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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Evidence mounts for effectiveness of rear autobrake:

Front automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems have greater potential to save lives, but rear AEB is saving drivers the hassle and expense of many a fender bender, an updated analysis from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) shows.

Rear AEB was the standout feature in HLDI's annual compilation of its research on the impact of crash avoidance technologies.

The updated rear AEB analysis adds insurance data for model year 2015-18 Subaru vehicles with and without the feature to an earlier analysis of 2014-15 General Motors vehicles. The researchers found that vehicles equipped with rear AEB had 28 percent fewer property damage liability claims and 10 percent fewer collision claims across the two manufacturers.

Collision insurance covers damage to the insured driver's vehicle, while property damage liability insurance covers damage to the other vehicle involved in a crash when the insured driver is at fault.

"We haven't seen that kind of reduction in claims for vehicle and other property damage from any other advanced driver assistance system," says HLDI Senior Vice President Matt Moore.

The impact of rear AEB on injury crashes was relatively small, which makes sense based on the type of crashes the technology is designed to avoid.

"Backing crashes generally happen at lower speeds than front-to-rear crashes," Moore says. "That means they're less dangerous, but the costs from vehicle damage can add up."

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

SpaceX launches Turksat 5A communications satellite for Turkey, lands rocket:

SpaceX kicked off what is expected to be another launch-packed year by delivering a Turkish communications satellite to orbit tonight (Jan. 7).

A 230-ft-tall (70 m) Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:15 p.m. EST (0215 GMT on Jan. 8), about 45 minutes into a planned four-hour window, carrying the Turksat 5A satellite into space. The brief delay was due to a downrange tracking issue, SpaceX said during its live launch broadcast.

[...] Today's flight was the fourth launch for this particular Falcon 9 first stage. The booster, designated B1060, previously lofted an upgraded GPS III satellite for the U.S. Space Force in June 2020, followed by launches of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites in September and October.

[...] the Falcon 9 deposited the 7,700-lb. (3,500 kilograms) Turksat 5A satellite into orbit about 33 minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft is designed to operate for approximately 15 years, providing broadband coverage to Turkey, the Middle East, Europe and portions of Africa.

SpaceX will also launch the spacecraft's counterpart, Turksat 5B, later this year.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

GPU, Motherboard Prices Will Jump Thanks to US-China Trade War - ExtremeTech:

Up until now, the United States' ongoing trade war with China hasn't made much of an impact on tech enthusiasts' wallets. That's going to change from this point forward until the US and China settle their disputes or GPUs are specifically granted an exemption from the increased tariffs. Neither of these seems to be particularly likely at the moment.

Up until now, graphics cards and a number of other products have been shielded from the impact of tariffs by US-granted exemptions that shielded them from the price increases. Those laws, however, expired on December 31, 2020. Now that we're into the new year, companies like Asus are notifying consumers they can expect some unwelcome changes. Juan Jose Guerrero III, Asus' Technical Marketing Manager, has released a statement on the company's MSRP pricing expectations for 2021. This applies to both GPUs and motherboards:

We have an announcement in regards to MSRP price changes that are effective in early 2021 for our award-winning series of graphic cards and motherboards. Our new MSRP reflects increases in cost for components. operating costs, and logistical activities plus a continuation of import tariffs. We worked closely with our supply and logistic partners to minimize price increases. ASUS greatly appreciates your continued business and support as we navigate through this time of unprecedented market change.

Asus also notes that more than just GPUs and motherboards may be affected. Price increases are going to vary by GPU value, but the tariffs on Chinese goods ranged from 7.5 percent to 25 percent. This the very last thing PC enthusiasts will want to hear because it's going to additionally raise the price on GPUs at a time when the graphics cards market is running hot already.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

After decades of effort, scientists are finally seeing black holes:

While working on his doctorate in theoretical physics in the early 1970s, Saul Teukolsky solved a problem that seemed purely hypothetical. Imagine a black hole, the ghostly knot of gravity that forms when, say, a massive star burns out and collapses to an infinitesimal point. Suppose you perturb it, as you might strike a bell. How does the black hole respond?

Teukolsky, then a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), attacked the problem with pencil, paper, and Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, general relativity. Like a bell, the black hole would oscillate at one main frequency and multiple overtones, he found. The oscillations would quickly fade as the black hole radiated gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space itself. It was a sweet problem, says Teukolsky, now at Cornell University. And it was completely abstract—until 5 years ago.

In February 2016, experimenters with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of huge instruments in Louisiana and Washington, reported the first observation of fleeting gravitational ripples, which had emanated from two black holes, each about 30 times as massive as the Sun, spiraling into each other 1.3 billion light-years away. LIGO even sensed the "ring down": the shudder of the bigger black hole produced by the merger. Teukolsky's old thesis was suddenly cutting-edge physics.

"The thought that anything I did would ever have implications for anything measurable in my lifetime was so far-fetched that the last 5 years have seemed like living in a dream world," Teukolsky says. "I have to pinch myself, it doesn't feel real."

NOTE: As part of the editing process, we try to have two editors look at a story before it is released. I noticed a few stories in the Story Queue which had not been seconded. So, I jumped in and proceeded to do so. Unfortunately, the UI for editors has this button layout:

[preview] [update] [delete]

Yes, I accidentally clicked on [delete] instead of [update]. (These are especially close together on a phone.) Not only did the story get deleted, but so did the 17 comments which had already been been made. No, there is no confirmation dialog.

I hereby publicly apologize to AC, AC, Runaway1956, RS3, SomeGuy, AC, AC, epitaxial, SomeGuy, Runaway1956, AC, looorg, AC, Runaway1956, AC, Runaway1956, and Grishnakh as well as the rest of the community.

I will investigate moving the delete button to a safer location on the page and otherwise attempt to make it harder to hit by accident. I retyped re-created the story text; it appears below.

--martyb

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Honda cuts car production on massive chip shortage:

Honda Motor will reduce vehicle production due to a supply crunch in semiconductors, Nikkei has learned, a sign that a pandemic-spurred global shortage is threatening the auto industry.

[...] There are warnings that the cuts could be worse later in the year. "The period starting in February may be grim," said a source familiar with the matter. The shortage could "impact tens of thousands of vehicles during the January-March quarter on the domestic side alone," the source added.

Honda has apparently run short on semiconductors used in vehicle control systems. As people stay mainly indoors and work from home, demand has surged for chips used in smartphones and computers. As chipmakers focus on meeting that demand, semiconductor supplies to auto parts manufacturers have stalled.

[...] Honda will not halt factory operations this month, but the company is expected to limit the daily number of vehicles produced. A cutback of 4,000 autos represents less than 0.1% of the 4.77 million units produced globally in fiscal 2019.

Because the process of procuring material and turning it into semiconductors takes more than three months, adjusting production volume quickly based on demand is a tall order. The coronavirus pandemic caused demand for cars to drop during the first half of 2020. At the time, automakers temporarily cut orders for semiconductors, and the chip suppliers modified production plans accordingly.

[...] The market recovery from the coronavirus impact has kept Honda's factories busy. In November, global production shot up 11.4% from a year earlier to 457,671 vehicles. In Japan alone, production jumped 22.5% to 64,843 units.

But just as Honda pruned excess capacity and is enjoying the comeback in demand, an unexpected fallout from the pandemic is forcing Honda to hit the brakes on production.

"Demand from smartphones, 5G base stations, gaming and elsewhere are robust, so there is limited production capacity to devote to automotive semiconductors," said Kazuhiro Sugiyama at British market intelligence company Omdia. The surge in demand from Chinese electric vehicles have contributed to the supply crunch as well.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Brazilian study says Sinovac coronavirus jab 78% effective:

A vaccine candidate made by China's Sinovac is 78% effective in protecting against the coronavirus, according to results of a study announced Thursday by Brazilian state health officials seeking federal approval of the shot.

More than 12,000 health workers participated in the study, which detected 218 cases of COVID-19 — about 160 of those among people who received a placebo rather than the actual vaccine.

Turkish officials last month said that a smaller, companion study in that country of the same vaccine candidate found an efficacy rate over 90%.

The government of Sao Paulo state, which has contracted for the vaccine, said it will ask Brazil's federal health regulators Friday for emergency approval to begin using it. Gov. João Doria plans to start a vaccination campaign for the state's 46 million residents on Jan. 25.

Sao Paulo's Butantan Institute, which is Sinovac's partner in Brazil, did not disclose data such as results by age and gender or the number of asymptomatic volunteers in the sample, which many epidemiologists require to assess whether the shot complies with safety standards.

Officials said details will be published after Brazil's health regulatory agency approves the vaccine. They gave no date for disclosure in scientific publications.

[...] A different Chinese company, SinoPharm, announced last week that its similar vaccine is about 79% effective. Both of those vaccines rely on inactivated viruses.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Identical twins don't share 100% of their DNA:

Identical twins form from the same egg and get the same genetic material from their parents — but that doesn't mean they're genetically identical by the time they're born.

That's because so-called identical twins pick up genetic mutations in the womb, as their cells weave new strands of DNA and then split into more and more cells. On average, pairs of twins have genomes that differ by an average of 5.2 mutations that occur early in development, according to a new study.

"One particularly surprising observation is that in many twin pairs, some mutations are carried by nearly all cells in one twin but completely absent in the other," Ziyue Gao, an assistant professor of genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research, said in an email.

The study authors estimate that, in about 15% of identical twin pairs, one twin carries a "substantial" number of mutations that the other does not share.

[...] The new study, published Jan. 7 in the journal Nature Genetics, offered this unique snapshot into early development because the authors did some clever detective work using DNA from three generations of people.

[...] For now, the takeaway from the current study is that scientists should not assume that identical twins share 100% identical DNA; such assumptions could lead them to overestimate the influence of the environment, when in reality, a genetic mutation may be the source of a given disease or trait, Stefansson said.

However, "such genomic differences between identical twins are still very rare, on the order of a few differences in 6 billion base pairs," with base pairs being the building blocks of DNA, Gao said. It's unclear how many of these small mutations would result in a functional change that alters how the cell works, and in general, "I doubt these differences will have appreciable contribution to phenotypic [or observable] differences in twin studies," she added.

Journal Reference:
Hakon Jonsson, Erna Magnusdottir, Hannes P. Eggertsson, et al. Differences between germline genomes of monozygotic twins, Nature Genetics (DOI: 10.1038/s41588-020-00755-1)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Boeing to pay $2.5bn to resolve 737 MAX criminal probe in US:

Boeing Co will pay over $2.5bn to resolve the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into two deadly 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people, the DOJ said, but will not be forced to plead guilty to criminal charges.

The DOJ said the settlement includes a criminal monetary penalty of $243.6m, compensation payments to Boeing's 737 MAX airline customers of $1.77bn, and the establishment of a $500m crash-victim beneficiaries fund to compensate the heirs, relatives and legal beneficiaries of the passengers.

[...] Boeing admitted in court documents that two of its 737 MAX Flight Technical Pilots deceived the FAA about a key safety system tied to both fatal crashes called MCAS.

Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun said in a statement the agreement "appropriately acknowledges how we fell short of our values and expectations."

The airline payment fund will include prior payments already made by the Boeing to airlines.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Main bioactive compound of ginger root may protect against autoimmune disease progression:

Naturopathic medicine, or herbal medicine, is all the rage, especially among young people. But how much of this is supported by science?

Ginger is known to have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects, making it a popular herbal supplement to treat inflammatory diseases.

And according to a Michigan Medicine led study published in JCI Insight, the main bioactive compound of ginger root, 6-gingerol, is therapeutic in countering the mechanism that fuels certain autoimmune diseases in mice. Researchers specifically looked at lupus, a disease which attacks the body's own immune system, and its often associated condition antiphospholipid syndrome, which causes blood clots, since both cause widespread inflammation and damage organs overtime.

[...] The study question was, "will the anti-inflammatory properties of ginger extend to neutrophils, and specifically, can this natural medicine stop neutrophils from making [Neutrophil Extracellular Traps, or] NETs that contribute to disease progression?"

"This pre-clinical study in mice offers a surprising and exciting, 'yes'," [lead study author Dr. Ramadan] Ali says.

Journal Reference:
Ramadan A. Ali, Alex A. Gandhi, Lipeng Dai, et al. Anti-neutrophil properties of natural gingerols in models of lupus [open], JCI Insight (DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.138385)

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hendrikboom writes:

It appears open source is going to be respected in the White House.

Open-source developer and manager David Recordon named White House Director of Technology

With a background in open source, open standards, and security, Recordon may be ideal for President Joe Biden's White House.

Article didn't say much about the distinction between open-source and freedom.

canopic jug writes with additional information:

Facebook has gotten two of its own onto President-elect Joe Biden's transition team. Austin Lin and David Recordon will serve as deputy directory of technology and director of technology respectively.

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced two technology officials to serve in the incoming administration, both of whom served in the Obama White House.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Journal article reviews century of data showing COVID-19 likely to impact the brain: International consortium funded by Alzheimer's Association will study effects:

Dementia researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) are the first and senior authors of the report and are joined by coauthors from the Alzheimer's Association and Nottingham and Leicester universities in England.

"Since the flu pandemic of 1917 and 1918, many of the flulike diseases have been associated with brain disorders," said lead author Gabriel A. de Erausquin, MD, PhD, Msc, professor of neurology in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. "Those respiratory viruses included H1N1 and SARS-CoV. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is also known to impact the brain and nervous system."

Dr. de Erausquin, an investigator with the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio, said [...] that the damage done by the pandemic will not be limited to acute effects, such as delirium in the hospital, but will have chronic consequences that impact many individuals' quality of life and independence.

The question is to what degree and under what form. Even mild COVID-19 infections may have negative effects on the brain long term, Dr. de Erausquin said.

[...] The study will collect information over the next two to three years. Initial results are expected in early 2022 for the first set of evaluations. The consortium is aided by technical guidance from the World Health Organization.

Journal Reference:
Gabriel A. de Erausquin, Heather Snyder, María Carrillo, et al. The chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID‐19: The need for a prospective study of viral impact on brain functioning [open], Alzheimer's & Dementia (DOI: 10.1002/alz.12255)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

NSA Issues Guidance on Replacing Obsolete TLS Versions:

The National Security Agency (NSA) this week issued guidance for National Security System (NSS), Department of Defense (DoD), and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) cybersecurity decision makers, system admins, and network security analysts to replace obsolete versions of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

TLS and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) were designed to ensure the security and privacy of communication channels between clients and servers through encryption and authentication.

The protocols encrypt data in traffic, but older versions of these protocols have proven insecure, weakening data protection. Furthermore, new attacks against them have been discovered, further proving their inefficiency.

[...] "NSA recommends that only TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 be used; and that SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, and TLS1.1 not be used," the agency says.

[...] "This will also help organizations prepare for cryptographic agility to always stay ahead of malicious actors' abilities and protect important information. Using obsolete encryption provides a false sense of security because it may look as though sensitive data is protected, even though it really is not," the NSA notes.

(Emphasis retained from original.)

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takyon writes:

Waymo says it's ditching the term 'self-driving' in dig at Tesla

The Google sister company [Waymo] says it is through using the term "self-driving cars" to describe its fleet of autonomous vehicles. And it is subtly pointing fingers at Elon Musk's Tesla as the reason why.

Waymo says it is committing to "using more deliberate language" in its marketing, educational, and promotional materials going forward. This means the company will no longer refer to its vehicles as "self-driving," Waymo says. For example, the company is changing the name of its three-year-old public education campaign from "Let's Talk Self-Driving" to "Let's Talk Autonomous Driving."

"It may seem like a small change, but it's an important one, because precision in language matters and could save lives," the company wrote in a blog post published on January 5th. "We're hopeful that consistency will help differentiate the fully autonomous technology Waymo is developing from driver-assist technologies (sometimes erroneously referred to as 'self-driving' technologies) that require oversight from licensed human drivers for safe operation."

The references to driver-assist technologies appears to be a shot at Tesla, which last year activated a software update in some of its cars called "Full Self Driving." The software, which enables drivers to use many of Autopilot's advanced driver-assist features on local, non-highway streets, is still technically in beta. But an unknown number of white-listed drivers have received it and have been actively testing it on public roads — often filming and uploading those tests on YouTube.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:

Facebook Pages to soon lose their like buttons, focus more on followers:

One of Facebook's most notable design cues is the like button, but the company will soon be doing away with it for Facebook Pages. Starting today with an unspecified amount of pages, there will be a new design, a dedicated News Feed, a Q&A format, and more that Page managers will be able to utilize.

The most significant change with this refresh is the removal of the like button and like count, which is pretty shocking given that the like button has been a hallmark of Facebook's for over a decade. [...] Instead, Facebook users will only be able to follow Pages soon, and Pages will be able to follow accounts as well. [...]

Facebook Pages will also be getting their own News Feed, which is where they'll see posts and updates from the accounts they follow. [...]

Lastly, Page management will gain a bit of functionality; managers will be able to choose precisely which sections (Insights, Ads, Content, and Community Activity & Messages) each person will be able to control.[...]

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow7066:

It takes a lot of energy for machines to learn – here's why AI is so power-hungry:

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst estimated the energy cost of developing AI language models by measuring the power consumption of common hardware used during training. They found that training BERT once has the carbon footprint of a passenger flying a round trip between New York and San Francisco. However, by searching using different structures – that is, by training the algorithm multiple times on the data with slightly different numbers of neurons, connections and other parameters – the cost became the equivalent of 315 passengers, or an entire 747 jet.

[...] All of this means that developing advanced AI models is adding up to a large carbon footprint. Unless we switch to 100% renewable energy sources, AI progress may stand at odds with the goals of cutting greenhouse emissions and slowing down climate change. The financial cost of development is also becoming so high that only a few select labs can afford to do it, and they will be the ones to set the agenda for what kinds of AI models get developed.

[...] What does this mean for the future of AI research? Things may not be as bleak as they look. The cost of training might come down as more efficient training methods are invented. Similarly, while data center energy use was predicted to explode in recent years, this has not happened due to improvements in data center efficiency, more efficient hardware and cooling.

[...] Looking forward, the AI community should invest more in developing energy-efficient training schemes. Otherwise, it risks having AI become dominated by a select few who can afford to set the agenda, including what kinds of models are developed, what kinds of data are used to train them and what the models are used for.

Reference:
Emma Strubell, Ananya Ganesh, Andrew McCallum. Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP (arXiv:1906.02243v1 [cs.CL])

Original Submission