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takyon writes:

AMD Ryzen 4000 Zen 3 will be compatible with Socket AM4, but it is end of the road for X470, B450, and below motherboard owners

AMD's Robert Hallock has confirmed that the upcoming AMD Ryzen 4000 Zen 3 processors will be compatible with Socket AM4 as long as the motherboard features an X570 or B550 chipset. Zen 3 will not support older chipsets owing to lower space on the EEPROM of these motherboards. Future prospects of Socket AM4 depend on the industry's I/O innovation.

[...] In a blog post, Hallock confirmed that current AMD X570 and B550 chipset motherboards will support Zen 3 processors after a BIOS update. However, Zen 3 processors will not be compatible with any chipset prior to X570 or B550. This means end of the road for all those who have X470, B450 and below chipset boards. Hallock says that this decision had to be taken as due to BIOS capacity limitations on older platforms.

We've seen AMD taking a similar stance with Zen 2 as well by removing drop-in support for motherboards that have just a 16 MB EEPROM. X570 motherboards have a 32 MB EEPROM thereby enabling larger a AGESA[*] codebase to be comfortably accommodated.

Wikipedia explains that AGESA:

AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), is a procedure library developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), used to perform the Platform Initialization (PI) on mainboards using their AMD64 architecture. As part of the BIOS of such mainboards, AGESA is responsible for the initialization of the processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport controller.

AMD blog post.

See also: AMD axes Zen 3 support on 400-series motherboards: Is AMD pulling an Intel?
AMD will use the AM4 socket through its 'Zen 3' CPUs, but it will drop older chipset support
B450 and X470 chipsets won't support AMD Ryzen 4000 processors
Hardware Unboxed: No AMD Zen 3 Support on 400 and 300 Series Motherboards
AMD Zen 3 Based Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' Desktop CPUs Will Be Compatible With Existing AM4 (X570, X470, B550, B450) Motherboards, Confirmed By XMG (from April 16, fake news or specific to the motherboard manufacturer?)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

U.S. Officials: Beware Of China And Others Trying To Steal COVID-19 Research

As researchers around the globe race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, U.S. authorities are warning American firms to exercise extreme caution in safeguarding their research against China and others with a track record of stealing cutting-edge medical technology.

"We are imploring all those research facilities and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that are doing really great research to do everything in their power to protect it," Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview with NPR.

"We don't want that company or the research hospital to be the one a year from now, two years from now, identified as having it all stolen before they finished it," said Evanina, whose center falls under the director of national intelligence.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Britain's National Cyber Security Center recently issued a statement saying hackers are "actively targeting organisations ... that include healthcare bodies, pharmaceutical companies, academia, medical research organisations, and local government."

The statement did not name China or any other country. Reuters reported that hackers linked to Iran tried to break into email accounts at the U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which has a potentially promising drug to treat the COVID-19 virus. Iran denied the report.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/musk-dares-county-officials-to-arrest-him-as-he-re-opens-fremont-factory/

Elon Musk is planning to defy county officials as he battles to reopen Tesla's Fremont factory in the face of a continued shelter-in-place order in Alameda County, California, Musk announced on Twitter on Monday.

"Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules," Musk tweeted. "I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me."
[...]
On May 7, California public health officer Sonia Angell issued a new order lifting some statewide restrictions. The order stated that "a local health jurisdiction may implement or continue more restrictive public health measures if the jurisdiction's Local Health Officer believes conditions in that jurisdiction warrant it."

During a Monday press briefing, reporters peppered Newsom with questions about the dispute. Newsom answered like a politician, expressing admiration for both sides and confidence that they'd work out a deal. Speaking of Tesla, Newsom said he had "great reverence for their technology, for their innovative spirit, for their leadership."

But he also stressed that "it's county-led enforcement in these cases." He didn't endorse Tesla's view that Alameda County's order was inconsistent with Newsom's own order.

Tesla Fremont Factory: Alameda Deescalates Issue, Doesn’t Fall Into Elon Musk’s Martyr Trap:

May. 12th 2020 9:26 am ET

In [a] new comment, the Alameda county seems to have deescalated the issue around Tesla reopening its Fremont factory despite the county’s order as CEO Elon Musk set an obvious martyr trap.

As we reported yesterday, Tesla went ahead with the reopening of Fremont factory despite a local order from the Alameda County to wait until they approved a safe reopening plan.

CEO Elon Musk said that he would himself be on the production lines and he asked that if Alameda County were to enforce the rules and arrest anyone, it should be him:

“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

But the county didn’t fall for the martyr trap set by Musk and didn’t go into Fremont factory to put anyone in handcuffs.

County officials claim to have been in continuous contact with Tesla last week to approve the automaker’s plan to reopen the factory by May 18, but Musk apparently wanted to do it sooner – leading to Tesla filling a lawsuit and stalling the talks.

The Sheriff’s Office instead issued a statement stating that they are aware Tesla is breaking the order and they will take the same action that they do for other businesses who have been violating the order:

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

The earliest known humans in Europe may have been found in a Bulgarian cave:

A tooth and six bone fragments found in a Bulgarian cave are the oldest directly dated remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, scientists say.

Until now, most of the earliest fossils of humans on the continent ranged in age from around 45,000 to 41,500 years old. But those ages are based on dates for sediment and artifacts associated with the fossils, not the fossils themselves. The newfound remains date to between roughly 46,000 and 44,000 years ago, researchers report May 11 in Nature.

A previous report of the earliest human fossil in Europe centered on a skull fragment from what's now Greece (SN: 7/10/19). That fossil may date to at least 210,000 years ago, which would make it the oldest by far, but the dating and species identification of that find are controversial.

The new discoveries at Bulgaria's Bacho Kiro Cave have added evidence for a scenario in which African H. sapiens reached the Middle East approximately 50,000 years ago (SN: 1/28/15) and then rapidly dispersed into Europe (SN: 11/2/11) and Central Asia (SN: 10/22/14), the scientists conclude.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

Pretty, yet painful: Rare 'blue dragons' wash up on Texas beach - National:

Dragons exist — though they're a bit smaller than you might have imagined.

A stunningly beautiful and bizarre little sea creature has Texas wildlife experts on edge after several beach-goers reported finding so-called "blue dragons" washed up at the Padre Island National Seashore in recent days.

The extremely rare little creatures look like electric-blue dragons "soaring" through the water. However, they're actually a curious form of sea slug known as Glaucus atlanticus that swims upside down to show off its colours. And while they don't breathe fire, they do pack a nasty sting that they borrow from their favourite food.

The 3 cm long creatures prey on the Portuguese man-o-war, a jellyfish-like organism with painful stingers. The blue dragon basically kills man-o-wars and steals their stinging toxins, then re-purposes those toxins into a defensive weapon.

That means it can surprise a curious human with a powerfully jellyfish-like sting if it's disturbed.

[...] The park issued a warning on its Facebook page last week after several more blue dragon sightings on the shore.

"Don't let their size fool you," the park wrote. "They have a defence worthy of the name dragon."

The post explains that blue dragons move the man-o-war stingers onto their "fingers," which allows them to deliver a sting "more painful than a man-o-wars."

"If you see a dragon in the park, be amazed as they are a rare find, but also keep your distance," the park said.

Several people have posted photos of the sea slugs, which are also known as blue angels, since they started washing up in Texas.

No injuries have been reported to date.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Ransomware Hit ATM Giant Diebold Nixdorf:

Ransomware Hit ATM Giant Diebold Nixdorf — Krebs on SecurityCanton, Ohio-based Diebold [NYSE: DBD] is currently the largest ATM provider in the United States, with an estimated 35 percent of the cash machine market worldwide. The 35,000-employee company also produces point-of-sale systems and software used by many retailers.

According to Diebold, on the evening of Saturday, April 25, the company's security team discovered anomalous behavior on its corporate network. Suspecting a ransomware attack, Diebold said it immediately began disconnecting systems on that network to contain the spread of the malware.

Sources told KrebsOnSecurity that Diebold's response affected services for over 100 of the company's customers. Diebold said the company's response to the attack did disrupt a system that automates field service technician requests, but that the incident did not affect customer networks or the general public.

"Diebold has determined that the spread of the malware has been contained," Diebold said in a written statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity. "The incident did not affect ATMs, customer networks, or the general public, and its impact was not material to our business. Unfortunately, cybercrime is an ongoing challenge for all companies. Diebold Nixdorf takes the security of our systems and customer service very seriously. Our leadership has connected personally with customers to make them aware of the situation and how we addressed it."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Plants and photosynthetic bacteria catch sunlight via molecular antennas, which then transfer the energy to a reaction centre with minimal losses. Scientists would like to make molecular wires that can transfer energy just as efficiently. Scientists at the University of Groningen created tiny fibers by stacking certain molecules together. Single fibers transport energy, although they sometimes malfunction. Creating bundles of fibers (as is done with copper wiring) was thought to be the solution but this turned out not to be the case. Energy moves fast when spread out across several molecules. In single fibers, this works well but in bundled fibers, this spreading out is hampered as the molecules experience strain. These results can be used to better understand energy transport along molecular wires, which will help in the design of better wires.

More information: Bernd Wittmann et al, Enhancing Long-Range Energy Transport in Supramolecular Architectures by Tailoring Coherence Properties, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2020). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.0c01392

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

COVID-19 lockdowns significantly impacting global air quality:

Levels of two major air pollutants have been drastically reduced since lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a secondary pollutant—ground-level ozone—has increased in China, according to new research.

Two new studies in AGU's [(American Geophysical Union)] journal Geophysical Research Letters find nitrogen dioxide pollution over northern China, Western Europe and the U.S. decreased by as much as 60 percent in early 2020 as compared to the same time last year.

[...] In addition to nitrogen dioxide, one of the new studies finds particulate matter pollution (particles smaller than 2.5 microns) has decreased by 35 percent in northern China.

The two new papers are part of an ongoing special collection of research in AGU journals related to the current pandemic.

Such a significant drop in emissions is unprecedented since air quality monitoring from satellites began in the 1990s, said Jenny Stavrakou, an atmospheric scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy in Brussels and co-author of one of the papers.

[...] However, the drop in nitrogen dioxide pollution has caused an increase in surface ozone levels in China, according to one of the new studies. Ozone is a secondary pollutant formed when sunlight and high temperature catalyze chemical reactions in the lower atmosphere. Ozone is harmful to humans at ground-level, causing pulmonary and heart disease.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique, astronomers have probed the parsec-scale jet of a neutrino-emitting blazar known as TXS 0506+056.

[...] In general, blazars are perceived by astronomers as high-energy engines serving as natural laboratories to study particle acceleration, relativistic plasma processes, magnetic field dynamics and black hole physics. Therefore, high-resolution observations of blazars and their jets in different wavelengths could be essential for improving the understanding of these phenomena.

At a distance of approximately 5.75 billion light years, TXS 0506+056 is a VHE [(Very High Energy)] blazar that was detected as a radio source in 1983. It is the first known source of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. After the detection of a neutrino event designated IceCube-170922A, coincident with the blazar's direction and arrival time during a gamma-ray flare, an intense multi-wavelength monitoring of this object commenced.

[...] The study found that the blazar's jet structure showcases a helical trajectory originating in growing instabilities, with a precessing period of five to six years. The jet is composed of a core and four components designated J1 to J4. The sizes of the jet components increase with the radial distance from the center, hence the outermost component J1 is the most extended with the largest size, and the innermost J4 has the smallest size.

[...] "The neutrino event detected during the rise of the radio flare could then be associated with the onset of particle injection and acceleration which can contain a large portion of the converted energy density. This scenario provides support to a lepto-hadronic origin of the VHE neutrinos and gamma-ray emission owing to a co-spatial origin at the particle injection and acceleration site," the authors of the paper concluded.

More information: The parsec-scale jet of the neutrino-emitting blazar TXS~0506+056, arXiv:2005.00300 [astro-ph.GA] arxiv.org/abs/2005.00300

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Science fiction builds mental resiliency in young readers:

Young people who are "hooked" on watching fantasy or reading science fiction may be on to something. Contrary to a common misperception that reading this genre is an unworthy practice, reading science fiction and fantasy may help young people cope, especially with the stress and anxiety of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am a professor with research interests in the social, ethical and political messages in science fiction. In my book "Medicine and Ethics in Black Women's Speculative Fiction," I explore the ways science fiction promotes understanding of human differences and ethical thinking.

While many people may not consider science fiction, fantasy or speculative fiction to be "literary," research shows that all fiction can generate critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence for young readers. Science fiction may have a power all its own.

• [...] Literature as a moral mirror
• [...] Why science fiction gets a bad rap
• [...] The mental health of reading
• [...] The powerful world of science fiction

[...] Let them read science fiction. In it, young people can see themselves – coping, surviving and learning lessons – that may enable them to create their own strategies for resilience. In this time of COVID-19 and physical distancing, we may be reluctant for kids to embrace creative forms that seem to separate them psychologically from reality.

But the critical thinking and agile habits of mind prompted by this type of literature may actually produce resilience and creativity that everyday life and reality typically do not.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Singapore releases the robot hounds to enforce social distancing in parks:

Singapore is trialing robot dogs to enforce social distancing in its parks, to assist the national coronavirus-control effort.

As outlined by GovTech Singapore, the nation's digital advancement agency, the beast is a Boston Dynamics Spot device that's been programmed to roam a 3km stretch in the River Plains section of Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park during off-peak hours.

"A recorded message will be broadcast from SPOT to remind park visitors to observe safe distancing measures. SPOT will also be fitted with cameras – enabled with GovTech-developed video analytics – to estimate the number of visitors in parks," the agency says.

Govtech promises the cameras "will not be able to track and/or recognise specific individuals, and no personal data will be collected."

YouTube video.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Spacecraft with graphene sails powered by starlight and lasers:

Coin-sized pieces of graphene can be accelerated by firing low-powered lasers at them in micro-gravity conditions, say scientists. The technology could be a stepping stone to graphene solar sails, which could propel future spacecraft using starlight or a laser array.

The material was developed at SCALE Nanotech, a startup in Estonia and Germany, with the support of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The project, backed by the European Space Agency, is experimenting with graphene to develop prototype light sails.

"Light sailing is the only existing in-space propulsion technology that could allow us to visit other star systems in a human lifespan," the scientists stated in a paper, published in Acta Astronautica. "In order to best harness radiation pressure, light sails need to be highly reflective, lightweight and mechanically robust."

To make these sails, the team crafted an atomically thin 2D film punctured with tiny holes, and covered it with a layer of graphene. Next, they traveled to the ZARM drop tower, a laboratory at the University of Bremen, Germany, that uses a 146-metre steel tube to simulate micro-gravity conditions to test their graphene coins. When the material was dropped inside and floating effectively weightlessly, it was accelerated 1 m/s2 by zapping it with a 1W laser. The photons in the laser light exerted a pressure on the material causing it to move faster and faster.

[...] Santiago Cartamil-Bueno, coauthor of the paper and the leader of the GrapheneSail team at Scale Nanotech, believes "graphene is part of the solution" to developing practical light sails.

Journal Reference:
Rocco Gaudenzia, Davide Stefaniam, Santiago Jose Cartamil-Buenob. "Light-induced propulsion of graphene-on-grid sails in microgravity", Acta Astronautica (DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2020.03.030)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In a study recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr. Jade Powell and Dr. Bernhard Mueller from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) simulated three core-collapse supernovae using supercomputers from across Australia, including the OzSTAR supercomputer at Swinburne University of Technology. The simulation models—which are 39 times, 20 times and 18 times more massive than our

[..] Core-collapse supernovae are the explosive deaths of massive stars at the end of their lifetime. They are some of the most luminous objects in the universe and are the birthplace of black holes and neutron stars. The gravitational waves detected from these supernovae help scientists better understand the astrophysics of black holes and neutron stars.

[...] To detect a core-collapse supernova in gravitational waves, scientists need to predict what the gravitational wave signal will look like. They use supercomputers to simulate these cosmic explosions to understand their complicated physics. This allows them to predict what the detectors will see when a star explodes and its observable properties.

[...] OzGrav postdoctoral researcher Jade Powell says, "Our models are 39 times, 20 times and 18 times more massive than our sun. The 39-solar mass model is important because it's rotating very rapidly, and most previous long duration core-collapse supernova simulations do not include the effects of rotation."

The two most massive models produce energetic explosions powered by the neutrinos, but the smallest model did not explode. Stars that do not explode emit lower amplitude gravitational waves, but the frequency of their gravitational waves lies in the most sensitive range of gravitational wave detectors.

[...] The rapidly rotating model showed large gravitational-wave amplitudes that would make the exploding star detectable almost 6.5 million light years away by the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors, like the Einstein Telescope.

Journal Reference:
Jade Powell et al. "Three-dimensional core-collapse supernova simulations of massive and rotating progenitors", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2020). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1048

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for TurkeyWaddle:

Thunderbolt flaw lets hackers steal your data in 'five minutes':

Attackers can steal data from Thunderbolt-equipped PCs or Linux computers, even if the computer is locked and the data encrypted, according to security researcher Björn Ruytenberg (via Wired). Using a relatively simple technique called "Thunderspy," someone with physical access to your machine could nab your data in just five minutes with a screwdriver and "easily portable hardware," he wrote.

Thunderbolt offers extremely fast transfer speeds by giving devices direct access to your PC's memory, which also creates a number of vulnerabilities. Researchers previously thought those weaknesses (dubbed Thunderclap), could be mitigated by disallowing access to untrusted devices or disabling Thunderbolt altogether but allowing DisplayPort and USB-C access.

However, Ruytenberg's attack method could get around even those settings by changing the firmware that controls the Thunderbolt port, allowing any device to access it. What's more, the hack leaves no trace, so the user would never know their PC was altered.

[...] The attack only requires about $400 worth of gear, including an SPI programmer and $200 Thunderbolt peripheral. The whole thing could be built into a single small device. "Three-letter agencies would have no problem miniaturizing this," Ruytenberg said.

Intel recently created a Thunderbolt security system called Kernel Direct Memory Access Protection that would stop Ruytenberg's Thunderspy attack. However, that protection is only available on computers made in 2019 and later, so it's lacking in any models manufactured prior to that. In addition, many PCs manufactured in 2019 and later from Dell, HP and Lenovo aren't protected, either. This vulnerability might explain why Microsoft didn't include Thunderbolt in its Surface laptops.

Apple computers running macOS are unaffected by the vulnerability unless you're running Boot Camp, according to Ruytenberg.

Intel's official response appears in this blog post.

See Spycheck to test if your system is vulnerable.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues at the University of Maryland have developed a step-by-step recipe to produce the atomic-scale devices. Using these instructions, the NIST-led team has become only the second in the world to construct a single-atom transistor and the first to fabricate a series of single electron transistors with atom-scale control over the devices' geometry.

[...] Precise control over quantum tunneling is key because it enables the transistors to become "entangled" or interlinked in a way only possible through quantum mechanics and opens new possibilities for creating quantum bits (qubits) that could be used in quantum computing.

To fabricate single-atom and few-atom transistors, the team relied on a known technique in which a silicon chip is covered with a layer of hydrogen atoms, which readily bind to silicon. The fine tip of a scanning tunneling microscope then removed hydrogen atoms at selected sites. The remaining hydrogen acted as a barrier so that when the team directed phosphine gas (PH₃) at the silicon surface, individual PH₃ molecules attached only to the locations where the hydrogen had been removed (see animation). The researchers then heated the silicon surface. The heat ejected hydrogen atoms from the PH₃ and caused the phosphorus atom that was left behind to embed itself in the surface. With additional processing, bound phosphorous atoms created the foundation of a series of highly stable single- or few-atom devices that have the potential to serve as qubits.