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Phoenix666 writes:

WTF, when will scientists learn to use fewer acronyms?:

Have you heard of DNA? It stands for Do Not Abbreviate apparently. Jokes aside, it's the most widely used acronym in scientific literature in the past 70 years, appearing more than 2.4 million times.

The short form of deoxyribonucleic acid is widely understood, but there are millions more acronyms (like WTF: water-soluble thiourea-formaldehyde) that are making science less useful and more complex for society, according to a new paper released by Australian researchers.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Professor Adrian Barnett and Dr. Zoe Doubleday from the University of South Australia (UniSA) have analyzed 24 million scientific article titles and 18 million abstracts between 1950 and 2019, looking for trends in acronym use.

[...] "For example, the acronym UA has 18 different meanings in medicine, and six of the 20 most widely used acronyms have multiple common meanings in health and medical literature," according to Dr. Zoe Doubleday.

Journal Reference:
Adrian Barnett, Zoe Doubleday. Meta-Research: The growth of acronyms in the scientific literature, (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.60080)

Are scientific papers meant to communicate to a lay audience, or to other scientists?

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takyon writes:

Samsung Announces "X-Cube" 3D TSV SRAM-Logic Die Stacking Technology

Yesterday, Samsung Electronics had announced a new 3D IC packaging technology called eXtended-Cube, or "X-Cube", allowing chip-stacking of SRAM dies on top of a base logic die through TSVs.

Current TSV deployments in the industry mostly come in the form of stacking memory dies on top of a memory controller die in high-bandwidth-memory (HBM) modules that are then integrated with more complex packaging technologies, such as silicon interposers, which we see in today's high-end GPUs and FPGAs, or through other complex packaging such as Intel's EMIB.

Samsung's X-Cube is quite different to these existing technologies in that it does away with intermediary interposers or silicon bridges, and directly connects a stacked chip on top of the primary logic die of a design.

Samsung has built a 7nm EUV test chip using this methodology by integrating an SRAM die on top of a logic die. The logic die is designed with TSV pillars which then connect to µ-bumps with only 30µm pitch, allowing the SRAM-die to be directly connected to the main die without intermediary mediums. The company this is the industry's first such design with an advanced process node technology.

[...] Stacking more valuable SRAM instead of DRAM on top of the logic chip would likely represent a higher value proposition and return-on-investment to chip designers, as this would allow smaller die footprints for the base logic dies, with larger SRAM cache structures being able to reside on the stacked die. Such a large SRAM die would naturally also allow for significantly more SRAM that would allow for higher performance and lower power usage for a chip.

3D SRAM is not a new idea, but this kind of stacking could become commonplace in CPUs within a few years. SRAM takes up a large amount of CPU die area, so stacking it into layers above or near cores could be beneficial.

Also at The Register and Guru3D.

Related: Intel Details Lakefield CPU SoC With 3D Packaging and Big/Small Core Configuration
AMD Plans to Stack DRAM and SRAM on Top of its Future Processors

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Report: Facebook Quietly Abandoned Drilling Gear Off the Oregon Coast:

Facebook has boldly face-planted right into one of the few remaining types of fuckups it hasn't before: quietly abandoning a pile of drilling equipment under the ocean.

Per The Oregonian, Facebook subsidiary Edge Cable Holdings was in the middle of drilling to place a trans-oceanic fiber optic cable off the coast of Tierra Del Mar, Oregon when a drill bit became stuck on April 28, 2020, rupturing a pipe approximately 50 feet below the seafloor. The company moved on, but "about 1,100 feet of pipe, a drill tip, various other tools, and 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid" did not. Edge notified county officials of the accident on May 5, Department of State Lands spokeswoman Ali Hansen told the Oregonian, but declined to mention it had left large amounts of equipment on the seafloor until it told state officials on July 17.

Hansen told The Oregonian that Edge's delay in informing state officials "eliminated any potential options for recovery of the equipment," while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the newspaper that Edge plans to just construct a separate pipe in 2021 without cleaning up after itself. Hansen's department has notified Edge it is violating permits by continuing to "store" its equipment onsite, the paper reported, as well as notified Facebook it had 30 days to pay damages, 180 days to remove their junk or get a new permit, and must accept any liability for the incident.

[...] Facebook disputed these accounts, saying the state had been notified earlier and adding that Edge had determined its sea trash wouldn't harm the environment.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

YouTube bans videos containing hacked information that could interfere with the election:

As Democrats and Republicans prepare to hold their national conventions starting next week, YouTube on Thursday announced updates to its policies on deceptive videos and other content designed to interfere with the election.

The world's largest video platform, with more than 2 billion users a month, will ban videos containing information that was obtained through hacking and could meddle with elections or censuses. That would include material like hacked campaign emails with details about a candidate. The update follows the announcement of a similar rule that Google, which owns YouTube, unveiled earlier this month banning ads that contain hacked information. Google will start enforcing that policy Sept. 1.

YouTube also said it will take down videos that encourage people to interfere with voting and other democratic processes. For example, videos telling people to create long lines at polling places in order to stifle the vote won't be allowed.

[...] YouTube has also tried to secure its platform from foreign actors. Last week, the company said it banned almost 2,600 channels linked to China as part of investigations into "coordinated influence operations" on the site. YouTube also took down dozens of channels linked to Russia and Iran that had apparent ties to influence campaigns.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Fortnite maker sues Apple after removal of game from App Store:

Apple Inc on Thursday removed popular video game "Fortnite" from its App Store for violating the company's in-app payment guidelines, prompting developer Epic Games to file a federal lawsuit challenging the iPhone maker's rules.

Apple cited a direct payment feature rolled out on the Fortnite app earlier on Thursday as the violation.

Epic sued in U.S. court seeking no money from Apple but rather an injunction that would end many of the company's practices related to the App Store, which is the only way to distribute native software onto most iPhones.

[...] Apple takes a cut of between 15% and 30% for most app subscriptions and payments made inside apps, though there are some exceptions for companies that already have a credit card on file for iPhone customers if they also offer an in-app payment that would benefit Apple. Analysts believe games are the biggest contributor to spending inside the App Store, which is in turn the largest component of Apple's $46.3 billion-per-year services segment.

In a statement, Apple said Fortnite had been removed because Epic had launched the payment feature with the "express intent of violating the App Store guidelines" after having had apps in the store for a decade.

"The fact that their (Epic) business interests now lead them to push for a special arrangement does not change the fact that these guidelines create a level playing field for all developers and make the store safe for all users," Apple said in a statement.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for carny:

NSA, FBI Warn of Linux Malware Used in Espionage Attacks:

A never before seen malware has been used for espionage purposes via Linux systems, warn the NSA and FBI in a joint advisory.

The U.S. government is warning of new malware, dubbed Drovorub, that targets Linux systems. It also claims the malware was developed for a Russian military unit in order to carry out cyber-espionage operations.

The malware, Drovorub, comes with a multitude of espionage capabilities, including stealing files and remotely controlling victims' computers. The malware is sophisticated and is designed for stealth, leveraging advanced "rootkit" technologies that make detection difficult. According to a Thursday advisory by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the malware especially represents a threat to national security systems such as the Department of Defense and Defense Industrial Base customers that use Linux systems.

"Drovorub is a Linux malware toolset consisting of an implant coupled with a kernel module rootkit, a file transfer and port forwarding tool, and a Command and Control (C2) server," according to a 45-page deep-dive analysis of the malware published Thursday [PDF] by the FBI and NSA. "When deployed on a victim machine, the Drovorub implant (client) provides the capability for direct communications with actor controlled C2 infrastructure; file download and upload capabilities; execution of arbitrary commands as 'root'; and port forwarding of network traffic to other hosts on the network."

Despite the in-depth report, the FBI and NSA did not detail how the initial attack vector for the malware occurs. The report also does not specify how long the malware has been in action, or how many companies may have been targeted – and whether any attacks have been successful. Authorities didn't say specify[sic] that the malware initially infects victims either. It did say the threat actor behind the malware uses a "wide variety of proprietary and publicly known techniques to target networks and to persist their malware on commercial devices."

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

OpenAI's new language generator GPT-3 is shockingly good (archive):

GPT-3 is the most powerful language model ever. Its predecessor, GPT-2, released last year, was already able to spit out convincing streams of text in a range of different styles when prompted with an opening sentence. But GPT-3 is a big leap forward. The model has 175 billion parameters (the values that a neural network tries to optimize during training), compared with GPT-2's already vast 1.5 billion. And with language models, size really does matter.

Sabeti linked to a blog post where he showed off short stories, songs, press releases, technical manuals, and more that he had used the AI to generate. GPT-3 can also produce pastiches of particular writers. Mario Klingemann, an artist who works with machine learning, shared a short story called "The importance of being on Twitter," written in the style of Jerome K. Jerome, which starts: "It is a curious fact that the last remaining form of social life in which the people of London are still interested is Twitter. I was struck with this curious fact when I went on one of my periodical holidays to the sea-side, and found the whole place twittering like a starling-cage." Klingemann says all he gave the AI was the title, the author's name and the initial "It." There is even a reasonably informative article about GPT-3 written entirely by GPT-3.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Big Dogs Face More Joint Problems if Neutered Early:

It's standard practice in the U.S. and much of Europe to neuter dogs by 6 months of age. This study, which analyzed 15 years of data from thousands of dogs at UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, suggests dog owners should consider their options carefully.

"Most dogs are mixed breeds," said lead author Benjamin Hart, distinguished professor emeritus at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

[...] Researchers examined common joint disorders including hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia and cranial cruciate ligament tears, a knee injury, in five weight categories.

[...] The risk of joint disorders for heavier dogs can be up to a few times higher compared to dogs left intact. This was true for large mixed-breed dogs. For example, for female dogs over 43 pounds, the risk jumped from 4 percent for intact dogs to 10-12 percent if spayed before a year of age.

"The study raises unique challenges," noted co-author Lynette Hart, professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "People like to adopt puppies from shelters, but with mixed breeds it may be difficult to determine just how big the dog will become if you don't know anything about the dog's parents."

Neutering prior to adoption is a common requirement or policy of humane societies, animal shelters and breeders. [...] Shelters, breeders and humane societies should consider adopting a standard of neutering at over a year of age for dogs that will grow into large sizes.

Journal Reference:
Hart, Benjamin L., Hart, Lynette A., Thigpen, Abigail P., et al. Assisting Decision-Making on Age of Neutering for Mixed Breed Dogs of Five Weight Categories: Associated Joint Disorders and Cancers, Frontiers in Veterinary Science (DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00472)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

UChicago scientists discover way to make quantum states last 10,000 times longer:

A team of scientists at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering announced the discovery of a simple modification that allows quantum systems to stay operational—or "coherent"—10,000 times longer than before.

[...] Quantum states need an extremely quiet, stable space to operate, as they are easily disturbed by background noise coming from vibrations, temperature changes or stray electromagnetic fields.

Thus, scientists try to find ways to keep the system coherent as long as possible. One common approach is physically isolating the system from the noisy surroundings, but this can be unwieldy and complex. Another technique involves making all of the materials as pure as possible, which can be costly. The scientists at UChicago took a different tack.

[...] In tandem with the usual electromagnetic pulses used to control quantum systems, the team applied an additional continuous alternating magnetic field. By precisely tuning this field, the scientists could rapidly rotate the electron spins and allow the system to "tune out" the rest of the noise.

"To get a sense of the principle, it's like sitting on a merry-go-round with people yelling all around you," Miao explained. "When the ride is still, you can hear them perfectly, but if you're rapidly spinning, the noise blurs into a background."

This small change allowed the system to stay coherent up to 22 milliseconds, four orders of magnitude higher than without the modification—and far longer than any previously reported electron spin system. [...] The system is able to almost completely tune out some forms of temperature fluctuations, physical vibrations, and electromagnetic noise, all of which usually destroy quantum coherence.

Journal Reference:
Kevin C. Miao, Joseph P. Blanton, Christopher P. Anderson, et al. Universal coherence protection in a solid-state spin qubit [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abc5186)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

"Reelin" in a new treatment for multiple sclerosis:

In an animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS), decreasing the amount of a protein made in the liver significantly protected against development of the disease's characteristic symptoms and promoted recovery in symptomatic animals, UTSW scientists report.

[...] In 1997, researchers discovered a protein secreted in the brain called Reelin. Subsequent work showed that Reelin appears to help the brain organize itself during development and assist in forming connections between brain cells during adulthood. However, as researchers learned more about Reelin, they discovered that large amounts of it are produced in the liver and that cells lining blood vessels have receptors for this protein.

[...] Herz, Calvier, and their colleagues worked with mice affected by a disease called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a condition that mimics human MS. When these animals were genetically modified so that the researchers could control Reelin production, they found that eliminating this protein substantially mitigated the disease's typical paralysis or even eliminated it altogether, in contrast to mice with normal Reelin levels. These effects appeared to stem from the lack of monocyte adhesion on the altered animals' blood vessel walls, which prevented entry into the central nervous system.

A potential new treatment for MS sufferers?

[Ed Note - "Calvier and Herz are shareholders of Reelin Therapeutics Inc. of La Jolla, California, along with co-author Maria Z. Kounnas, Ph.D., who is affiliated with Reelin Therapeutics. Calvier and Herz are co-inventors of a patent related to anti-Reelin strategies (application number 15/763,047 (patent pending) and publication number 20180273637). "]

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Nanotubes in the Eye that Help Us See:

A new mechanism of blood redistribution that is essential for the proper functioning of the adult retina has just been discovered in vivo by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM).

[...] Wrapped around the capillaries are pericytes, cells that have the ability to control the amount of blood passing through a single capillary simply by squeezing and releasing it.

"Using a microscopy technique to visualize vascular changes in living mice, we showed that pericytes project very thin tubes, called inter-pericyte tunnelling nanotubes, to communicate with other pericytes located in distant capillaries," said Alarcon-Martinez. "Through these nanotubes, the pericytes can talk to each other to deliver blood where it is most needed."

To preserve vision, new treatment strategies should protect these structures after stroke or other crises restrict oxygen to the retina.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

An irresistible scent makes locusts swarm, study finds:

On its own, a locust is fairly harmless. But so-called solitary locusts can undergo a metamorphosis, changing colour and joining together with millions of others in catastrophic clouds that strip fields.

So what prompts locusts to transform from solitary to "gregarious"?

A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature reveals the secret lies in a pheromone.

Almost like an irresistible perfume, the chemical compound is emitted by locusts when they find themselves in proximity to just a few others of their kind.

The chemical attracts other locusts, who join the group and also begin emitting the scent, creating a feedback loop that results in enormous swarms.

The discovery offers several tantalizing possibilities, including genetically engineering locusts without the receptors that detect the swarming pheromone, or weaponising the pheromone to attract and trap the insects.

[...] It focused on the migratory locust, the most widely distributed species of the insect, and examined several compounds produced by the bug.

It found that one in particular—4-vinylanisole, or 4VA—appeared to attract locusts when emitted, and that the more locusts flocked together, the more 4VA they emitted.

Journal Reference:
Xiaojiao Guo, Qiaoqiao Yu, Dafeng Chen, et al. 4-Vinylanisole is an aggregation pheromone in locusts [$], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2610-4)

Recently:
(2020-07-06) Crunch, Crunch: Africa's Locust Outbreak is Far from Over
(2020-04-19) Africa's Huge Locust Swarms are Growing at the Worst Time
(2020-02-24) Locust Swarms Arrive in South Sudan, Threatening More Misery
(2020-01-30) Climate Change Behind Africa's Worst Locust Invasion in Decades

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

How Facebook and Other Sites Manipulate Your Privacy Choices:

Electronic Frontier Foundation was fed up with Facebook's pushy interface. The platform had a way of coercing people into giving up more and more of their privacy. The question was, what to call that coercion? Zuckermining? Facebaiting? Was it a Zuckerpunch? The name that eventually stuck: Privacy Zuckering, or when "you are tricked into publicly sharing more information about yourself than you really intended to."

[...] Researchers call these design and wording decisions "dark patterns," a term applied to UX that tries to manipulate your choices. When Instagram repeatedly nags you to "please turn on notifications," and doesn't present an option to decline? That's a dark pattern. When LinkedIn shows you part of an InMail message in your email, but forces you to visit the platform to read more? Also a dark pattern. When Facebook redirects you to "log out" when you try to deactivate or delete your account? That's a dark pattern too.

Dark patterns show up all over the web, nudging people to subscribe to newsletters, add items to their carts, or sign up for services. But, says says Colin Gray, a human-computer interaction researcher at Purdue University, they're particularly insidious "when you're deciding what privacy rights to give away, what data you're willing to part with." Gray has been studying dark patterns since 2015. He and his research team have identified five basic types: nagging, obstruction, sneaking, interface interference, and forced action. All of those show up in privacy controls. He and other researchers in the field have noticed the cognitive dissonance between Silicon Valley's grand overtures toward privacy and the tools to modulate these choices, which remain filled with confusing language, manipulative design, and other features designed to leech more data.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

How to turn regular bricks into electricity-storing supercapacitors:

Usually the phrase "power brick" refers affectionately to the AC adapter of something like a laptop. But what if that term was quite literal, involving an actual brick?

A team led by Hongmin Wang at Washington University in St. Louis set out to make a genuine power brick. More specifically, they wanted to see if they could use a vapor coating technique to turn ordinary red bricks into part of a supercapacitor. That actually isn't quite as weird as it sounds, given that the red of a brick is an iron mineral, and iron is a common component of some battery chemistries. Bricks are often porous as well, meaning there is plenty of surface area where a thin coating could interact with that iron.

The process (something they had developed previously) involves heating the brick in an enclosure along with hydrochloric acid and an organic compound that mercifully shortens to "EDOT." The two liquid substances evaporate and condense on the brick's convoluted surface. The acid dissolves some of the iron mineral, freeing up iron atoms that help the organic molecules link up to form polymer chains (graduating to "PEDOT") that coat the surface. The polymer makes microscopic, entangled fibers that form a continuous and electrically conductive layer on each face of the brick, which otherwise remains. (This does have the effect of turning the brick black, though.)

[...] Even with full-size bricks, the total energy storage is... less than huge. They estimate that a wall of these bricks could hold about 1.6 watt-hours per square meter of wall area. That means a three meter by six meter (10 feet by 20 feet) wall could hold about 20 watt-hours of electricity. As a result, the researchers' pitch for this idea is less dramatic than "turn your house into a battery!"

Journal Reference:
Hongmin Wang, Yifan Diao, Yang Lu, et al. Energy storing bricks for stationary PEDOT supercapacitors [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17708-1)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Critical Intel Flaw Afflicts Several Motherboards, Server Systems, Compute Modules:

A critical privilege-escalation flaw affects several popular Intel motherboards, server systems and compute modules.

Intel is warning of a rare critical-severity vulnerability affecting several of its motherboards, server systems and compute modules. The flaw could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to achieve escalated privileges.

The recently patched flaw (CVE-2020-8708) ranks 9.6 out of 10 on the CVSS scale, making it critical. Dmytro Oleksiuk, who discovered the flaw, told Threatpost that it exists in the firmware of Emulex Pilot 3. This baseboard-management controller is a service processor that monitors the physical state of a computer, network server or other hardware devices via specialized sensors.

[...] The critical flaw stems from improper-authentication mechanisms in these Intel products before version 1.59.

In bypassing authentication, an attacker would be able to access to the KVM console of the server. The KVM console can access the system consoles of network devices to monitor and control their functionality. The KVM console is like a remote desktop implemented in the baseboard management controller – it provides an access point to the display, keyboard and mouse of the remote server, Oleksiuk told Threatpost.

The flaw is dangerous as it's remotely exploitable, and attackers don't need to be authenticated to exploit it – though they need to be located in the same network segment as the vulnerable server, Oleksiuk told Threatpost.

"The exploit is quite simple and very reliable because it's a design flaw," Oleksiuk told Threatpost.

Original Submission