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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Interesting side note to the SpaceX capsule recovery.

Boaters gatecrash SpaceX's 1st splashdown with astronauts. 'We need to do better,' NASA chief says.:

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida Sunday (Aug. 2), returning astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to Earth after their historic Demo-2 test flight. But shortly after that splashdown, private boats swarmed the space capsule, apparently hoping for a closer look.

"That was not what we were anticipating," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a post-splashdown briefing. "After they landed, the boats just came in. We need to do a better job next time for sure."

[...] Bridenstine said the U.S. Coast Guard did clear the landing zone ahead of the splashdown, and the landing itself had no issues. The SpaceX recovery ship Go Navigator recovered the capsule about 30 minutes after splashdown, but not before the private boats arrived.

"That capsule was in the water for a good amount of time and those boats just made a beeline for it," Bridenstine said. "There are things that we're going to look at, that we need to do better at, for sure."

SpaceX recovery crews in fast boats worked to push back the encroaching boaters. Still, the private boats could be seen in an arc around SpaceX's Go Navigator as the retrieval team plucked the capsule from the sea.

"The lesson learned here is that we probably need more Coast Guard assets,and maybe more SpaceX and NASA assets as well," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in the post-splashdown briefing. "This was a demonstration mission. This is the time that you go learn about these things, and we'll certainly be better prepared next time."

Previously:
(2020-08-02) Demo-2 Astronauts Safely Splashdown in Gulf of Mexico
(2020-08-01) More Quickly than Anyone Expected, NASA Embraces Reuse for Human Flights
(2020-05-30) Today WAS the Day -- Crew Demo 2 Launch Successful -- Heading to ISS [Updated]

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Rocket Lab will resume missions in August following launch failure:

Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle will resume ferrying satellites and other payloads to space this month. The FAA has given the company the go-ahead to launch Electron rockets again after figuring out why its 13th mission ended in failure. [...] The company launched an investigation with the FAA and managed to pinpoint the culprit: an anomalous electrical connection.

Apparently, one of the rocket's electrical connections was "intermittently secure through flight," increasing resistance and causing the component to heat up and expand. That, in turn, caused surrounding components to liquefy, which led to the electrical system's disconnection and ultimately to the engine's shutdown a few minutes into the second stage burn.

[...] Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement:

"The issue occurred under incredibly specific and unique circumstances, causing the connection to fail in a way that we wouldn't detect with standard testing. Our team has now reliably replicated the issue in test and identified that it can be mitigated through additional testing and procedures."

The next Electron launch doesn't have an exact date yet, but it will take off from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

Previously:
After a Second Stage Failure, Rocket Lab Loses Seven Satellites

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takyon writes:

SpaceX's Starship SN5 prototype conducted a successful 150-meter hop test on August 4:

The Starship SN5 prototype has successfully conducted a 150-meter test flight on Tuesday from SpaceX's Boca Chica test site in Texas. Monday's opening attempt was scrubbed after the Raptor SN27 engine aborted at ignition. Following an abort early in the window on Tuesday, the attempt late in the window saw SN5 take to the air and land in one piece. The hop was the first flight of a full-scale Starship tank section, clearing the way for SpaceX to attempt higher altitude flights with Starship prototypes.

[...] SpaceX had not performed a flight from their Boca Chica facility since Starhopper – a smaller-scale Starship test vehicle – hopped to 150 meters in August, 2019.

Starship SN5 features a thrust section with liquid oxygen and methane tanks stacked on top. A nose cone and aero surfaces are the only significant components missing between SN5 and a full-size Starship vehicle.

While SpaceX has not released the official height of SN5, it is estimated to be in the ballpark of 30 meters.

To perform the 150-meter hop, SN5 used Raptor SN27. While SN5's thrust section was built to support up to three Raptor engines in a triangle configuration, only one methane-fueled engine has been installed for the flight. This means that the thrust during the hop was asymmetric. The asymmetric thrust caused Starship SN5 to powerslide as it left the pad.

[...] Starship SN8 – the prototype which is currently under construction – is expected to feature three Raptor engines, a nose cone, and aero surfaces. These features would allow the vehicle to perform flight tests to much higher altitudes. However, plans are very fluid with Starship testing, so until SpaceX has had a chance to review the data from Starship SN5's hop, future testing activities remain very much in flux.

SpaceX video (1m). spaceXcentric video (2m39s). NASASpaceflight video (skips to 39:50).

Also at Teslarati, Ars Technica, and Space News.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

MMR Vaccine Could Protect Against the Worst Symptoms of COVID-19 :

"Administering the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine could serve as a preventive measure to dampen septic inflammation associated with COVID-19 infection

[...] The protection was mediated by long-lived myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) previously reported inhibiting septic inflammation and mortality in several experimental models.

[...] The milder symptoms seen in the 955 sailors on the U.S.S Roosevelt who tested positive for COVID-19 (only one hospitalization) may have been a consequence of the fact that the MMR vaccinations are given to all U.S. Navy recruits. In addition, epidemiological data suggest a correlation between people in geographical locations who routinely receive the MMR vaccine and reduced COVID-19 death rates. COVID-19 has not had a big impact on children, and the researchers hypothesize that one reason children are protected against viral infections that induce sepsis is their more recent and more frequent exposures to live attenuated vaccines that can also induce the trained suppressive MDSCs that limit inflammation and sepsis."

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[Editor's note: This is a follow-on to the story George Floyd Dead - Officers Fired and Charged - Discuss it Here that we ran on June 2, 2020. With 385 comments, it was the 5th-most-discussed story in the history of SoylentNews. All four of the officers involved were fired from the police force and are facing charges for the death.

New body-cam footage has come to light, exclusively on DailyMail.com. The two videos there fill in gaps from the previously-released footage.

In light of the interest when we first ran the story, the continuing "Black Lives Matter" protests, and the information this brings to light, I have decided to run this story.

NOTE: Each news organization has their own "take" on the killing. This coverage from DailyMail.com is no exception; read it with a heaping helping of the proverbial "grain of salt". It has been excerpted here without elision so as to not add any additional "spin".

WARNING: Please be aware the video content is disturbing; viewer discretion is advised. --martyb]

"MrPlow" writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1234

Police Bodycam Footage Shows George Floyd Arrest In Detail:

takyon writes:

Ammonium nitrate: what is the chemical blamed for blast in Lebanese capital?

The likely cause of the huge blast in Beirut on Tuesday appears to have been the highly reactive chemical ammonium nitrate.

Lebanon's prime minister, Hassan Diab, said 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded after lying unsecured in a warehouse for six years, tallying with reports that a ship carrying a similar quantity of the chemical had unloaded its cargo at the port in 2013. It remains unclear what caused the chemical to ignite.

Ammonium nitrate.

Beirut explosion: over half the city damaged in blast that killed at least 100 and wounded 4,000 – live updates

AFP is quoting the governor of Beirut, Marwan Abboud, as saying the damage from the port blast has extended over half of the city, with the cost of damage likely above $3bn.

He has also upped his previous estimate of the number of "homeless" to 300,000, which is close to the total population of the central part of the capital. Again, we are not sure if he is talking about homelessness or people whose homes have been damaged.

As Death Toll Rises After Deadly Blast, a Search for Answers and Survivors: Live Updates

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

As Death Toll Rises After Deadly Blast, a Search for Answers and Survivors: Live Updates:

• Search is on for survivors after blast kills more than 100.
• Some 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes. But amid the devastation, stories of heroism.
• The science behind the blast: Why fertilizer packs a punch.
• Even as hospitals were destroyed and staffers killed, doctors and nurses raced to help.
• I was bloodied and dazed. Beirut strangers treated me like a friend.
• In maps: A two-mile radius around the blast was flattened.
• Beirut's landmark downtown is in shambles. Again.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Twitter faces FTC probe, likely fine over use of phone numbers for ads:

Twitter is facing a Federal Trade Commission probe and believes it will likely owe a fine of up to $250 million after being caught using phone numbers intended for two-factor authentication for advertising purposes.

The company received a draft complaint from the FTC on July 28, it disclosed in its regular quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange commission. The complaint alleges that Twitter is in violation of its 2011 settlement with the FTC over the company's "failure to safeguard personal information."

[...] In October 2019, however, Twitter admitted that phone numbers and email addresses users provided it with for the purpose of securing their accounts were also used "inadvertently" for advertising purposes between 2013 and 2019.

In the filing, Twitter estimates the "range of probable loss" it faces in the probe is between $150 million and $250 million, although it adds that "the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome."

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Beware of find-my-phone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, NSA tells mobile users:

The National Security Agency is recommending that some government workers and people generally concerned about privacy turn off find-my-phone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth whenever those services are not needed, as well as limit location data usage by apps.

"Location data can be extremely valuable and must be protected," an advisory published on Tuesday stated. "It can reveal details about the number of users in a location, user and supply movements, daily routines (user and organizational), and can expose otherwise unknown associations between users and locations."

NSA officials acknowledged that geolocation functions are enabled by design and are essential to mobile communications. The officials also admit that the recommended safeguards are impractical for most users. Mapping, location tracking of lost or stolen phones, automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks, and fitness trackers and apps are just a few of the things that require fine-grained locations to work at all.

But these features come at a cost. Adversaries may be able to tap into location data that app developers, advertising services, and other third parties receive from apps and then store in massive databases. Adversaries may also subscribe to services such as those offered by Securus and LocationSmart, two services that The New York Times and KrebsOnSecurity documented, respectively. Both companies either tracked or sold locations of customers collected by the cell towers of major cellular carriers.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

NetWalker Ransomware Rakes in $29M Since March:

The NetWalker ransomware has been around for about a year, but it has really made a name for itself in 2020, racking up around $29 million in extortion gains just since March.

First detected in August 2019, NetWalker lingered around before surging in use in March through June, according to an analysis from McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR). The uptick coincided with the implementation of a robust ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, which has been attracting technically advanced criminal affiliates.

"NetWalker RaaS prioritizes quality over quantity and is looking for people who are Russian-speaking and have experience with large networks," the firm noted, in an analysis published Monday. "People who already have a foothold in a potential victim's network and can exfiltrate data with ease are especially sought after. This is not surprising, considering that publishing a victims' data is part of NetWalker's model."

This is reflected in some of the strikes attributed to the NetWalker malware, which are mainly targeted at large organizations in Europe and North America. These have included hits for transportation giant Toll Group, the University of California San Francisco and, most recently, French smart-battery company Forsee. Also, a recent FBI Alert warned that NetWalker ransomware attackers are now targeting U.S. and foreign government organizations.

[...] The actors also moved away from using legacy Bitcoin addresses to SegWit addresses.

"The benefits of using the newer SegWit addresses include faster transaction time and lower transaction cost," according to researchers. "The NetWalker advertisement on the underground forum mentions instant and fully automatic payments around the time of this observed change. This makes us believe the ransomware actors were professionalizing their operation just before expanding to the ransomware-as-a-service model."

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martyb writes:

The Problem with Microwaving Tea:

Typically, when a liquid is being warmed, the heating source — a stove, for example — heats the container from below. By a process called convection, as the liquid toward the bottom of the container warms up, it becomes less dense and moves to the top, allowing a cooler section of the liquid to contact the source. This ultimately results in a uniform temperature throughout the glass.

Inside a microwave, however, the electric field acting as the heating source exists everywhere. Because the entire glass itself is also warming up, the convection process does not occur, and the liquid at the top of the container ends up being much hotter than the liquid at the bottom.

A team of researchers from the University of Electronic Science & Technology of China studied this nonuniform heating behavior and presents a solution to this common problem in the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing.

By designing a silver plating to go along the rim of a glass, the group was able to shield the effects of the microwave at the surface of the liquid. The silver acts as a guide for the waves, reducing the electric field at the top and effectively blocking the heating. This creates a convection process similar to traditional approaches, resulting in a more uniform temperature.

Placing silver in the microwave may seem like a dangerous idea, but similar metal structures with finely tuned geometry to avoid ignition have already been safely used for microwave steam pots and rice cookers.

Journal Reference:
Peiyang Zhao, Weiwei Gan, Chuanqi Feng, et al. Multiphysics analysis for unusual heat convection in microwave heating liquid [open], AIP Advances (DOI: 10.1063/5.0013295)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Scientists propose a novel method for controlling fusion reactions:

Scientists have found a novel way to prevent pesky magnetic bubbles in plasma from interfering with fusion reactions -- delivering a potential way to improve the performance of fusion energy devices. And it comes from managing radio frequency (RF) waves to stabilize the magnetic bubbles, which can expand and create disruptions that can limit the performance of ITER, the international facility under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power.

[...] The new model predicts that depositing the [radio frequency] rays in pulses rather than steady state streams can overcome the leakage problem, said Suying Jin, a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics based at PPPL and lead author of a paper that describes the method in Physics of Plasmas. "Pulsing also can achieve increased stabilization in high-damping cases for the same average power," she said.

For this process to work, "the pulsing must be done at a rate that is neither too fast nor too slow," she said. "This sweet spot should be consistent with the rate that heat dissipates from the island through diffusion."

The new model draws upon past work by Jin's co-authors and advisors Allan Reiman, a Distinguished Research Fellow at PPPL, and Professor Nat Fisch, director of the Program in Plasma Physics at Princeton University and associate director for academic affairs at PPPL.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

The six strains of SARS-CoV-2:

"The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is presumably already optimized to affect human beings, and this explains its low evolutionary change," explains Federico Giorgi, a researcher at Unibo and coordinator of the study. "This means that the treatments we are developing, including a vaccine, might be effective against all the virus strains."

Currently, there are six strains of coronavirus. The original one is the L strain, that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019. Its first mutation—the S strain—appeared at the beginning of 2020, while, since mid-January 2020, we have had strains V and G. To date strain G is the most widespread: it mutated into strains GR and GH at the end of February 2020.

Globally, strains G, GH and GR are constantly increasing. Strain S can be found in some restricted areas in the U.S. and Spain. The L and V strains are gradually disappearing.

Journal Reference:
Mercatelli, Daniele, Giorgi, Federico M.. Geographic and Genomic Distribution of SARS-CoV-2 Mutations, Frontiers in Microbiology (DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01800)

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Who Gets a Vaccine First? U.S. Considers Race in Coronavirus Plans:

Federal health officials are already trying to decide who will get the first doses of any effective coronavirus vaccines, which could be on the market this winter but could require many additional months to become widely available to Americans.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an advisory committee of outside health experts in April began working on a ranking system for what may be an extended rollout in the United States. According to a preliminary plan, any approved vaccines would be offered to vital medical and national security officials first, and then to other essential workers and those considered at high risk — the elderly instead of children, people with underlying conditions instead of the relatively healthy.

Agency officials and the advisers are also considering what has become a contentious option: putting Black and Latino people, who have disproportionately fallen victim to Covid-19, ahead of others in the population.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Decline of bees, other pollinators threatens US crop yields: Largest study of its kind highlights risk to global food security:

Most of the world's crops depend on honeybees and wild bees for pollination, so declines in both managed and wild bee populations raise concerns about food security, notes the study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

"We found that many crops are pollination-limited, meaning crop production would be higher if crop flowers received more pollination. We also found that honey bees and wild bees provided similar amounts of pollination overall," said senior author Rachael Winfree, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "Managing habitat for native bee species and/or stocking more honey bees would boost pollination levels and could increase crop production."

Pollination by wild and managed insects is critical for most crops, including those providing essential micronutrients, and is essential for food security, the study notes. In the U.S., the production of crops that depend on pollinators generates more than $50 billion a year. According to recent evidence, European honey bees (Apis mellifera) and some native wild bee species are in decline.

Journal Reference:
Crop production in the USA is frequently limited by a lack of pollinators, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0922)

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-vaccine/russia-preparing-mass-vaccination-against-coronavirus-for-october-idUSKBN24X3KO

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's health minister is preparing a mass vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus for October, local news agencies reported on Saturday, after a vaccine completed clinical trials.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the Gamaleya Institute, a state research facility in Moscow, had completed clinical trials of the vaccine and paperwork is being prepared to register it, Interfax news agency reported.

He said doctors and teachers would be the first to be vaccinated.

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