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martyb writes:

Iran satellite launch fails, in blow to space programme

On Sunday, [Iran] launched the Zafar satellite at 7:15 pm (1545 GMT) but it fell short of reaching orbit, the defence ministry said.

A ministry spokesman said initially that the satellite was "successfully" launched and went "90 percent of the way", reaching an altitude of 540 kilometres (335 miles).

"The Simorgh (rocket) successfully propelled the Zafar satellite into space," said Ahmad Hosseini of the ministry's space unit.

"Unfortunately, in the final moments the carrier did not reach the required speed" to put it into orbit, he told state television.

Solar Orbiter: Watch live as NASA, ESA launch new mission to the sun:

The European Space Agency, in collaboration with NASA, is scheduled to launch a pioneering new spacecraft to the sun: Solar Orbiter. The spacecraft will observe the star with a suite of hardy instruments and high-resolution telescopes. It will be steered further out of the ecliptic until it can, for the first time, image the sun's poles. It's currently slated to launch on Feb. 9 from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

If you're keen to see the momentous launch, you can follow along with NASA's broadcast tonight[*].

As it awaits lift-off, the Solar Orbiter is tucked away inside a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The two-stage rocket was developed by Lockheed Martin and has ferried a number of important missions to space, including NASA's famed New Horizons mission to Pluto and the recent Boeing Starliner test.

[...] Launch is currently slated for 11:03 p.m. ET (8:03 p.m. PT). The forecast, provided by the 45th Weather Squadron, suggests weather will be good for launch, noting a 20% probability of violating constraints.

[*] Launch will be live streamed on YouTube with coverage scheduled to begin on Sunday at 10:30 PM ET, (Monday 2020-02-10 at 0330 UTC).

ESA will also have a live stream broadcast at http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/ESA_Web_TV. Additionally, as seen at https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Watch_Solar_Orbiter_launch_live we have:

Key moments:
03:30 GMT – Broadcast starts
04:03 GMT – Liftoff
04:55 GMT – Solar Orbiter spacecraft separation
04:59 GMT – Earliest signal acquisition opportunity
05:19 GMT – Expected solar array deployment
05:20 GMT – Official speeches

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

NASA's Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International Space Station.

Koch touched down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency.

[...] Koch, a 41-year-old Michigan-born engineer, on December 28 last year beat the previous record for a single spaceflight by a woman of 289 days, set by NASA veteran Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.

[...] Koch also made history as one half of the first-ever all-woman spacewalk along with NASA counterpart Jessica Meir—her classmate from NASA training—in October last year.

[...] She will now head to NASA headquarters in Houston, via the Kazakh city of Karaganda and Cologne in Germany, where she will undergo medical testing.

Koch's medical data will be especially valuable to NASA scientists as the agency draws up plans for a long-duration manned mission to Mars.

[...] The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova whose spaceflight in 1963 is still the only solo mission carried out by a woman.

Russia has sent only one woman to the ISS since expeditions began in 2000—Yelena Serova whose mission launched in 2014.

Both Tereshkova and Serova are now lawmakers in the Russian parliament, where they represent the ruling United Russia party.

[...] Four male cosmonauts have spent a year or longer in space as part of a single mission with Russian Valery Polyakov's 437 days the overall record.

[...] Scott Kelly holds the record for a NASA astronaut, posting 340 days at the ISS before he returned home in 2016.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Why you can't bank on [just] backups to fight ransomware anymore:

[...] [The] belief that no personally identifying information was breached in [a] ransomware attack is common among victims of ransomware—and that's partially because ransomware operators had previously avoided claiming they had access to victims' data in order to maintain the "trust" required to extract a payment. Cyber insurance has made paying out an attractive option in cases where there's no need for an organization to reveal a breach, so the economics had favored ransomware attackers who provided good "customer service" and gave (usually believable) assurances that no data had been taken off the victims' networks.

Unfortunately, that sort of model is being blown up by the Maze and Sodinokibi (REvil) ransomware rings, which have adopted a model of using stolen data as leverage to ensure customers will make a payment. Even in cases where a victim can relatively quickly recover from a ransomware attack, they still will face demands for payment in order to avoid the publication or sale of information stolen by the attackers before the ransomware was triggered.

Maze and REvil are targeted ransomware attacks that break from the established norm of ransomware attacks in other ways. Telling users not to click on email attachments and to recognize phishing sites isn't stopping these attackers from getting in. Both have relied on exploits of known weaknesses in Internet-facing infrastructure of their victims—be it an Oracle WebLogic vulnerability, a long-ago patched weakness in Pulse Secure VPN servers, or hacks of managed service providers' systems.

Being able to quickly get back up and running after a breach is a very good thing. It is also not enough. Preventing attackers from exfiltrating confidential information is likely more difficult and potentially more costly. Especially since Europe enacted GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and some other jurisdictions in the US have enacted laws requiring prompt disclosure and notification after a breach.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Fingerprints contain a variety of substances that originate from both within the body and from what is on the surface of the skin, and as such they have the potential to convey a lot more information than just their ridge details. Forensic research has looked into fingerprint residue to determine whether illicit drugs were handled, and other research has investigated changes in fingerprint chemistry after drugs were ingested. Although it is possible to detect the primary metabolite of cocaine, benzoylecgonine (BZE), in fingerprints, it hasn't been possible to determine whether the presence of BZE residue was the result of handling or using the drug.

Researchers from the UK and Republic of Ireland investigated the levels of cocaine and BZE found in fingerprints at various time intervals after contact with cocaine powder and with street cocaine. They compared them with fingerprints taken from a variety of patients attending a drug rehabilitation clinic, as well as non-drug users. In a paper in the open access journal Scientific Reports they showed that it is possible to distinguish between contact and ingestion of cocaine from a fingerprint, if (and only if) the fingerprints were obtained after the person had washed their hands.

Paper Abstract:

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

The finding that drugs and metabolites can be detected from fingerprints is of potential relevance to forensic science and as well as toxicology and clinical testing. However, discriminating between dermal contact and ingestion of drugs has never been verified experimentally. The inability to interpret the result of finding a drug or metabolite in a fingerprint has prevented widespread adoption of fingerprints in drug testing and limits the probative value of detecting drugs in fingermarks. A commonly held belief is that the detection of metabolites of drugs of abuse in fingerprints can be used to confirm a drug has been ingested. However, we show here that cocaine and its primary metabolite, benzoylecgonine, can be detected in fingerprints of non-drug users after contact with cocaine. Additionally, cocaine was found to persist above environmental levels for up to 48 hours after contact. Therefore the detection of cocaine and benzoylecgonine (BZE) in fingermarks can be forensically significant, but do not demonstrate that a person has ingested the substance. In contrast, the data here shows that a drug test from a fingerprint (where hands can be washed prior to donating a sample) CAN distinguish between contact and ingestion of cocaine. If hands were washed prior to giving a fingerprint, BZE was detected only after the administration of cocaine. Therefore BZE can be used to distinguish cocaine contact from cocaine ingestion, provided donors wash their hands prior to sampling. A test based on the detection of BZE in at least one of two donated fingerprint samples has accuracy 95%, sensitivity 90% and specificity of 100% (n = 86).

Jang, M., Costa, C., Bunch, J. et al. On the relevance of cocaine detection in a fingerprint. Sci Rep 10, 1974 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58856-0

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

Common wisdom is that mosquitoes use multiple methods to home in on their prey, including Carbon Dioxide in respiration and detection of body heat. Now, in a paper published in the journal Science, researchers describe the underlying temperature detection mechanism used, and interestingly it isn't a heat-seeking mechanism, but rather a cold-avoiding one.

[...] Last year, [professor of biology Paul Garrity, Ph.D.] and several colleagues published a paper in the journal Neuron that upended the conventional thinking about the temperature-sensing receptors at the tip of flies' antennas.

Traditionally, these receptors were thought to act like thermometers, taking the temperature of the surroundings to let the fly know if the environment is hot or cold. Instead, Garrity and his colleagues found that the receptors only detected whether the temperature was changing, letting the fly know if things were getting hotter or colder.

For this reason, Garrity renamed these temperature sensors the Cooling Cells and Heating Cells. They're so sensitive they can detect a few hundredths of a degree change in temperature per second.

Mosquitoes, who are close evolutionary relatives of flies, also have Cooling Cells and Heating Cells.

While it would seem to make sense to look at the insects' heating cells to understand what draws them to human warmth, Garrity's group considered an alternative —- and counterintuitive —- hypothesis. Maybe it wasn't that the insects were flying toward the heat; maybe they were flying away from the cold. This would mean the Cooling Cells would be the ones to focus on.

The specific Cooling Cells Garrity and his fellow scientists studied for their paper in Science rely on a molecular receptor called IR21a. IR stands for ionotropic receptor, a group of proteins that help neurons to transmit signals. IR21a facilitates the transmission of a signal that the temperature around the insect is falling.

spiraldancing sent in a link which became the inspiration for:

Capture Carbon in Concrete Made With CO₂ (Javascript required):

On a vast grassy field in northern Wyoming, a coal-fired power plant will soon do more than generate electricity. The hulking facility will also create construction materials by supplying scientists with carbon dioxide from its exhaust stream.

A team from the University of California, Los Angeles, has developed a system that transforms "waste CO₂" into gray blocks of concrete. In March, the researchers will relocate to the Wyoming Integrated Test Center, part of the Dry Fork power plant near the town of Gillette. During a three-month demonstration, the UCLA team plans to siphon half a ton of CO₂ per day from the plant's flue gas andproduce 10 tons of concrete daily.

[...] Carbon Upcycling UCLA is one of 10 teams competing in the final round of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize. The global competition aims to develop breakthrough technologies for converting carbon emissions into valuable products.

[...] Cement, a key ingredient in concrete, has a particularly big footprint. It's made by heating limestone with other materials, and the resulting chemical reactions can produce significant CO₂ emissions. Scorching, energy-intensive kilns add even more. The world produces 4 billion tons of cement every year, and as a result, the industry generates about 8 percent of global CO₂ emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Sand dunes can 'communicate' with each other:

Using an experimental dune 'racetrack', the researchers observed that two identical dunes start out close together, but over time they get further and further apart. This interaction is controlled by turbulent swirls from the upstream dune, which push the downstream dune away. The results, reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, are key for the study of long-term dune migration, which threatens shipping channels, increases desertification, and can bury infrastructure such as highways.

When a pile of sand is exposed to wind or water flow, it forms a dune shape and starts moving downstream with the flow. Sand dunes, whether in deserts, on river bottoms or sea beds, rarely occur in isolation and instead usually appear in large groups, forming striking patterns known as dune fields or corridors.

It's well-known that active sand dunes migrate. Generally speaking, the speed of a dune is inverse to its size: smaller dunes move faster and larger dunes move slower. What hasn't been understood is if and how dunes within a field interact with each other.

"There are different theories on dune interaction: one is that dunes of different sizes will collide, and keep colliding, until they form one giant dune, although this phenomenon has not yet been observed in nature," said Karol Bacik, a PhD candidate in Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and the paper's first author. "Another theory is that dunes might collide and exchange mass, sort of like billiard balls bouncing off one another, until they are the same size and move at the same speed, but we need to validate these theories experimentally."

Now, Bacik and his Cambridge colleagues have shown results that question these explanations. "We've discovered physics that hasn't been part of the model before," said Dr Nathalie Vriend, who led the research.

[...] The next step for the research is to find quantitative evidence of large-scale and complex dune migration in deserts, using observations and satellite images. By tracking clusters of dunes over long periods, we can observe whether measures to divert the migration of dunes are effective or not.

Journal Reference:

Karol A. Bacik, Sean Lovett, Colm-cille P. Caulfield, Nathalie M. Vriend. Wake Induced Long Range Repulsion of Aqueous Dunes. Physical Review Letters, 2020; 124 (5) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.054501

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Scientists unravel mystery of photosynthesis:

Plants have been harnessing the sun's energy for hundreds of millions of years. Algae and photosynthetic bacteria have been doing the same for even longer, all with remarkable efficiency and resiliency.

It's no wonder, then, that scientists have long sought to understand exactly how they do this, hoping to use this knowledge to improve human-made devices such as solar panels and sensors.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, working closely with collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis, recently solved a critical part of this age-old mystery, homing in on the initial, ultrafast events through which photosynthetic proteins capture light and use it to initiate a series of electron transfer reactions.

"In order to understand how biology fuels all of its engrained activities, you must understand electron transfer," said Argonne biophysicist Philip Laible. "The movement of electrons is crucial: it's how work is accomplished inside a cell."

In photosynthetic organisms, these processes begin with the absorption of a photon of light by pigments localized in proteins. Each photon propels an electron across a membrane located inside specialized compartments within the cell. "The separation of charge across a membrane -- and stabilization of it -- is critical as it generates energy that fuels cell growth," said Argonne biochemist Deborah Hanson.

The Argonne and Washington University research team has gained valuable insight on the initial steps in this process: the electron's journey.

[...] As a result of their efforts, the scientists are now closer than ever to being able to design electron transfer systems in which they can send an electron down a pathway of their choosing.

canopic jug writes:

Mac Bowley at the Raspberry Pi blog asks about ending hardware upgrades for the sake of upgrades as well as ending planned obsolescence. The softwre for the Raspberry Pi, he notes, still runs on the first models even if the newer models are faster. In fact the old models are still being produced and bought. Fully exploiting the natural life spans of hardware would have a lot of advantages, not the least of which would be reduction of the enviornmental impact.

Some components of your phone cannot be created without rare chemical elements, such as europium and dysprosium. (In fact, there are 83 stable non-radioactive elements in the periodic table, and 70 of them are used in some capacity in your phone.) Upgrade culture means there is high demand for these materials, and deposits are becoming more and more depleted. If you're hoping there are renewable alternatives, you'll be disappointed: a study by researchers working at Yale University found that there are currently no alternative materials that are as effective.

Then there's the issue of how the materials are mined. The market trading these materials is highly competitive, and more often than not manufacturers buy from the companies offer the lowest prices. To maintain their profit margin, these companies have to extract as much material as possible as cheaply as they can. As you can imagine, this leads to mining practices that are less than ethical or environmentally friendly. As many of the mines are located in distant areas of developing countries, these problems may feel remote to you, but they affect a lot of people and are a direct result of the market we are creating by upgrading our devices every two years.

Many of us agree that we need to do what we can to counteract climate change, and that, to achieve anything meaningful, we have to start looking at the way we live our lives. This includes questioning how we use technology. It will be through discussion and opinion gathering that we can start to make more informed decisions — as individuals and as a society.

Previously:
Apple, Samsung Fined for Crippling Devices With Software Updates
Planned Obsolescence Takes a Step Forward (2014)

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

The recently discovered galaxy XMM-2599 is three times the size of any other galaxy ever imaged. And models indicate it should have continued forming stars for well over a paltry billion years, but according to new research the supermassive galaxy only did so for about 800 Million years.

The researchers also determined that the galaxy created more than 1,000 suns' worth of stars every year during its activity peak. (For comparison, our Milky Way is currently forming just one solar mass of new stars annually.) But that peak is in the rearview mirror for XMM-2599; its star-birth engine has shut down, for reasons that remain unclear.

XMM-2599 is about 12 Billion light years from Earth, so observing the galaxy shows how it was early in the evolution of the universe, which is 13.82 Billion years old.

"Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy," Benjamin Forrest, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California Riverside (UCR), said in a statement.

"More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old, and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1.8 billion years old," added Forrest, the lead author of a new study reporting the discovery of XMM-2599.

Such monster galaxies are predicted by theory, however star formation is not predicted to die out in this fashion.

"The predicted galaxies [...] are expected to be actively forming stars" [According to study co-author Gillian Wilson.] "What makes XMM-2599 so interesting, unusual and surprising is that it is no longer forming stars, perhaps because it stopped getting fuel or its black hole began to turn on. Our results call for changes in how models turn off star formation in early galaxies."

Journal Reference:
Ben Forrest, et al. 2020 ApJL 890 L1, An Extremely Massive Quiescent Galaxy at z = 3.493: Evidence of Insufficiently Rapid Quenching Mechanisms in Theoretical Models - IOPscience (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab5b9f)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Lithium batteries power smart phones, laptops, and electric bicycles and cars by storing energy in a very small space. This compact design is usually achieved by winding the thin sandwich of battery electrodes into a cylindrical form. This is because the electrodes must nevertheless have large surfaces to facilitate high capacity and rapid charging

An international team of researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and University College London has now investigated the tomography methods. Employing X-ray tomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, they were able to analyze the microstructure of the electrodes and detect deformations and discontinuities that develop during the charging cycles.

"Neutron tomography, on the other hand, made it possible to directly observe the migration of neutron tomography data were obtained mainly at the HZB BER II neutron source at the CONRAD instrument, one of the best tomography stations worldwide.

Additional data were obtained at the neutron source of the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL, Grenoble), where with the help of the HZB team of experts a first neutron imaging station is currently being set up. Following the shutdown of BER II in December 2019, the CONRAD instrument will be transferred to ILL so that it will be available for research in the future.

A new mathematical method developed at the Zuse-Institut in Berlin then enabled physicists to virtually unwind the battery electrodes—because the cylindrical windings of the battery are difficult to examine quantitatively. Only after mathematical analysis and the virtual unwinding could conclusions be drawn about processes at the individual sections of the winding.

[...] "The process we have developed gives us a unique tool for looking inside a battery during operation and analyzing where and why performance losses occur. This allows us to develop specific strategies for improving the design of wound batteries," concludes Manke.

More information: Ralf F. Ziesche et al, 4D imaging of lithium-batteries using correlative neutron and X-ray tomography with a virtual unrolling technique, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13943-3

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Galaxy formation simulated without dark matter:

For the first time, researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg have simulated the formation of galaxies in a universe without dark matter. To replicate this process on the computer, they have instead modified Newton's laws of gravity. The galaxies that were created in the computer calculations are similar to those we actually see today. According to the scientists, their assumptions could solve many mysteries of modern cosmology. The results are published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Cosmologists today assume that matter was not distributed entirely evenly after the Big Bang. The denser places attracted more matter from their surroundings due to their stronger gravitational forces. Over the course of several billion years, these accumulations of gas eventually formed the galaxies we see today.

An important ingredient of this theory is the so-called dark matter. On the one hand, it is said to be responsible for the initial uneven distribution that led to the agglomeration of the gas clouds. It also explains some puzzling observations. For instance, stars in rotating galaxies often move so fast that they should actually be ejected. It appears that there is an additional source of gravity in the galaxies that prevents this—a kind of "star putty" that cannot be seen with telescopes: dark matter.

However, there is still no direct proof of its existence. "Perhaps the gravitational forces themselves simply behave differently than previously thought," explains Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa from the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn and the Astronomical Institute of Charles University in Prague. This theory bears the abbreviation MOND (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics); it was discovered by the Israeli physicist Prof. Dr. Mordehai Milgrom. According to the theory, the attraction between two masses obeys Newton's laws only up to a certain point. Under very low accelerations, as is the case in galaxies, it becomes considerably stronger. This is why galaxies do not break apart as a result of their rotational speed.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The Grignard reaction is used to synthesize carbon-carbon bonds, a crucial step for making new molecules for academic and industry uses. Finding efficient and selective methods for this reaction, using low cost materials and minimal energy resources has been the target of the research activity for more than 100 years. Incredibly enough, the way the Grignard reaction works has been unknown—until now. As we finally understand it, ways to its improvement can now open up.

[...] Eisenstein and Cascella decided to tackle the problem using computer simulations. Modelling both the reagent and the solvent in a realistic manner, they were able to detect the multiple chemical species during the Schlenk equilibrium[*]. Importantly, their study identified that the whole process is determined by solvent molecules that combine to, or detach from, the magnesium atoms. Thus, the dance of solvent drives the exchange of partners for the magnesium atom, giving rise to the Schlenk equilibrium, and resulting in the different compounds present in the solution.

[*] Wikipedia entry on the Schlenk equilibrium.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Phishers impersonate WHO, exploit coronavirus-related anxiety - Help Net Security:

Media outlets are reporting daily on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan and the emergency repatriation of foreign citizens that found themselves in the thick of it.

As cases of the virus infection keep popping up across the world – demonstrating just how small (i.e., well-connected) our planet is – so do fake news and videos about the situation on social media, as well as malware, phishing schemes and other scams in people’s inboxes.

The latest example of the latter are fake emails purportedly coming from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is, ironically, engeaged in fighting an “infodemic” of fake coronavirs-themed news online.

The email, spotted by the Sophos Security Team, uses a trick lately favored by phishers and scammers: “Click here to download safety measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.”

The link takes the potential victim to a compromised web page containing a frame that renders the legitimate WHO page, which currently and prominently sports a link to information about this novel coronavirus.

Unfortunately, it also shows a simple pop-up asking the potential victim to “verify” their email by entering their email address and password. Those who fall for the trick are redirected to WHO’s legitimate page, while their email login credentials end up in the phishers’ hands.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The FBI director warns that Russian efforts to sow discord and political divide among Americans is continuing. The director of the FBI told lawmakers Wednesday that Russia is engaging in "information warfare" as the US heads into the 2020 presidential election. But he said there's no sign that Russia is targeting America's election infrastructure.

FBI Director Chris Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia is waging a covert social media campaign to create a political divide and sow the seeds of discord among Americans, just as it did during the 2016 election, according to an Associated Press account of the hearing.

The effort, Wray said, involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation. He said the threat was continuous and that was harder to combat than a hack on an election system.

"Unlike a cyberattack on an election infrastructure, that kind of effort -- disinformation -- in a world where we have a First Amendment and believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring disinformation online," Wray said.

Disinformation has long been a part of Russia's foreign policy strategy, and social media has allowed the trolling effort to expand on a viral scale. US intelligence agencies have warned Congress that these campaigns will continue in future elections.

[...] "They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other," Wray said. "And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions, which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in ... information warfare."

Original Submission