SoylentNews

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Astronomers identified a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter:

The majority of the universe's mass is believed to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy. 5 percent is 'normal matter' that makes up stars, planets, asteroids, etc. This is known as baryonic matter.

[...] Yuanming Wang, a doctoral candidate in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, has developed an ingenious method to track down the missing matter. Using the technique, Wang pinpointed a hitherto undetected stream of cold gas in the Milky Way about ten light-years from Earth.

The cloud is about a trillion kilometers long and 10 billion kilometers wide[*] but only weighing about our Moon's mass.

Ms. Wang, who is pursuing her Ph.D. at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, said, "We suspect that much of the 'missing' baryonic matter is in the form of cold gas clouds either in galaxies or between galaxies."

"This gas is undetectable using conventional methods, as it emits no visible light of its own and is just too cold for detection via radio astronomy."

martyb writes:

It's that time of year again! Americans will hold their annual football championship today — 4.5 hours from when this story goes live — Sunday, February 7th, 2021 starting at 6:30 PM EST (2230 UTC).

In years past, people would gather together for tailgate parties of every description and to watch the game. Social distancing in response to COVID-19 has certainly put a crimp on things this year. Fear not! We are again(!) offering a place to (virtually) gather with friends to comment on the game and commercials!

You are hereby invited to meet up with us on IRC in channel "#SuperBowl-LV"

See below for some details on the game.

Buccaneers vs. Chiefs 2021 Super Bowl: Date, time, TV channel, and more:

How to watch Super Bowl LIV:

Date: Feb. 7, 2021
Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
Where: Raymond James Stadium, Tampa
TV: CBS | Stream: FREE on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App

The story continues with which performers will sing The National Anthem and America the Beautiful, and who will perform at the halftime show, and a host of other pieces of information.

(NB 1: "Super Bowl" is a registered trademark of the National Football League; no affiliation is expressed or implied.)
(NB 2: For some reason, what the rest of the world calls "football" is what Americans call "soccer". This super bowl "football" game is decidedly NOT "soccer".)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Venus flytraps produce magnetic fields when they eat:

Carnivorous plants known as Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) lure insects between their blushing leaves with a fragrant nectar. When these insect-hungry plants snap down on their unassuming prey, they generate a measurable magnetic field, according to a new study.

[...] Rather than serving a function for the plant this magnetic field is likely a byproduct of electrical energy that flows through its leaves, said lead author Anne Fabricant, a doctoral candidate at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz in Germany. Still, it's one of the first such fields ever detected in plants.

"Wherever there is electrical activity, there should also be magnetic activity," Fabricant told Live Science. The laws of electromagnetism dictate that anything with an electrical current also generates a magnetic field; and that includes humans, animals and plants. In fact, it's such a common phenomenon among living things that there's a name associated with it: biomagnetism. But while much research focused on such magnetic fields in humans and animals, not much has been done to understand biomagnetism in the plant world.

[...] "It's exciting to demonstrate plant-biomagnetic measurements using atomic magnetometers, which operate at room temperature and can be portable and miniaturized," Fabricant said. "The fact that we were able to detect magnetic fields gives some hints about how electric currents are distributed in the trap." The researchers hope to measure even tinier magnetic fields in other plant species, according to the statement.

Journal Reference:
Anne Fabricant, Geoffrey Z. Iwata, Sönke Scherzer, et al. Action potentials induce biomagnetic fields in carnivorous Venus flytrap plants [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-81114-w)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Report: Apple VR Could Have 8K, Cost $3,000

Apple's currently in your pocket with its phones, on your wrist with its watches, and thanks to a new report from The Information, we now know that it's probably going to be on your heads soon too with its first VR headset- assuming you can afford it. Recent speculation about an ultra high-end Apple VR headset started just a few weeks ago thanks to Bloomberg, but The Information's new report hints at a bevy of cutting-edge features, including "more than a dozen cameras" and "ultra-high-resolution 8K displays."

These details supposedly come from "a person with direct knowledge of the device," who provided the outlet with internal Apple images of a late-stage prototype of the headset. According to both reports, the Apple VR headset will be a luxury device that uses mesh and swappable headbands to lighten the load on the wearer's head and will cost well over the $300 to $900 price tags of the competition. Current Apple discussions see pricing hitting around $3,000, according to the new report.

For that small fortune, you'll get both VR and Mixed Reality capabilities, since the device's cameras will supposedly go beyond tracking hand movements and will also "be able to pass video of the real world through the visor and display it on screens to the person wearing the headset." Lidar will also reportedly play a role here, helping to map nearby real world objects in virtual spaces rendered by the headset.

But for pure VR enthusiasts, the Apple headset will also supposedly tout two 8K screens, plus eye tracking.

Foveated rendering and eye tracking would be used to reduce the image quality in areas outside of the user's focus.

The report claims this would be a niche product unrelated to an Apple mass market augmented reality (AR) product.

Previously: Apple Goes on an Acquisition Spree, Turns Attention to NextVR
Apple Glasses Leaks and Rumors: Here's Everything We Expect to See

Original Submission

Eratosthenes and an anonymous IRC user report:

Martian landslides may be caused by melting ice and salt under the surface:

The NASA InSight mission has helped researchers determine that the planet experiences Marsquakes, making it seismically active.

And then there is the mystery of Recurring Slope Lineae, known as RSL, that have intrigued scientists for years. These RSL are a form of landslide on Mars, but no one knows what causes them, said Janice Bishop, author of a new study on the phenomena.

"We see them from orbit by the dark streaks they produce on the ground and they tend to always occur on sun-facing slopes, which led geologists to think they were related to melting ice early on," said Bishop, senior research scientist at the SETI Institute in California.

"The interesting thing is that they increase over months following dust storms and then fade away, and they appear to form repeatedly in the same regions. Also, a large number of these are forming in the equatorial part of Mars, where there is very little ice."

[...] These puzzling landslides have never been seen up close by a rover or lander, and until they can be investigated by a robotic explorer, scientists are using lab experiments and Martian analogs on Earth to try and understand them.

[...] "If our hypothesis is correct, then RSL could be indicators for salts on Mars and for near-surface active chemistry," Bishop said. "Most of us Mars scientists have considered modern Mars as a cold and dry and dormant place, shaped mostly by dust storms. This is certainly true of the surface, but our work shows that the subsurface could be much more chemically active than realized before."

Journal Reference:
J. L. Bishop, M. Yeşilbaş, N. W. Hinman, et al. Martian subsurface cryosalt expansion and collapse as trigger for landslides [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe4459)

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

aristarchus writes:

CNet News reports this, about Tianwen-1.

It's a busy month on Mars. Three spacecraft missions are closing in on the red planet. China's Tianwen-1 is one of them, and it already has an eye on its new home in the solar system. The Chinese National Space Agency released Tianwen-1's first view of Mars on Friday.

CNSA described the image as "the first snapshot from the Chinese craft" in a statement, and said it was captured from about 1.4 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) away. The stark black and white photo shows Mars against the dark backdrop of space.

CNSA previously released a spacecraft "selfie" in September 2020 showing Tianwen-1 on its long flight.

The Chinese spacecraft has been making some corrections to its trajectory to bring it neatly into orbit on Feb. 10. The mission is made up of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It will spend some time traveling around Mars before attempting the harrowing landing part of the mission.

As SpaceX says, you have to work on the landing.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SpaceX Starlink passes 10,000 users and fights opposition to FCC funding

Lobby groups for small ISPs are urging the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether SpaceX can deliver on its broadband promises and to consider blocking the satellite provider's rural-broadband funding. Meanwhile, SpaceX says the Starlink beta is now serving high-speed broadband to 10,000 users.

[...] Electric co-ops that provide broadband raised concerns about both SpaceX's low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite technology and fixed-wireless services that deliver Internet access from towers on the ground to antennas on customers' homes. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) submitted a white paper to the FCC claiming that the RDOF awards put "rural America's broadband hopes at risk."

The CEO of NRECA was blunt in his opposition to SpaceX's funding, as stated in a Bloomberg article today:

SpaceX's broadband-from-orbit "is a completely unproven technology," said Jim Matheson, chief executive officer of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which has members that vied for the funding. "Why use that money for a science experiment?"

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Physicists to look for quantum time dilation inside nuclear reactor:

We're all too familiar with the inexorable march of time, but why exactly it flows in one direction remains a mystery of physics. A few years ago Australian physicist Joan Vaccaro proposed a new quantum theory of time, and now a team is planning to test the hypothesis by searching for time dilation in a nuclear reactor.

[...] But according to Vaccaro's quantum theory of time, entropy is more of a symptom of the flow of time, rather than the root cause. She uses the analogy of a tree blowing in the wind – while the leaves (entropy) may appear to be shaking the tree, they aren't responsible for the motion themselves, but are the result of another force (wind). In this new theory, the "wind" is created by time reversal symmetry violations (T violations).

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The independent review of Australia's main environment law, released last week, provided a sobering but accurate appraisal of a dire situation.

The review was led by Professor Graeme Samuel and involved consultation with scientists, legal experts, industry and conservation organizations. Samuel's report concluded Australia's biodiversity is in decline and the law (the EPBC Act) "is not fit for current or future environmental challenges".

[...] To reverse Australia's appalling track record of protecting biodiversity, four major reforms recommended by Samuel must be implemented as a package.

1. Setting standards [...]
2. Greater government accountability [...]
3. Decent funding [...]
4. Increase ecological knowledge [...]

[...] Samuel recommends Regional Recovery Plans be adequately funded to help develop some knowledge. But we suggest substantial new environmental capacity is needed, including new ecological research positions, increased environmental monitoring infrastructure, and appropriate funding of recovery plans, to ensure enough knowledge supports decision making.

Samuel's report has provided a path forward that could make a substantial difference to Australia's shocking track record of biodiversity conservation and land stewardship.

But Environment Minister Sussan Ley's response so far suggests the Morrison government plans to cherry pick from Samuel's recommendations, and rush through changes without appropriate safeguards.

If the changes we outlined above aren't implemented as a package, our precious natural heritage will continue to decline.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments:

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state's economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday.

The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

The measure to further economic development with the "alternative form of local government" has not yet been introduced in the Legislature.

[...] The governor's economic development office did not respond to questions about the zones Wednesday.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Scintillating discovery: these distant 'baby' black holes seem to be misbehaving — and experts are perplexed:

Radio images of the sky have revealed hundreds of "baby" and supermassive black holes in distant galaxies, with the galaxies' light bouncing around in unexpected ways.

[...] Astronomers have long questioned why some radio galaxies host enormous lobes, while others remain small and confined. Two theories exist. One is that the jets are held back by dense material around the black hole, often referred to as frustrated lobes.

[...] The second theory to explain smaller lobes is the jets are young and have not yet extended to great distances.

[...] From the data, baby radio galaxies appear blue, which means they're brighter at higher radio frequencies. Meanwhile the old and dying radio galaxies appear red and are brighter in the lower radio frequencies.

We identified 554 baby radio galaxies. When we looked at identical data taken a year later, we were surprised to see 123 of these were bouncing around in their brightness, appearing to flicker. This left us with a puzzle.

Something more than one light year in size can't vary so much in brightness over less than one year without breaking the laws of physics. So, either our galaxies were far smaller than expected, or something else was happening.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Vale reaches $7bn settlement over deadly dam collapse in Brazil:

Vale SA reached a settlement agreement with Brazilian authorities for a dam collapse that killed 270 people and led to production cutbacks that stripped the company of the title of world's biggest iron ore producer. Its shares rose.

The deal comes two years after the Brumadinho disaster, giving affected communities a clear framework for compensation and reparations and removing a considerable legal overhang for Vale shareholders.

Vale will pay 37.7 billion reais ($7.03 billion) including cash payments to affected people and investments in environmental projects, the Rio de Janeiro-based company said in a statement. Vale estimates it will book an additional expense of 19.8 billion reais in 2020 results.

[...] The two sides come together after Vale initially presented a value of about 21 billion reais, while the state of Minas Gerais outlined 28 billion reais in material damages plus 26 billion reais in moral damages.

[...] With Vale benefiting from high iron ore prices, the Brumadinho settlement isn't expected to jeopardize any of its investment plans, according to Ativa Investimentos. Iron ore futures climbed 73% last year on strong Chinese demand.

Vale shares extended gains on the back of the news after trading was halted for more than half an hour in Sao Paulo. The stock was up 2.1% at 10:57 a.m. local time compared with a 0.6% advance for the Ibovespa.

Previously: Brazil Dam Collapse: Hundreds Missing after Mining Disaster

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Apple may finally fix its flimsy iPhone charger cables:

Every iPhone user likely has had one Lighting cable fray [on] them. It's been an annoying issue, and one that's driven third-party sellers to create braided cables that can withstand more abuse.

It seems that Apple is at the very least researching ways to make its cables more resilient. According to a patent filing first noticed by AppleInsider, Apple has been working on a "cable with variable stiffness" that gets thicker toward the ports.

Lightning cables are known for having thick connector points. It's what Apple internally refers to as the strain relief sleeve. While the ends of Apple cables are meant to keep the cable from fraying, often those areas become pressure and kink points. Apple acknowledged as much in its patent filing.

"In addition to making the cable locally stiffer, the strain relief sleeve also makes the cable thicker at the ends. In some instances, the added thickness may not be desired," the patent filing reads.

To get around this, Apple is essentially designing a cable that has denser material toward the ends that tapers off. [...]

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

IBM unveiled on Wednesday improvements to quantum computing software that it expects will increase performance of its complex machines by a factor of 100, a development that builds on Big Blue's progress in making the advanced computing hardware.

In a road map, the computing giant targeted the release of quantum computing applications over the next two years that will tackle challenges such as artificial intelligence and complex financial calculations. And it's opening up lower level programming access that it expects will lead to a better foundation for those applications.

Much of the software will be written using open-source technology that outsiders can contribute to and benefit from, IBM said in a statement, adding the improvements will "lead to a 100x speedup."

[...] IBM's quantum computing road map encompasses hardware and software improvements.

In coming years, IBM expects to add application modules and services to make those chores easier to tackle. At the lower level, it'll offer steady improvements in circuit technology through 2026.

Previously:
IBM Promises 1000-Qubit Quantum Computer

Original Submission

hendrikboom writes:

South African Government Releases Its Own Browser Just To Re-Enable Flash Support | Zdnet:

For some people, it's apparently easier to manage your own browser than port some web forms from Flash to HTML.

The South African Revenue Service [(SARS)] has released this week its own custom web browser for the sole purpose of re-enabling Adobe Flash Player support, rather than port its existing website from using Flash to HTML-based web forms.

Flash Player reached its official end of life (EOL) on Dec. 31, 2020, when Adobe officially stopped supporting the software.

To prevent the app from continuing to be used in the real-world to the detriment of users and their security, Adobe also began blocking Flash content from playing inside the app starting January 12, with the help of a time-bomb mechanism.

As Adobe hoped, this last step worked as intended and prevented companies from continuing using the software, forcing many to update systems and remove the app.

As SARS tweeted on January 12, the agency was impacted by the time-bomb mechanism, and starting that day, the agency was unable to receive any tax filings via its web portal, where the upload forms were designed as Flash widgets.