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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

No bones about it: Wild gorillas don't develop osteoporosis like their human cousins:

In a study of gorilla skeletons collected in the wild, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers and their international collaborators report that aging female gorillas do not experience the accelerated bone loss associated with the bone-weakening condition called osteoporosis, as their human counterparts often do. The findings, they say, could offer clues as to how humans evolved with age-related diseases.

[Christopher Ruff, Ph.D., professor at the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine] and his colleagues were able to analyze the bones of 34 wild mountain gorillas—16 females and 17 males, ages 11 to 43 years. This spans the full adult range of the species. Using a specialized CT scanner brought to Rwanda, the researchers examined the leg, arm and spine bones from each animal (including the femur, tibia, radius, ulna, humerus and lumbar vertebrae), taking measurements of bone density and geometry.

[...] The researchers found some features of skeletal aging among the gorillas that are similar to those observed in humans, including a general widening of the diameter of long bones and thinning of the bone wall. However, the gorilla bones did not show any of the accelerated bone mineral loss associated with age-related osteoporosis in human skeletons. In humans, women tend to lose bone mineral density more than men. However, in the mountain gorillas, there was no significant difference in bone density or overall strength between older males and females.

These differences, Ruff says, may be explained by the fact that gorillas continue to have offspring throughout their lives, maintaining hormonal levels that help protect them from bone loss. Higher activity levels also may help grow and then maintain stronger bones.

Journal Reference:
Skeletal ageing in Virunga mountain gorillas, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0606)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Tea bud "robots" used to kill and clear bacteria:

When harmful bacteria colonize the surface of items such as medical implants, they form slimy antibiotic-resistant coatings known as biofilms. Scientists have devised a new way of removing such films, and it involves magnetically steering augmented tea plant buds.

In their natural form, buds from the Camellia sinensis tea plant are not only inexpensive and biodegradable, they're also porous. They additionally contain compounds called polyphenols, which are known to kill bacteria.

[...] Named T-Budbots, the modified tea bud particles were finally placed in bacterial biofilms grown in glass dishes. Utilizing a magnet, the scientists were able to steer the particles through those films. As the T-Budbots moved along, they penetrated the coatings, killing the bacteria, and clearing the biofilms away.

The researchers hope the technique can combat antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Journal Reference:
Tamanna Bhuyan, Anitha T. Simon, Surjendu Maity, et al. Magnetotactic T-Budbots to Kill-n-Clean Biofilms, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c08444)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://news.err.ee/1140442/head-of-ms-estonia-investigation-estonia-sank-on-collision-with-submarine:

Considering that the tear is below the water line and considering noone has ever mentioned that another ship could have sunk with Estonia and none of the survivors have said they saw a ship close to Estonia - the most likely cause is Estonia collided with a submarine.

That means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere?

Yes, it means there should be a damaged submarine somewhere. But I will specify a bit. If one says a collision with a submarine, the first thought is the submarine ran into Estonia from its side. It might not have been so simple. It was more likely a intrusion. That Estonia and a submarine went in the same direction. And we can not rule out that Estonia might have hit the submarine, grazed the submarine. The question is what was a submarine doing on Estonia's route.

[...] The ferry Estonia sank on the night of September 28, 1994, sailing from Tallinn to Stockholm. The sinking of Estonia is the largest maritime disaster in peacetime in the Baltic Sea, killing 852 people from 17 countries.

MS Estonia

Local ed's (FP) update, also from ERR (our state news service): Swedish authorities considering MS Estonia investigation.

Additional coverage at euronews, BBC, and The Guardian.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Mars Express finds more subsurface ponds of liquid water on Mars:

ESA's Mars Express orbiter has found evidence of more liquid water beneath the ice cap in the south polar region of Mars. Based on data from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) radar instrument, researchers found three new subsurface ponds, with the largest measuring 20 x 30 km (12 x 19 mi).

In 2018, the Mars Express team discovered that the Martian ice caps are not ice throughout, but actually have large, subsurface lakes of liquid water. Using the MARSIS instrument to probe beneath the southern polar cap from May 2012 and December 2015, the orbiter mapped out a lake 20 km (12.4 mi) wide under 1.5 km (0.9 mi) of solid ice. Now, more ponds are being revealed at the same depth by a reanalysis of the same data.

The ponds could serve as habitat for extremophiles.

Also at: Gizmodo and NASA.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Duracell's new coin batteries have a bitter coating that makes them taste terrible:

Duracell is trying to make its coin cell batteries a little less enticing to eat: the company is adding a new bitter coating to its 2032, 2025, and 2016 size lithium coin batteries, with the aim of discouraging young children from accidentally eating the otherwise (apparently) irresistible-looking batteries.

The new batteries — which began rolling out in stores earlier this month — feature a coating on the bottom that reacts with saliva to release a bitter taste that will in turn discourage children from actually swallowing the battery. Duracell notes that swallowing a lithium battery can cause a "harmful chemical reaction in as little as two hours." By making the batteries too bitter to swallow, the company is hoping to prevent those issues from coming up.

Original Submission

Govt. Services Firm Tyler Technologies Hit in Apparent Ransomware Attack

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Govt. Services Firm Tyler Technologies Hit in Apparent Ransomware Attack:

Plano, Texas-based Tyler Technologies [NYSE:TYL] has some 5,300 employees and brought in revenues of more than $1 billion in 2019. It sells a broad range of services to state and local governments, including appraisal and tax software, integrated software for courts and justice agencies, enterprise financial software systems, public safety software, records/document management software solutions and transportation software solutions for schools.

Earlier today, [September 23] the normal content on tylertech.com was replaced with a notice saying the site was offline. In a statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity after the markets closed central time, Tyler Tech said early this morning the company became aware that an unauthorized intruder had gained access to its phone and information technology systems.

"Upon discovery and out of an abundance of caution, we shut down points of access to external systems and immediately began investigating and remediating the problem," Tyler's Chief Information Officer Matt Bieri said. "We have since engaged outside IT security and forensics experts to conduct a detailed review and help us securely restore affected equipment. We are implementing enhanced monitoring systems, and we have notified law enforcement."

"At this time and based on the evidence available to us to-date, all indications are that the impact of this incident is limited to our internal network and phone systems," their statement continues. "We currently have no reason to believe that any client data, client servers, or hosted systems were affected."

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

5 NASA Spacecraft That Are Leaving Our Solar System for Good:

For millennia, humans have gazed up at the stars and wondered what it would be like to journey to them. And while sending astronauts beyond the solar system remains a distant dream, humanity has already launched five robotic probes that are on paths to interstellar space.

Each of these craft was primarily designed to explore worlds in the outer solar system. But when they finished their jobs, their momentum continued to carry them farther from the Sun. Astronomers knew their ultimate fate was to live among the distant stars. And that's why all but one of these spacecraft carries a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it along the way.

They are:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

• Pioneer 10
• Pioneer 11
• Voyager 1
• Voyager 2
• New Horizons

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:

Given govt. green light, power plants embark on cryptocurrency mining:

Following the Iranian government's approval of cryptocurrency mining as an industrial activity last year, numerous companies started mining cryptocurrency across the country thanks to the extremely low-cost electricity, and now Iranian power plants started to see this industry as an opportunity to increase their revenues.

In January, the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade issued 1,000 plus licenses for cryptocurrency mining units.

With cryptocurrency mining taking a toll on Iran's electricity industry, energy authorities voiced concerns about the enormous pressures exerted by such activities on the electrical grid, so some power plant companies proposed to offer their excess electricity exclusively to the cryptocurrency miners.

In order to reduce the pressure on the national grid, the government agreed to the proposal but said the power plants will not be able to benefit from the government subsidies on their fuel supplies.

In July, the Energy Ministry's Spokesman for the electricity sector Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi announced that Power plants were also allowed to mine cryptocurrencies.

Rajabi Mashhadi said that entities have to apply for the necessary licenses from the Industry Ministry and comply with the tariffs set for crypto mining.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_ and FatPhil:

Finland using dogs trained to sniff out coronavirus at Helsinki Airport - National:

Finland has deployed coronavirus-sniffing dogs at the Nordic country's main international airport in a four-month trial of an alternative testing method that could become a cost-friendly and quick way to identify infected travelers.

Four dogs of different breeds trained by Finland's Smell Detection Association started working Wednesday at the Helsinki Airport as part of the government-financed trial.

"It's a very promising method. Dogs are very good at sniffing," Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a University of Helsinki professor of equine and small animal medicine, said.

"If it works, it will be a good (coronavirus) screening method at any other places," she said, listing hospitals, ports, elderly people's homes, sports venues and cultural events among the possible locations where trained dogs could put their snouts to work.

While researchers in several countries, including Australia, France, Germany the United States, are also studying canines as coronavirus detectors, the Finnish trial is among the largest so far.

Additional Coverage:
Dogs trained to sniff out COVID-19 used by Finland at Helsinki Airport
'Corona dogs' deployed at Helsinki airport to sniff out COVID-19

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Man refused to disband party that violated COVID order, gets year in jail.

Maryland man guilty of violating governor's emergency ban on large gatherings.

A Maryland judge sentenced a man to one year in jail after finding him guilty of throwing two large parties in violation of a state pandemic order that banned large gatherings. Police were called to the man's home twice in one week, and he refused to disband the party on the second occasion, authorities said.

[ . . . ] Myers allegedly hosted about 50 people at the party. "Upon arrival, officers told Myers that his party violated the current mandate. Myers was argumentative with officers but eventually agreed to disband his party," the state's attorney office said.

Just five days later, "officers responded back to Myers' residence for another report of a party exceeding fifty people," the announcement said. "Officers told Myers to disband the party, but again he was argumentative claiming he and his guests had the right to congregate. Beyond being argumentative, Myers directed his guests to stay in defiance of Governor Hogan's Orders and the officers' lawful orders to disband the party. Officers tried to reason with Myers and obtain his cooperation to no avail. Myers was then apprehended."

Original Submission

Gaaark writes:

Open source's Eric Raymond: Windows 10 will soon be just an emulation layer on Linux kernel

Will Windows lose the last phase of the desktop wars to Linux? Noted open-source advocate Eric Raymond thinks so.

Celebrated open-source software advocate and author Eric Raymond, who's long argued Linux will rule the desktop, reckons it won't be long before Windows 10 becomes an emulation layer over a Linux kernel.

[...] Looking further into the future, Raymond sees Microsoft killing off Windows emulation altogether after it reaches the point where everything under the Windows user interface has already moved to Linux.

"Third-party software providers stop shipping Windows binaries in favor of ELF binaries with a pure Linux API... and Linux finally wins the desktop wars, not by displacing Windows but by co-opting it. Perhaps this is always how it had to be," Raymond projects.

Is It Time for Windows and Linux to Converge?

takyon writes:

Last phase of the desktop wars?

The two most intriguing developments in the recent evolution of the Microsoft Windows operating system are Windows System for Linux (WSL) and the porting of their Microsoft Edge browser to Ubuntu.

For those of you not keeping up, WSL allows unmodified Linux binaries to run under Windows 10. No emulation, no shim layer, they just load and go.

[...] Proton is the emulation layer that allows Windows games distributed on Steam to run over Linux. It's not perfect yet, but it's getting close. I myself use it to play World of Warships on the Great Beast.

The thing about games is that they are the most demanding possible stress test for a Windows emulation layer, much more so than business software. We may already be at the point where Proton-like technology is entirely good enough to run Windows business software over Linux. If not, we will be soon.

So, you're a Microsoft corporate strategist. What's the profit-maximizing path forward given all these factors?

It's this: Microsoft Windows becomes a Proton-like emulation layer over a Linux kernel, with the layer getting thinner over time as more of the support lands in the mainline kernel sources. The economic motive is that Microsoft sheds an ever-larger fraction of its development costs as less and less has to be done in-house.

If you think this is fantasy, think again. The best evidence that it's already the plan is that Microsoft has already ported Edge to run under Linux. There is only one way that makes any sense, and that is as a trial run for freeing the rest of the Windows utility suite from depending on any emulation layer.

So, the end state this all points at is: New Windows is mostly a Linux kernel, there's an old-Windows emulation over it, but Edge and the rest of the Windows user-land utilities don't use the emulation. The emulation layer is there for games and other legacy third-party software.

Also at The Register.

Previously: Windows 10 Will Soon Ship with a Full, Open Source, GPLed Linux Kernel
Call Me Crazy, but Windows 11 Could Run On Linux
Microsoft Windows Linux for Everybody

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2  Original Submission #3 

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

How we sleep today may forecast when Alzheimer's disease begins:

UC Berkeley neuroscientists Matthew Walker and Joseph Winer have found a way to estimate, with some degree of accuracy, a time frame for when Alzheimer's is most likely to strike in a person's lifetime.

"We have found that the sleep you're having right now is almost like a crystal ball telling you when and how fast Alzheimer's pathology will develop in your brain," said Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience and senior author of the paper published today, Sept. 3, in the journal Current Biology.

"The silver lining here is that there's something we can do about it," he added. "The brain washes itself during deep sleep, and so there may be the chance to turn back the clock by getting more sleep earlier in life."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2020/09/27/floating-point-in-the-browser-part-1-impossible-expectations/

A few years ago I did a lot of thinking and writing about floating-point math. It was good fun, and I learned a lot in the process, but sometimes I go a long time without actually using that hard-earned knowledge. So, I am always inordinately pleased when I end up working on a bug which requires some of that specialized knowledge. Here then is the first of (at least) three tales of floating-point bugs that I have investigated in Chromium. This is a short one.

Apparently the official JSON logo?The title of the bug was "JSON Parses 64-bit Integers Incorrectly", which doesn't immediately sound like a floating-point or browser issue, but it was filed in crbug.com and I was asked to take a look. The simplest version of the repro is to open the Chrome developer tools (F12 or Ctrl+Shift+I) and paste this code into the developer console:

        json = JSON.parse('{"x": 2940078943461317278}'); alert(json['x']);

Pasting unknown code into the console window is a good way to get pwned but this code was simple enough that I could tell that it wasn't malicious. The bug report was nice enough to have included the author's expectations and actual results:

        What is the expected behavior?
        The integer 2940078943461317278 should be returned.
        What went wrong?
        The integer 2940078943461317000 is returned instead.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for carny:

Hacker Uploads Documents to WHO, UNESCO Websites:

A hacker has found a way to upload PDF files to the websites of several organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNESCO.

The attack, first reported by Cyberwarzone.com, does not appear particularly sophisticated and its impact is likely low, but the same vulnerabilities could have been exploited by more advanced threat actors for more serious attacks.

The files were uploaded by a hacker who uses the online moniker m1gh7yh4ck3r. A search for "m1gh7yh4ck3r" on Google shows that in recent days they uploaded files to official websites of UNESCO, WHO, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Cuban government website.

Georgia Tech and the WHO have apparently removed the files uploaded by the hacker, but the files are still present on the UNESCO and the Cuban government websites at the time of writing.

Reached by SecurityWeek, UNESCO representatives said they will launch an investigation. The WHO and Georgia Tech did not immediately respond to our inquiry.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Russia wants to ban the use of secure protocols such as TLS 1.3, DoH, DoT, ESNI:

The Russian government is working on updating its technology laws so it can ban the use of modern internet protocols that can hinder its surveillance and censorship capabilities.

According to a copy of the proposed law amendments and an explanatory note, the ban targets internet protocols and technologies such as TLS 1.3, DoH, DoT, and ESNI.

Moscow officials aren't looking to ban HTTPS and encrypted communications as a whole, as these are essential to modern-day financial transactions, communications, military, and critical infrastructure.

Instead, the government wants to ban the use of internet protocols that hide "the name (identifier) of a web page" inside HTTPS traffic.