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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AnonymousCoward:

Senate panel wants stricter oversight of Chinese telecoms:

[...] The Wall Street Journal understands that the Senate Permanent Subcommitee on Investigations will issue a report demanding stricter oversight of Chinese telecoms operating in the US, arguing that they otherwise pose an "unacceptable" national security risk. The panel also blasts officials for allegedly being too soft on these telecoms across multiple administrations, pointing to 18 years of supposedly lax screening.

The panel criticizes several regulators (nicknamed Team Telecom) for finding no concerns when China Telecom and China Unicom, both state-run, got licenses to operate in the US in 2002. A risk mitigation deal in 2007 gave those regulators the power to visit China Telecom, but they only used that twice (in 2017 and 2018), according to the Senate panel's findings.

American officials have stepped their scrutiny of China over the years. Team Telecom has asked the FCC to revoke China Telecom's license, and it's no secret that the US has clamped down on equipment makers like Huawei and ZTE. However, this panel could help foster an even more aggressive stance.

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takyon writes:

Supreme Court rules non-unanimous jury verdicts unconstitutional

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that defendants in criminal trials can only be convicted by a unanimous jury, striking down a scheme that has been rejected by every state except one. The court said in a divided opinion that the Constitution requires agreement among all members of a jury in order to impose a guilty verdict.

"Wherever we might look to determine what the term 'trial by an impartial jury trial' meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment's adoption—whether it's the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion. "A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict."

Oregon is the only state left in which defendants can be convicted over the dissent of up to two jurors. Louisiana recently abandoned the practice after more than a century of use.

The ruling overturns the 2016 conviction of a Louisiana man named Evangelisto Ramos. A jury by a 10-2 margin found him guilty of killing a woman in New Orleans. Two years after Ramos's conviction, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment getting rid of non-unanimous jury verdicts. The new ruling likely means that Ramos could get a new trial.

From the Ramos v. Louisiana syllabus:

In 48 States and federal court, a single juror's vote to acquit is enough to prevent a conviction. But two States, Louisiana and Oregon, have long punished people based on 10-to-2 verdicts. In this case, petitioner Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of a serious crime in a Louisiana court by a 10-to-2 jury verdict. Instead of the mistrial he would have received almost anywhere else, Ramos was sentenced to life without parole. He contests his conviction by a nonunanimous jury as an unconstitutional denial of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.

Held: The judgment is reversed.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AnonymousCoward:

Uber accuses Levandowski of fraud, refuses to pay $179M Google judgment:

Uber says it shouldn't be on the hook for a massive $179 million judgment owed to Google by Uber's former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski. Uber made that argument in a legal filing last week to a federal bankruptcy court in California. Uber's brief portrays the situation differently than Levandowski, who told the court last month that Uber was legally obligated to pay the award.

Levandowski joined Uber in 2016 after almost a decade at Google, where he had been a leading self-driving engineer. Uber bought Levandowski's months-old self-driving startup Otto for hundreds of millions of dollars, intending to make Levandowski and his team the core of Uber's fledgling self-driving car project.

But things went sour fast. Google sued Uber, alleging that Levandowski had downloaded thousands of confidential documents before his departure and had taken them to his new job. Fearing criminal prosecution for trade secret theft—fears that proved justified—Levandowski invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify during the civil trial between Google and Uber.

Uber fired Levandowski and settled with Google. But Google continued to pursue Levandowski in arbitration, winning a $179 million award. Levandowski argues that Uber has an obligation to pay the judgment on his behalf under an indemnification deal Levandowski negotiated as part of the 2016 acquisition of his company.

But in its latest legal filing, Uber argues that it doesn't owe Levandowski anything because Levandowski used fraud to induce Uber to sign the indemnification agreement.

Previously:

• Ex-Uber Engineer Levandowski Pleads Guilty To Trade Secrets Theft
• Anthony Levandowski Ordered to Pay $179 Million to Google

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

New research due to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) reveals that raw-type dog foods contain high levels of multidrug-resistant bacteria, including those resistant to last-line antibiotics. The potential transfer of such bacteria between dogs and humans is an international public health risk, conclude the authors who include Dr. Ana Raquel Freitas and colleagues from the Faculty of Pharmacy, UCIBIO/REQUIMTE, University of Porto, Portugal.

[...] Raw-food-based diets for dogs have grown popularity recently as a healthier choice. Increasing controversy regarding their safety is emerging, with some scientific evidence showing their role as vehicles for transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In addition, dogs have been described as reservoirs of clinically-relevant ampicillin-resistant (AmpR) Enterococcus faecium, but the source remains unknown.

In this study, the authors analysed enterococci obtained from processed (both dry and wet types) and non-processed (raw-frozen) foods of the main brands commercialised in Portugal. The study included 46 samples (22 wet, 15 dry, 9 raw-frozen) from 24 international brands, sourced from 8 supermarkets and one veterinary clinic. Samples were obtained during September to November, 2019. Raw-frozen samples were mainly constituted of salmon, chicken, turkey, calf, deer or duck, being a mixture of different meat types, fruits and vegetables.

[...] The authors conclude: "Our study demonstrates that raw-frozen-foods for dogs carry MDR enterococci including to last-line antibiotics (linezolid) for the treatment of human infections. The close contact of pets with humans and the commercialisation of the studied brands in different EU countries pose an international public health risk if transmission of such strains occurs between dogs and humans. There is strong past and recent evidence that dogs and humans share common multidrug-resistant strains of E. faecium, and thus the potential for these strains to be transmitted to humans from dogs."

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Though mighty, the Milky Way and galaxies of similar mass are not without scars chronicling turbulent histories. University of California, Irvine astronomers and others have shown that clusters of supernovas can cause the birth of scattered, eccentrically orbiting suns in outer stellar halos, upending commonly held notions of how star systems have formed and evolved over billions of years.

Hyper-realistic, cosmologically self-consistent computer simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments 2 project enabled the scientists to model the disruptions in otherwise orderly galactic rotations. The team's work is the subject of a study published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

"These highly accurate numerical simulations have shown us that it's likely the Milky Way has been launching stars in circumgalactic space in outflows triggered by supernova explosions," said senior author James Bullock, dean of UCI's School of Physical Sciences and a professor of physics & astronomy. "It's fascinating, because when multiple big stars die, the resulting energy can expel gas from the galaxy, which in turn cools, causing new stars to be born."

[...] The researchers said that while their conclusions have been drawn from simulations of galaxies forming, growing and evolving to the present day, there is actually a fair amount of observational evidence that stars are forming in outflows from galactic centers to their halos.

"In plots that compare data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission—which provides a 3-D velocity chart of stars in the Milky Way—with other maps that show stellar density and metallicity, we can see structures similar to those produced by outflow stars in our simulations," Yu said.

Journal Reference
Yu, Sijie, Bullock, James S, Wetzel, Andrew, et al. Stars made in outflows may populate the stellar halo of the Milky Way, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa522)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

AirAsia launches transparent tracking blockchain network 'Freightchain' for air cargo:

AirAsia Group Bhd's logistics arm Teleport announced Thursday the launch of Freightchain, a digital network for transparently confirming and tracking air cargo based on distributed ledger blockchain technology.

Shippers and freight forwarders can now book and confirm any of AirAsia's 247 aircraft to carry cargo using Freightchain without the need for time-consuming go-betweens, sales and email channels. The system seamlessly tracks bids, transparently tracks sales and automatically reveals linked network chains for freight delivery.

Using Freightchain shippers will be able to discover all available cargo network connections owned by airlines in a manner that gives them transparency into how their cargo will get from point A to point B. The system will also facilitate on-demand bookings in real-time using a bidding process that is then validated on the blockchain.

"We deliberately launched Freightchain during this period of uncertainty within global supply chains, caused by the coronavirus pandemic," Freightchain Chief Technology Officer, Vishal Batra said. "Agile software platforms like Freightchain help to connect uneven supply and demand amidst a rapidly evolving environment. Trust and transparency are needed now more than ever."

Freightchain provides global air cargo connectivity with no agency fees, smart on-demand digital interlinks for booking cargo space and improved cargo capacity utilization. By putting all cargo passing through its system onto the blockchain, every node in the network is aware of the current real-time status of the entire network, meaning that cargo bidders can rapidly know where shipments can be stowed and where they will go.

[...] According to Teleport, Freightchain can simplify the booking process by allowing for confirmation to happen 10 times faster than traditional methods by providing programmatic discovery of routes using data from its blockchain network.

[...] With Freightchain, the connections data, contacts and contracts all exist within the blockchain, making it simple to identify the links, book the flights and confirm an itinerary.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Scientists have theorized that organometallic halide perovskites -- a class of light harvesting "wonder" materials for applications in solar cells and quantum electronics -- are so promising due to an unseen yet highly controversial mechanism called the Rashba effect. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have now experimentally proven the existence of the effect in bulk perovskites, using short microwave bursts of light to both produce and then record a rhythm, much like music, of the quantum coupled motion of atoms and electrons in these materials.

[...] Research thus far hypothesized that the materials' extraordinary electronic, magnetic and optical properties are related to the Rashba effect, a mechanism that controls the magnetic and electronic structure and charge carrier lifetimes. But despite recent intense study and debate, conclusive evidence of Rashba effects in bulk organometallic halide perovskites, used in the most efficient perovskite solar cells, remained highly elusive.

[...] "Our discovery settles the debate of the presence of Rashba effects: They do exist in bulk metal halide perovskite materials." said Jigang Wang, senior scientist at Ames Laboratory and professor of physics at Iowa State University. "By steering quantum motions of atoms and electrons to engineer Rashba split bands, we achieve a significant leap forward for the fundamental discovery of the effect which had been hidden by random local fluctuations, and also open exciting opportunities for spintronic and photovoltaic applications based on quantum control of perovskite materials."

Journal Reference:

Z. Liu, C. Vaswani, X. Yang, et al. Ultrafast Control of Excitonic Rashba Fine Structure by Phonon Coherence in the Metal Halide Perovskite CH3NH3PbI3. Physical Review Letters, 2020; 124 (15) (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.157401)

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Extended periods in space have long been known to cause vision problems in astronauts. Now a new study in the journal Radiology suggests that the impact of long-duration space travel is more far-reaching, potentially causing brain volume changes and pituitary gland deformation.

More than half of the crew members on the International Space Station (ISS) have reported changes to their vision following long-duration exposure to the microgravity of space. Postflight evaluation has revealed swelling of the optic nerve, retinal hemorrhage and other ocular structural changes.

Scientists have hypothesized that chronic exposure to elevated intracranial pressure, or pressure inside the head, during spaceflight is a contributing factor to these changes. On Earth, the gravitational field creates a hydrostatic gradient, a pressure of fluid that progressively increases from your head down to your feet while standing or sitting. This pressure gradient is not present in space.

"When you're in microgravity, fluid such as your venous blood no longer pools toward your lower extremities but redistributes headward," said study lead author Larry A. Kramer, M.D., from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Kramer further explained, "That movement of fluid toward your head may be one of the mechanisms causing changes we are observing in the eye and intracranial compartment."

To find out more, Dr. Kramer and colleagues performed brain MRI on 11 astronauts, including 10 men and one woman, before they traveled to the ISS. The researchers followed up with MRI studies a day after the astronauts returned, and then at several intervals throughout the ensuing year.

-- submitted from IRC

Journal Reference
Larry A. Kramer, et. al. Intracranial Effects of Microgravity: A Prospective Longitudinal MRI Study, Radiology (DOI: 10.1148/radiol.2020191413)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/after-years-on-the-decline-hepatitis-c-is-returning-primarily-among

For a while, there was a chance that the U.S. might eliminate Hepatitis C. Few new cases were showing up, and most of those infected with the virus were Baby Boomers who had been living with the disease for decades. Hopes really soared when the first medications hit the market that that could eliminate — not just manage — the infection. 

Sammy Saab, a hepatologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was one of the physicians who thought the U.S. might soon be rid of the liver-targeting disease. That is, until new data rolled in showing that Hepatitis C was far from gone. “This came as a big surprise to everybody,” Saab says.

Between 2009 and 2018, the annual rate of acute Hepatitis C cases in the U.S. tripled. In 2018 alone, nearly 138,000 new cases were reported, according to a new report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead of Baby Boomers, individuals between 20 and 39 years of age dominate those case numbers — all of which largely underestimate the true number of Hepatitis C cases in the U.S., as early stages of the disease often lack symptoms. The rise in cases has also pushed the CDC to issue new recommendations that every adult get tested for Hepatitis C at least once in their life, with every pregnant individual getting tested, too.

Though these new case numbers were a surprise, their culprit is clear: “Injection drug use is the primary risk factor for Hepatitis C in the U.S. for new infections,” says Rachel Gicquelais, a researcher with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying infectious disease and substance abuse. A growing opioid epidemic means more individuals are potentially reusing or borrowing needles, providing the perfect opportunity for a virus that spreads via blood to infect someone new. To reverse the trend, health care providers will administer the same diagnostic tests and medications — but will have to overhaul their approach to reaching these new patients. 

Journal Reference
Ryerson AB, Schillie S, Barker LK, et al. Vital Signs: Newly Reported Acute and Chronic Hepatitis C Cases ― United States, 2009–2018, MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6914a2)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/denmark-extends-business-aid-to-increase-spending-by-15-billion

Denmark extended the duration of its aid programs to businesses and workers and added some new measures to increase spending by about 100 billion kroner ($15 billion).

The government agreed with all parties in parliament to keep aid measures available until July 8, a month longer than previously planned, according to a statement on Saturday. Companies will now be able to get back some value added tax (VAT) payments they made last year as zero-interest loans.

The government also said that companies which pay out dividends, buy back own shares or are registered in tax havens won't be eligible for any of the aid programs, which now amount to a total of 400 billion kroner, when including loans and guarantees.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow0570:

CHEOPS space telescope ready for scientific operation:

A team of scientists, engineers and technicians put CHEOPS through a period of extensive testing and calibration from the beginning of January until the end of March. "We were thrilled when we realized that all the systems worked as expected or even better than expected," explains CHEOPS Instrument Scientist Andrea Fortier from the Univerisity of Bern, who led the commissioning team of the consortium.

The team began by focusing on the evaluation of the photometric performance of the space telescope. CHEOPS has been conceptualized as a device of exceptional precision capable of detecting exoplanets the size of planet Earth. "The most critical test was in the precise measurement of the brightness of a star to a variance of 0.002% (20 parts-per-million)," explains Willy Benz. This precision is required so as to clearly recognize the dimming caused by the passage of an Earth-sized planet in front of a Sun-like star (an event known as a "transit," which can last several hours). CHEOPS was also required to demonstrate its ability to maintain this degree of precision for up to two days.

To verify this, the team focused on a star known as HD 88111. The star is located in the Hydra constellation, some 175 light years away from Earth, and it is not known to host planets. CHEOPS took an image of the star every 30 seconds for 47 consecutive hours (see Figure 1). Every image was carefully analyzed, initially using a specialized automatic software package, and subsequently by the team members, to determine in each image the brightness of the star as accurately as possible. The team had expected the brightness of the star to change during the period of observation due to a variety of effects, such as other stars in the field of view, the tiny jitter motion of the satellite, or the impact of cosmic ray hits on the detector.

The results of the 5,640 photos taken by CHEOPS over 47 hours are shown in Figure 2 as a "light curve." The curve depicts the change over time in the brightness measurements from all the images, showing a root-mean-square scatter of 0.0015% (15 parts-per-million). "The light curve measured by CHEOPS was pleasingly flat. The space telescope easily surpasses the requirement for being able to measure brightness to a precision of 0.002% (20 parts-per-million)," explains Christopher Broeg, Mission Manager for the CHEOPS mission at the University of Bern.

[...] Benz explains that the measurements by CHEOPS are five times more accurate than those from Earth. "That gives us a foretaste for what we can achieve with CHEOPS over the months and years to come," continues Benz.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

4/20 in the age of coronavirus, explained

In normal times, April 20 would be 4/20, the unofficial holiday for celebrating marijuana. People would be preparing to rally near state capitols, in concerts, and at huge fairs to fill the air with thick, pungent smoke.

But April 20 this year, on Monday, doesn't come during normal times. With a coronavirus pandemic still going, much of the United States and the rest of the world are staying at home as much as possible to avoid the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That means the large crowds and rallies that have previously taken place in Denver, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and many other places around the world are not going to happen.

Yet 4/20 will go on. Before the big day, I got emails from marijuana companies asking, for example, if I was "throwing a virtual 4/20 smoke sesh." (No, I'm not.) One such company advertised "awesome marijuana-inspired Zoom backgrounds so you can tune in and drop out, immersing yourself fully in the 4/20 experience" — in reference to the backgrounds that can be made for the video conferencing service, Zoom, used by workplaces globally and, apparently, marijuana users throwing virtual 4/20 parties.

Coronavirus sends 420 gatherings up in smoke, but potheads still plan virtual toke

In mid-March, as cities across the country began to impose stay-at-home orders, cannabis dispensaries saw a sharp spike in business. Figures from the nationwide cannabis data intelligence firm Headset showed that legal marijuana sales in California skyrocketed 159% on March 16 compared with the same day in 2019. In Washington state, sales jumped 33% on March 15 compared with a week earlier, with purchases of more than $50 increasing from 16% to 21%.

Sales leveled off before they spiked again nearly 50% last week as American taxpayers began receiving financial stimulus checks of up to $1,200 from the federal government, according to Jane Technologies, an eCommerce platform for more than 1,300 cannabis retailers across the nation.

Some members of the legal cannabis industry have joined forces to give back to their communities on 420. In Colorado, Friends in Weed, a consortium of cannabis businesses, has issued a challenge dubbed 420Help that began over the weekend to raise money for Gov. Jared Polis' COVID Relief Fund, which is providing financial assistance to Coloradans impacted by the coronavirus.

The organizers of the event are challenging cannabis businesses and coalitions to donate at least $420 or 4.2% of sales to Polis' funds and for consumers to give $4.20 to the fund. Organizers are also encouraging people to support their favorite dispensary's "budtenders" by providing them gift cards to local restaurants and small businesses.

Virginia Governor Approves Marijuana Decriminalization Bill

The governor of Virginia announced on Sunday that he approved a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession in the state.

The legislation, which would make possessing up to one ounce of cannabis punishable by a $25 fine with no threat of jail time and no criminal record, was passed by the legislature and transmitted to the governor's desk in March.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.itwire.com/open-source/jonathan-carter-wins-race-to-lead-debian-for-next-year.html

South African developer Jonathan Carter will be the leader of the Debian GNU/Linux project for the next year, after he defeated the two other contenders in the race, according to the results which were declared on Sunday.

Carter was up against Sruthi Chandran, who was bidding to become the first female leader of the project, and Brian Gupta, a member of the project for the last seven years.

Carter had cited the need for better publicity, getting more feedback to ease up issues that contributors faced and better visibility and transparency about funds received and how they were spent in his election platform.

[...] Debian is one of the few free software projects that holds elections. It has done so since it was set up in 1993 by the late Ian Murdock.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for both aristarchus and an AnonymousCoward:

Security lapse exposed Clearview AI source code – TechCrunch:

Since it exploded onto the scene in January after a newspaper exposé, Clearview AI quickly became one of the most elusive, secretive and reviled companies in the tech startup scene.

The controversial facial recognition startup allows its law enforcement users to take a picture of a person, upload it and match it against its alleged database of 3 billion images, which the company scraped from public social media profiles.

But for a time, a misconfigured server exposed the company's internal files, apps and source code for anyone on the internet to find.

Mossab Hussein, chief security officer at Dubai-based cybersecurity firm SpiderSilk, found the repository storing Clearview's source code. Although the repository was protected with a password, a misconfigured setting allowed anyone to register as a new user to log in to the system storing the code.

The repository contained Clearview's source code, which could be used to compile and run the apps from scratch. The repository also stored some of the company's secret keys and credentials, which granted access to Clearview's cloud storage buckets. Inside those buckets, Clearview stored copies of its finished Windows, Mac and Android apps, as well as its iOS app, which Apple recently blocked for violating its rules. The storage buckets also contained early, pre-release developer app versions that are typically only for testing, Hussein said.

The repository also exposed Clearview's Slack tokens, according to Hussein, which, if used, could have allowed password-less access to the company's private messages and communications.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

For millennia, metallurgists have been meticulously tweaking the ingredients of steel to enhance its properties. As a result, several variants of steel exist today; but one type, called martensitic steel, stands out from its steel cousins as stronger and more cost-effective to produce. Hence, martensitic steels naturally lend themselves to applications in the aerospace, automotive and defense industries, among others, where high-strength, lightweight parts need to be manufactured without boosting the cost.

However, for these and other applications, the metals have to be built into complex structures with minimal loss of strength and durability. Researchers from Texas A&M University, in collaboration with scientists in the Air Force Research Laboratory, have now developed guidelines that allow 3D printing of martensitic steels into very sturdy, defect-free objects of nearly any shape.

"Strong and tough steels have tremendous applications but the strongest ones are usually expensive -- the one exception being martensitic steels that are relatively inexpensive, costing less than a dollar per pound," said Dr. Ibrahim Karaman, Chevron Professor I and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. "We have developed a framework so that 3D printing of these hard steels is possible into any desired geometry and the final object will be virtually defect-free."

Although the procedure developed was initially for martensitic steels, researchers from the Texas A&M said they have made their guidelines general enough so that the same 3D printing pipeline can be used to build intricate objects from other metals and alloys as well.

The findings of the study were reported in the December issue of the journal Acta Materialia.

[...] "Although we started with a focus on 3D printing of martensitic steels, we have since created a more universal printing pipeline," said Karaman. "Also, our guidelines simplify the art of 3D printing metals so that the final product is without porosities, which is an important development for all type of metal additive manufacturing industries that make parts as simple as screws to more complex ones like landing gears, gearboxes or turbines."

Journal Reference:

Raiyan Seede, David Shoukr, Bing Zhang, Austin Whitt, Sean Gibbons, Philip Flater, Alaa Elwany, Raymundo Arroyave, Ibrahim Karaman. An ultra-high strength martensitic steel fabricated using selective laser melting additive manufacturing: Densification, microstructure, and mechanical properties. Acta Materialia, 2020; 186: 199 DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2019.12.037

Original Submission