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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Space Station Spiders Found A Hack To Build Webs Without Gravity:

Under normal gravity conditions, orb web spiders tend to build asymmetrical webs with the center, or hub, positioned toward the upper edge. When resting and waiting for prey, spiders sit in their hub with their heads facing downward, allowing them to quickly pounce on their prey in the direction of gravity.

[...] The chosen species for the 2011 spider experiment is the golden silk orb weaver, or Trichonephila clavipes. [...] two spiders would build their webs in separate testing chambers on the ISS, while two spiders were kept in identical habitats on the ground to serve as the control group.

[...] It turns out that the spiders, when working in microgravity, tend to weave webs that are discernibly more symmetrical than those built on Earth. Also, the hubs were positioned closer to the center of the webs, and the spiders didn't always keep their heads in a downward position.

But this wasn't the case across the board. Some webs exhibited a surprising degree of asymmetry, especially for those "whose building had started when the lights were on, suggesting that light replaced gravity as an orientation guide during web building," according to the paper. Moreover, the light also provided a reference for the spider in terms of positioning themselves atop the web (by top, the researchers are referring to the top of the habitat ).

Funny thing is, access to a light source was not even considered as a factor going into the experiment.

Journal Reference:
Samuel Zschokke, Stefanie Countryman, Paula E. Cushing. Spiders in space—orb-web-related behaviour in zero gravity [open], The Science of Nature (DOI: 10.1007/s00114-020-01708-8)

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chromas writes:

U.S. Schools Are Buying Phone-Hacking Tech That the FBI Uses to Investigate Terrorists:

In May 2016, a student enrolled in a high-school in Shelbyville, Texas, consented to having his phone searched by one of the district's school resource officers. Looking for evidence of a romantic relationship between the student and a teacher, the officer plugged the phone into a Cellebrite UFED to recover deleted messages from the phone. According to the arrest affidavit, investigators discovered the student and teacher frequently messaged each other, "I love you." Two days later, the teacher was booked into the county jail for sexual assault of a child.

The Cellebrite used to gather evidence in that case was owned and operated by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. But these invasive phone-cracking tools are not only being purchased by police departments. Public documents reviewed by Gizmodo indicate that school districts have been quietly purchasing these surveillance tools of their own for years.

[...] Gizmodo has reviewed similar accounting documents from eight school districts, seven of which are in Texas, showing that administrators paid as much $11,582 for the controversial surveillance technology. Known as mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs), this type of tech is able to siphon text messages, photos, and application data from student's devices. Together, the districts encompass hundreds of schools, potentially exposing hundreds of thousands of students to invasive cell phone searches.

[...] The Fourth Amendment protects people in the United States from unreasonable government searches and seizures, including their cell phones. While a search without a warrant is generally considered unreasonable, the situation in schools is a little different.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

High-end SATA SSD shootout: Samsung 860 Pro vs. Kingston DC500M:

Today, we're going to put to good use some of what we covered last year in our Storage Fundamentals series—specifically, we'll use fio to test two competing high-end SATA SSDs.

Each disk has its high points and its low points, and we'll cover both in detail as well as giving you some handy charts to compare the two directly.

[...] I'm not going to beat around the bush—when it comes to raw performance on simple workloads, the Samsung Pro is a faster drive than the Kingston, and there aren't any two ways about it. In almost every throughput test I threw at the pair, the Samsung 860 Pro ran about 50 to 75 percent faster than the DC500M did.

[...] The DC500M offers significantly better write latency than the 860 Pro, even all the way at the left end of the chart—the fastest 1 percent of all 4K writes complete in 775 microseconds on the Samsung, versus only 375 microseconds on the Kingston. But the real story doesn't happen until around the 30th percentile, where the 860 Pro's latencies start increasing dramatically—but the DC500M's latencies do not.

[...] The Samsung 860 Pro does not have PLP [(Power Loss Protection)] and therefore can't guarantee the safety of blocks in its DRAM cache—so sync writes must actually get all the way to the metal before the sync() call can return. That means the Samsung ends up with less than a 10th the sync throughput of the truly data center-grade DC500M.

[...] It probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the much more consumer-oriented Samsung 860 Pro is likely the best choice for most consumers. What might come as a surprise to many Ars readers is just how affordable a true data center SSD—like the DC500M—can be, even when bought in single units.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Google breaks SMS on many Android phones, is rolling back changes now:

If the text messages on your Android phone have suddenly stopped working, you're not alone. Google pushed out a bad copy of the Carrier Services app, and the result was broken SMS on many Android phones. It also sounds like the company is rolling back the update and fixing the problem.

[...] Google pushed out version 50 of Carrier Services, and afterward, many users—including Samsung, OnePlus, LG, Motorola, and TCL customers—have reported sending-and-receiving issues for SMS.

[...] If you want to check your version of Carrier Services, the easiest way is to open the system settings, hit the search button in the top right, type in "Carrier Services," and press the app info result for the Carrier Services app (it has a multi-colored puzzle piece next to it).[...] If you're on version 50 and having problems, uninstalling app updates (available via the three-dot button in the top right) is a temporary fix.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

French army gets ethical go-ahead for bionic soldiers

The French armed forces now have permission to develop "augmented soldiers" following a report from a military ethics committee. The report, released to the public on Tuesday, considers medical treatments, prosthetics and implants that improve "physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities," and could allow for location tracking or connectivity with weapons systems and other soldiers.

[...] The committee said that France needs to maintain "operational superiority of its armed forces in a challenging strategic context" while respecting the rules governing the military, humanitarian law and the "fundamental values of our society." As a result, it has forbidden any modification that would affect a soldier's ability to manage the use of force or affect their sense of "humanity." Further examples of banned modifications include cognitive implants that would affect the exercise of a soldier's free will, or changes that would affect their reintegration into civilian life.

Armed forces minister Florence Parly said "invasive" augmentations such as implants are not currently part of military plans. "But we have to be clear, not everyone has the same scruples as us and we have to prepare ourselves for such a future," she said in a press release published Tuesday.

PDF here (8.1 MB, in French). Round table discussion (1h18m35s, also in French).

Also at BBC, IFLScience, and The Defense Post.

Related: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Claims China is Testing on Humans to Create Super Soldiers

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

US House passes bill to tear down judiciary's paywall:

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Open Courts Act. The bill aims to modernize PACER, the website that provides public access to federal court records. It also aims to eliminate PACER's paywall by 2025.

The PACER system represented a big advance for judicial transparency when it went online in the 1990s. But the system hasn't kept up with the times, with a user interface that has changed little since the days of dial-up Internet.

Each federal trial and bankruptcy court—around 200 courts in total—has its own distinct PACER website, with limited capabilities to search across multiple sites. Not only is this inconvenient for users, but maintaining dozens of separate websites is an administrative headache.

[...] The Open Courts Act aims to modernize the system in two phases. In the first phase, scheduled for completion by 2025, the courts would replace the current patchwork system with a national, searchable PACER website.

[...] After the House vote, the legislation must pass the Senate before it can go to President Trump for his signature. On Wednesday, a bipartisan pair of US senators—Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—introduced a Senate version of the Open Courts Act. It's not clear if advocates can get the bill through the Senate in the three weeks before the current session of Congress expires. But even if they fail, the successful House vote will give the proposal momentum in 2021.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Uber wants drivers and delivery workers to get priority access to COVID-19 vaccine:

Given how reliant many people have become on rideshare drivers and especially delivery workers during the pandemic, Uber is pushing for them to get priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Today, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to all 50 governors asking them to prioritize giving drivers and delivery workers the vaccine as essential workers.

[...] In the letter, Khosrowshahi argues that the work of drivers and delivery people has become essential. That's why Uber wants them to get the vaccine "quickly, easily and for free," he wrote in the letter. Additionally, Uber has offered to help share information about the vaccine and encourage those who are eligible to get vaccinated.

"After nine months on the frontlines keeping their communities running, we are asking governors in all 50 states to prioritize drivers and delivery people for early vaccine access," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement to TechCrunch. "Uber stands ready to do everything we can—leveraging our technology, our logistical expertise and our resources—to help protect the people working on our platform and bring vaccines to the public as quickly and efficiently as possible."

See also: Uber's letter to the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Hyundai takes control of Boston Dynamics in $1.1B deal

Hyundai is officially purchasing a controlling stake in robot maker Boston Dynamics from SoftBank in a deal that values the company at $1.1 billion, the company announced today. The deal has been in the works for a while, according to recent a report from Bloomberg, and marks a major step into consumer robotics for Hyundai. Hyundai is taking approximately an 80 percent stake in the company while its previous owner, Softbank, will retain around 20 percent through an affiliate.

Hyundai says its investment will help its development of service and logistics robots, but that over time it hopes to build more humanoid robots for jobs like "caregiving for patients at hospitals." Other areas of interest include autonomous driving and smart factories.

EF could not be reached for comment.

Also at Bloomberg and CNBC.

Previously: Google to Sell Robotics Group Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics Produces a Wheeled Terror as Google Watches Nervously
SoftBank Acquires Boston Dynamics and Schaft From Google
Boston Dynamics Will Now Sell Any US Business its Own Spot Robot for $74,500
Boston Dynamics' Dog-Like Robot Spotted in Chernobyl
Boston Dynamics' Spot Is Helping Chernobyl Move Towards Safe Decommissioning

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Spotify resets passwords after a security bug exposed users’ private account information – TechCrunch:

Spotify said it has reset an undisclosed number of user passwords after blaming a software vulnerability in its systems for exposing private account information to its business partners.

In a data breach notification filed with the California attorney general’s office, the music streaming giant said the data exposed “may have included email address, your preferred display name, password, gender, and date of birth only to certain business partners of Spotify.” The company did not name the business partners, but added that Spotify “did not make this information publicly accessible.”

Spotify said the vulnerability existed as far back as April 9 but wasn’t discovered until November 12. But like most data breach notices, Spotify did not say what the vulnerability was or how user account data became exposed.

From the announcement:

We have conducted an internal investigation and have contacted all of our business partners that may have had access to your account information to ensure that any personal information that may have been inadvertently disclosed to them has been deleted. We also rest your Spotify password to help keep your account secure.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1957:

Fragments of energy – not waves or particles – may be the fundamental building blocks of the universe:

Matter is what makes up the universe, but what makes up matter? This question has long been tricky for those who think about it – especially for the physicists. Reflecting recent trends in physics, my colleague Jeffrey Eischen and I have described an updated way to think about matter. We propose that matter is not made of particles or waves, as was long thought, but – more fundamentally – that matter is made of fragments of energy.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:

Singapore Approves a Lab-Grown Meat Product, a Global First:

First, meat came from farms and forests. Then, it came from factories. More recently, entrepreneurs have been making it from plants.

Some have wondered whether there's a more advanced approach: Could meat be grown in a laboratory, from existing cells? That effort has faced multiple challenges, from skepticism over something that comes from a lab to questions about what governments might think.

The nascent laboratory meat industry won a small victory Wednesday on that last point, as an American start-up became the first to win government approval — in this case, an announcement by the city-state of Singapore — to sell the fruit of its labs to the public in the form of "cultured chicken."

The company, Eat Just, is based in San Francisco and describes its product as "real, high-quality meat created directly from animal cells for safe human consumption." Singapore's Food Agency said on Wednesday that it had approved the product for sale as an ingredient in chicken nuggets.

"This is a historic moment in the food system," Eat Just's chief executive, Josh Tetrick, said by telephone on Wednesday. "We've been eating meat for thousands of years, and every time we've eaten meat we've had to kill an animal — until now."

Singapore's move is "the world's first regulatory approval for a cultivated meat product," said Elaine Siu, the managing director of the Good Food Institute Asia Pacific, a nonprofit organization that promotes cultivated meat and plant-based substitutes for animal products.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

New superhighway system discovered in the Solar System:

Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune's distance in under a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast, and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our planet.

In their paper, published in the Nov. 25 issue of Science Advances, the researchers observed the dynamical structure of these routes, forming a connected series of arches inside what's known as space manifolds that extend from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. This newly discovered "celestial autobahn" or "celestial highway" acts over several decades, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or millions of years that usually characterize Solar System dynamics.

Journal Reference:
Nataša Todorović, Di Wu, Aaron J. Rosengren. The arches of chaos in the Solar System [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1313)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

We're watching the world go blind, researchers say:

As 2020 comes to a close, an international group of researchers set out to provide updated estimates on the number of people that are blind or visually impaired across the globe, to identify the predominant causes, and to illustrate epidemiological trends over the last 30 years.

"This is important because when we think about setting a public health agenda, knowing the prevalence of an impairment, what causes it, and where in the world it's most common informs the actions that key decision makers like the WHO and ministries of health take to allocate limited resources," says Joshua Ehrlich, M.D., M.P.H., a study author and ophthalmologist at Kellogg Eye Center.

[...] "Working as a global eye care community, we need to now look at the next 30 years," Ehrlich says. "We hope to take these findings and create implementable strategies with our global partners through our Kellogg Eye Center for International Ophthalmology so fewer people go blind unnecessarily."

In an effort to contribute to the WHO initiative VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, the researchers updated estimates of the global burden of vision loss and provided predictions for what the year 2050 may look like.

They found that the majority of the 43.9 million people blind globally are women. Women also make up the majority of the 295 million people who have moderate to severe vision loss, the 163 million who have mild vision loss and the 510 million who have visual impairments related to the unmet need for glasses, specifically poor near vision.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus_:

In their closest alignment in 800 years, Jupiter and Saturn will create a wonder: A Christmas Star:

The lousiest year in living memory will end with an offering of heavenly wonder: a Christmas Star.

It's actually the alignment of two planets — Jupiter and Saturn — which happens every 20 years or so. But it's not always in December and it's been nearly 800 years — we're talking Middle Ages — since they got this close.

Technically, the two largest planets in our solar system will still be hundreds of millions of miles apart. But Dec. 21, from our vantage point, they'll look like they're nearly touching, creating a radiant point of light that's being dubbed the Christmas Star, or Star of Bethlehem, for obvious reasons.

Making it even more special: Dec. 21 also marks the winter solstice — the longest night of the year, the tipping point where daylight once again starts gaining ground on darkness.

Gotta love the symbolism.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Are dining tents a safe way to eat out during the pandemic?:

Health experts say outdoor dining tents are generally safer than dining inside, but caution that they're not all equal.

Many restaurants are erecting individual tents, igloos and other outdoor structures that let people who are dining together avoid being indoors, where the coronavirus spreads more easily.

Experts say the structures should be well-ventilated. A tent with four walls and a roof, for example, might not have better ventilation than an indoor dining room.

"The more airflow through the structure, the better it is," says Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, a public health expert at Cornell University.

Original Submission