about the security issues please see https://www.nethack.org/security.

You are encouraged to update to NetHack 3.6.5 as soon as possible.

Quoth Wikipedia:

NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987 with ASCII graphics. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack (1982), which is a clone of Rogue (1980). Comparing it with Rogue, Engadget's Justin Olivetti wrote that it took its exploration aspect and "made it far richer with an encyclopedia of objects, a larger vocabulary, a wealth of pop culture mentions, and a puzzler's attitude." In 2000, Salon described it as "one of the finest gaming experiences the computing world has to offer".

For those who have not played it yet, I encourage you to play it a few dozen times. You will die. A lot.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Growing Threat to Free Speech Online:

There are times when vitally important stories lurk behind the headlines. Yes, impeachment is historic and worth significant coverage, but it's not the only important story. The recent threat of war with Iran merited every second of intense world interest. But what if I told you that as we lurch from crisis to crisis there is a slow-building, bipartisan movement to engage in one of most significant acts of censorship in modern American history? What if I told you that our contemporary hostility against Big Tech may cause our nation to blunder into changing the nature of the internet to enhance the power of the elite at the expense of ordinary Americans?

I'm talking about the poorly-thought-out, poorly-understood idea of attempting to deal with widespread discontent with the effects of social media on political and cultural discourse and with the use of social media in bullying and harassment by revoking or fundamentally rewriting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

[...] In 1996, [Congress] passed Section 230. The law did two things. First, it declared that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In plain English, this means that my comments on Twitter or Google or Yelp or the comments section of my favorite website are my comments, and my comments only.

But Section 230 went farther, it also declared that an internet provider can "restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" without being held liable for user content. This is what allows virtually all mainstream social media companies to remove obscene or pornographic content. This allows websites to take down racial slurs – all without suddenly also becoming liable for all the rest of their users' speech.

Freeman writes:

London to deploy live facial recognition to find wanted faces in a crowd:

Officials at the Metropolitan Police Service of London announced last Friday that the organization will soon begin to use "Live Facial Recognition" (LFR) technology deployed around London to identify people of interest as they appear in surveillance video and alert officers to their location. The system, based on NEC's NeoFace Watch system, will be used to check live footage for faces on a police "watch list," a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said.

[...] In Las Vegas, a number of casinos have used facial-recognition systems for decades—not only to spot potential criminals but to also catch "undesirables" such as card counters and others who have been banned from the gaming floors. (I got a first-hand look at some of those early systems back in 2004

[...] private companies' own databases of images have begun to be tapped as well. Amazon's Rekognition system and other facial-recognition services that can process real-time streaming video have been used by police forces in the US as well as for commercial applications

[...] These systems are not foolproof. They depend heavily on the quality of source data and other aspects of the video being scanned. But Ephgrave said that the Metropolitan Police is confident about the system it's deploying—and that it's balancing its deployment with privacy concerns.

[...] Areas under the surveillance of the system will be marked with signs.

Previously:
America Is Turning Against Facial-Recognition Software
ACLU Demonstrates Flaws in Facial Recognition
Amazon and US Schools Normalize Automatic Facial Recognition and Constant Surveillance
Amazon Selling Facial Recognition Systems to Police in Orlando, FL and Washington County, OR

Original Submission

hubie writes:

According to LeoLabs, who monitor the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment, two satellites can potentially collide on January 29, at 23:39:35 UTC. The two satellites in question are the retired NASA Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and a 1960's-era gravity gradient stabilization satellite GGSE-4. According to the LeoLabs data, the two satellites are predicted to come within 15 to 30 meters of each other, well within the margin of error for these kind of calculations. LeoLabs predicted a 1/100 chance of a collision. None of the collision by-products, should a collision occur, would survive reentry to the ground, but it would add to the existing mess of orbital debris and it portends a potential future where although space is vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big, it is getting crowded faster than ever before.

[Editor addition follows.]

From the article:

[...] the two spacecraft will pass within just 15 to 30 metres (50 to 100 feet) of each other at an altitude of around 900 kilometres or 560 miles. And because both are dead as doornails, there's no way Earth can communicate with them to conduct evasive manoeuvres.

"Spacecraft have taken evasive manoeuvres to avoid things that are only within 60 kilometres. So this is a really, really close encounter. And if this does actually come to pass, there's potentially a large amount of debris that will be created.

The NASA/NIVR IRAS satellite and the NRO/USN POPPY 5B satellite (aka GGSE 4) are predicted to make a close approach on Wednesday. POPPY 5B has 18-metre-long gravity gradient booms so a 15-to-30 metre predicted miss distance is alarming https://t.co/H1UckcoaAH

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) January 27, 2020

And they're going fast. Their relative velocity is 14.7 kilometres per second (9.1 miles per second).

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Walnuts may slow cognitive decline in at-risk elderly:

The Walnuts and Healthy Aging Study, published this month in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that walnut consumption by healthy, elderly adults had little effect on cognitive function over two years, but it had greater effect on elderly adults who had smoked more and had a lower baseline neuropsychological test scores.

The study examined nearly 640 free-living elders in Loma Linda, California, USA, and in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. For two years, the test group included walnuts in their daily diet, and the control group abstained from walnuts.

Walnuts contain omega-3 fatty acids and polyphenols, which have previously been found to counteract oxidative stress and inflammation, both of which are drivers of cognitive decline.

Joan Sabaté, MD, DrPH, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Loma Linda University School of Public Health and the study's principal investigator, said this was the largest and most well-controlled trial ever conducted on the effects of nuts on cognition.

[...] Sabaté and his research team at Loma Linda University were the first to discover the cholesterol-lowering effect of nut consumption — specifically walnuts — with lowering blood cholesterol. Findings were first published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993. Subsequently, findings from Loma Linda University researchers have linked nut consumption to lower risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Journal Reference:
Aleix Sala-Vila, Cinta Valls-Pedret, Sujatha Rajaram, et al. Effect of a 2-year diet intervention with walnuts on cognitive decline. The Walnuts And Healthy Aging (WAHA) study: a randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2020; DOI: 10.1093/ajcn/nqz328.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Please Stop Sending Terrifying Alerts to My Cell Phone:

Amber, Blue, Silver, Camo: Is it really a good idea to push so many alarming messages to the public?

[...] Last month a police officer in Houston was run over and killed during a traffic stop. The suspect got away. The next day, millions of phones across Texas buzzed with news of the officer's death after the state's Department of Public Safety blasted out what's known as a Blue Alert. This prompted considerable concern and confusion. A man in Odessa, some 500 miles away, spoke for many when he tweeted: "wtf is a blue alert?"

Blue Alerts are mass notifications, now used in 35 states, that are sent to mobile phones and flashed on electronic highway signs when a suspect on the loose is thought to be an "imminent and credible threat to law enforcement." The hope is that pinging the public will lead to tips for the police, and then a speedier capture. It's an idea that originated with the better-known Amber Alert program, named after a 9-year-old abductee from Arlington, Texas, who was murdered, which aims to help authorities recover kidnapped children. Along with Blue and Amber alerts, there are Silver Alerts, issued for elderly people who are lost and might be suffering from dementia, and Camo Alerts, dispatched in at least three states when current or former members of the military are missing and thought to be a threat to themselves or others.

The appeal of doing everything we can in the aftermath of a horrific crime is powerful. But there's little evidence that any of the rainbow of alerts have much impact at all. In fact, these alerts are best described as "crime control theater"—a term criminologists use for programs that merely foster the perception that the government is taking swift and significant action.

Each time a new alert is proposed, the success of Amber Alerts is cited as precedent. In 2018, 161 Amber Alerts were sent out, in cases involving 203 children. Of those, 34 children were recovered based on an Amber Alert tip. That's about 17 percent. Since it began in 1996, the return of 967 children has been credited to the program. If Amber works, the thinking goes, then Blue, Silver, and Camo should work too. But does the track record of Amber really match that seemingly unassailable reputation?

[...] Some of these alerts are certainly justified, and rescuing nearly 1,000 children over two decades is far from nothing. But when researchers dig into those numbers, they start to seem less impressive. In a 2016 paper, criminologists examined 448 child-abduction cases in which Amber Alerts were sent out to the public. (In 401 of those cases, the abducted child or children were recovered unharmed; in 88, an alert-inspired tip was credited with the recovery.) The study found that outcomes for the children didn't vary all that much. That is, children were typically taken by a family member and returned home safely; and this was true regardless of whether the Amber Alert had brought in useful tips. It's likely that the alerts sometimes led to a speedier recovery of those children—which is clearly a great thing—but the researchers didn't find support for the assertion that the Amber program saves lives.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Plague Inc. maker: Don't use our game for coronavirus modeling:

Interest in the continued spread of the coronavirus has had an unintended side effect for UK-based Ndemic Creations, makers of Plague Inc. The eight-year-old game—which asks players to shepherd a worldwide pandemic so it can destroy all of humanity—has seen a spike in popularity in recent weeks, becoming the most-downloaded iPhone app in China on January 21 and in the United States on January 23, according to tracking firm App Annie.

The surge in interest has led Ndemic to issue a statement urging players not to rely on the app for information on staying safe from the coronavirus' current spread. "Please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model and that the currentcoronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people," the statement reads, in part. "We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities."

[...] Ndemic points players to the WHO for up-to-date information about the coronavirus. The disease now has more than 2,800 reported cases worldwide and has led to at least 80 deaths.

Interesting educational tool: CDC: Solve The Outbreak

Previously:
China Battles Coronavirus Outbreak: All the Latest Updates
Coronavirus: Millions Quarantined in Wuhan City
China Confirms Human-To-Human Transmission of New Coronavirus; CDC Confirms First US Case
China Reports 3rd Death, Nearly 140 New Cases of Coronavirus

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/01/27/coronavirus

As the world knows, we face an emerging virus threat in the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. The problem is, right now there are several important things that we don't know about the situation. The mortality rate, the ease of human-human transmission, the rate of mutation of the virus (and how many strains we might be dealing with – all of these need more clarity. Unfortunately, we've already gone past the MERS outbreak in severity (which until now was the most recent new coronavirus to make the jump into humans). If we're fortunate, though, we'll still have something that will be worrisome, but not as bad as (say) the usual flu numbers (many people don't realize that influenza kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year). The worst case, though, is something like 1918, and we really, really don't need that.

[Ed note: The linked story is by Derek Lowe who writes a "commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry". He is perhaps best known for his "Things I Won't Work With" blog entries which are as hilarious as they are... eye opening. I have found him to be a no-nonsense writer who "tells things as they are", holding no punches. The whole story is worth reading as he clearly explains what a coronavirus is, about the current one that reportedly originated in Wuhan, China, what could be done about it, how long that would likely take, and what can be done for those who have already been infected. --martyb]

Previous Stories Referencing Derek Lowe:

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

Machine Learning Comes to Biochemistry
Ignition! The Funniest, Most Accessible Book on Rocket Science is Being Reissued
Another Failed Alzheimer's Disease Therapy
Marathon Pharmaceuticals is Part of the Problem
Lobbying Results in FDA Approval for Controversial Drug
"Right to Try" New Experimental Medicine and the Value of Experts
Cancer Hazard vs. Risk - Glyphosate
A Terrific Paper on the Problems of Drug Discovery
Things I Won't Work With

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Original Submission

martyb writes:

Nanoparticle chomps away plaques that cause heart attacks:

Michigan State University and Stanford University scientists have invented a nanoparticle that eats away—from the inside out—portions of plaques that cause heart attacks.

Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, and a team of scientists created a "Trojan Horse" nanoparticle that can be directed to eat debris, reducing and stabilizing plaque. The discovery could be a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, a leading cause of death in the United States.

The results, published in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology, showcases the nanoparticle that homes in on atherosclerotic plaque due to its high selectivity to a particular immune cell type—monocytes and macrophages. Once inside the macrophages in those plaques, it delivers a drug agent that stimulates the cell to engulf and eat cellular debris. Basically, it removes the diseased/dead cells in the plaque core. By reinvigorating the macrophages, plaque size is reduced and stabilized.

[...] "We found we could stimulate the macrophages to selectively eat dead and dying cells—these inflammatory cells are precursor cells to atherosclerosis—that are part of the cause of heart attacks," Smith said. "We could deliver a small molecule inside the macrophages to tell them to begin eating again."

[...] "We were able to marry a groundbreaking finding in atherosclerosis by our collaborators with the state-of-the-art selectivity and delivery capabilities of our advanced nanomaterial platform. We demonstrated the nanomaterials were able to selectively seek out and deliver a message to the very cells needed," Smith said. "It gives a particular energy to our future work, which will include clinical translation of these nanomaterials using large animal models and human tissue tests. We believe it is better than previous methods."

Smith has filed a provisional patent and will begin marketing it later this year.

Journal Reference:
Alyssa M. Flores et al. Pro-efferocytic nanoparticles are specifically taken up by lesional macrophages and prevent atherosclerosis^$, Nature Nanotechnology (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0619-3)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There may be a little more evidence to suggest that Neanderthals waded, swam, and even dove to gather resources along the shores of the Mediterranean. A new study claims Neanderthals at a coastal cave in Italy waded or dove to get clamshells straight off the seafloor to make scraping tools.

Neanderthals who lived at Grotta dei Moscerini around 100,000 years ago used the sturdy shells of Mediterranean smooth clams to make sharp-edged scraping tools. Clamshells wash up on beaches all the time, but University of Colorado archaeologist Paola Villa and her colleagues say that some of the worked shell tools at Moscerini look less like flotsam and more like someone scooped them off the seafloor while they were still fresh.

[...]

If Villa and her colleagues are right, Neanderthals at Moscerini may have practiced free diving, and they certainly did a lot of wading. Mediterranean smooth clams usually live in at least half a meter (1.6 feet) of water, and usually more. They bury themselves just beneath the sand, and it’s easy to spot where their feeding siphons reach up to the water above. Neanderthals could have easily scooped them up by hand if they were willing to go deep enough.

Members of the hominin family tree have used shells to cut and scrape things for at least 430,000 years, when Homo erectus groups on the shores of Java used freshwater mussel shells as tools. Even after agriculture reached most of Europe during the Neolithic period around 9,000 years ago, people still used mussel shells to clean hides and finish the surfaces of ceramic vases. But usually, people just picked shells up and used them, without any kind of reworking to make them better tools. Moscerini is one of the only known sites were people were working shells into a particular sharp-edged shape, as if it were flint.

PLOS ONE, 2020. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226690

Original Submission