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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Gut bacteria linked to endocannabinoid levels and depression:

Plenty of recent research has shown compelling correlations between gut microbiome alterations and mood disorders such as depression. But exactly how bacteria in the gut could be influencing depressive behaviors has been unclear. New research from a team of French scientists is shedding light on one possible causal mechanism, describing a pathway by which changes to the microbiome results in decreased activity in the hippocampus and subsequent depressive behavior.

The new research began by investigating microbiome changes in a mouse model of stress-induced depression. As well as initially examining the microbiome differences between healthy animals and animals with mood disorders, the researchers discovered those mood disorders could be transferred to the healthy animals via fecal transplants.

"Surprisingly, simply transferring the microbiota from an animal with mood disorders to an animal in good health was enough to bring about biochemical changes and confer depressive-like behaviors in the latter," explains Pierre-Marie Lledo, joint last author on the new study.

The next step was to investigate what mechanistic pathways could explain how the gut bacteria alterations were influencing depressive behaviors. It was here the researchers discovered changes in the depressed animals' endocannabinoid system.

[...] Changes to endocannabinoid signaling, particularly in the hippocampus, have been linked to depression and mood disorders, and in this new study, the researchers found microbiome alterations were associated with diminished endocannabinoid signaling in the hippocampus.

Journal Reference:
Grégoire Chevalier, Eleni Siopi, Laure Guenin-Macé, et al. Effect of gut microbiota on depressive-like behaviors in mice is mediated by the endocannabinoid system [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19931-2)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Rewiring stroke survivors brains could alleviate depression:

A trial led by UniSA stroke researcher Dr Brenton Hordacre has found that large doses of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) significantly improve post-stroke depression by increasing brain activity.

Previous studies have experimented with the use of rTMS but this is the first time that a large treatment dose -- 30,000 electromagnetic pulses delivered over two weeks -- have been trialled, showing positive changes in brain function.

The findings, published in the Journal of Neurology, could signal a non-invasive, alternative treatment for post-stroke depression in place of medication, which can have negative side effects for many people.

South Australians are set to benefit from this research with the brain stimulation device now available at UniSA's City West campus to treat stroke patients suffering depression.

The $40,000 brain stimulator, partly funded by the Honda Foundation, could also potentially improve motor recovery, helping stroke patients develop new connections in the damaged brain.

[...] The treatment will be officially launched in the new year.

Journal Reference:
Brenton Hordacre, Kristina Comacchio, Lindy Williams, et al. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for post-stroke depression: a randomised trial with neurophysiological insight [$], Journal of Neurology (DOI: 10.1007/s00415-020-10315-6)

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canopic jug writes:

Atlas Obscura has a deep dive into the history and socio-economic factors behind the world's second most expensive spice, vanilla. Vanilla originates from and is still produced in Mexico. The plant, Vanilla Planiflora, is an orchid which grows in the wild in southeastern Mexico. The vines are easily grown, but only very rarely produce fruit outside their native range. Cultivating vanilla worldwide was only possible once it was known how to manually pollinate the flowers. The flowers last only for a matter of hours and although self-fertile, cannot self-pollinate without mechanical intervention. In regions like Madagascar, the pollination is done by hand. Madagascar has been the world's largest vanilla producer for a very long time for a wide range of reasons which the article explains.

It’s pretty likely that there is exactly one product from Madagascar in your home right now—no more, no less. That product is vanilla, and Madagascar is at the moment the world’s leading producer of this ubiquitous natural flavor—despite the fact that Madagascar is a very strange country to be the world’s leading producer of vanilla.

Vanilla, at least the vanilla we eat, is not native to Madagascar; it originated some 10,000 miles away. Madagascar is also a chaotic place to do business, as an article in The Economist’s 1843 Magazine showed in 2019. The modern vanilla industry in Madagascar involves crushing poverty, splurge-producing wealth, theft, murder, and money laundering—in addition to natural disasters and the leveling of pristine forests.

Vanilla is inexorably intertwined with food trends, colonialism, slavery, and capitalism at its most rank. Vanilla is the second-most-expensive spice in the world—saffron maintains that crown—and there’s nothing boring about it.

Since the vanilla orchid grows well in greenhouses, and industrial cultivation outside of Mexico needs manual pollination, it should be a decent candidate for urban vertical farms.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Hidden symmetry could be key to more robust quantum systems, researchers find:

Researchers have found a way to protect highly fragile quantum systems from noise, which could aid in the design and development of new quantum devices, such as ultra-powerful quantum computers.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, have shown that microscopic particles can remain intrinsically linked, or entangled, over long distances even if there are random disruptions between them. Using the mathematics of quantum theory, they discovered a simple setup where entangled particles can be prepared and stabilized even in the presence of noise by taking advantage of a previously unknown symmetry in quantum systems.

Their results, reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, open a new window into the mysterious quantum world that could revolutionize future technology by preserving quantum effects in noisy environments, which is the single biggest hurdle for developing such technology. Harnessing this capability will be at the heart of ultrafast quantum computers.

[...] Now, Dutta and his co-author Professor Nigel Cooper have discovered a robust quantum system where multiple pairs of qubits remain entangled even with a lot of noise.

[...] "We weren't expecting this stabilized type of entanglement at all," said Dutta. "We stumbled upon this hidden symmetry, which is very rare in these noisy systems."

They showed this hidden symmetry protects the entangled pairs and allows their number to be controlled from zero to a large maximum value. Similar conclusions can be applied to a broad class of physical systems and can be realized with already existing ingredients in experimental platforms, paving the way to controllable entanglement in a noisy environment.

Journal Reference:
Shovan Dutta, Nigel R. Cooper. Long-Range Coherence and Multiple Steady States in a Lossy Qubit Array, Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.240404)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Original Jailbreak App Store Cydia Sues Apple for its Monopoly:

The iPhone's original—and unofficial—app store has sued Apple, accusing the company of having a monopoly on the distribution of apps.

Cydia, an app store created and launched in 2007 by Jay "Saurik" Freeman, one of the original jailbreakers filed the lawsuit against Apple on Thursday.

"Were it not for Apple's anti competitive acquisition and maintenance of an illegal monopoly over iOS app distribution, users today would actually be able to choose how and where to locate and obtain iOS apps, and developers would be able to use the iOS app distributor of their choice," the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit was first reported by The Washington Post.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

France fines Google $120M and Amazon $42M for dropping tracking cookies without consent – TechCrunch:

France's data protection agency, the CNIL, has slapped Google and Amazon with fines for dropping tracking cookies without consent.

Google has been hit with a total of €100 million ($120 million) for dropping cookies on Google.fr and Amazon €35 million (~$42 million) for doing so on the Amazon .fr domain under the penalty notices issued today.

The regulator carried out investigations of the websites over the past year and found tracking cookies were automatically dropped when a user visited the domains in breach of the country's Data Protection Act.

In Google's case the CNIL has found three consent violations related to dropping non-essential cookies.

"As this type of cookies cannot be deposited without the user having expressed his consent, the restricted committee considered that the companies had not complied with the requirement provided for by article 82 of the Data Protection Act and the prior collection of the consent before the deposit of non-essential cookies," it writes in the penalty notice [which we've translated from French].

Amazon was found to have made two violations, per the CNIL penalty notice.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Boeing Ups 787 Delivery Checks Due To Manufacturing Issue - News AKMI:

Production problems and delivery delays are continuing to trouble Boeing's 787 Dreamliner program. Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began a review of the Dreamliner's assembly line following a series of quality control issues. More recently, the inspection regime has stepped up yet again following the revelation of further quality control problems at Boeing's 787 factories.

The story was first reported by Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor in The Wall Street Journal earlier today. That report says Boeing has increased inspections following the discovery of previously identified defects. But the defects have now cropped up in new parts of the fuselage.

The report says the defects are imperfections around joins on the carbon-composite fuselage, meaning it isn't as smooth as it should be. In the words of a Boeing spokesperson, parts of the fuselage "may not meet specified skin flatness tolerances." The defects are tiny, about the width of a human hair.

The FAA is aware of the problem and is talking to Boeing. Both Boeing and the FAA stress the spots don't raise immediate safety concerns. An FAA spokesperson told Simple Flying;

"The FAA continuously engages with Boeing through established continued operational safety and manufacturing oversight processes to appropriately address any issues that might arise."

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

John le Carré: Espionage writer dies aged 89:

British espionage writer John le Carré has died aged 89, following a short illness, his literary agent has said.

The author of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy died from pneumonia on Saturday.

[...] A statement shared on behalf of the author's family said: "It is with great sadness that we must confirm that David Cornwell - John le Carré - passed away from pneumonia last Saturday night after a short battle with the illness.

"David is survived by his beloved wife of almost 50 years, Jane, and his sons Nicholas, Timothy, Stephen and Simon.

"We all grieve deeply his passing. Our thanks go to the wonderful NHS team at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro for the care and compassion that he was shown throughout his stay. We know they share our sadness."

The statement said his death was not Covid-19 related.

takyon writes:

Amazon's Zoox unveils electric robotaxi that can travel up to 75 mph

Six years ago, Zoox launched quietly with a mighty mission: build and commercialize just about every aspect of a robotaxi service from the self-driving software stack and on-demand ridesharing app to the management of the fleet and an unconventional vehicle that would transport passengers.

Now, it's finally lifting the veil on its multi-year effort. Zoox, which was acquired earlier this year by Amazon, unveiled the electric, autonomous robotaxi it built from the ground up — a cube-like vehicle loaded with sensors, no steering wheel and a moonroof that is capable of transporting four people at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. The vehicle can drive bidrectionally and has four-wheel steering, capabilities that Zoox said were included to allow it to maneuver through compact spaces and change directions without the need to reverse. In other words, dense urban environments.

The vehicle has a four-seat, face-to-face symmetrical seating configuration, similar to what a train traveler might encounter. It's also equipped with a 133 kilowatt-hour battery that Zoox said allows it to operate for up to 16 continuous hours on a single charge. Zoox didn't provide a mileage range for the battery.

Also at The Verge, Bloomberg, CNBC, and NYT.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Linux 5.10 Didn't Even Last 24 Hours... Linux 5.10.1 Released Due To Bugs - Phoronix:

It was just yesterday evening -- less than 24 hours ago -- that Linux 5.10 LTS was released but already the first point release has arrived due to bugs in the storage code.

[...] Linux 5.10.1 has just two fixes, both of which affect the storage code.

[...] The problems are bad enough -- especially anytime bugs affect kernel code related to storage -- that led to the immediate release of Linux 5.10.1.

So is out there and users are encouraged to upgrade if not already on this latest LTS series...;

Where you can get it: Linux 5.10.1

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Though the popular vote for the next President of the United States of America was held in early November, today is the day the next President is actually selected.

The popular vote of the people is actually to select electors whose votes are what actually select the next President.

From the live update page Electoral College votes to affirm Biden's win:

• The 538 electors who make up the Electoral College are gathering today in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to formally cast their votes for president.
• This is a procedural step that typically goes unnoticed. But it has taken on outsize importance this year as President Trump continues to attack the election results.
• Today's electoral votes will confirm Joe Biden as the rightful 46th president and California Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president.

President-elect Joe Biden has received enough electoral votes to officially clinch the presidency. Today's Electoral College vote is a procedural step that typically goes unnoticed. But it has taken on outsize importance this year as President Trump continues to attack the election results

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SomeGuy writes:

The international news agency AFP reports on a violent rampage at a Taiwanese-run iPhone factory in southern India" leading to over 100 arrests. About 2,000 workers were involved in the protest, reports the Verge, citing the Indian Express newspaper.

The workers are protesting over allegations of unpaid wages and exploitation, according to AFP. "Local media reported workers saying they had not been paid for up to four months and were being forced to do extra shifts..."

Workers at the Taiwanese-run Wistron Infocomm Manufacturing near Bangalore smashed glass panels with rods and flipped cars on their side.

[...] CCTV cameras, fans and lights were torn down, while a car was set on fire, footage shared on social media showed.

[...] A local trade union leader alleged that there was "brutal exploitation" of factory workers in sweatshop conditions at the iPhone manufacturing plant.

"The state government has allowed the company to flout the basic rights," Satyanand, who uses one name, told The Hindu newspaper.

[...] Labour unrest is not uncommon in India, with workers paid poorly and given few or no social security benefits.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Hubble spots exoplanet with a wild orbit:

We all grew up thinking there were nine planets in our solar system. Pluto got demoted, leaving just eight official planets, but in recent years some scientists have begun to believe that there is indeed a ninth big planet hanging out on the edges of the solar system, beyond our limits of detection. It's a theory that is supported by observations of smaller objects in the asteroid belt past Neptune, but nobody has actually seen this lost world.

Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a distant exoplanet that has an incredibly distorted orbit around its host stars. The planet, called HD 106906, orbits a double star located 336 light-years away, and NASA says it could help astronomers explain how our own still-mythical "Planet Nine" could exist.

[...] "This system draws a potentially unique comparison with our solar system," Meiji Nguyen, lead author of a study explaining the planet's orbit, said in a statement. "It's very widely separated from its host stars on an eccentric and highly misaligned orbit, just like the prediction for Planet Nine. This begs the question of how these planets formed and evolved to end up in their current configuration." The research was published in The Astronomical Journal. It's far from a confirmation of a planet nine existing in our solar system, but it's an interesting finding that does suggest it may be possible.

Journal Reference:
Meiji M. Nguyen, Robert J. De Rosa, and Paul Kalas. First Detection of Orbital Motion for HD 106906 b: A Wide-separation Exoplanet on a Planet Nine–like Orbit - IOPscience, The Astronomical Journal (DOI: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abc012)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Atom-thin transistor uses half the voltage of common semiconductors, boosts current density:

University at Buffalo researchers are reporting a new, two-dimensional transistor made of graphene and the compound molybdenum disulfide that could help usher in a new era of computing.

As described in a paper accepted at the 2020 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, which is taking place virtually next week, the transistor requires half the voltage of current semiconductors. It also has a current density greater than similar transistors under development.

[...] The transistor is composed of a single layer of graphene and a single layer of molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2, which is a part of a group of compounds known as transition metals chalcogenides. The graphene and MoS2 are stacked together, and the overall thickness of the device is roughly 1 nanometer -- for comparison, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers.

While most transistors require 60 millivolts for a decade of change in current, this new device operates at 29 millivolts.

[...] An even more important characteristic of the transistor, Li says, is its ability to handle a greater current density compared to conventional transistor technologies based on 2D or 3D channel materials. As described in the study, the transistor can handle 4 microamps per micrometer.

"The transistor illustrates the enormous potential 2D semiconductors and their ability to usher in energy-efficient nanoelectronic devices. This could ultimately lead to advancements in quantum research and development, and help extend Moore's Law," says co-lead author Fei Yao, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation, a joint program of SEAS and UB's College of Arts of Sciences.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Google services crashed today taking YouTube and other Google services offline with a cascading effect across the internet. Services hit include Discord and other third party online systems which depend on Google services to operate. This event has proven that having single entities such as Google and AWS as the backbone of the internet makes for a linchpin that can be pulled at any time.

I for one did not miss our Search Overlord.

[Ed. addition follows]

See also: CNET.

Things are slowly returning, but if you've been smashing your head against the wall in frustration, it helps to know it might not be entirely on your end.

From the CNET article:

According to DownDetector, the outage began around 6:25 a.m. ET (3:25 a.m. PT) and continued for over an hour. Google's own Workspace Status Dashboard showed all its services to be suffering outages. But Google Search appeared to still be working, as did Chrome. Around 7:40 a.m. ET (4:40 a.m. PT) services started coming back online.

Google's own statement shows the timings to be different, however. According to a statement from a Google spokesperson, the outage began at 3:47 a.m. PT and lasted around 45 minutes.

Original Submission