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c0lo writes:

Thwaites Glacier: Significant Geothermal Heat Beneath the Ice Stream

Researchers map the geothermal heat flow in West Antarctica; a new potential weak spot in the ice sheet’s stability is identified.

Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no other ice stream in the Antarctic is changing as dramatically as the massive Thwaites Glacier. Until recently, experts attributed these changes to climate change and the fact that the glacier rests on the seafloor in many places, and as such comes into contact with warm water masses. But there is also a third, and until now, one of the most difficult to constrain, influencing factors. In a new study, German and British researchers have shown that there is a conspicuously large amount of heat from Earth’s interior beneath the ice, which has likely affected the sliding behaviour of the ice masses for millions of years. This substantial geothermal heat flow, in turn, is due to the fact that the glacier lies in a tectonic trench, where the Earth’s crust is significantly thinner than it is e.g. in neighbouring East Antarctica.

Anti-aristarchus writes:

The Mars Ingenuity copter has completed its twelfth flight. Story from Ars Technica.

NASA's tiny Mars helicopter, which has a fuselage about the size of a small toaster, has successfully flown above the planet for the 12th time.

Nearly half a year after the Perseverance rover landed on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter is still going strong on the surface of the planet. The small flyer has done so well that it has been separated from Perseverance for some time as it scouts ahead on the red planet.

Ingenuity completed its latest flight on Monday, ascending to 10 meters and flying 450 meters across Mars to investigate what scientists call the "South Séítah" region of Mars. The helicopter was aloft for a total of 169 seconds during Monday's flight. In its dozen flights, Ingenuity has now covered 2.67 km, which is farther than Perseverance has rolled during nearly six months.

For Monday's flight, Ingenuity flew out over this intriguing region to scout its boulders and other geological features to help mission scientists determine whether they warrant further scrutiny by Perseverance. After slowing over this area of interest to take photographs, Ingenuity then flew back to its takeoff point. The flight involved significant risk because Ingenuity's terrain navigation system was designed to fly across nearly flat terrain. Rocky terrain could induce errors in pitch and roll during flight.

Yes, little rotor-craft, flying on the edge! And actually doing useful reconnaissance.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists Grew Stem Cell 'Mini Brains'. Then, The Brains Sort-of Developed Eyes:

Mini brains grown in a lab from stem cells have spontaneously developed rudimentary eye structures, scientists report in a fascinating new paper.

On tiny, human-derived brain organoids grown in dishes, two bilaterally symmetrical optic cups were seen to grow, mirroring the development of eye structures in human embryos. This incredible result will help us to better understand the process of eye differentiation and development, as well as eye diseases.

"Our work highlights the remarkable ability of brain organoids to generate primitive sensory structures that are light sensitive and harbor cell types similar to those found in the body," said neuroscientist Jay Gopalakrishnan of University Hospital Düsseldorf in Germany.

"These organoids can help to study brain-eye interactions during embryo development, model congenital retinal disorders, and generate patient-specific retinal cell types for personalized drug testing and transplantation therapies."

Brain organoids are not true brains, as you might be thinking of them. They are small, three-dimensional structures grown from induced pluripotent stem cells - cells harvested from adult humans and reverse engineered into stem cells, that have the potential to grow into many different types of tissue.

Journal Reference:

Elke Gabriel, Walid Albanna, Giovanni Pasquini, Anand Ramani, Natasa Josipovic, Aruljothi Mariappan, Friedrich Schinzel, Celeste M. Karch, Guobin Bao, Marco Gottardo, Ata Alp Suren, Jürgen Hescheler, Kerstin Nagel-Wolfrum, Veronica Persico, Silvio O. Rizzoli, Janine Altmüller, Maria Giovanna Riparbelli, Giuliano Callaini, Olivier Goureau, Argyris Papantonis, Volker Busskamp, Toni Schneider, Jay Gopalakrishnan. Human brain organoids assemble functionally integrated bilateral optic vesicles. Cell Stem Cell, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2021.07.010

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Space collision: Chinese satellite got whacked by hunk of Russian rocket in March:

In March, the U.S. Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron (18SPCS) reported the breakup of Yunhai 1-02, a Chinese military satellite that launched in September 2019. It was unclear at the time whether the spacecraft had suffered some sort of failure — an explosion in its propulsion system, perhaps — or if it had collided with something in orbit.

We now know that the latter explanation is correct, thanks to some sleuthing by astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who's based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

On Saturday (Aug. 14), McDowell spotted an update in the Space-Track.org catalog, which the 18SPCS makes available to registered users. The update included "a note for object 48078, 1996-051Q: 'Collided with satellite.' This is a new kind of comment entry — haven't seen such a comment for any other satellites before," McDowell tweeted on Saturday.

He dove into the tracking data to learn more. McDowell found that Object 48078 is a small piece of space junk — likely a piece of debris between 4 inches and 20 inches wide (10 to 50 centimeters) — from the Zenit-2 rocket that launched Russia's Tselina-2 spy satellite in September 1996. Eight pieces of debris originating from that rocket have been tracked over the years, he said, but Object 48078 has just a single set of orbital data, which was collected in March of this year.

"I conclude that they probably only spotted it in the data after it collided with something, and that's why there's only one set of orbital data. So the collision probably happened shortly after the epoch of the orbit. What did it hit?" McDowell wrote in another Saturday tweet.

upstart writes:

German chemists identified over 7,700 different chemical formulas in beers:

People have been brewing beer for millennia, and the basic chemistry of fermentation is well understood. But thanks to advanced analytical techniques, scientists continue to learn more about the many different chemical compounds that contribute to the flavor and aroma of different kinds of beer. The latest such analysis comes courtesy of a team of German scientists who analyzed over 400 commercial beers from 40 countries. The scientists identified at least 7,700 different chemical formulas and tens of thousands of unique molecules, according to a recent paper published in the journal Frontiers in Chemistry. And they did it with a new approach that can analyze a sample in just 10 minutes.

[...] As I've written previously, all beer contains hops, a key flavoring agent that also imparts useful antimicrobial properties. To make beer, brewers mash and steep grain in hot water, which converts all that starch into sugars. This is traditionally the stage when hops are added to the liquid extract (wort) and boiled. That turns some of the resins (alpha acids) in the hops into iso-alpha acids, producing beer's hint of bitterness. Yeast is then added to trigger fermentation, turning the sugars into alcohol. Some craft brewers prefer dry-hopping—hops are added during or after the fermentation stage, after the wort has cooled. They do this as a way to enhance the hoppy flavors without getting excessive bitterness, since there is no isomerization of the alpha acids.

[...] For their analysis, [Philippe] Schmitt-Kopplin et al. subjected 400 samples of beer—purchased from local grocery stores—brewed from all over the world (the US, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and East Asia) to two complementary mass spectrometry techniques. They used the first method to determine the beers' chemical diversity and to predict chemical formulas for the metabolite ions in those beers. They used the second technique to figure out the exact molecular structure in a subsample of 100 beers. They were also able to reconstruct a full metabolic network of the complex reactions taking place during the brewing process.

upstart writes:

US safety regulator opens investigation into Tesla Autopilot following crashes with parked emergency vehicles – TechCrunch:

U.S. auto regulators have opened a preliminary investigation into Tesla's Autopilot advanced driver assistance system, citing 11 incidents in which vehicles crashed into parked first responder vehicles while the system was engaged.

The Tesla vehicles involved in the collisions were confirmed to have either have had engaged Autopilot or a feature called Traffic Aware Cruise Control, according to investigation documents posted on the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration's [(NHTSA)] website. Most of the incidents took place after dark and occurred despite "scene control measures," such as emergency vehicle lights, road cones and an illuminated arrow board signaling drivers to change lanes.

"The investigation will assess the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist, and enforce the driver's engagement with the dynamic driving task during Autopilot operation," the document says.

The investigation covers around 765,000 Tesla vehicles that span all currently available models: Tesla Model Y, Model X, Model S and Model 3. The 11 incidents or fires resulted in 17 injuries and one fatality. They occurred between January 2018 and July 2021.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Swiping left on magnetic stripes:

The shift away from the magnetic stripe points to both consumers changing habits for payments and the development of newer technologies. Today’s chip cards are powered by microprocessors that are much more capable and secure, and many are also embedded with tiny antennae that enable contactless transactions. Biometric cards, which combine fingerprints with chips to verify a cardholder’s identity, offer another layer of security.

Based on the decline in payments powered by magnetic stripes after chip-based payments took hold, newly-issued Mastercard credit and debit cards will not be required to have a stripe starting in 2024 in most markets. By 2033, no Mastercard credit and debit cards will have magnetic stripes, which leaves a long runway for the remaining partners who still rely on the technology to phase in chip card processing.

[...] More than half of Americans prefer using a chip card payment at a terminal over any other payment method, with security being the driving factor, according to a December survey for Mastercard by the Phoenix Consumer Monitor. That was followed by contactless payments — with a card or a digital wallet. Only 11% said they preferred to swipe, and that drops to 9% when looking at cardholders with experience using contactless payments.

And in a July study by Phoenix, 81% of American cardholders surveyed reported they would be comfortable with a card that does not have the magnetic stripe, and 92% would increase or keep usage of their cards the same if the magnetic stripe was no longer on the card.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Pi calculated to '62.8 trillion digits' with a pair of 32-core AMD Epyc chips, 1TB RAM, 510TB disk space:

Switzerland's University of Applied Sciences Graubünden [...] yesterday claimed it had broken the record, asserting it beat the previous record of 50 trillion digits, set by Timothy Mullican last year, by 12.8 trillion digits, and completed the task in just over 108 days versus Mullican's 303.

[...] A pair of 32-core AMD Epyc 7542 processors powered the uni's rig. AMD states the CPU cores spend most of their time at 2.9GHz, can burst to 3.4GHz, have 128MB L3 cache and happily run 64 threads apiece. A server with 1TB of RAM was also employed, with Ubuntu Linux 20.04 installed on a pair of solid-state disks of unspecified size.

A JBOD housed 38 7200RPM hard disks, each with 16TB capacity.

[...] Hard disks were chosen over SSDs because SSD performance degrades over time and the university's designers feared their intensive calculations could cause problems. In all, the uni said 510TB of disk space was used.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

NBMiner Partially Cracks Nvidia Anti-Mining Limiter, Restores 70% Performance on Ampere LHR GPUs:

Nvidia probably thought it had put a definite stop to Ethereum mining on GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) graphics cards with the introduction of the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) series. NBMiner, a popular mining software, has found a partial workaround to Nvidia's enhanced anti-mining limiter.

The latest version of NBMiner (via VideoCardz) debuted today and brought a very interesting hack with it. According to the changelog, the tool restores up to 70% of the mining performance on Ampere LHR graphics cards. It's just a partial bypass, but NBMiner is on to something so we can't discard the possibility of a full workaround down the line. Sadly, miners will probably have the LHR series on their radars with this new development. This comes as bad news for gamers as another shortage may be on the horizon.

NBMiner's solution is currently a work in progress. The developer recommends that miners use 68% of the graphics card's mining performance since that's the most stable value according to tests. The software works on both Linux and Windows operating systems and with Nvidia's latest GeForce drivers without a hiccup. However, the hack only supports the ethash algorithm at the moment - other mining algorithms may be supported in the near future.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

US issues new terrorism threat warning ahead of 9/11 anniversary - France 24:

The US Department of Homeland Security issued a new terrorism threat advisory on Friday ahead of the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks and amid a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic.

The National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin said the United States faces a "heightened threat environment" from both domestic terrorists "and those inspired or motivated by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences."

It cited increased use of "online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity."

The new advisory updated a January alert following the attack on the US Congress by supporters of then-president Donald Trump, when DHS said the country faced "increasingly complex and volatile" threats from anti-government and racially motivated extremists, often stirred up by online influence from abroad.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Sonos gets early patent victory against Google smart speakers:

Sonos scored an early victory in its case against Google Friday, when the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google infringed five of Sonos' smart speaker patents. The ruling is preliminary and subject to a full ITC review, but it could lead to a ban on Google smart speakers.

In January 2020, Sonos brought a patent infringement case against Google targeting Google's smart speakers, the Google Home, and later the Nest Audio line. Sonos is the originator of Internet-connected speakers that easily hook up to streaming services, while Google speakers combine a similar feature set with voice-activated Google Assistant commands. To hear Sonos tell the story, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' hardware in 2013, when Google agreed to build Google Play Music support for Sonos speakers. Sonos claims Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' audio features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016.

However you want to measure it, Sonos is a tiny company compared to the tech giants it regularly battles. The 19-year-old company only has products in the connected speaker market, and it has a $5 billion market cap. Its competitors—Google, Amazon, and Apple—are some of the world's biggest companies, each with a market cap above $1.5 trillion. To make matters more complicated for Sonos, the company relies on both Google and Amazon to do business in search, advertising, and retail sales, and it worried about retaliation from the two giants. Plus, once Amazon and Google entered the market, Sonos was forced to adopt support for both voice assistants in order to compete. Back in 2020, Sonos said Amazon also seemed to be using its technology, but it would focus its legal efforts on Google.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Ransomware gangs are working with Russian intelligence services, report says:

Russian intelligence services worked with prominent ransomware gangs to compromise U.S. government and government-affiliated organizations, according to new research from cybersecurity firm Analyst1.

Two Russian intelligence bureaus — the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR — collaborated with individuals in "multiple cybercriminal organizations," security analysts with the firm say in the report. The research indicates these cybercriminals helped Russian intelligence develop and deploy custom malware targeting American companies that serve U.S. military clients.

The hacking groups used a variation of the so-called Ryuk ransomware — used for attacks on large enterprises — called "Sidoh," created specifically for espionage, according to Analyst1. The code was launched sometime between June 2019 and January 2020 and hid in the background of Windows machines, silently harvesting keystrokes and sensitive documents.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Second IC :) – Sam Zeloof:

In 2018 I made the first homemade integrated circuits in my garage fab. I was a senior in high school when I made the Z1 amplifier, and now I'm a senior in college so there are some long overdue improvements to the amateur silicon process.

The Z1 had 6 transistors and was a great test chip to develop all the processes and equipment. The Z2 has 100 transistors on a 10µm polysilicon gate process – same technology as Intel's first processor. My chip is a simple 10×10 array of transistors to test, characterize, and tweak the process but this is a huge step closer to more advanced DIY computer chips. The Intel 4004 has 2,200 transistors and I've now made 1,200 on the same piece of silicon.

Previously, I made chips with a metal gate process. The aluminum gate has a large work function difference with the silicon channel beneath it which results in a high threshold voltage (10V). I used these metal gate transistors in a few fun projects like a guitar distortion pedal and a ring oscillator LED blinker but both of these required one or two 9V batteries to run the circuit due to high Vth. By switching to a polysilicon gate process, I get a ton of performance benefits (self aligned gate means lower overlap capacitances) including a much lower Vth which makes these chips compatible with 2.5V and 3.3V logic levels. The new FETs have excellent characteristics:

upstart writes:

T-Mobile apparently lied to government to get Sprint merger approval, ruling says:

T-Mobile apparently lied to government regulators about its 3G shutdown plans in order to win approval of its merger with Sprint, according to a ruling in a proceeding in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The ruling issued Friday ordered T-Mobile "to show cause why it should not be sanctioned by the commission for violating" a CPUC rule with "false, misleading, or omitted statements."

T-Mobile won approval for its 2020 acquisition of Sprint in part by agreeing to sell Sprint's Boost Mobile prepaid business and other assets to Dish, which is building its own 5G network and reselling capacity from other networks. T-Mobile agreed to make its 4G LTE and 3G CDMA networks available to Dish customers during a three-year transition period from 2020 to 2023, the CPUC ruling said. But T-Mobile now plans to stop providing CDMA network services nationwide on January 1, 2022, and Dish has urged government regulators to force T-Mobile to live up to its commitments.

T-Mobile's false and misleading statements under oath indicated, among other things, that T-Mobile would make its CDMA network "available to Boost customers until they were migrated to Dish Network Corporation's LTE or 5G services" and that Dish would have up to three years to complete the migration, the ruling said.

The CPUC can impose penalties against T-Mobile of up to $100,000 for each offense.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=x86_64

Along with the usual suspects, I've been trying to clear out the list of things that needed to get done in order to reach the standard of excellence demanded from a Slackware release, and I think we've gotten it pretty close. GCC was bumped to version 11.2.0 (because we just can't send this out 2 versions behind), and everything was verified to build properly or fixed up so that it did. I don't see any benefit to another public mass rebuild, so we're not going to do one. Anyway, without further ado, here is Slackware 15.0 release candidate one. Consider most things frozen and the focus now to be any remaining blocker bugs. We'll more than likely take that next Plasma bugfix release, but it's soon time to get off this treadmill. Enjoy! :-)

Follow the link for a huge list of changes in this release candidate.

Original Submission