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canopic jug writes:

Software engineer, Debian developer, and recognized Free/Open Source Software innovator Daniel Pocock scratches the surface on the 2016 explusion of journalist, security researcher, and hacker Jacob Appelbaum from Debian. He asserts that the leadership in Debian at the time falsified evidence and hid conflicts of interest when dealing with the allegations against Appelbaum.

In 2016, there was an enormous amount of noise about Jacob Appelbaum from the Tor Project and winner of the Henri Nannen Prize for journalism.

An anonymous web site had been set up with allegations of harassment, abuse and rape. Unlike the #MeToo movement, which came later, nobody identified themselves and nobody filed a police complaint. It appears that the site was run by people who live in another country and have no daily contact with Appelbaum. Therefore, many people feel this wasn't about justice or immediate threats to their safety.

Long discussions took place in the private mailing lists of many free software communities, including Debian. Personally, as a I focus on my employer, clients and family and as there are so many long email discussions in Debian, I don't follow most of these things. I've come to regret that as it is now clear that at least some claims may have been falsified, a serious injustice has transpired and this could have been easily detected.

I don't wish to discount the experiences of anybody who has been a victim of a crime. However, in the correspondence that was circulated within Debian, the only person who has technically been harassed is Jacob Appelbaum himself. If Appelbaum does have a case to answer then organizations muddying the waters, inventing additional victims, may undermine the stories of real victims.

He then goes on to provide supporting evidence — including what was falsified and how the falsifications were used by the press — and then, from there, used against Appelbaum.

Previously:
(2016) Jacob Appelbaum Leaves the Tor Project
(2014) Hackers Replicate NSA's Leaked Bugging Devices

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Majority of groundwater stores resilient to climate change:

Fewer of the world's large aquifers are depleting than previously estimated, according to a new study by the University of Sussex and UCL.

[...] Previous global studies of changes in groundwater storage, estimated using data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission and global models, have concluded that intensifying human water withdrawals in the majority of the world's large aquifer systems are causing a sustained reduction in groundwater storage, depleting groundwater resources.

Yet this new study, published in Earth System Dynamics, reveals that depletion is not as widespread as reported, and that replenishment of groundwater storage depends upon extreme rainfall that is increasing under global climate change.

Aquifer depletion is occurring only in 5 localities.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

School run: Cutting car use will take much more than educating children and parents:

As the summer holidays come to an end and children return to school following lockdown, there couldn't be a better time for us to consider the school commute. Nowadays, many children in the UK commute to school by car. But getting more parents to ditch the car for school journeys and switch to more active modes of travel, such as walking or cycling, is of great public health importance.

[...] As cities have expanded under suburban sprawl, commuting distances to school have increased. They are longer now than they have ever been before. This is another reason more children travel to school by car now than they used to. Less than half of all children in England attend their most local school.

An education policy that lets parents choose their child's school compounds the issue of suburban sprawl. Those parents that are able to exercise choice do so, and in some cases travel great distances so that their child attends the best-performing school. Once school choice has been decided, so too has children's mode of travel to school. Longer school commutes equals more car travel.

[...] Tackling the real causes of car dependency on the school commute would benefit children, society and the environment. It would solve several public health challenges.

If all children attended their local school, fewer children would travel by car, and because of this, fewer children would be injured on the roads. There would be less noise pollution and less air pollution, which would reduce children's risk of developing respiratory conditions. We would see more people speaking to each other on our streets because of the increase in footfall, and there would be an improved sense of safety because there would be more "eyes on the street."

Will eliminating school choice for children make them healthier?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

World's biggest rooftop greenhouse opens in Montreal:

Building on a new hanging garden trend, a greenhouse [built] atop a Montreal warehouse growing eggplants and tomatoes to meet demand for locally sourced foods has set a record as the largest in the world.

It's not an obvious choice of location to cultivate organic vegetables—in the heart of Canada's second-largest city—but Lufa Farms on Wednesday inaugurates the facility that spans 160,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), or about the size of three football fields.

[...] It is the fourth rooftop greenhouse the company has erected in the city. The first, built in 2011 at a cost of more than Can$2 million (US$1.5 million), broke new ground.

Since then, competitors picked up and ran with the novel idea, including American Gotham Greens, which constructed eight greenhouses on roofs in New York, Chicago and Denver, and French Urban Nature, which is planning one in Paris in 2022.

A local Montreal supermarket has also offered since 2017 an assortment of vegetables grown on its roof, which was "greened" in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.

The company estimates its rooftop gardens can feed 2% of Montreal's population now.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Bird deaths down 70 percent after painting wind turbine blades:

Something as simple as black paint could be the key to reducing the number of birds that are killed each year by wind turbines. According to a study conducted at a wind farm on the Norwegian archipelago of Smøla, changing the color of a single blade on a turbine from white to black resulted in a 70-percent drop in the number of bird deaths.

Not everyone is a fan of wind turbines, however, because of their impact on local populations of flying fauna like birds and bats.

[...] Previous laboratory studies have suggested that birds may not be very good at seeing obstructions while they're flying, and adding visual cues like different colored fan blades can increase birds' chances of spotting a rapidly rotating fan.

[...] And so, in 2013, each of the four turbines in the test group had a single blade painted black. In the three years that followed, only six birds were found dead due to striking their turbine blades. By comparison, 18 bird deaths were recorded by the four control wind turbines—a 71.9-percent reduction in the annual fatality rate.

Digging into the data a little more showed some variation on bird deaths depending upon the season. During spring and autumn, fewer bird deaths were recorded at the painted turbines. But in summer, bird deaths actually increased at the painted turbines, and the authors note that the small number of turbines in the study and its relatively short duration both merit longer-term replication studies, both at Smøla and elsewhere.

Journal Reference:
Roel May, Torgeir Nygård, Ulla Falkdalen, et al. Paint it black: Efficacy of increased wind turbine rotor blade visibility to reduce avian fatalities [open], Ecology and Evolution (DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6592)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Bacteria could survive travel between Earth and Mars when forming aggregates:

Dr. Yamagishi and the Tanpopo ["Dandelion"] team, tested the survival of the radioresistant bacteria Deinococcus in space. The study, now published in Frontiers in Microbiology, shows that thick aggregates can provide sufficient protection for the survival of bacteria during several years in the harsh space environment.

Dr. Yamagishi and his team came to this conclusion by placing dried Deinococcus aggregates in exposure panels outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The samples of different thicknesses were exposed to space environment for one, two, or three years and then tested for their survival.

After three years, the researchers found that all aggregates superior to 0.5 mm partially survived to space conditions. Observations suggest that while the bacteria at the surface of the aggregate died, it created a protective layer for the bacteria beneath ensuring the survival of the colony. Using the survival data at one, two, and three years of exposure, the researchers estimated that a pellet thicker than 0.5 mm would have survived between 15 and 45 years on the ISS. The design of the experiment allowed the researcher to extrapolate and predict that a colony of 1 mm of diameter could potentially survive up to 8 years in outer space conditions.

The survival time is thought to be sufficient for bacteria to travel between Mars and Earth.

Journal Reference:
Yuko Kawaguchi et al, DNA Damage and Survival Time Course of Deinococcal Cell Pellets During 3 Years of Exposure to Outer Space, Frontiers in Microbiology (2020). DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.02050

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Good animal welfare helps lab mice overcome bad things in life:

Research has revealed that anxious and depressed laboratory mice are more disappointed when something bad happens, but their low mood has no effect on how elated they are when something good happens.

[...] Lead researcher, Dr. Jasmine Clarkson said: "Animals have emotions that are affected by what happens to them in their everyday lives. Like us, they can get anxious and depressed, but how does that change their experiences of the good and the bad things in life? We found that anxious and depressed laboratory mice are more disappointed when something bad happens, but their low mood has no effect on how elated they are when something good happens. So if we apply that to the welfare of our lab animals, it means poor welfare still allows animals to appreciate reward but it makes them less resilient and potentially reduce the reliability of biomedical experiments. These are important findings which emphasize the benefits of the highest level of care that we should adhere to."

Sad mice impair experimental reliability?

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Code-execution bug in Pulse Secure VPN threatens patch laggards everywhere:

Organizations that have yet to install the latest version of the Pulse Secure VPN have a good reason to stop dithering—a code-execution vulnerability that allows attackers to take control of networks that use the product.

Tracked as CVE-2020-8218, the vulnerability requires an attacker to have administrative rights on the machine running the VPN. Researchers from GoSecure, the firm that discovered the flaw, found an easy way to clear that hurdle: trick an administrator into clicking on a malicious link embedded in an email or other type of message.

"While it does require to be authenticated," GoSecure researcher Jean-Frédéric Gauron wrote in a post, referring to the exploit, "the fact that it can be triggered by a simple phishing attack on the right victim should be evidence enough that this vulnerability is not to be ignored."

[...] CVE-2020-8218 is fixed in version 9.1R8 of Pulse Connect. Because of the industry's poor track record of patching, coupled with the severe consequences that can result, it's worth checking up on this one.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Compound may magnetically outperform neodymium magnets:

NIMS and Tohoku Gakuin University have developed a boron-doped anisotropic Sm(Fe_0.8Co_0.2)12 thin film containing only small amount of rare earth elements. The compound exhibited 1.2 tesla coercivity, sufficient for use in automotive electric motors. This was achieved by creating a unique granular nanostructure in which Sm(Fe_0.8Co_0.2)12 grains are uniformly enveloped by an amorphous grain boundary phase approximately 3 nm in thickness. This compound exhibited superior magnetic properties to that of Nd-Fe-B based magnets even when processed into a thin film.

Demand for green technologies that can help to reduce CO₂ emissions (e.g., electric motors for environmentally friendly vehicles and wind power generation) has been growing, leading to rapidly increasing demand for the high-performance permanent magnets needed for these technologies. The Nd-Fe-B based sintered magnets currently in use are composed not only of the rare earth element neodymium but also a heavy rare earth element: dysprosium. Because of the geopolitical risks associated with the acquisition of these materials, development of new magnets that do not rely on the scarce elements is desirable.

It is hoped the compound can supply green technologies with less geopolitical risk than neodymium magnets.

Journal Reference: H. Sepehri-Amin et al, Achievement of high coercivity in Sm(Fe_0.8Co_0.2)12 anisotropic magnetic thin film by boron doping, Acta Materialia (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2020.05.026

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Student debt may hurt chances at full-time employment:

A recently published study led by The University of Texas at Arlington says that student debt may hurt students' chances of securing full-time employment due to added pressure in their job search.

[...] The researchers say that having student loan debt is a financial stressor to students that leads to additional stress during their job search, which in turn can harm their chances of securing a full-time job.

"Student loan debt creates an anticipated loss of financial resources, which brings higher levels of stress to student job-seekers," said Froidevaux, who is a fellow of the Eunice and James L. West Distinguished Professorship. Her research interests include career transitions, retirement and aging in the workplace, and identity negotiation.

The more financially strained individuals are, the less likely they are to have sufficient energy and motivation to invest in their search for a successful job placement, she said. Results from the study also suggest that students who are more stressed about their student loans were likelier to work more hours in part-time jobs. This stress in searching for a job reduced the likelihood of securing full-time employment upon graduation from college. The research team used data from 1,248 graduating seniors from four different American universities.

The current level of student loan debt in the USA is $1.6 trillion, above credit card debt and auto loans, and second only to mortgage debt.

Journal Reference:
Ariane Froidevaux et al, Is student loan debt good or bad for full-time employment upon graduation from college?, Journal of Applied Psychology (2020). DOI: 10.1037/apl0000487

Original Submission

[20200827_123302 UTC: Mission has been scrubbed:

Launch Director Lou Mangieri has announced that we will not continue with the #DeltaIVHeavy rocket countdown operations today for #NROL44. Another launch attempt will be possible in 24 hours.

Apologies about the YouTube link; that was the one supplied in the source story, and I've been unable to find an alternate. It has been struck from this story. --martyb]

martyb writes:

The big Delta IV Heavy rocket will try to loft a classified mission tonight:

Is anyone ready to see a heavy-lift rocket take flight? Especially one that creates a giant fireball mere seconds before liftoff?

United Launch Alliance's largest booster, the Delta IV Heavy, has not launched since January, 2019. Now the big rocket—the second-most-powerful launch vehicle in the world after SpaceX's Falcon Heavy—is back on the pad to loft a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Liftoff of this "NROL-44" mission is scheduled for 2:12am EDT (06:12 UTC)[*] on Thursday from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The weather forecast for liftoff is favorable, with only a slight concern for a chance of violating the cumulus cloud rules. Forecasters predict an 80-percent chance of good weather at the launch opportunity.

The mission was originally due to take place a day earlier, but United Launch Alliance delayed it for a day, with only a simple statement saying that it was moved "due to customer request."

[*] This story is scheduled to "go live" at 11PM EDT (0300 UTC). BUT as of 23:19 EDT:

An issue with a heater has been reported by the launch team. The issue is being referred to Anomaly Chief Dave McFarland for troubleshooting steps. The AC position in the control room that directs engineering teams work to resolve technical issues that arise during the count.

— ULA (@ulalaunch) August 27, 2020

https://twitter.com/ulalaunch/status/1298802272256831489

Follow updates at: NASASpaceflight.com.

Video of the launch is available on YouTube and is scheduled to begin at 01:52am EDT (05:52 UTC) Thursday.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Where are stars made? NASA's Spitzer spies a hot spot:

The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image from NASA's recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope.

Located about 17,000 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Aquila in the night sky, W51 is about 350 light-years—or about 2 quadrillion miles—across. It is almost invisible to telescopes that collect visible light (the kind human eyes detect), because that light is blocked by interstellar dust clouds that lie between W51 and Earth. But longer wavelengths of light, including radio and infrared, can pass unencumbered through the dust. When viewed in infrared by Spitzer, W51 is a spectacular sight: Its total infrared emission is the equivalent of 20 million suns.

Young stars on one side of the nebula are beginning to clear space around themselves.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Your iPhone copy of Fortnite is about to become out of date [Updated]

Since Apple pulled Fortnite down from the iOS App Store earlier this month, some eBay users have apparently paid thousands of dollars for iPhones that had a playable, pre-installed copy of the game. Starting tomorrow, though, those devices will be no longer be able to play the latest version of the game.

[Update, 8/26 at 3:10p ET: iOS players who have previously downloaded the game will actually be able to continue playing the current Version 13.40 "Chapter 2 -Season 3" update on iOS, as well as subsequent versions on other platforms. Progression in the Season 3 Battle Pass will no longer be possible on any platform, however, and iOS players won't be able to crossplay with players on later versions on other platforms. Ars regrets the error.]

[...] Android users will still be able to install and play the latest update by downloading it directly from Epic or from The Samsung Galaxy Store on compatible devices.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Student research team develops hybrid rocket engine:

In a year defined by obstacles, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student rocket team persevered. Working together across five time zones, they successfully designed a hybrid rocket engine that uses paraffin and a novel nitrous oxide-oxygen mixture called Nytrox. The team has its sights set on launching a rocket with the new engine at the 2021 Intercollegiate Rocketry and Engineering Competition.

[...] Last year the team witnessed a number of catastrophic failures with hybrid engines utilizing nitrous oxide. The propellant frequently overheated in the New Mexico desert, where the IREC competition is held. Lembeck said this motivated the team to find an alternative fuel that could remain stable at temperature. Nytrox surfaced as the solution to the problem.

[...] In June 2021, the rocket will be transported to Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences for its first launch.

The team collaborated online to build their rocket.

Vignesh Sella et al. Development of a Nytrox-Paraffin Hybrid Rocket Engine, AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2020 Forum (2020). DOI: 10.2514/6.2020-3729

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Military-spec filament produces stronger 3D-printed objects:

While consumer-grade 3D printers may be adequate for making things like models or curios, they're not always up to the task of creating objects that stand up to real-world use. That could be about to change, though, thanks to a new printing filament.

Compact, inexpensive 3D printers typically utilize a process known as fused filament fabrication (FFF). This involves heating a plastic filament to its melting point, then extruding it through a nozzle. Successive layers of the molten plastic are deposited one on top of the other, forming a single solid object as they cool and fuse together.

According to US Army engineers, though, items printed in this fashion tend to be too structurally weak for rough-and-tough use by soldiers in the field. This is a shame, since if troops were able to carry small, cheap 3D printers with them, they could make parts and tools onsite as needed. And although there are printers that use non-FFF techniques to produce stronger objects, those machines are large and costly, making them impractical for field use.

Led by Dr. Eric D. Wetzel, researchers from the Army's Emerging Composites team set out to address this problem. They ultimately created a new dual-polymer filament that allows consumer 3D printers to produce much stronger items, utilizing their existing FFF hardware.

Source: US Army Research Laboratory

Journal Reference:
Kevin R. Hart, Ryan M. Dunn, Eric D. Wetzel. Tough, Additively Manufactured Structures Fabricated with Dual‐Thermoplastic Filaments, Advanced Engineering Materials (DOI: 10.1002/adem.201901184)

Original Submission