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We received three different submissions pertaining to the effects of smoking on COVID-19. One study suggests that those who smoke have a reduced likelihood of hospitalization. The comingling of separate data for male and female patients and analysis based on that data seems unusual to me. The second report is not restricted to hospitalizations, but only to those who tested positive for the virus. Their results also suggested a lessened number of self-identified smokers than smoking rates in the general public would suggest. The third and final story submission introduced vaping to the discussion, and comes to the opposite conclusion in suggesting that smoking or vaping may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19.

Confounding these analyses is that all reports of smoking are self-reported. I can well imagine if someone had tried to quit smoking, and had convinced their spouse they had indeed stayed stopped, they would be reluctant to reveal in their spouse's presence that they were a smoker. If anything, though, would that not run counter to the possibility of a protective effect? As with most things pertaining to the virus, it is likely too early to tell for certain, but it does add another dimension to the discussion. Assuming that smoking does have a preventative effect, what could be the cause? Increased residue in the lungs makes it harder for the virus to latch onto the lung's cells and infect? Could it be that chemicals in the smoke serve to impair the virus's ability to survive in the lungs and cause an infection?

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Satellite galaxies of the Milky Way help test dark matter theory:

A research team led by physicists at the University of California, Riverside, reports tiny satellite galaxies of the Milky Way can be used to test fundamental properties of "dark matter"—nonluminous material thought to constitute 85% of matter in the universe.

Using sophisticated simulations, the researchers show a theory called self-interacting dark matter, or SIDM, can compellingly explain diverse dark matter distributions in Draco and Fornax, two of the Milky Way's more than 50 discovered satellite galaxies.

The prevailing dark matter theory, called Cold Dark Matter, or CDM, explains much of the universe, including how structures emerge in it. But a long-standing challenge for CDM has been to explain the diverse dark matter distributions in galaxies.

The researchers, led by UC Riverside's Hai-Bo Yu and Laura V. Sales, studied the evolution of SIDM "subhalos" in the Milky Way "tidal field"—the gradient in the gravitational field of the Milky Way that a satellite galaxy feels in the form of a tidal force. Subhalos are dark matter clumps that host the satellite galaxies.

"We found SIDM can produce diverse dark matter distributions in the halos of Draco and Fornax, in agreement with observations," said Yu, an associate professor of physics and astronomy and a theoretical physicist with expertise in particle properties of dark matter. "In SIDM, the interaction between the subhalos and the Milky Way's tides leads to more diverse dark matter distributions in the inner regions of subhalos, compared to their CDM counterparts."

[...] "Our challenge was to understand the origin of Draco and Fornax's diverse dark matter distributions in light of these newly measured orbital trajectories," Yu said. "We found SIDM can provide an explanation after taking into both tidal effects and dark matter self-interactions."

Journal Reference
Omid Sameie, Hai-Bo Yu, Laura V. Sales et al. Self-Interacting Dark Matter Subhalos in the Milky Way's Tides, Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.141102)

Also at phys.org.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

SMR hard drive encoding is generally higher density but slower than traditional perpendicular recording.

Seagate 'submarines' SMR into 3 Barracuda drives and a Desktop HDD – Blocks and Files

Some Seagate Barracuda Compute and Desktop disk drives use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology which can exhibit slow data write speeds. But Seagate documentation does not spell this out.

Yesterday we reported Western Digital has submarined SMR drives into certain WD Red NAS drives. The company acknowledged this when we asked but it has not documented the use of SMR in the WD Red drives. This has left many users frustrated and speculating for the reason why the new drives are not working properly in their NAS set-ups. Since this article was first published Toshiba has also confirmed the undocumented use of SMR in some desktop hard drives.

[...] Seagate markets the Barracuda Compute drives as fast and dependable. Yet it is the nature of SMR drives that data rewrites can be slow.

When we asked Seagate about the Barracudas and the Desktop HDD using SMR technology, a spokesperson told us: "I confirm all four products listed use SMR technology."

In a follow-up question, we asked why isn't this information is not explicit in Seagate's brochures, data sheets and product manuals – as it is for Exos and Archive disk drives?

Seagate's spokesperson said: "We provide technical information consistent with the positioning and intended workload for each drive."

More at Hacker News.

Original Submission

bradley13 writes:

Stephen Wolfram thinks he may have found the theory that unifies physics: it's basically automata theory. According to his theory, the universe is basically an automaton running a simple set of computational rules. The link leads to his layman's summary of the work.

Even if this isn't how things work, it lends a completely new perspective: based on a relatively simple analysis of his idea, he derives the basics of relativity and quantum mechanics. His article makes for a mind-bending and fascinating read, but it's already a summary, and trying to do a summary of a summary here makes little sense. If you're into physics, mathematics or cosmology, have a look!

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Little scientists: Children prefer storybooks that explain why and how things happen:

Children have an insatiable appetite to understand why things are the way they are, leading to their apt description as "little scientists." While researchers have been aware of children's interest in causal information, they didn't know whether it influenced children's preferences during real-world activities, such as reading.

A new study in Frontiers in Psychology finds that children prefer storybooks containing more causal information. The results could help parents and teachers to choose the most engaging books to increase children's interest in reading, which is important in improving early literacy and language skills.

Children have a burning urge to understand the mechanics of the world around them, and frequently bombard parents and teachers with questions about how and why things work the way they do (sometimes with embarrassing consequences). Researchers have been aware of children's appetite for causal information for some time. However, no one had previously linked this phenomenon to real-world activities such as reading or learning.

"There has been a lot of research on children's interest in causality, but these studies almost always take place in a research lab using highly contrived procedures and activities," explains Margaret Shavlik of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee.

"We wanted to explore how this early interest in causal information might affect everyday activities with young children -- such as joint book reading."

[...] The study gives the first indicator that causality could be a key to engaging young minds during routine learning activities. Future studies could investigate if causally-rich content can enhance specific learning outcomes, including literacy, language skills and beyond. After all, learning should be about understanding the world around us, not just memorizing information.

Journal Reference:

Margaret Shavlik, Jessie Raye Bauer, Amy E. Booth. Children’s Preference for Causal Information in Storybooks. Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 11 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00666

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

A more plant-based diet without stomach troubles: Getting rid of FODMAPs with enzymes:

A plant-based diet is a good choice for both climate and health. However, many plant-based products, especially legumes, contain FODMAP compounds that are poorly digestible and cause unpleasant intestinal symptoms. A study by VTT and Finnish companies succeeded in breaking down FODMAPs with enzymes and producing new, stomach-friendly plant-based food products.

FODMAPs are short-chain carbohydrate molecules that are poorly absorbed in the human small intestine. These non-absorbed compounds move along to the large intestine, where intestinal microbes feed on them. This results in the production of gases that causes symptoms especially for those suffering from intestinal disorders, but also for many others. These problems are relatively common, as it has been estimated that the irritable bowel syndrome alone affects between 10% and 20% of the population.

Many foods containing FODMAPs are in themselves healthy and good sources of fibre, nutrients and vegetable proteins. However, those suffering from symptoms will often avoid these foods and miss out on their health benefits.

In a study funded by VTT, Gold&Green Foods, Raisio, Roal and Valio, VTT focused on two key FODMAP compounds: galactan and fructan. Galactan is abundant in, for example, legumes, while fructan is found in many cereals, among other things.

[...] "The study showed that enzymes also work under a variety of conditions and in different food processes. This is interesting new information especially for legumes, as there are currently no similar legume-based foods suitable for the FODMAP diet on the market," says Nyyssölä.

"The results are most likely to be utilised next in the development of new food items, but also in academic research in order to verify the effects on intestinal symptoms with certainty," he continues.

Journal Reference:

Antti Nyyssölä, Simo Ellilä, Emilia Nordlund, Kaisa Poutanen. Reduction of FODMAP content by bioprocessing. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 2020; 99: 257 DOI: 10.1016/j.tifs.2020.03.004

Original Submission

martyb writes:

It was before I was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth extracted, when my dad suggested I "should prepare by staying up late and getting some good books to read because afterwards all I'll want to do is sleep or read." I stopped by the bookstore and looking around came upon Dune. It had a couple sequels and seemed to be well recommended, so I bought all three. It was the weekend with the surgery scheduled for Monday. I made the mistake of reading the dust cover and before I knew it, had finished reading the first book before having the operation!

With all the stories on the COVID-19 virus, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the first half of Dune is being newly brought to the screen. Vanity Fair presents an exclusive first glimpse into its actors, history, and production. Though the film is currently scheduled for release on December 18, 2020 I thought others might like a little distraction, as well. If so, read on!

Necessarily, there will be spoilers. So, if by chance you're unfamiliar with the story, consider yourself warned and stop here.

Oracle's April 2020 Critical Patch Update Brings 397 Security Fixes

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Oracle's April 2020 Critical Patch Update Brings 397 Security Fixes:

Oracle this week released its April 2020 collection of security patches, which includes a total of 397 fixes for vulnerabilities affecting two dozen products.

The software giant also revealed that 264 of the addressed vulnerabilities could be exploited remotely without authentication.

Roughly 60 of the newly addressed vulnerabilities are considered critical severity, with more than 55 of them featuring a CVSS score of 9.8. Around 90 vulnerabilities have a CVSS score of 8.0 or higher.

Oracle Tackles a Massive 405 Bugs for Its April Quarterly Patch Update

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Oracle Tackles a Massive 405 Bugs for Its April Quarterly Patch Update:

Oracle admins are staring down the barrel of a massive quarterly Critical Patch Update that includes 405 patches.

Business software giant Oracle Corp. revealed 286 of those vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable across nearly two dozen product lines.

Impacted with multiple critical flaws, rated 9.8 CVSS in severity, are 13 key Oracle products including Oracle Financial Services Applications, Oracle MySQL, Oracle Retail Applications and Oracle Support Tools, according to the company's April Critical Patch Update Pre-Release Announcement, posted Monday.

Each of the bugs will be addressed with mitigation advice or patches by Oracle on Tuesday, coinciding with Microsoft's April's Patch Tuesday release of fixes. That will keep system and network admins taxed with a flood of critical vulnerabilities to contend with.

Oracle's Fusion Middleware alone is reporting 49 "vulnerabilities [that] may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., may be exploited over a network without requiring user credentials," according to the bulletin.

Oracle said in total, its Fusion Middleware family of software has 56 new security patches affecting nearly 20 related services, including Identity Manager Connector (v. 9.0), Big Data Discovery (v. 1.6) and WebCenter Portal (v. 11.1.1.9.0, 12.2.1.3.0, 12.2.1.4.0).

The mammoth update also includes medium-severity flaws for its Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), use for developing and deploying Java applications. Fifteen bugs, with an CVSS rating of 8.5, are remotely exploitable by an unauthenticated attacker over a network – no user credentials required.

Details of the Java SE bugs, along with technical insights and mitigation guidance for all 405 flaws, will be available Tuesday.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Intel Fixes High-Severity Flaws in NUC, Discontinues Buggy Compute Module:

Intel has stomped out high-severity flaws in its Next Unit Computing (NUC) mini PC firmware, and in its Modular Server MFS2600KISPP Compute Module.

Overall, Intel addressed nine vulnerabilities across six products in its April security update – two of those being high-severity, and the rest being medium-severity. If exploited, the flaws could allow attackers to escalate privileges or launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

One of the high-severity flaws stems from a compute module (MFS2600KISPP) used in Intel's modular server system, which is a blade system for Intel motherboards and processors first introduced in 2008. The vulnerability stems from an improper conditions check, which could allow an unauthenticated user to potentially enable escalation of privilege (via adjacent access). The flaw (CVE-2020-0578) ranks 7.1 out of 10 on the CVSS severity scale.

In addition to this flaw, two medium-severity flaws were also discovered in the same compute module: A buffer overflow (CVE-2020-0576) vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to launch a DoS attack (via adjacent access); and an insufficient control flow glitch (CVE-2020-0577) that allows an unauthenticated user to potentially escalate privileges via adjacent access.

All versions of the MFS2600KISPP compute module are affected, but Intel said that it is not releasing security updates to mitigate the bugs – instead, it will discontinue the MFS2600KISPP compute module entirely.

"Intel has issued a product-discontinuation notice for Intel Modular Server MFS2600KISPP Compute Module and recommends that users of the Intel Modular Server MFS2600KISPP Compute Module to discontinue use at their earliest convenience," according to Intel's advisory.

Previously:
High-Severity Flaws Plague Intel Graphics Drivers

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

NASA's Curiosity Keeps Rolling As Team Operates Rover From Home:

For people who are able to work remotely during this time of social distancing, video conferences and emails have helped bridge the gap. The same holds true for the team behind NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. They're dealing with the same challenges of so many remote workers — quieting the dog, sharing space with partners and family, remembering to step away from the desk from time to time — but with a twist: They're operating on Mars.

On March 20, 2020, nobody on the team was present at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the mission is based. It was the first time the rover's operations were planned while the team was completely remote. Two days later, the commands they had sent to Mars executed as expected, resulting in Curiosity drilling a rock sample at a location called "Edinburgh."

The team began to anticipate the need to go fully remote a couple weeks before, leading them to rethink how they would operate. Headsets, monitors and other equipment were distributed (picked up curbside, with all employees following proper social-distancing measures).

Not everything they're used to working with at JPL could be sent home, however: Planners rely on 3D images from Mars and usually study them through special goggles that rapidly shift between left- and right-eye views to better reveal the contours of the landscape. That helps them figure out where to drive Curiosity and how far they can extend its robotic arm.

But those goggles require the advanced graphics cards in high-performance computers at JPL (they're actually gaming computers repurposed for driving on Mars). In order for rover operators to view 3D images on ordinary laptops, they've switched to simple red-blue 3D glasses. Although not as immersive or comfortable as the goggles, they work just as well for planning drives and arm movements.

The team ran through several tests and one full practice run before it was time to plan the "Edinburgh" drilling operation.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

California orders auto insurers to refund premiums due to coronavirus - Roadshow:

One of the (admittedly minor) upsides to many people being asked to stay in their homes during the COVID-19 outbreak is that, on the whole, people are driving much less. This means that they're using less gasoline, emitting fewer pollutants and not getting into so many accidents. You'd think that last thing would translate into a drop in the cost of car insurance. You'd be wrong.

Except in California, of course. California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara ordered on Monday that auto insurance companies return the premiums paid for coverage for the months of March and April because of the state's shelter-in-place requirements, and that order might extend to May.

"With Californians driving fewer miles and many businesses closed due to the COVID-19 emergency, consumers need relief from premiums that no longer reflect their present-day risk of accident or loss," Lara said in a statement. "Today's mandatory action will put money back in people's pockets when they need it most."

Many auto insurance companies have come under fire for their lack of action during the COVID-19 crisis, with critics accusing the companies of profiting from this pandemic. As a response, most of the major insurers, including Allstate, Geico and Nationwide, have begun to offer refunds of around 15% to customers. Still, the California order goes much further than that.

"I applaud efforts made by insurance companies to date that have offered grace periods and flexibility to consumers and businesses during this national emergency," Lara added. "We must do more to help our hard-working families and small businesses."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

IBM age discrimination lawsuit suddenly ends, suggests Big Blue was willing to pay to avoid discovery process:

The judge overseeing Jonathan Langley's age discrimination lawsuit against IBM has dismissed the case, which was scheduled to go to trial later this year.

The court order [PDF] closing the case, signed on Wednesday by Judge David Ezra in the Texan Western District Court, cites a stipulation of dismissal by Langley and IBM. That suggests the two parties have agreed to settle confidentially out of court.

The Register asked IBM to confirm that the case has been settled. We've not heard back. Langley's attorneys could not be reached for comment.

In 2018, Langley sued IBM, claiming age discrimination. He was laid off at the age of 60 after 24 years at the biz. The lawsuit was filed several months after a report from ProPublica and Mother Jones claimed that IBM had embarked on a company-wide campaign to dismiss older workers, a project said to be called Operation Baccarat.

In January, Andrew Austin, the federal magistrate judge overseeing the pre-trial phase of the litigation recommended that case be allowed to go to trial. Then in February, IBM's motion to dismiss the case was rejected. Last week, Judge Ezra set the trial date for Monday, October 19, 2020.

But with the dismissal of the case, there will be no trial.

Numerous other lawsuits are pending; by some estimates 13,000 people were let go under similar circumstances.

[Disclaimer: I was an employee of IBM back in the last century. --martyb]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Anything where we can install it and watch it change all by itself, improving upon itself and not just some random action but something which LEARNS.

[Ed. note: All of the preceding is exactly as received. AI has so many branches and sub-branches (twigs?) and has evolved greatly over the years. I suspect the submitter, like most of us, has seen numerous mentions of AI in the press: self-driving cars, natural language translation, Google's Deep Mind, IBM's Jeapordy-playing computer, object recognition... but knows not even where to begin. So, fellow Soylentils, what has been helpful to you in your explorations of AI? What software can be downloaded and experimented with so as to get some hands-on appreciation for what it can do? I suspect there are many others in the community who would not mind playing around with it, too. --martyb]

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

"We're looking how can we study and eventually treat stress disorders by modulating peripheral organ function, rather than doing something highly invasive in the central nervous system," says Polina Anikeeva, an MIT professor of materials science and engineering and of brain and cognitive sciences.

To achieve control over hormone release, Dekel Rosenfeld, an MIT-Technion postdoc in Anikeeva's group, has developed specialized magnetic nanoparticles that can be injected into the adrenal gland. When exposed to a weak magnetic field, the particles heat up slightly, activating heat-responsive channels that trigger hormone release. This technique can be used to stimulate an organ deep in the body with minimal invasiveness.

[...] In the new study, the research team wanted to explore the idea of treating disorders of the brain by manipulating organs that are outside the central nervous system but influence it through hormone release. One well-known example is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates stress response in mammals. Hormones secreted by the adrenal gland, including cortisol and adrenaline, play important roles in depression, stress, and anxiety.

[...] As a target to stimulate hormone release, the researchers decided on ion channels that control the flow of calcium into adrenal cells. Those ion channels can be activated by a variety of stimuli, including heat. When calcium flows through the open channels into adrenal cells, the cells begin pumping out hormones. "If we want to modulate the release of those hormones, we need to be able to essentially modulate the influx of calcium into adrenal cells," Rosenfeld says.

[20200416_143747 UTC: Update 2: Added an Example to make clear what the problem was, and added 2 headings subsequent to the example to better organize the information. --martyb]
[20200416_005831 UTC; Update 1: Updated title and corrected spelling of balanceTags(). --martyb]

martyb writes:

Ooops! Things should be working correctly, now.

tl;dr: Back on March 20th, someone tripped over a bug that appears to be in the balanceTags() routine in our Perl code. I found a way to made a quick fix to prevent its happening again, but the fix was missing a couple steps. I caught and fixed one of them, but only now just handled the other.

Workaround: When writing a comment, writing or editing a journal entry, or when submitting a story, use "DEL" instead of "STRIKE" to make text look like this.

This story is the result of something I learned in the process: properly notify the community of any changes to the site!