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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

New study shows how methan breaks through icy barriers on the sea floor:

In particular, scientists have been faced with a puzzle. Observations at sites around the world have shown vigorous columns of methane gas bubbling up from these formations in some places, yet the high pressure and low temperature of these deep-sea environments should create a solid frozen layer that would be expected to act as a kind of capstone, preventing gas from escaping. So how does the gas get out?

[...] Seismic studies of the subsurface of the seafloor in these vent regions show a series of relatively narrow conduits, or chimneys, through which the gas escapes. But the presence of chunks of gas hydrate from these same formations made it clear that the solid hydrate and the gaseous methane could co-exist, Fu explains. To simulate the conditions in the lab, the researchers used a small two-dimensional setup, sandwiching a gas bubble in a layer of water between two plates of glass under high pressure.

As a gas tries to rise through the seafloor, Fu says, if it's forming a hydrate layer when it hits the cold seawater, that should block its progress: "It's running into a wall. So how would that wall not be preventing it from continuous migration?" Using the microfluidic experiments, they found a previously unknown phenomenon at work, which they dubbed crustal fingering.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Half a million fewer children? The coming COVID baby bust:

The COVID-19 episode will likely lead to a large, lasting baby bust. The pandemic has thrust the country into an economic recession. Economic reasoning and past evidence suggest that this will lead people to have fewer children. The decline in births could be on the order of 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births next year. We base this expectation on lessons drawn from economic studies of fertility behavior, along with data presented here from the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the 1918 Spanish Flu.

[...] When the public health crisis first took hold, some people playfully speculated that there would be a spike in births in nine months, as people were "stuck home" with their romantic partners. Such speculation is based on persistent myths about birth spikes occurring nine months after blizzards or major electricity blackouts. As it turns out, those stories tend not to hold up to statistical examination (Udry, 1970). But the COVID-19 crisis is amounting to much more than a temporary stay-at-home order. It is leading to tremendous economic loss, uncertainty, and insecurity. That is why birth rates will tumble.

[...] There is ample evidence that birth rates are, in fact, pro-cyclical. This is shown, for instance, in the work by Dettling and Kearney (2014) described above. Their analysis of birth rates in metropolitan areas finds that all else equal, a one percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a 1.4 percent decrease in birth rates. Schaller (2016) analyzes the relationship between state-level unemployment rates and birth rates, and finds that a one percentage-point increase in state-year unemployment rates is associated with a 0.9 to 2.2 percent decrease in birth rates. Other evidence shows that women whose husbands lose their jobs at some point during their marriage ultimately have fewer children (Lindo, 2010). This suggests that transitory changes in economic conditions lead to changes in birth rates.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

High-energy X-rays reveal the secrets of ancient Egyptian inks:

For this latest study, the team was interested in analyzing the mineral compounds of the red and black inks from the temple papyri fragments, especially the specific iron and lead compounds. They used numerous synchrotron radiation techniques to probe the chemical composition, including micro X-ray fluorescence, micro X-ray diffraction, and micro-infrared spectroscopy. They found a complex mix of lead phosphates, potassium lead sulphates, lead carboxylates, and lead chlorides.

"The iron-based compounds in the red inks are most likely ocher—a natural earth pigment—because the iron was found together with aluminium and the mineral hematite, which occur in ocher," said co-author Sine Larsen, also of the University of Copenhagen, of the results. "The lead compounds appear in both the red and black inks, but since we did not identify any of the typical lead-based pigments used to color the ink, we suggest that this particular lead compound was used by the scribes to dry the ink rather than as a pigment."

[...] The team also noted an unusual "coffee ring effect" in the red ink markings. The coffee ring effect occurs when a single liquid evaporates and the solids that had been dissolved in the liquid, like coffee grounds, form a telltale ring. It happens because the evaporation occurs faster at the edge than at the center. Any remaining liquid flows outward to the edge to fill in the gaps, dragging those solids with it. In this case, the red ocher pigment is present in coarse particles, which stayed in place while the more finely ground soluble lead compounds diffused into the papyrus cells to create a ring effect, making it appear (at the micrometer scale) as if the letters had been outlined.

"The advanced synchrotron-based microanalyses have provided us with invaluable knowledge of the preparation and composition of red and black inks in ancient Egypt and Rome 2,000 years ago," said Christiansen.

Journal Reference:
Thomas Christiansen, Marine Cotte, Wout de Nolf, et al. Insights into the composition of ancient Egyptian red and black inks on papyri achieved by synchrotron-based microanalyses [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004534117)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus_:

Boeing's upgraded 737 MAX completes first flight with media onboard:

DALLAS (Reuters) - Boeing Co's 737 MAX staged its first post-grounding flight with media on board on Wednesday, as carriers seek to demonstrate to passengers that the redesigned jet is safe after a 20-month safety ban.

[...] Wednesday's American Airlines 737 MAX flight was a 45-minute hop from Dallas, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It comes weeks before the first commercial passenger flight on Dec. 29, and is part of a public relations effort to allay any concerns about the aircraft.

Boeing's best-selling jet was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes in five months killed a combined 346 people, marking the industry's worst safety crisis in decades and undermining U.S. aviation regulatory leadership.

Wednesday's flight marked the first time anyone besides regulators and industry personnel flew on the MAX since the grounding, which ignited investigations focusing on software that overwhelmed pilots.

The mood on Wednesday's flight, which included a Reuters reporter, was subdued. Some passengers mingled and chatted before landing, when applause broke out.

[...] Boeing is bracing for intense publicity from even routine glitches by manning a 24-hour "situation room" to monitor every MAX flight globally, and has briefed some industry commentators on details on the return to service, industry sources said.

"We are continuing to work closely with global regulators and our customers to safely return the fleet to commercial service," a Boeing spokesman said.

[...] In an example of how airlines have begun to soft-pedal references to the MAX brand, the safety cards on Wednesday's flight omitted the "MAX" name and just said "737."

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MostCynical writes:

Australian Federal police and organised crime investigators will be able to take over the online accounts of international paedophile rings, terrorists and drug-traffickers operating on the "dark web", under new laws to be introduced in Federal Parliament.

The Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission will also be able to hack into people's computer networks and modify or delete harmful content such as child exploitation material.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the new powers were needed to "shine a light into the darkest recesses of the online world and hold those hiding there to account".

"Without enhancing the AFP and ACIC's powers, we leave them with outdated ways of attacking an area of criminality that is only increasing in prevalence," Mr Dutton said.

The new laws, which will be introduced to Federal Parliament on Thursday, will create three new powers for the AFP and the ACIC to break into the networks of serious criminals.

Under a new "account takeover power", the two agencies will be able to take control of a person's online account for the purposes of gathering evidence about criminal activity.

The AFP and ACIC will also be able to apply for "network activity warrants" to collect intelligence on the most serious and harmful criminal networks operating online, including on the dark web, building a picture of how criminal networks are operating online.

There will also be "data disruption warrants" giving the two agencies the power to modify data belonging to individuals suspected of criminal activity to stop them from distributing harmful material.

The Canberra Times reports that the minister recently established an Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, bringing together the AFP and other agencies to target online child abuse.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Salesforce strikes deal to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion:

Salesforce, a cloud-services company that targets businesses, has announced that it will acquire workplace communication service Slack for $27.7 billion. The announcement follows a week of rumors and a steep bump in Slack's value on the stock market in anticipation of the deal being made official.

Neither company has yet to announce in any detail what this will mean for users and customers. Salesforce is sure to include Slack in some of its broader bundles and, to more tightly integrate Slack with its other software services, "Slack will be deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud" and will become "the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360," the press release says.

But anything else beyond that is speculation at this point. New features and development priorities or adjusted pricing models are possibilities, but we also don't yet know when any user-relevant changes related to this acquisition will actually take place, either.

While Salesforce and Slack signed a definitive merger agreement, the deal is not final. "The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2022, subject to approval by the Slack stockholders, the receipt of required regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions," Salesforce's announcement said. The second quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2022 will end on July 31, 2021. The deal could be reviewed by the incoming Biden administration.

The mutual benefits for Slack and Salesforce as businesses are clear, even if it's wait-and-see in terms of any benefits or downsides for users and customers. Salesforce is in a fierce competition with Microsoft to win over businesses that are in the market for cloud-based services and products. Microsoft runs arguably the most significant Slack competitor, Microsoft Teams, but Salesforce had not matched either Slack or Teams with an equivalent offering.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Aftermarket truck mods pollute as much as 9 million extra pickups:

As automotive subcultures go, intentionally modifying your truck's diesel engine to make extra pollution is one of the more antisocial ones out there. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, diesel trucks with disabled emissions controls are far more widespread than you might think and emit more pollution than the diesel engines that got Volkswagen such hefty fines.

In 2016, Volkswagen agreed to a pair of court settlements totaling nearly $16 billion after it was caught selling diesel vehicles fitted with emissions defeat devices. In total, the VW scandal affected more than half a million cars and SUVs sold in the US, which produced up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) when in daily operation.

According to the EPA's Air Enforcement Division, the use of aftermarket emissions defeat devices by diesel truck owners rivals that problem. In a report first obtained by The New York Times, it estimates that 550,000 medium trucks have had their emissions systems tampered with over the last decade—fully 15 percent of the diesel trucks on US roads.

[...] They sure are dirty. The EPA report says that 570,000 tons of excess NOx and 5,000 tons of excess diesel particulates are the result over the course of these trucks' lifetimes. Or to put it another way, "due to their severe excess NOx emissions, these trucks have an air quality impact equivalent to adding more than 9 million additional (compliant, non-tampered) diesel pickup trucks to our roads."

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time:

Cultured meat, produced in bioreactors without the slaughter of an animal, has been approved for sale by a regulatory authority for the first time. The development has been hailed as a landmark moment across the meat industry.

The "chicken bites", produced by the US company Eat Just, have passed a safety review by the Singapore Food Agency and the approval could open the door to a future when all meat is produced without the killing of livestock, the company said.

Dozens of firms are developing cultivated chicken, beef and pork, with a view to slashing the impact of industrial livestock production on the climate and nature crises, as well as providing cleaner, drug-free and cruelty-free meat. Currently, about 130 million chickens are slaughtered every day for meat, and 4 million pigs. Of all the mammals on Earth, 60% are livestock, 36% are humans and only 4% are wild.

[...] Eat Just already has experience in selling non-animal products, such as its plant-based egg and vegan mayonnaise, to consumers. Another company, Supermeat.com in Israel, has just begun free public tastings involving a "crispy cultured chicken".

Industry experts said other companies, including Memphis Meats, Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms, might do well in future as they were working on textured products such as steaks and were able to produce significant amounts of lab-grown meat from the start. Tyson and Cargill, two of the world's biggest conventional meat companies, now have a stake in Memphis Meats.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

If you've scrolled through the list of boot options offered on any PC's BIOS, it reads like a history of storage technology. Up top we have the options to boot from disk, often a solid-state drive, then USB disk, optical drive, removable media, and down the bottom there's usually an option to boot from the network. Practically no BIOS, however, has an option to boot a PC from a vinyl record — at least until now.

[...] [It] may not be the first time we've seen software on vinyl, but it's still a pretty cool hack. Want to try it yourself but lack a record-cutting lathe? Maybe laser-cutting your boot disc will work.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2020/11/23/booting-a-pc-from-vinyl-for-a-warmer-richer-os/

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Guam's most endangered tree species reveals universal biological concept:

Newly published research carried out at the University of Guam has used a critically endangered species to show how trees modify leaf function to best exploit prevailing light conditions. The findings revealed numerous leaf traits that change depending on the light levels during leaf construction.

"The list of ways a leaf can modify its shape and structure is lengthy, and past research has not adequately looked at that entire list," said Benjamin Deloso, lead author of the study. The results appear in the October issue of the journal Biology.

[...] The research team used Guam's critically endangered Serianthes nelsonii tree as the model species because of the complexity of its leaf design. This tree's leaf is classified as a bi-pinnate compound leaf, a designation that means a single leaf is comprised of many smaller leaflets that are arranged on linear structures that have a stem-like appearance. The primary outcome of the work was to show that this type of leaf modifies many whole-leaf traits in response to prevailing light conditions. Most literature on this subject has not completely considered many of these whole-leaf traits, and may have under-estimated the diversity of skills that compound leaves can benefit from while achieving the greatest growth potential.

This study provides an example of how plant species that are federally listed as endangered can be exploited for non-destructive research, helping to highlight the value of conserving the world's threatened biodiversity while demonstrating a universal concept.

[...] The latest results have augmented the team's earlier research that demonstrated how a specialized leaf gland enables rapid leaflet movement when the light energy is excessive. This skill of being able to change the leaflet's orientation is an instantaneous behavior that mitigates the damage that may result from excessive sunlight exposure.

"Just because the tree can't move itself, that doesn't mean it can't move its leaves to avoid stress," Deloso said.

Journal Reference:
Deloso, Benjamin E., Marler, Thomas E.. Bi-Pinnate Compound Serianthes nelsonii Leaf-Level Plasticity Magnifies Leaflet-Level Plasticity, Biology (DOI: 10.3390/biology9100333)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Storing carbon through tree planting, preservation costs more than thought:

Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Planting trees and protecting forests are two of the myriad strategies for keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.

Of all the options, they're considered the most eco-friendly, or greenest, but new research suggests planting and protecting trees does come with costs -- and those costs are quite a bit larger than has been previously estimated.

According to a new study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, planting trees and conserving forests could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much 6 gigatons a year between 2025 and 2055.

Researchers calculated the reductions would come with an annual price tag of $393 billion.

"There is a significant amount of carbon that can be sequestered through forests, but these costs aren't zero," study co-author Brent Sohngen, professor of environmental economics at the Ohio State University, said in a news release.

[...] "Better understanding the costs of mitigation from global forests will help us to prioritize resources and inform the design of more efficient mitigation policies," said Austin, a senior policy analyst with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute based in North Carolina.

Journal Reference:
K. G. Austin, J. S. Baker, B. L. Sohngen, et al. The economic costs of planting, preserving, and managing the world's forests to mitigate climate change [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19578-z)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Microsoft Revamps 'Invasive' M365 Feature After Privacy Backlash:

Microsoft has announced what it calls a more privacy-friendly version of its Productivity Score enterprise feature, following backlash from security experts who condemned it as "full-fledged workplace surveillance tool."

The Productivity Score feature, which was launched as part of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite on Oct. 29, aimed to provide enterprises with data about how employees were utilizing technology. The idea behind the feature is to provide employees with a "score" based on metrics collected from their usage of Microsoft 365 products. For instance, an employee who uses Microsoft Teams, Outlook or Skype more might have a higher score.

However, following privacy concerns about the feature, the tech giant announced on Tuesday several changes to Productivity Score. "At Microsoft, we believe that data-driven insights are crucial to empowering people and organizations to achieve more," Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said in a blog post Tuesday. "We also believe that privacy is a human right, and we're deeply committed to the privacy of every person who uses our products."

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

SpaceX's 1st crewed Mars mission could launch as early as 2024, Elon Musk says:

Company founder and CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday (Dec. 1) that he's "highly confident" SpaceX will launch people toward the Red Planet in 2026, adding that the milestone could come as early as 2024 "if we get lucky."

Musk made the remarks during a webcast interview with Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the German media company Axel Springer SE. The two spoke at Axel Springer's Berlin headquarters as part of a ceremony honoring Musk, who won this year's Axel Springer Award.

"And then we want to try to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years," Musk told Döpfner. (The two-year target intervals are dictated by orbital dynamics: Earth and Mars align favorably for interplanetary launches just once every 26 months.)

[...] The vehicle that will make these Mars trips is the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship, which will launch from Earth atop a giant rocket known as Super Heavy. Both of these craft will be fully and rapidly reusable; Super Heavy will return to Earth for vertical touchdowns shortly after liftoff, and Starship will be able to fly from Earth orbit to Mars and back again many times, Musk has said. (Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself off both Mars and the moon, which have much weaker gravitational pulls than that of Earth.)

SpaceX is iterating toward the final Starship via a series of prototypes, the latest of which, SN8 ("Serial No. 8"), is gearing up for a big test flight. SpaceX aims to launch the three-engine SN8 to a target altitude of 9 miles (15 kilometers) this week, Musk said recently.

[...] The final Starship will sport six of SpaceX's powerful new Raptor engines, Musk has said. Super Heavy will sport about 30 Raptors.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Synergism of TNF-α and IFN-γ triggers inflammatory cell death, tissue damage, and mortality in SARS-CoV-2 infection and cytokine shock syndromes:

(From the abstract):

COVID-19 is characterized by excessive production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and acute lung damage associated with patient mortality. While multiple inflammatory cytokines are produced by innate immune cells during SARS-CoV-2 infection, we found that only the combination of TNF-α and IFN-γ induced inflammatory cell death characterized by pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis (PANoptosis). Mechanistically, TNF-α and IFN-γ co-treatment activated the JAK/STAT1/IRF1 axis, inducing nitric oxide production and driving caspase-8/FADD–mediated PANoptosis. TNF-α and IFN-γ caused a lethal cytokine shock in mice that mirrors the tissue damage and inflammation of COVID-19, and inhibiting PANoptosis protected mice from this pathology and death. Furthermore, treating with neutralizing antibodies against TNF-α and IFN-γ protected mice from mortality during SARS-CoV-2 infection, sepsis, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, and cytokine shock. Collectively, our findings suggest that blocking the cytokine-mediated inflammatory cell death signaling pathway identified here may benefit patients with COVID-19 or other infectious and autoinflammatory diseases by limiting tissue damage/inflammation.

View Abstract

TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor
IFN-γ: Interferon gamma
JAK: Janus kinase
STAT1: transcription 1
IRF1: Interferon regulatory factor 1

Article status is AIP (accepted, peer reviewed articles that are not yet assigned to volumes/issues, but are citable using DOI).

Full pre-print of the article is available for free from the abstract.

Journal Reference:
Rajendra Karki, Bhesh Raj Sharma, Shraddha Tuladhar1, et al. Synergism of TNF-α and IFN-γ triggers inflammatory cell death, tissue damage, and mortality in SARS-CoV-2 infection and cytokine shock syndromes, ScienceDirect, (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.11.025)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Teckla:

iPhone zero-click Wi-Fi exploit is one of the most breathtaking hacks ever:

Earlier this year, Apple patched one of the most breathtaking iPhone vulnerabilities ever: a memory corruption bug in the iOS kernel that gave attackers remote access to the entire device—over Wi-Fi, with no user interaction required at all. Oh, and exploits were wormable—meaning radio-proximity exploits could spread from one nearby device to another, once again, with no user interaction needed.

This Wi-Fi packet of death exploit was devised by Ian Beer, a researcher at Project Zero, Google's vulnerability research arm. In a 30,000-word post published on Tuesday afternoon, Beer described the vulnerability and the proof-of-concept exploit he spent six months developing single-handedly.

[...] Beer's attack worked by exploiting a buffer overflow bug in a driver for AWDL, an Apple-proprietary mesh networking protocol that makes things like Airdrop work. Because drivers reside in the kernel—one of the most privileged parts of any operating system—the AWDL flaw had the potential for serious hacks. And because AWDL parses Wi-Fi packets, exploits can be transmitted over the air, with no indication that anything is amiss.

[...] Beer developed several different exploits. The most advanced one installs an implant that has full access to the user's personal data, including emails, photos, messages, and passwords and crypto keys stored in the keychain. The attack uses a laptop, a Raspberry Pi, and some off-the-shelf Wi-Fi adapters. It takes about two minutes to install the prototype implant, but Beer said that with more work a better written exploit could deliver it in a "handful of seconds."

Any Soylentils remember the Morris worm?

[N.B. "NOTE: This specific issue was fixed before the launch of Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing in iOS 13.5 in May 2020." - googleprojectzero.blogspot.com]

Original Submission