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A Billion Tiny Pendulums Could Detect the Universe's Missing Mass:

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos's mystery material that has eluded detection for decades. Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe; ordinary matter, such as the stuff that builds stars and planets, accounts for just 5% of the cosmos. (A mysterious entity called dark energy, accounts for the other 68%.)

According to cosmologists, all the visible material in the universe is merely floating in a vast sea of dark matter — particles that are invisible but nonetheless have mass and exert a gravitational force. Dark matter's gravity would provide the missing glue that keeps galaxies from falling apart and account for how matter clumped together to form the universe's rich galactic tapestry.

The proposed experiment, in which a billion millimeter-sized pendulums would act as dark matter sensors, would be the first to hunt for dark matter solely through its gravitational interaction with visible matter. The experiment would be one of the few to search for dark matter particles with a mass as great as that of a grain of salt, a scale rarely explored and never studied by sensors capable of recording tiny gravitational forces.

[...] "Our proposal relies purely on the gravitational coupling, the only coupling we know for sure that exists between dark matter and ordinary luminous matter," said study co-author Daniel Carney, a theoretical physicist jointly affiliated with NIST, the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS) at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

[...] Because the only unknown in the experiment is the mass of the dark matter particle, not how it couples to ordinary matter, "if someone builds the experiment we suggest, they either find dark matter or rule out all dark matter candidates over a wide range of possible masses," said Carney. The experiment would be sensitive to particles ranging from about 1/5,000 of a milligram to a few milligrams. That mass scale is particularly interesting because it covers the so-called Planck mass, a quantity of mass determined solely by three fundamental constants of nature and equivalent to about 1/5,000 of a gram.

Journal Reference:
Daniel Carney, Sohitri Ghosh, Gordan Krnjaic, et al. Proposal for gravitational direct detection of dark matter [open], Physical Review D (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.072003)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

The Pirate Bay blocked in the Netherlands (but you can still access it):

It's that time of the year: Dutch internet service providers have once again been forced to block access to notorious torrenting portal The Pirate Bay. But don't worry, it's unlikely that'll stop you from using it.

A new verdict requires local internet providers Ziggo, KPN, and XS4ALL to block users from accessing the torrent site along with any proxies and mirrors, TorrentFreak reports.

If the story sounds familiar, that's because it's not the first time it's happened. The verdict essentially dates back to a 10-year legal battle between ISPs and anti-piracy group BREIN.

[...] In fact, the Netherlands is hardly the only country where the torrent platform is blocked. Still, users have been able to circumvent restrictions by using VPNs and freshly updated proxy sites for years. While the new ruling is certainly a thorn in ISPs' sides, it's not likely to change much in the grand scheme of things.

Instead, it merely prolongs an already stretched out and played out game of cat and mouse. It just sucks it's not BREIN that's footing the bill.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

U.S. Lawmaker, Citing Snowden, Seeks Probe Into NSA Targeting of Congressional, Supreme Court Emails:

The acting intelligence community inspector general, Thomas Monheim, has been asked to investigate claims that Edward Snowden, while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency, was able to search a classified database for the private emails of a senior member of Congress.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, requested the investigation based on statements attributed to Snowden in a book by former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman released in May. Eshoo says that NSA Director Paul Nakasone dodged questions last month when asked whether NSA analysts have used a powerful surveillance tool to retrieve emails belonging to members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.

What's more, Nakasone did not address whether any technical safeguards exist to prevent analysts from accessing the emails of justices and officials without express legal permission.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Chrome 'Bug' Purged Browser Data, Except From Sites That Google Owned:

In the latest example of Google's public-facing privacy push turning out to be little more than a farce, it seems the tech giant was accidentally exempting some of its own sites from a feature meant to clear browser caches and cookies in its Chrome browser. Whoops!

This loophole first came to light when iOS dev Jeff Johnson noticed that after setting up his Chrome browser to clear his cookies and cache after every session, the feature worked perfectly for every site except two: Google and Youtube.

[...] While Google hasn't yet responded to our request for comment on the loophole, a company spokesperson told The Register that the hiccup wasn't the company attempting a covert data-grab, but was, in fact, a Chrome bug that was specific to "some first-party Google websites."

"We are investigating the issue, and plan to roll out a fix in the coming days," they added.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

Popeye would approve: Spinach could hold key to renewable fuel cell catalysts:

When it comes to making efficient fuel cells, it's all about the catalyst. A good catalyst will result in faster, more efficient chemical reactions and, thus, increased energy output. Today's fuel cells typically rely on platinum-based catalysts. But scientists at American University believe that spinach—considered a "superfood" because it is so packed with nutrients—would make an excellent renewable carbon-rich catalyst, based on their proof-of-principle experiments described in a recent paper published in the journal ACS Omega. Popeye would definitely approve.

Journal Reference:
Spinach-Derived Porous Carbon Nanosheets as High-Performance Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction [open], ACS Omega (DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.0c02673)
Gabriel LeBlanc, Gongping Chen, Evan A. Gizzie, et al. Enhanced Photocurrents of Photosystem I Films on p‐Doped Silicon, Advanced Materials (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201202794

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touches asteroid:

NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft unfurled its robotic arm Tuesday, and in a first for the agency, briefly touched an asteroid to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.

This well-preserved, ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, is currently more than 200 million miles (321 million kilometers) from Earth. Bennu offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it was first taking shape billions of years ago and flinging ingredients that could have helped seed life on Earth. If Tuesday's sample collection event, known as "Touch-And-Go" (TAG), provided enough of a sample, mission teams will command the spacecraft to begin stowing the precious primordial cargo to begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021. Otherwise, they will prepare for another attempt in January.

"This amazing first for NASA demonstrates how an incredible team from across the country came together and persevered through incredible challenges to expand the boundaries of knowledge," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Our industry, academic, and international partners have made it possible to hold a piece of the most ancient solar system in our hands."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

DNA-protein interactions are extremely important in biology. For example, each human cell contains about 2 meters of DNA, but this is packaged into a space about 1 million times smaller. The information in this DNA allows the cell to copy itself. This extreme packaging is mainly accomplished in cells by wrapping the DNA around proteins. Thus, how DNA and proteins interact is of extreme interest to scientists trying to understand how biology organizes itself. New research by scientists at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, ESPCI Paris, Université PSL suggests that the interactions of DNA and proteins have deep-seated propensities to form higher-ordered structures such as those that allow the extreme packaging of DNA in cells.

[...] In their work, Fraccia and Jia showed that double-stranded DNA and peptides can generate many different (Liquid Crystal) phases in a peculiar way: The LCs actually form in membraneless droplets called coacervates, where DNA and peptides are spontaneously co-assembled and ordered. This process brings DNA and peptides to very high concentrations comparable to that of a cell's nucleus, which is 100 to 1000 times greater than that of the diluted initial solution (which is the maximum concentration that can likely be achieved on early Earth). Thus, such spontaneous behavior can, in principle, favor the formation of the first cell-like structures on early Earth, which would take advantage of the ordered but fluid LC matrix in order to gain stability and functionality and to favor the growth and the evolution of primitive biomolecules.

[...] This new understanding of biopolymeric self-organization may also be important for understanding how life self-organized to become living in the first place. Understanding how primitive collections of molecules could have structured themselves into collectively behaving aggregates is a significant avenue of future research.

More information: Tommaso P. Fraccia et al, Liquid Crystal Coacervates Composed of Short Double-Stranded DNA and Cationic Peptides, ACS Nano (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c05083

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Beam is building a web browser that gathers knowledge from your web activity – TechCrunch:

Beam, a new startup founded by Dom Leca and Sébastien Métrot, is working on a brand new app that is both a web browser and a note app. Dom Leca previously founded Sparrow, an email app for macOS and iOS that was acquired by Google in 2012. Sébastien Métrot has been working for Apple for several years.

[...] If you're very passionate about a niche topic, chances are you can learn a ton of things by reading stuff, watching videos, interacting on forums and more. But when you close your browser window, everything disappears.

Sure, there's a web history feature — but it's a long list of links with no connection. Sure, you can bookmark pages or take notes in another app — but it's a cumbersome process.

[...] Beam aims to bring meaning to your web history. Every time you search for something, it creates a new note card. Beam passively follows users as they click on links, open new pages and spend time looking at stuff.

When you close the tab, you have a new card — your search query is the title of the card and you can see all links under that note. You can then add text, remove links that weren't that relevant, etc.

By combining passive note creation with a tiny nudge when you close a tab, you get to reflect on your web activity. It's a way to learn more about yourself and your habits. Sure, you may realize that you waste a ton of time. But you might also realize that you care more than you thought about cooking and Russian classical music.

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takyon writes:

Arm Spinout Reveals Correlated-Electron Memory Plans

Earlier this month, a group of eight Arm Research engineers established a startup, Cerfe Labs, to commercialize an experimental memory technology they had been working on for the past five years with Austin-based Symetrix. The technology, called correlated electron RAM (CeRAM), could become a nonvolatile replacement for the fast-access embedded SRAM used in processor high-level cache memory today. Besides being able to hold data in the absence of a power supply, which SRAM cannot do, CeRAM is likely to be considerably smaller than SRAM, potentially easing IC area issues as the industry's ability to keep shrinking transistors reaches its end.

[...] The device itself is just the correlated electron material sandwiched between two electrodes, similar in structure to resistive RAM, phase change RAM, and magnetic RAM but less complex than the latter. And like those three, it is constructed in the metal interconnect layers above the silicon, requiring only one transistor in the silicon layer to access it, as opposed to SRAM's six. [Cerfe Labs' CTO Greg Yeric] says the company has made devices that fit with 7-nanometer CMOS processes and they should be scalable in both size and voltage to 5-nanometers (today's cutting edge).

But it's CeRAM's speed that could make it a good replacement for SRAM. To date, they've made CeRAM with a 2-nanosecond pulse width for writing data, which is on par with what's needed for a processor's L3 cache; Yeric says they expect this speed to improve with development.

The carbon-doped nickel oxide material also has properties that are well beyond what today's nonvolatile memory can do, but they are not as completely proven. For example, CerLab has shown that the device works at temperatures as low as 1.5 kelvins—well beyond what any nonvolatile memory can do, and in range for a role in quantum computing control circuits. In the other direction, they've demonstrated device operation up to 125 °C and showed that it retains its bits at up to 400 °C. But these figures were limited by the equipment the company had available. What's more, the device's theory of operation suggests that CeRAM should be naturally resistant to ionizing radiation and magnetic field disturbances.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

It Is Very Easy to Keep Windows 10 From Randomly Restarting Whenever It Pleases:

I don't like my OS doing things or adding things without my permission as much as the next person. As a life-long Windows user, that little pop-up telling me to restart my PC has gotten on my nerves more times that I can count—but it's not like Windows doesn't give me the option to turn that off. Yes, it's annoying that Windows defaults these permissions to "on." However, Windows 10 users can prevent their PC from automatically restarting after an update, as well as block updates for other Microsoft products.

If you're still not ready to fully update to Windows 10 version 2004, or are trying to prevent Microsoft from adding shortcuts to Office on the web, you have the power to tell Microsoft "no thanks," and go about your day.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Researchers create a single-molecule switch:

A team of researchers has demonstrated for the first time a single-molecule electret—a device that could be one of the keys to molecular computers.

Smaller electronics are crucial to developing more advanced computers and other devices. This has led to a push in the field toward finding a way to replace silicon chips with molecules, an effort that includes creating single-molecule electret—a switching device that could serve as a platform for extremely small non-volatile storage devices. Because it seemed that such a device would be so unstable, however, many in the field wondered whether one could ever exist.

Along with colleagues at Nanjing University, Renmin University, Xiamen University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Electrical Engineering & Applied Physics demonstrated a single-molecule electret with a functional memory. The results were published Oct. 12 in Nature Nanotechnology.

[...] Reed emphasized that the present device structure isn't currently practical for any application, but proves that the underlying science behind it is possible.

"The important thing in this is that it shows you can create in a molecule two states that cause the spontaneous polarization and two switchable states," he said. "And this can give people ideas that maybe you can shrink memory down literally to the single molecular level. Now that we understand that we can do that, we can move on to do more interesting things with it."

Journal Reference:
Kangkang Zhang, Cong Wang, Minhao Zhang, et al. A Gd@C 82 single-molecule electret, Nature Nanotechnology (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-020-00778-z)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Europe tightens virus curbs as global cases top 40 million:

A number of European countries took urgent new measures on Monday to combat a second wave of coronavirus infections, as the World Health Organization blamed the surge in worldwide cases—now more than 40 million—on countries' failure to quarantine infected people properly.

Ireland and Wales became the first countries on the continent to re-enter lockdown as the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Europe passed 250,000, according to an AFP tally.

Irish prime minister Micheal Martin issued a nationwide "stay at home" order from midnight Wednesday, with all non-essential retail businesses to close and bars and restaurants limited to takeaway service only, although schools will remain open.

Wales also announced "firebreak" confinement measures for two weeks, ordering the territory's three million residents to stay at home except for very limited purposes such as exercise or work, and banning people from mixing indoors or outdoors.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan blamed soaring transmission rates in the northern hemisphere on a failure to enforce quarantines rigorously.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Losing control? Norway's oil workers fear for future as rigs go remote:

OSLO (Reuters) - A shift to operating oil rigs remotely from land, which has been accelerated by lower crude prices, has rekindled concerns among Norwegian unions over the impact on the safety of offshore workers and the loss of well-paid jobs.

These fears were highlighted by Lederne, one of three unions representing offshore workers, which this month shut six fields in a strike that threatened a quarter of Norway's oil and gas output, rattling global oil markets.

"The strike was not against moving controls onshore. But we needed to get the deal for our members to also be a part of the discussions about moving controls onshore and their safety," Lederne leader Audun Ingvartsen told Reuters.

Lederne, whose strike ended on Oct. 9, is the only Norwegian oil and gas workers union which did not have an agreement for its members at onshore control rooms. Oil companies started experimenting with remote controls about seven years ago, first with smaller, unmanned installations off the coast of Norway.

Europe's largest oil and gas producer has since become a testing ground for industry attempts to turn this technology to larger, manned platforms.

Lower oil prices and the coronavirus crisis are accelerating this shift, prompting concerns about the safety of staff still working offshore on rigs.

"Our members still wonder whether this (onshore controls) is good enough, whether it is safe enough," Ingvartsen said.

Both Ingvartsen and Hilde-Marit Rysst, head of another union, Safe, said their member concerns relate to situational awareness of those working offshore and on land.

"When you sit on the bomb, you will react differently than when you are far away from it," Rysst said.

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takyon writes:

It's Official, Intel Sells NAND Fab, SSD Business to SK hynix for $9 Billion

Today, SK hynix issued a press release stating that it has signed an agreement to buy Intel's NAND memory and storage business. The sale includes Intel's SSD business, NAND IP, and wafer production, all for a tidy sum of USD 9 billion - but it comes in the form of two payments. The sale includes Intel's Dalin fab in China, but the deal's final step won't complete until March 2025. In the meantime, Intel will still manufacture NAND wafers at the Dalian facility.

Intel has yet to comment on the matter, but it appears that it will soon exit the NAND flash SSD business entirely. Intel will retain its Optane memory business and IP, which isn't surprising given that the exotic underlying 3D XPoint technology is jointly-designed by Intel and Micron and not available to other memory producers. Intel currently doesn't manufacture Optane memory in high volumes – it simply purchases the memory from Micron.

SK hynix and Intel will seek governmental approvals and hope to gain permission for the sale in late 2021. At that time, SK hynix will issue an initial $7 billion payment and gain Intel's NAND SSD-associated IP, SSD business, employees, and Dalian facility.

The second payment of $2 billion in March 2025 will grant SK hynix the remaining assets, including NAND manufacturing IP, R&D employees, and the remainder of the Dalian workforce. At that point, Intel will stop manufacturing wafers at the Dalian plant.

Also at AnandTech, CNN, and Wccftech.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Spacecraft design could get to Titan in only 2 years using a direct fusion drive:

The concept fusion drive, called a direct fusion drive (or DFD), is in development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Scientists and Engineers there, led by Dr. Samuel Cohen, are currently working on the second iteration of it, known as the Princeton field reversed configuration-2 (PFRC-2). Eventually, the system's developers hope to launch it into space to test, and eventually become the primary drive system of spacecraft traveling throughout the solar system.

There's already one particularly interesting target in the outer solar system that is similar to Earth in many ways—Titan. Its liquid cycles and potential to harbor life have fascinated scientists since they first started collecting data on it. And if we properly used the DFD, we could send a probe there in a little under two years, according to research done by a team of aerospace engineers at the Physics Department of the New York City College of Technology, led by Professor Roman Kezerashvili and joined by two fellows from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy—Paolo Aime and Marco Gajeri.

[...] Cassini, the last famous mission to visit the Saturnian system, used a series of gravity assists between Venus and Earth to reach its destination, a journey which took almost seven years. One important thing to note, says Marco Gajeri, the paper's corresponding author, is that the window that makes these short-trip durations the most efficient opens up around 2046. While not quite 30 years from now, it does give the team at PPPL a lot more time to improve upon their current design.

More information:
Trajectory design for a Titan mission using the Direct Fusion Drive: webthesis.biblio.polito.it/15184/1/tesi.pdf

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