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upstart writes:

FAA to review Boeing employee reports of pressure over safety issues:

The Federal Aviation Administration is launching a broad review of how Boeing Co. employees handle safety matters on the agency's behalf after some company engineers said they face undue pressure, according to an agency letter and people familiar with the matter.

An FAA survey conducted this year found 35% of a small sample of certain Boeing employees reported problems including pressure and hurdles to transparency, according to an Aug. 19 agency letter to Boeing. Some surveyed employees, who are part of a group empowered by the agency to assist its work, said they encountered difficulties in being transparent with regulators, according to the letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. aviation regulators have long relied on aerospace-company employees to act on their behalf for performing certain tasks, such as signing off on certain safety assessments or approving aircraft for delivery. The problems cited by Boeing employees in the survey "indicate the environment does not support independence" of those who are empowered to act on the agency's behalf, according to the letter, which was signed by Ian Won, acting manager of the FAA's Boeing oversight office in the Seattle area.

upstart writes:

US government agencies plan to increase their use of facial recognition technology:

A 90-page report published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) details how federal agencies currently use, and plan to expand their use of, facial recognition systems. Ten of 24 agencies surveyed plan to broaden their use of the technology by 2023. Ten agencies are also investing in research and development for the technology.

The report, published August 24, is the outcome of a study requested by Congress on federal agencies' use of facial recognition during fiscal year 2020. It characterizes the use of the technology as "increasingly common," with most agencies surveyed using it for cybersecurity, domestic law enforcement, or physical security. The report also asked all agencies that participated in the study about their future plans for facial recognition.

The results come after a year of public backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates against police and government use of the technology. Facial recognition has proved to be less accurate on people with darker skin, women, and younger and older people. A report from the GAO released earlier this summer also described a lack of oversight by federal law enforcement agencies that use the technology.

canopic jug writes:

Consultant and author Peter N M Hansteen has written up an overview of recent and not so recent changes in OpenBSD that make life better (and may turn up elsewhere too). He covers a few decades of developments that he has found particularly useful and explains why. He covers greylisting, spam filters, OpenSSH, and of course PF.

When I found OpenBSD more than twenty years ago, my main Unix exposure was from working with Linuxes and FreeBSD. What attracted me to OpenBSD and finally had me buy an OpenBSD 2.5 CD set was the strong focus on security and code correctness. When the CD set and the classic wireframe daemon T-shirt finally arrived in the mail, I set about at first to install it on whatever spare hardware I had lying around.

[...] OpenBSD has had traffic shaping available in the ALTQ subsystem since the very early days. ALTQ was rolled into PF at some point, but the code was still marked experimental 15 years after it was written, and most people who tried to use it in anger at the time found the syntax inelegant at best, infuriating or worse at most times.

So Henning Brauer took a keen interest in the problem, and reached the conclusion that all the various traffic shaping algorithms were not in fact needed. They could all except one be reduced to mere configuration options, either as setting priorities on pass or match rules or as variations of the theme of the mother algorithm Hierarchical Fair Service Curve (HFSC for short).

Soon after, another not-small diff was making the rounds. The patch was applied early in the OpenBSD 5.5 cycle, and for the lifetime of that release older ALTQ setups were possible side by side with the new queueing system.

OpenBSD is a complete operating system and originally forked from NetBSD back in 1995 which forked from 386BSD which was ported from 4BSD. It's emphasis is on portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security, and integrated cryptography. The current release, 6.9, is its 50^th release.

Previously:
(2020) Using OpenBSD Routing Tables to Segment the Home Network for Privacy
(2020) The OpenBSD Project's 25th Anniversary
(2020) WireGuard Imported Into OpenBSD
(2017) OpenBSD and the Modern Laptop
and many more...

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Blue Origin Employees Are Jumping Ship

Jeff Bezos's spaceflight company has lost "at least 17" high-ranking staffers in recent months, reports say.

Jeff Bezos might have felt triumphant when he rocketed toward the edge of space last month, but apparently the same can't be said about other employees at Blue Origin. On Friday, CNBC was first to report that over a dozen engineers had left Bezos's company in recent weeks, with some departing for high-ranking roles at rival spaceflight outfits.

[....] A Blue Origin spokesperson told CNBC that, in spite of the turnover, the company was growing at a rapid pace, adding 850 people to its headcount in 2020 alone and adding another 650 so far this year. "We continue to fill out major leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, engine design, and vehicle design," they said. "It's a team we're building and we have great talent."

Still, these high-profile departures are a good reminder that the business of space can be a hard one to break into, even for the billionaire founder of Amazon.

It's not that nobody wants to work for your company. It's just that they don't want to work for you.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Seawater could provide nearly unlimited amounts of critical battery material:

Booming electric vehicle sales have spurred a growing demand for lithium. But the light metal, which is essential for making power-packed rechargeable batteries, isn’t abundant. Now, researchers report a major step toward tapping a virtually limitless lithium supply: pulling it straight out of seawater.

“This represents substantial progress” for the field, says Jang Wook Choi, a chemical engineer at Seoul National University who was not involved with the work.

[...] Lithium is prized for rechargeables because it stores more energy by weight than other battery materials. Manufacturers use more than 160,000 tons of the material every year, a number expected to grow nearly 10-fold over the next decade. But lithium supplies are limited and concentrated in a handful of countries, where the metal is either mined or extracted from briny water.

[...] The advance is still not likely cheap enough to compete with mining lithium on land, [materials scientist Chong] Liu says. However, she says her group is attempting to increase selectivity using other types of lithium-ion battery electrodes.

Choi adds that the approach might also prove useful for recovering lithium from discarded batteries, giving the metal a second lease on life—and potentially supercharging the ascendancy of electric vehicles.

Journal Reference:
Chong Liu, Yanbin Li, Dingchang Lin, et. al. Lithium Extraction from Seawater through Pulsed Electrochemical Intercalation, Joule (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2020.05.017)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Countering climate change with cool pavements:

Pavements are an abundant urban surface, covering around 40 percent of American cities. But in addition to carrying traffic, they can also emit heat.

Due to what’s called the urban heat island effect, densely built, impermeable surfaces like pavements can absorb solar radiation and warm up their surroundings by re-emitting that radiation as heat. This phenomenon poses a serious threat to cities. It increases air temperatures by up as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit and contributes to health and environmental risks — risks that climate change will magnify.

In response, researchers at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (MIT CSHub) are studying how a surface that ordinarily heightens urban heat islands can instead lessen their intensity. Their research focuses on “cool pavements,” which reflect more solar radiation and emit less heat than conventional paving surfaces.

[...] Cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix have already conducted sizeable experiments with cool pavements, but the technology is still not widely implemented. The CSHub team hopes their research can guide future cool paving projects to help cities cope with a changing climate.

[...] “We can build cool pavements in many different ways,” says Randolph Kirchain, a researcher in the Materials Science Laboratory and co-director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub. “Brighter materials like concrete and lighter-colored aggregates offer higher albedo, while existing asphalt pavements can be made ‘cool’ through reflective coatings.”

CSHub researchers considered these several options in a study of Boston and Phoenix. Their analysis considered different outcomes when concrete, reflective asphalt, and reflective concrete replaced conventional asphalt pavements — which make up more than 95 percent of pavements worldwide.

Journal Reference:
Hessam AzariJafari, Xin Xu, Jeremy Gregory, et al. Urban-Scale Evaluation of Cool Pavement Impacts on the Urban Heat Island Effect and Climate Change [open], Environmental Science & Technology (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c00664)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Mental Phenomena Don’t Map Into the Brain as Expected:

Neuroscientists are the cartographers of the brain’s diverse domains and territories — the features and activities that define them, the roads and highways that connect them, and the boundaries that delineate them. Toward the front of the brain, just behind the forehead, is the prefrontal cortex, celebrated as the seat of judgment. Behind it lies the motor cortex, responsible for planning and coordinating movement. To the sides: the temporal lobes, crucial for memory and the processing of emotion. Above them, the somatosensory cortex; behind them, the visual cortex.

Not only do researchers often depict the brain and its functions much as mapmakers might draw nations on continents, but they do so “the way old-fashioned mapmakers” did, according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University. “They parse the brain in terms of what they’re interested in psychologically or mentally or behaviorally,” and then they assign the functions to different networks of neurons “as if they’re Lego blocks, as if there are firm boundaries there.”

But a brain map with neat borders is not just oversimplified — it’s misleading. “Scientists for over 100 years have searched fruitlessly for brain boundaries between thinking, feeling, deciding, remembering, moving and other everyday experiences,” Barrett said. A host of recent neurological studies further confirm that these mental categories “are poor guides for understanding how brains are structured or how they work.”

takyon writes:

Newly Discovered Space Rock Loops The Sun Quicker Than Any Known Asteroid

A newly discovered asteroid has the second-shortest orbit that we know in the entire Solar System, pipped only by Mercury.

It's named 2021 PH27, and it takes just 113 days to complete a circuit around the Sun, on an unstable elliptical orbit that crosses the orbital paths of both Venus and Mercury.

This means that it comes extremely close to the Sun at its closest approach, or perihelion, skimming close enough to reach scorching temperatures up to 480 degrees Celsius (900 Fahrenheit).

[...] its size is roughly 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) across. We also know that, because it flies so close to the Sun, it experiences very strongly the effects of its gravitational field as described by General Relativity – in particular, the rotation of its orbit, a phenomenon known as apsidal precession.

2021 PH₂₇.

Also at Carnegie Science.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://orangebeanindiana.com/2021/04/09/once-upon-a-time-america-had-an-atomic-mecha-warrior-robot/

Iron Man’s got NOTHING on this beast.

27 feet tall. 77 tons. Lead, steel, and glass armor almost two feet thick. A 500 horsepower supercharger engine. Able to withstand 3,000 times more radiation than a human. Mighty claws able to tear, rend, and shred steel with 85,000 pounds of force…yet nimble enough to balance an egg on a spoon.

It took the Air Force Special Weapons Center three years and $1.5 million (roughly $15 million in 2021) to build this real-life science fiction warrior—nicknamed the “Beetle”—for a specific purpose: to service the country’s first nuclear-powered bomber.

[...] More than anything, the Beetle demonstrated the tremendous advances robotic manipulators made in practical applications. This directly lead to the invention of RUM [PDF link] in 1960 (Remote Underwater Manipulator), which could crawl along the ocean bed 20,000 feet from the surface. The lessons learned in testing and improving Beetle and RUM lead to their prized relative in 1964: the Deep Sea Vehicle (DSV) Alvin. Among Alvin’s stunning exploits... being the first manned sub to explore the Titanic in 1986.

Original Submission

LabRat writes:

Hubble Captures a Stunning 'Einstein Ring' Magnifying The Depths of The Universe:

Gravity is the weird, mysterious glue that binds the Universe together, but that's not the limit of its charms. We can also leverage the way it warps space-time to see distant objects that would be otherwise much more difficult to make out.

This is called gravitational lensing, an effect predicted by Einstein, and it's beautifully illustrated in a new release from the Hubble Space Telescope.

In the center in the image is a shiny, near-perfect ring with what appear to be four bright spots threaded along it, looping around two more points with a golden glow.

This is called an Einstein ring, and those bright dots are not six galaxies, but three: the two in the middle of the ring, and one quasar behind it, its light distorted and magnified as it passes through the gravitational field of the two foreground galaxies.

[...] You can download a wallpaper-sized version of the above image on ESA's website.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287862-ants-use-soil-physics-to-excavate-metre-long-tunnels-that-last-decades/

Ant colonies can descend several metres underground, house millions of insects and last for decades, despite being made without the benefit of machinery and reinforcing material. The secrets of these impressive architectural structures are being revealed by three-dimensional X-ray imaging and computer simulations, and could be used to develop robotic mining machines.

José Andrade at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues set up miniature ant colonies in a container holding 500 millilitres of soil and 15 western harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex occidentalis). The position of every ant and every grain of soil was then captured by high-resolution X-ray scans every 10 minutes for 20 hours.

The X-ray results gave researchers exact details about the shape of each tunnel and which grains were being removed to create it. The team then created a computer model using those scans to understand the forces acting upon the tunnels. The size, shape and orientation of every grain was recreated in the model and the direction and size of force on each grain could be calculated, including gravity, friction and cohesion caused by humidity. The model was accurate to the 0.07 millimetre resolution of the scanner.

The results suggest that forces within the soil tend to wrap around the tunnel axis as ants excavate, forming what the team call “arches” in the soil that have a greater diameter than the tunnel itself. This reduces the load acting on the soil particles within the arches, where the ants are constructing their tunnel. As a result, the ants can easily remove these particles to extend the tunnel without causing cave-ins. The arches also make the tunnel stronger and more durable.

Journal Reference:
Robert Buarque de Macedo, Edward Andò, Shilpa Joy, et al. Unearthing real-time 3D ant tunneling mechanics [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102267118)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists are mining metals from an unusual source -- Plants:

Malaysia’s Kinabalu Park [...] is home to a nickel mine like none other. In lieu of heavy machinery [...] you’ll find four acres of a leafy-green shrub, tended to since 2015 by local villagers. Once or twice per year, they shave off about a foot of growth from the 20-foot-tall plants. Then, they burn that crop to produce an ashy “bio-ore” that is up to 25 percent nickel by weight.

Producing metal by growing plants, or phytomining, has long been tipped as an alternative, environmentally-sustainable way to reshape – if not replace – the mining industry. Of 320,000 recognized plant species, only around 700 are so-called “hyperaccumulators,” like Kinabalu’s P. rufuschaneyi. Over time, they suck the soil dry of metals like nickel, zinc, cobalt, and even gold.

[...] “We can now demonstrate that metal farms can produce between 150 to 250 kilograms of nickel per hectare (170 to 280 pounds per acre), annually,” said Antony van der Ent, a senior research fellow at Australia’s University of Queensland whose thesis work spurred the Malaysia trial.

[...] Several Indonesian nickel mining companies are now looking to partner with van der Ent’s Malaysia team. “We have lined up several industry partners who’ve agreed to implement trials in Indonesia,” he said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

How a simple crystal could help pave the way to full-scale quantum computing:

[C]urrent quantum processors are relatively small in scale, with fewer than 100 qubits. [...] [But] realising globally significant applications will likely require processors with upwards of a million qubits.

[...] Currently, each qubit requires its own microwave control field. It is delivered to the quantum chip through a cable running from room temperature down to the bottom of the refrigerator at close to -273℃. Each cable brings heat with it, which must be removed before it reaches the quantum processor.

[...] An elegant solution to the challenge of how to deliver control signals to millions of spin qubits was proposed in the late 1990s. The idea of “global control” was simple: broadcast a single microwave control field across the entire quantum processor.

[...] In our work we show that a component known as a dielectric resonator could finally allow this. The dielectric resonator is a small, transparent crystal which traps microwaves for a short period of time.

[...] In our experiment, we used the dielectric resonator to generate a control field over an area that could contain up to four million qubits. The quantum chip used in this demonstration was a device with two qubits. We were able to show the microwaves produced by the crystal could flip the spin state of each one.

Also at ZDNet.

Journal Reference:
Ensar Vahapoglu, James P. Slack-Smith, Ross C. C. Leon, et al. Single-electron spin resonance in a nanoelectronic device using a global field [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg9158)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

World’s Fastest-Accelerating Coaster Suspended Because Riders Keep Breaking Their Bones:

The fastest-accelerating roller coaster in the world has been suspended until further notice, after multiple customers reported broken bones from the ride.

Since December, at least six riders sustained bone fractures after riding “Do-Dodonpa,” a roller coaster that goes at “super death” speed in [Japan's] popular Fuji-Q Highland Park, the park’s operator said. Four of them said they broke their neck or back, a spokesperson for the park told VICE World News.

[...] Built in 2001, the ride goes from 0 to 180 kilometers (or 112 miles) per hour in 1.56 seconds, making it the fastest-accelerating roller coaster in the world. But the park said it was the first time riders broke their bones on the ride since it went into operation two decades ago. 

In 2017, the ride was even modified to bring the top speed from 172 kilometers per hour to 180, but the park said there were no reports of serious injuries, including bone fractures, until December.

No technical issues were found upon initial investigation, according to Fuji-Q Highland. The ride’s manufacturing company, Sansei Technologies, apologized to the injured customers but said it also didn’t know what caused the injuries.

Roller coaster rides that result in severe injury are rare. Thelast[sic] roller coaster-related death in the country was reported in 2007, when an axle on a car broke during a ride in Expoland in Osaka and sent the roller coaster crashing into a guardrail.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/samsung-can-remotely-disable-any-of-its-tvs-worldwide:

On July 11, a distribution center located in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa was looted and an unknown number of Samsung televisions were stolen. However, all of those TVs are now useless as Samsung has revealed they are fitted with remote blocking technology.

What you may be surprised to hear is that Samsung can do this to any of its TVs, regardless of where they are in the world. The company admitted as much in its latest Samsung Newsroom post detailing how the TVs in South Africa were stolen and then disabled.

The technology is called TV Block and it's "pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products." Whenever a TV is confirmed as being stolen, Samsung logs the serial number of the TV and then waits for it to be connected to the internet. At that point a Samsung server is connected to by default, the serial number is checked, and if it's on the list, "the blocking system is implemented, disabling all the television functions."

Original Submission