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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Hydrogel mimics human brain with memorizing and forgetting ability:

Hokkaido University researchers have found a soft and wet material that can memorize, retrieve, and forget information, much like the human brain. They report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The human brain learns things, but tends to forget them when the information is no longer important. Recreating this dynamic memory process in manmade materials has been a challenge. Hokkaido University researchers now report a hydrogel that mimics the dynamic memory function of the brain: encoding information that fades with time depending on the memory intensity.

Hydrogels are flexible materials composed of a large percentage of water—in this case about 45%—along with other chemicals that provide a scaffold-like structure to contain the water. Professor Jian Ping Gong, Assistant Professor Kunpeng Cui and their students and colleagues in Hokkaido University's Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD) are seeking to develop hydrogels that can serve biological functions.

"Hydrogels are excellent candidates to mimic biological functions because they are soft and wet like human tissues," says Gong. "We are excited to demonstrate how hydrogels can mimic some of the memory functions of brain tissue."

Journal Reference:
Chengtao Yu, Honglei Guo, Kunpeng Cui, et al. Hydrogels as dynamic memory with forgetting ability [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2006842117)

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driverless writes:

New Zealand has just become the first country to publish an algorithm charter regulating the use of algorithms and data by government agencies:

The Algorithm charter for Aotearoa New Zealand demonstrates a commitment to ensuring New Zealanders have confidence in how government agencies use algorithms. The charter is one of many ways that government demonstrates transparency and accountability in the use of data.

To quote the Minister for Statistics:

"Using algorithms to analyse data and inform decisions does not come without its risks," he said. "It is important, therefore, that people have confidence that these algorithms are being used in a fair, ethical, and transparent way. And that's what this Charter is all about."

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Reuters: Rite Aid monitored customers using facial recognition cameras

Over about eight years, the American drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp quietly added facial recognition systems to 200 stores across the United States, in one of the largest rollouts of such technology among retailers in the country, a Reuters investigation found.

In the hearts of New York and metro Los Angeles, Rite Aid deployed the technology in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods, according to a Reuters analysis. And for more than a year, the retailer used state-of-the-art facial recognition technology from a company with links to China and its authoritarian government.

In telephone and email exchanges with Reuters since February, Rite Aid confirmed the existence and breadth of its facial recognition program. The retailer defended the technology's use, saying it had nothing to do with race and was intended to deter theft and protect staff and customers from violence. Reuters found no evidence that Rite Aid's data was sent to China.

Last week, however, after Reuters sent its findings to the retailer, Rite Aid said it had quit using its facial recognition software. It later said all the cameras had been turned off.

It's a very long article:

Reuters pieced together how the company's initiative evolved, how the software has been used and how a recent vendor was linked to China, drawing on thousands of pages of internal documents from Rite Aid and its suppliers, as well as direct observations during store visits by Reuters journalists and interviews with more than 40 people familiar with the systems' deployment.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Scientists identify a cat in the UK infected with SARS-CoV-2:

A team of scientists at the University of Glasgow has identified a cat in the UK that was infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Researchers from the MRC-University of Glasgow Center for Virus Research (CVR) in partnership with the Veterinary Diagnostic Service (VDS) of the University's School of Veterinary Medicine made the discovery as part of their joint research program in which they have screened hundreds of samples for COVID-19 infections in the feline population in the UK.

[...] Professor William Weir of the University of Glasgow's School of Veterinary Medicine said: "The factors that govern why one species is susceptible to the COVID-19 virus while others are more resistant are currently unknown, but will likely reveal more about how this virus spreads and causes disease. At present, there is no evidence that cats, dogs or other domestic animals play any role in the epidemiology of human infections with SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, the significance of SARS-CoV-2 as a feline or canine pathogen is unknown as cats and dogs with reported infections usually recover and there has been no evidence of transmission occurring between cats or dogs in the field."

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Dead star emits never-before seen mix of radiation:

A global collaboration of telescopes including ESA's Integral high-energy space observatory has detected a unique mix of radiation bursting from a dead star in our galaxy — something that has never been seen before in this type of star, and may solve a long-standing cosmic mystery.

The finding involves two kinds of interesting cosmic phenomena: magnetars and Fast Radio Bursts. Magnetars are stellar remnants with some of the most intense magnetic fields in the Universe. When they become 'active', they can produce short bursts of high-energy radiation that typically last for not even a second but are billions of times more luminous than the Sun.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

UK/US Governments Warn of QNAP NAS Malware:

The UK and US governments have issued another joint cybersecurity alert, this time warning organizations about a strain of malware targeting network attached storage (NAS) devices from QNAP.

As of mid-June, the QSnatch malware (aka "Derek") had infected 62,000 devices worldwide, including 3900 in the UK and 7600 in the US, according to the notice from GCHQ's National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

This is the result of two campaigns, one running from 2014 to mid-2017 and the other starting in late 2018.

[...] QSnatch apparently features a credential scraper, SSH backdoor, CGI password logger, webshell functionality and the ability to exfiltrate a predetermined list of files, including system configs and log files.

It is said to achieve persistence by modifying the system host's file to redirect domain names to out-of-date versions in order to prevent updates from installing on the NAS device itself.

The NCSC/CISA urged administrators to follow the guidance issued by QNAP last November.

[...] "Organizations that are still running a vulnerable version must run a full factory reset on the device prior to completing the firmware upgrade to ensure the device is not left vulnerable."

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Virgin Galactic shows off passenger spaceship cabin interior:

Highly detailed amenities to enhance the customer flight experience were shown in an online event revealing the cabin of the company's rocket plane, a type called SpaceShipTwo, which is undergoing testing in preparation for commercial service.

There are a dozen windows for viewing, seats that will be customized for each flight's six passengers and capable of adjusting for G forces, and, naturally, mood lighting.

Yet designer Jeremy Brown said the passengers' most lasting impression may come from a large mirror at the rear of the cabin.

"We think that there's a real memory burn that customers are going to have when they see that analog reflection of themselves in the back of the cabin, seeing themselves floating freely in space ... that very personal interaction that they'll have with the experience," he said.

[...] The passengers, clad in space suits designed by the Under Armour company, will be able to leave their seats and float about the cabin, using handholds tested by chief astronaut trainer Beth Moses during Virgin Galactic's second flight into space last year.

The test was aimed at helping finalize the design and at learning how to train passenger astronauts for what they will experience as they become weightless and reach the top of the flight profile, known as its apogee, before the descent begins.

Moses said she tested different ways of getting in and out of the seats, moved around the cabin and waved at the mirror, concluding that it was not disorienting.

"I also purposely went to a point in the cabin to most dramatically try to enjoy apogee and a view of Earth from the stillness of space," she said.

[...] The company has yet to set a date for flights with paying passengers.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Scientists Start Assembling the World's Largest Nuclear Fusion Experiment:

Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the Sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth.

The groundbreaking multinational experiment, known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), has seen components arrive in the tiny commune of Saint-Paul-les-Durance from production sites worldwide in recent months.

They will now be painstakingly put together to complete what is described by ITER as the "world's largest puzzle".

The experimental plant's goal is to demonstrate that fusion power can be generated sustainably, and safely, on a commercial scale, with initial experiments set to begin in December 2025.

[...] Some 2,300 people are at work on site to put the massive machine together.

"Constructing the machine piece by piece will be like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle on an intricate timeline," said ITER's director general Bernard Bigot.

"Every aspect of project management, systems engineering, risk management and logistics of the machine assembly must perform together with the precision of a Swiss watch," he said, adding: "We have a complicated script to follow over the next few years."

[...] It could reach full power by 2035, but as an experimental project, it is not designed to produce electricity.

If the technology proves feasible, future fusion reactors would be capable of powering two million homes each at an operational cost comparable to those of conventional nuclear reactors, Bigot said.

[...] The ITER project is running five years behind schedule and has seen its initial budget triple to some 20 billion euros (US$23.4 billion).

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

New approach refines the Hubble's constant and age of universe:

Using known distances of 50 galaxies from Earth to refine calculations in Hubble's constant, a research team led by a University of Oregon astronomer estimates the age of the universe at 12.6 billion years.

Approaches to date the Big Bang, which gave birth to the universe, rely on mathematics and computational modeling, using distance estimates of the oldest stars, the behavior of galaxies and the rate of the universe's expansion. The idea is to compute how long it would take all objects to return to the beginning.

A key calculation for dating is the Hubble's constant, named after Edwin Hubble who first calculated the universe's expansion rate in 1929. Another recent technique uses observations of leftover radiation from the Big Bang. It maps bumps and wiggles in spacetime—the cosmic microwave background, or CMB—and reflects conditions in the early universe as set by Hubble's constant.

However, the methods reach different conclusions, said James Schombert, a professor of physics at the UO. In a paper published July 17 in the Astronomical Journal, he and colleagues unveil a new approach that recalibrates a distance-measuring tool known as the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation independently of Hubble's constant.

"The distance scale problem, as it is known, is incredibly difficult because the distances to galaxies are vast and the signposts for their distances are faint and hard to calibrate," Schombert said.

[...] The new study, based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, adds a new element to how calculations to reach Hubble's constant can be set, by introducing a purely empirical method, using direct observations, to determine the distance to galaxies, Schombert said.

"Our resulting value is on the high side of the different schools of cosmology, signaling that our understanding of the physics of the universe is incomplete with the hope of new physics in the future," he said.

Journal Reference:
James Schombert et al, Using the Baryonic Tully–Fisher Relation to Measure H o - IOPscience, The Astronomical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab9d88)

Previously:
New Distance Measurements Bolster Challenge to Basic Model of Universe

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

ZDNet

Intel is revamping its technology leadership in a bid to turnaround its manufacturing unit after announcing delays in its 7nm processes.

Last week, Intel said on its second quarter earnings report that its 7nm products would be delayed. Rival AMD is already on 7nm as is TSMC. Since Intel's earnings report and market cap hit, analysts have been speculating that the chip giant may leave manufacturing.

In other words, Intel needed to revamp its technology organization. Under Monday's reorg, Dr. Ann Kelleher will lead technology development. She had led Intel manufacturing. Kelleher will focus on developing 7nm and 5nm processes. Murthy Renduchintala, Intel's chief engineering officer, will depart Aug. 3.

Intel is also separating its Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group unit into teams focused on technology development, manufacturing and operations, design engineering, architecture, software and graphics and supply chain.

Safe to say Intel will be best positioned to fire 3 executives at the next slippage - I guess that may make the stock rebound faster than firing a single one.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Science identifies the ancient enzyme in bacteria that makes humans' body odor so pungent:

Researchers have zeroed in on the source of our stink.

The same team that identified the handful of bacteria responsible for human body odor has now gone a step further and pinpointed the enzyme operating within those organisms. It's a cysteine-thiol lyase (C-T lyase) enzyme within bacteria like Staphylococcus hominis that makes the actual smelly molecules, which have inspired an entire industry of deodorants to contain them.

"This is a key advancement in understanding how body odour works, and will enable the development of targeted inhibitors that stop BO production at source without disrupting the armpit microbiome," said University of York researcher Dr. Michelle Rudden, in a release.

[...] "This research was a real eye-opener," said Unilever co-author Dr. Gordon James. "It was fascinating to discover that a key odor-forming enzyme exists in only a select few armpit bacteria and evolved there tens of millions of years ago."

Journal Reference:
Michelle Rudden, Reyme Herman, Matthew Rose, et al. The molecular basis of thioalcohol production in human body odour [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-68860-z)

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/google-will-keep-200000-workers-home-through-next-summer/

Google will keep "nearly all" of its workforce—around 200,000 employees and contractors—working from home for another year, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly made the decision last week.

The long timeline gives more certainty for Googlers who are making school and housing decisions for the coming academic year. Previously Google workers were due back in the office in January.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

U.S. agency: Pandemic masks thwarting face recognition tech:

Having a tough time recognizing your neighbors behind their pandemic masks? Computers are finding it more difficult, too.

A preliminary study published by a U.S. agency on Monday found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces.

The mask problem is why Apple earlier this year made it easier for iPhone owners to unlock their phones without Face ID. It could also be thwarting attempts by authorities to identify individual people at Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology says it is launching an investigation to better understand how facial recognition performs on covered faces. Its preliminary study examined only those algorithms created before the pandemic, but its next step is to look at how accuracy could improve as commercial providers adapt their technology to an era when so many people are wearing masks.

Some companies, including those that work with law enforcement, have tried to tailor their face-scanning algorithms to focus on people's eyes and eyebrows.

NIST, which is a part of the Commerce Department, is working with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security's science office to study the problem.

Aww, I feel so bad for the little guy! Perhaps we can help out by training up a neural net to correlate masked and unmasked photos.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Despite debate, even the world's oldest trees are not immortal:

The oldest trees on Earth have stood for nearly five millennia, and researchers have long wondered to what extent these ancient organisms undergo senescence, physically deteriorating as they age. A recent paper studying ginkgoes, one of the world's longest-lived trees, even found that they may be able to "escape senescence at the whole-plant level," raising questions about the apparent lack of aging in centuries-old trees. However, in a Forum publishing July 27 in the journal Trends in Plant Science, plant biologist Sergi Munné-Bosch argues that although signs of senescence in long-lived trees may be almost imperceptible to people, this does not mean that they're immortal.

[...] Despite trees' well-evolved methods of prolonging the aging process, research has shown that they still undergo physiological stress associated with senescence. "They have limits," says Munné-Bosch. "There are physical and mechanical constraints that limit their ability to live indefinitely."

However, due to the difficulty of conducting research on trees with such long lifespans, little is known about what the process of senescence looks like. Simply finding enough millennial trees to study can be challenging. "When a species of tree can live for five millennia, it's very difficult to find even two trees that are between two and five millennia," says Munné-Bosch. For these long-lived trees, dying of senescence is a possibility, but the probability of dying from other causes is significantly higher. "They don't have to worry about senescence because they have other things that worry them more," he says.

Journal Reference:
Li Wang, Jiawen Cui, Biao Jin, et al. Multifeature analyses of vascular cambial cells reveal longevity mechanisms in old Ginkgo biloba trees [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1916548117)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Testing Chernobyl fungi as a radiation shield for astronauts:

[...] In this new effort, the researchers have built on research that showed some kinds of fungus are able to flourish in a very highly radioactive place here on Earth—inside the destroyed reactors at the Chernobyl site in Ukraine. Testing of several types of the fungus has showed that they not only survive in the former reactors, but actually flourish. They have the ability to absorb radiation and to convert it into energy for their own use. [...T]he researchers arranged with NASA to send a sample of one of the types of fungus found at Chernobyl—cladosporium sphaerospermum—to the International Space Station.

Once the fungus sample arrived at the ISS, astronauts monitored the petri dish set up by the researchers. One side of the petri dish was coated with the fungus; the other side had no fungus and served as a control. [...] The researchers found that the side of the petri dish that was covered with fungus reduced radiation levels coming through the dish by approximately 2% compared to the control side.

Journal Reference:
Graham K. Shunk, Xavier R. Gomez, Nils J. H. Averesch. A Self-Replicating Radiation-Shield for Human Deep-Space Exploration: Radiotrophic Fungi can Attenuate Ionizing Radiation aboard the International Space Station, bioRxiv (DOI: 10.1101/2020.07.16.205534)

Original Submission