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takyon writes:

Explainer: Australia's nuclear-powered submarine deal is fueling anger in the country. Here's why

The US and UK will be sharing technology and expertise with Australia to help it build nuclear-powered submarines as part of a newly-announced defense pact between the three countries. The move has sparked fury in France, which has lost a long-standing agreement to supply Australia with diesel-powered subs.

But it's not only the French who are furious. Anti-nuclear groups in Australia, and many citizens, are expressing anger over the deal, worried it may be a Trojan Horse for a nuclear power industry, which the nation has resisted for decades.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke personally to her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, to tell him the vessels would not be welcome in the waters of her country, which has been a no-nuclear zone since 1984.

French ambassador: Australia made a 'huge mistake' canceling submarine contract

The French ambassador to Australia issued a sharp rebuke of the country's decision to cancel a submarine contract with France, calling it a "huge mistake," according to a report from The Associated Press.

Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault said that the original agreement was based on sincerity and trust. However, the diplomat said, "This has been a huge mistake, a very, very bad handling of the partnership," according to the news wire. ​​"I would like to be able to run into a time machine and be in a situation where we don't end up in such an incredible, clumsy, inadequate, un-Australian situation," Thebault said.

[...] The deal is a blow to France, which was set to help provide 12 diesel-electric submarines under a deal worth roughly $66 billion, the AP noted.

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LabRat writes:

From Jupiter just got smacked by a space rock and an amateur astronomer caught it on camera:

Brazilian observer José Luis Pereira captured a bright flash on the solar system's largest planet Monday night [...], memorializing the fiery death of a space rock high in the Jovian atmosphere.

"I am an assiduous planetary observer," Pereira told Space.com in a written statement Tuesday (Sept. 14). "When the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are in opposition, I try to make images in every possible night of clear skies. Especially [of] the planet Jupiter, my favorite."

[...] His observing setup consists of the following, he added: a Newtonian Telescope 275mm f/5,3 with a QHY5III462C camera, plus a Televue Powermate 5x (f/26,5) eyepiece and an IRUV cut filter.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/office-2021-will-be-available-for-non-microsoft-365-subscribers-on-october-5/

New versions of Microsoft Office aren't as big a deal as they used to be, thanks to the continuously updated (and continuously paid for) versions of the apps that come with a Microsoft 365 subscription. But for everyone else, there's still Office 2021, an upgrade to Office 2019 that's coming to both Windows and macOS on October 5, Microsoft announced today. Office 2021 will add the same features as the Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (or LTSC, catchy) release, which is [now] available

Interpretation:
There are some users that prefer not to pay an annual fee for basic software. We prefer that they at least buy new software, so we can get more money. They should like this. LibreOffice, what's that?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Extreme weather to cost US over $100bn this year: Joe Biden:

President Joe Biden predicted extreme weather events are set to cost the United States more than $100bn this year after a series of raging wildfires and punishing hurricanes wrought havoc across the country.

[...] “We have to make the investments that are going to slow our contributions to climate change, today, not tomorrow,” Biden said.

He made the comments after touring the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, the last stop on a three-state western tour in which the president visited California and Idaho, where global warming has scorched the region’s landscape even as states in other parts of the country battle hurricanes and storms that have caused flash floods and killed dozens.

Biden sought to build support for his administration’s infrastructure spending plans aimed at fighting the growing threat of climate change.

On Monday, Biden said the economic damage caused by extreme weather cost the US $99bn last year, before predicting on Tuesday the price tag would come in at more than $100bn for 2021.

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takyon writes:

The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine

If Israel was going to kill a top Iranian official [Mohsen Fakhrizadeh[*]], an act that had the potential to start a war, it needed the assent and protection of the United States. That meant acting before Mr. Biden could take office. In Mr. Netanyahu's best-case scenario, the assassination would derail any chance of resurrecting the nuclear agreement even if Mr. Biden won.

[...] A killer robot profoundly changes the calculus for the Mossad. The organization has a longstanding rule that if there is no rescue, there is no operation, meaning a foolproof plan to get the operatives out safely is essential. Having no agents in the field tips the equation in favor of the operation.

[...] [The] machine gun, the robot, its components and accessories together weigh about a ton. So the equipment was broken down into its smallest possible parts and smuggled into the country piece by piece, in various ways, routes and times, then secretly reassembled in Iran.

The robot was built to fit in the bed of a Zamyad pickup, a common model in Iran. Cameras pointing in multiple directions were mounted on the truck to give the command room a full picture not just of the target and his security detail, but of the surrounding environment. Finally, the truck was packed with explosives so it could be blown to bits after the kill, destroying all evidence. There were further complications in firing the weapon. A machine gun mounted on a truck, even a parked one, will shake after each shot's recoil, changing the trajectory of subsequent bullets.

t-3 writes:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/q-a-with-co-creator-of-the-6502-processor

Few people have seen their handiwork influence the world more than Bill Mensch. He helped create the legendary 8-bit 6502 microprocessor, launched in 1975, which was the heart of groundbreaking systems including the Atari 2600, Apple II, and Commodore 64. Mensch also created the VIA 65C22 input/output chip—noted for its rich features and which was crucial to the 6502's overall popularity—and the second-generation 65C816, a 16-bit processor that powered machines such as the Apple IIGS, and the Super Nintendo console.

Many of the 65x series of chips are still in production. The processors and their variants are used as microcontrollers in commercial products, and they remain popular among hobbyists who build home-brewed computers. The surge of interest in retrocomputing has led to folks once again swapping tips on how to write polished games using the 6502 assembly code, with new titles being released for the Atari, BBC Micro, and other machines.

Mensch, an IEEE senior life member, splits his time between Arizona and Colorado, but folks in the Northeast of the United States will have the opportunity to see him as a keynote speaker at the Vintage Computer Festival in Wall, N.J., on the weekend of 8 October. In advance of Mensch's appearance, The Institute caught up with him via Zoom to talk about his career.

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upstart writes:

Part of the universe's missing matter found:

Galaxies can receive and exchange matter with their external environment thanks to the galactic winds created by stellar explosions. Via the MUSE instrument from the Very Large Telescope at the ESO, an international research team, led on the French side by the CNRS and l'Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, has mapped a galactic wind for the first time. This unique observation, which is detailed in a study published in MNRAS on 16 September 2021, helped to reveal where some of the universe's missing matter is located and to observe the formation of a nebula around a galaxy.

[...] The perfect positioning of the galaxy and the quasar, as well as the discovery of gas exchange due to galactic winds, made it possible to draw up a unique map. This enabled the first observation of a nebula in formation that is simultaneously emitting and absorbing magnesium—some of the universe's missing baryons—with the Gal1 galaxy.

This type of normal matter nebula is known in the near universe, but their existence for young galaxies in formation had only been supposed.

Scientists thus discovered some of the universe's missing baryons, thereby confirming that 80–90% of normal matter is located outside of galaxies, an observation that will help expand models for the evolution of galaxies.

Journal Reference:
Johannes Zabl, Nicolas F. Bouché, Lutz Wisotzki, et al. MusE GAs FLOw and Wind (MEGAFLOW) VIII. Discovery of a Mgii emission halo probed by a quasar sightline, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab2165)

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takyon writes:

Yes, of course there's now malware for Windows Subsystem for Linux

In 2017, more than a year after the introduction of WSL, Check Point researchers proposed a proof-of-concept attack called Bashware that used WSL to run malicious ELF and EXE payloads. Because WSL wasn't enabled by default and Windows 10 didn't ship with any preinstalled Linux distro, Bashware wasn't considered a particularly realistic threat at the time.

Four years later, WSL-based malware has arrived. The files function as loaders for a payload that's either embedded – possibly created using open-source tools like MSFVenom or Meterpreter – or fetched from a remote command-and-control server and is then inserted into a running process via Windows API calls.

"Threat actors always look for new attack surfaces," said Mike Benjamin, Lumen vice president of product security and head of Black Lotus Labs, in a statement. "While the use of WSL is generally limited to power users, those users often have escalated privileges in an organization. This creates blind spots as the industry continues to remove barriers between operating systems."

If there's a bright side to this anticipated development, it's that this initial WSL attack isn't particularly sophisticated, according to Black Lotus Labs. Nonetheless, the samples had a detection rate of one or zero in VirusTotal, indicating that the malicious ELFs would have been missed by most antivirus systems.

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upstart writes:

Chinese astronauts return to Earth after 90-day mission:

Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth Friday after completing the country's longest-ever crewed mission, the latest landmark in Beijing's drive to become a major space power.

The capsule carrying the trio deployed its parachute and landed in the Gobi desert at 1:34 pm local time (0534 GMT).

"It feels very good to be back!," Tang Hongbo told state broadcaster CCTV after the 90-day mission, a record for China.

"I want to say dad, mom, I'm back! In good health and good spirits!" he said after emerging from the capsule within 30 minutes of landing.

The crew of the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft were in good health, China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement.

"The first manned mission to the (Chinese) space station is a complete success," it said.

The taikonauts—as Chinese astronauts are known—will undergo a 14-day quarantine before they can go home "because their immune systems may have weakened after the long mission," Huang Weifen, chief designer of China's manned space project told CCTV.

The mission was part of China's heavily promoted space programme, which has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.

[...] "The successful completion of the mission... paves the way for future regular missions and utilisation of the (Chinese space) station," said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts, which specialises in China's space programme.

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martyb writes:

Flying a helicopter on Mars is getting 'harder and harder,' NASA says:

Havard Grip, Ingenuity's chief pilot, talked about the challenges facing the chopper in a NASA status update this week. The density of the atmosphere in the Jezero Crater is dropping, a factor Grip said has "a significant impact on Ingenuity's ability to fly."

[...] This doesn't mean Ingenuity will be grounded. "Thankfully, there is a way to tackle this issue, but it involves spinning the rotors even faster than we have been doing up to now," Grip said. "In fact, they will have to spin faster than we have ever attempted with Ingenuity or any of our test helicopters on Earth."

The plucky little rotorcraft is headed into uncharted territory as its team plans to test this speed-demon version of its rotors. NASA JPL said Ingenuity did a rotor spin test and could take off on its 14th flight as early as today. The flight will be short and will aim to show the chopper can handle lower atmospheric densities.

[...] The planned tests will be quite a workout for the chopper. "The motors will need to spin faster, the electrical system will need to deliver more power, and the entire rotor system will need to withstand the higher loads that come with increased rotor speeds," Grip said.

Ingenuity has a knack for overcoming challenges. It's made it through technical glitches and software updates and taken on increasingly more difficult flights. Here's hoping it soars right past this latest obstacle.

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takyon writes:

China prepares to test thorium-fuelled nuclear reactor

Scientists are excited about an experimental nuclear reactor using thorium as fuel, which is about to begin tests in China. Although this radioactive element has been trialled in reactors before, experts say that China is the first to have a shot at commercializing the technology.

The reactor is unusual in that it has molten salts circulating inside it instead of water. It has the potential to produce nuclear energy that is relatively safe and cheap, while also generating a much smaller amount of very long-lived radioactive waste than conventional reactors.

Construction of the experimental thorium reactor in Wuwei, on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert, was due to be completed by the end of August — with trial runs scheduled for this month, according to the government of Gansu province.

[...] When China switches on its experimental reactor, it will be the first molten-salt reactor operating since 1969, when US researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee shut theirs down. And it will be the first molten-salt reactor to be fuelled by thorium. Researchers who have collaborated with SINAP say the Chinese design copies that of Oak Ridge, but improves on it by calling on decades of innovation in manufacturing, materials and instrumentation.

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takyon writes:

U.S. generals planning for a space war they see as all but inevitable

A ship in the Pacific Ocean carrying a high-power laser takes aim at a U.S. spy satellite, blinding its sensors and denying the United States critical eyes in the sky.

This is one scenario that military officials and civilian leaders fear could lead to escalation and wider conflict as rival nations like China and Russia step up development and deployments of anti-satellite weapons.

If a satellite came under attack, depending on the circumstances, "the appropriate measures can be taken," said Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command. The space battlefield is not science fiction and anti-satellite weapons are going to be a reality in future armed conflicts, Shaw said at the recent 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

[...] The U.S. military's space weapons that presumably would deter China from firing the first shot against a satellite are classified. In a rare disclosure, the Space Force last year said it deployed an advanced ground-based communications jammer made by L3Harris that could be used as an "offensive weapon" to disrupt enemies' satellite transmissions.

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upstart writes:

We managed to toilet train cows, and they learned faster than a toddler:

Cattle urine is high in nitrogen, and this contributes to a range of environmental problems.

[...] Behavioural psychology tells us a behaviour is likely to be repeated if followed by a reward, or "reinforcer". That's how we train a dog to come when called.

So if we want to encourage a particular behaviour, such as urinating in a particular place, we should reinforce that behaviour. For our project we applied this idea in much the same way as for toilet training children, using a procedure called "backward chaining".

First, the calves were confined to the toilet area, a latrine pen, and reinforced with a preferred treat when they urinated. This established the pen as an ideal place to urinate.

The calves were then placed in an alley outside the pen, and once again reinforced for entering the pen and urinating there. If urination began in the alley, it was discouraged by a mildly unpleasant spray of water.

AnonTechie writes:

Whitest paint in world created at Purdue, may help curb global warming:

The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

So why did the scientists create such a paint? It turns out that breaking a world record wasn't the goal of the researchers: Curbing global warming was.

[...] Making this paint really reflective, however, also made it really white, according to Purdue University. The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared heat. Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power.

Using this new paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. “That’s more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses,” Ruan said.

[...] Two features make this paint ultra-white: a very high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate – also used in photo paper and cosmetics – and different particle sizes of barium sulfate in the paint, scientists at Purdue said.

Will the reflected sunlight cause more global warming or less ?? And, what happens on cloudy days ?

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upstart writes:

California wildfires threaten famous giant sequoia trees:

THREE RIVERS, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters wrapped the base of the world’s largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket as they tried to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning Thursday in California’s rugged Sierra Nevada.

The colossal General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest, some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum and other buildings were wrapped as protection against the possibility of intense flames, fire spokeswoman Rebecca Paterson said.

The aluminum wrapping can withstand intensive heat for short periods. Federal officials say they have been using the material for several years throughout the U.S. West to protect sensitive structures from flames.

[...] The Colony Fire, one of two burning in Sequoia National Park, was expected to reach the Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias, at some point within days. It was unclear Thursday night whether that had happened. The fire didn’t grow significantly as a layer of smoke reduced its spread, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said.