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An Anonymous Coward writes:

NASA sets sail into a promising but perilous future of private space stations:

On Thursday afternoon, NASA announced that it had awarded three different teams, each involving multiple companies, more than $100 million apiece to support the design and early development of private space stations in low Earth orbit.

This represents a big step toward the space agency's plan to maintain a permanent presence in space even after the aging International Space Station, which can probably keep flying through 2028 or 2030, reaches the end of its life. NASA intends to become an "anchor tenant" by sending its astronauts to one or more private stations in orbit starting in the second half of the 2020s.

The total estimated award amount for all three funded Space Act Agreements is $415.6 million. The individual award amounts, with links to each concept, are:

Each of these space station concepts is a "free flyer" in the sense of launching independently of any other facility. Previously, in February 2020, as part of a separate competitive procurement process, NASA awarded Axiom Space a $140 million contract to develop a habitable commercial module for the International Space Station. The award gives Axiom the right to attach its module to the station's Node 2 forward point.

At this stage, Axiom would appear to have some advantages in the competition for future NASA private station awards. In addition to providing the benefit of power, breathing air, and crew time through its initial attachment to the space station, Axiom is ahead in the design and construction of its facility. Axiom completed the cumbersome "preliminary design review" for its station in September, a process the free-flying stations are unlikely to finish before 2025.

But now, the "free flyer" competitors have some funding to try to catch up.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Printing technique creates effective skin equivalent, heals wounds: Material mimics all three layers of the skin, allows for complex printing structures:

The technique is the first of its kind to simulate three layers of skin: the hypodermis, or fatty layer, the dermis, and the epidermis.

"You effectively have three different cell types. They all grow at different speeds," said author Alan Smith. "If you try to produce tri-layered structures, it can be very difficult to provide each of the requirements of each different layer."

To solve this problem, the scientists used suspended layer additive manufacturing (SLAM). They created a gel-like material to support the skin equivalent, twisting and altering the structure of the gel as it formed to create a bed of particles that can then support a second phase of gel injection.

During printing, the skin layers are deposited within the support gel, which holds everything in place. After printing, the team washed away the support material, leaving behind the layered skin equivalent.

If the researchers moved a needle through the supporting gel, it repaired itself faster than other similar techniques. This results in higher resolution printing than previous methods and allows for the printing of complicated skin structures.

Journal Reference:
Richard J. A. Moakes, Jessica J. Senior, Thomas E. Robinson, et al. A suspended layer additive manufacturing approach to the bioprinting of tri-layered skin equivalents [open], APL Bioengineering (DOI: 10.1063/5.0061361)

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upstart writes:

Newfound Comet Leonard will blaze into view this year:

The object in question is Comet Leonard, catalogued C/2021 A1 and was discovered by astronomer Gregory J. Leonard on Jan. 3 at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, also known as the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory. The observatory is located on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, approximately 17 miles (28 kilometers) northeast of Tucson, Arizona. Mr. Leonard is a senior research specialist for the observatory's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's Catalina Sky Survey.

[...] Of course, memories are still fresh from the striking appearance last summer of Comet NEOWISE. And some are no doubt hoping that we might have a December redux with Comet Leonard.

[...] When using standard power-law formulas, taking into account how bright the comet is now versus how much closer it will be by year's end (to both Earth and the sun), the current expectation is that the comet could reach as bright as fourth magnitude, making it bright enough to see without optical aid in a dark sky.

[...] During the first two weeks of December, Comet Leonard will be accessible to early risers, visible a couple of hours before sunrise, low in the east-northeast sky. It will track through the constellations Coma Berenices, Boötes and Serpens Caput.

upstart writes:

Pub-goers snowed in for three days at UK's highest inn:

More than 60 revelers who went out to the Tan Hill Inn in Swaledale, northern England, on Friday ended up extending their stay after snow blocked roads and brought down a power line, co-owner Andrew Hields told CNN on Monday.

"They're all in good spirits, they're all eating and drinking well," said Hields, 36, who said guests have been entertained by an Oasis cover band, Noasis, who were booked to play on Friday night, as well as quizzes, table games, karaoke and sing-along carol sessions.

There are three routes to the isolated pub, which sits at an altitude of 1,732 feet (388 meters) above sea level. Two of them were blocked by snow drifts, and a downed power line shut the third, said Hields, who has been prevented from getting to the pub.

[...] This is not the first time snow has stranded guests at the pub, said Hields, who added that as soon as there is a weather warning staff stock up on fuel, food and drink.

That means the power cable coming down hasn't affected the running of the pub, according to Hields.

[...] A mountain rescue team was called in to evacuate one man who is undergoing dialysis treatment, said Hields, but the rest stayed for a unique experience.

[...] Weather warnings were in place across large parts of the UK last week due to Storm Arwen, which brought severe weather and winds speeds of over 90 mph (144 km/h) in some areas.

Are there any Soylentils who've found themselves in similar circumstances?

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Arthur T Knackerbracket submits:

Hackers could steal encrypted data now and crack it with quantum computers later, warn analysts:

Analysts at Booz Allen Hamilton warn that Chinese espionage efforts could soon focus on encrypted data.

Beijing-backed hackers might soon start trying to steal encrypted data -- such as biometric info, the identities of covert spies, and weapons designs -- with a view to decrypting it with a future quantum computer, according to analysts at US tech consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH).

"In the 2020s, Chinese economic espionage will likely increasingly steal data that could be used to feed quantum simulations," the analysts write in the report Chinese Threats in the Quantum Era. 

At risk are data protected by the current algorithms underpinning public-key cryptography, which some fear may be rendered useless for protecting data once quantum computers become powerful enough.

The big question is when such a quantum computer might arrive. However, Booz Allen Hamilton's analysts suggest it doesn't matter that an encryption-breaking quantum computer could be years off because the type of data being targeted would still be valuable. Hence, there's still an incentive for hackers to steal high-value encrypted data.

fliptop writes:

Last year RedHat announced the early EOL of CentOS 8. In 2019 they introduced their plans for CentOS Stream:

CentOS Stream was introduced in 2019 as a rolling release version of CentOS. In the previously mentioned release cycle, it found its place between Fedora and RHEL, testing future minor releases.

However, RHEL made changes to the initial plan, deciding to halt any future CentOS releases. CentOS 8 has been declared the last downstream release that will be supported until December 2021. Therefore, instead of its previously announced EOL in 2029, its life cycle has been cut by eight years.

RHEL will not release any new CentOS distributions, only CentOS Stream.

Naturally, the stability of CentOS Stream cannot compete with CentOS releases. As it will work midstream in the release cycle, it is bound to be less stable than the RHEL distribution it precedes.

RedHat has just announced the release of CentOS Stream 9:

CentOS Stream is a continuous-delivery distribution providing each point-release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Before a package is formally introduced to CentOS Stream, it undergoes a battery of tests and checks—both automated and manual—to ensure it meets the stringent standards for inclusion in RHEL. Updates posted to Stream are identical to those posted to the unreleased minor version of RHEL. The aim? For CentOS Stream to be as fundamentally stable as RHEL itself.

To achieve this stability, each major release of Stream starts from a stable release of Fedora Linux—In CentOS Stream 9, this begins with Fedora 34, which is the same code base from which RHEL 9 is built. As updated packages pass testing and meet standards for stability, they are pushed into CentOS Stream as well as the nightly build of RHEL. What CentOS Stream looks like now is what RHEL will look like in the near future.

CentOS 7 will be EOL in June 2024. If you're running a production environment on CentOS, what are your plans? Move to CentOS Stream? Move to a different platform? Something else?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Can seven questions determine how wise you are? Seven-item Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index has high validity to measure wisdom and potential to improve overall well-being:

The study's researchers had previously developed the 28-item San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE-28), which has been used in large national and international studies, biological research and clinical trials to evaluate wisdom.

But in a study publishing in International Psychogeriatrics, researchers found that a shortened seven-item version (SD-WISE-7 or Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index), was comparable and reliable.

"Wisdom measures are increasingly being used to study factors that impact mental health and optimal aging. We wanted to test if a list of only seven items could provide valuable information to test wisdom," said senior author Dilip V. Jeste, MD, senior associate dean for the Center of Healthy Aging and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Past studies have shown that wisdom is comprised of seven components: self-reflection, pro-social behaviors (such as empathy, compassion and altruism), emotional regulation, acceptance of diverse perspectives, decisiveness, social advising (such as giving rational and helpful advice to others) and spirituality.

The latest study surveyed 2,093 participants, ages 20 to 82, through the online crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk.

The seven statements, selected from SD-WISE-28, relate to the seven components of wisdom and are rated on a 1 to 5 scale, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Examples of the statements include "I remain calm under pressure" and "I avoid situations where I know my help will be needed."

"Shorter doesn't mean less valid," said Jeste. "We selected the right type of questions to get important information that not only contributes to the advancement of science but also supports our previous data that wisdom correlates with health and longevity."

[...] "We need wisdom for surviving and thriving in life. Now, we have a list of questions that take less than a couple of minutes to answer that can be put into clinical practice to try to help individuals," said Jeste.

Journal Reference:
Michael L. Thomas, Barton W. Palmer, Ellen E. Lee, et al. Abbreviated San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE-7) and Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index (JTWI) [open], International Psychogeriatrics (DOI: 10.1017/S1041610221002684)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Global survey finds the drunkest country in the world — and it's not the US

An international survey measuring alcohol and drug use in 2020 found Australians were intoxicated more times on average than any other country in the world.

The Global Drug Survey, which asked 32,000 people across 22 countries questions about their substance use, found that the average Australian consumed alcohol to the point of drunkenness nearly 27 times last year. And slightly more than a quarter of Australians surveyed said they felt regret.

Denmark and Finland followed closely behind Australia with residents in each nation getting drunk around 24 times in 2020. The U.S. and the U.K round out the top 5. Americans said they were intoxicated around 23 times while people in the U.K. noted they were inebriated more than 22 times.

Respondents across the globe on average said they experienced feelings of intoxication more than 14 times last year or slightly more than once a month. Globally, the top reason for regret, respondents said, was that they drank too much too quickly.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following stories.

PiGlass V2 Embraces The New Raspberry Pi Zero 2:

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. It’s been just about a month since the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 hit the market, and we’re already seeing folks revisit old projects to reap the benefits of the drop-in upgrade that provides five times the computational power in the same form factor.

[...] Although it might not have the punch of its larger siblings, the new Pi Zero 2 is definitely a very exciting platform. The highly efficient board delivers performance on par with the old Pi 3, while still being well positioned for battery powered projects like this one. We’re eager to see what develops as the new SBC finds its way into the hands of more hackers and makers in the coming months.

Short (15s) demo on YouTube of the unit's menu function.

PiGlass Is a DIY Alternative to Google Glass

Google Glass was an interesting, if controversial, product. The idea of having a computer available and in use at all times (not just a smartphone in your pocket) seemed like the next big step in computing when Glass was announced. Unfortunately, the general public didn't ever seem to get on board with the concept. Maybe it was the price, maybe it was the privacy concerns, or maybe it was just wasn't fashionable.

Whatever the case, the consumer version of Google Glass was discontinued less than a year after its public release. Despite the lack of commercial success, many people are still interested in the potential of a Glass-like device, and have turned to DIY options.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The issue has not previously been high on the agenda in talks between the two countries, but China's recent test of a hypersonic missile that can attack multiple targets in flight have lent a new urgency to US defense thinking.

At the same time, Russia's recent test of a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile from a submarine in the north of the country has focused US military planners on the prospect of America falling behind its two superpower rivals in what some are seeing as a new arms race.

Hypersonic missiles are often defined as missiles launched by a rocket into Earth's upper atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and above (five times the speed of sound or 6,174 kilometers (3,836 miles) per hour), before maneuvering towards a target. Several countries already have intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that travel just as fast—or even faster—but these cannot change trajectory once launched. The new generation of hypersonic missiles are equipped with glide vehicles that approach their targets at high speed in the final phase of flight.

upstart writes:

Stroke may be triggered by anger, emotional upset and heavy physical exertion:

A global study co-led by NUI Galway into causes of stroke has found that one in 11 survivors experienced a period of anger or upset in the one hour leading up to it. One in 20 patients had engaged in heavy physical exertion.

The suspected triggers have been identified as part of the global INTERSTROKE study -- the largest research project of its kind, which analysed 13,462 cases of acute stroke, involving patients with a range of ethnic backgrounds in 32 countries, including Ireland.

[...] Stroke is a leading global cause of death or disability. Each year, approximately 7,500 Irish people have a stroke and around 2,000 of these people die. An estimated 30,000 people are living in Ireland with disabilities as a result of a stroke.

Professor Andrew Smyth, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at NUI Galway, Director of the HRB-Clinical Research Facility Galway and a Consultant Nephrologist at Galway University Hospitals, was one of the lead researchers.

He said: "Stroke prevention is a priority for physicians, and despite advances it remains difficult to predict when a stroke will occur. Many studies have focused on medium to long-term exposures, such as hypertension, obesity or smoking. Our study aimed to look at acute exposures that may act as triggers."

The research analysed patterns in patients who suffered ischemic stroke -- the most common type of stroke, which occurs when a blood clot blocks or narrows an artery leading to the brain, and also intracerebral haemorrhage -- which is less common and involves bleeding within the brain tissue itself.

Journal Reference:
Andrew Smyth, Martin O’Donnell, Graeme J Hankey, et al. Anger or emotional upset and heavy physical exertion as triggers of stroke: the INTERSTROKE study, European Heart Journal (DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehab738)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel Evo 4.0 spec coming with Raptor Lake mobile may see the advent of 8 MP webcams with high VCX benchmark scores

Recently, we exclusively reported that laptops with Windows 11 coming this holiday will feature markedly improved webcams. This is due to Microsoft apparently enforcing some hard requirements on the specifications of webcams and real-time communication (RTC) hardware such as mics and speakers. Now, it looks like Intel has joined the fray too.

We now have another exclusive piece of information that the Intel Evo platform, which will see its third iteration with upcoming Alder Lake mobile processors, will also include webcam performance as part of the platform specifications. However, the full implementation of this may only begin with Evo 4.0 that is expected to debut in the generation after Alder Lake, which is likely Raptor Lake mobile.

[..] Overall, it looks like the days of pathetic webcams on laptops are finally coming to an end. With both Microsoft and Intel enforcing these specifications, we might soon start seeing decent webcams that actually offer richer video collaboration experiences that are orders of magnitude better than today's implementations.

Your future filled with Zoom meetings demands the finest in webcam technology.

Valued Camera eXperience (VCX) forum.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Distributed, Asynchronous Git Syncing with NNCP:

I have a directory that I use with org-mode and org-roam. I want it to be synced across multiple machines. I also want to keep the history with git. And, I want to use end-to-end encryption (no storing a plain git repo on a remote server), have a serverless setup, not require any two machines to be up simultaneously, and be resilient in the face of races and conflicts.

I've tried a number of setups – git-remote-gcrypt on a remote server (fragile), some complicated scripts around a separate repo in syncthing (requires one machine to be "in charge"), etc. They all were subpar.

Then NNCP (network node control point) introduced asynchronous multicast and I was intrigued.

So, I wrote gitsync-nncp, which uses NNCP to distribute git bundles to all the participating machines. The comprehensive documentation for gitsync-nncp goes into a lot more detail about how it works and what problems it solves. It's working quite well for me!

Have any of our Emacs users had similar problems, or found alternative solutions?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Most dog breeds highly inbred: Study suggests inbreeding contributes to increase in disease and health care costs:

In a recent study published in Canine Medicine and Genetics, an international team of researchers led by University of California, Davis, veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch show that the majority of canine breeds are highly inbred, contributing to an increase in disease and health care costs throughout their lifespan.

"It's amazing how inbreeding seems to matter to health," Bannasch said. "While previous studies have shown that small dogs live longer than large dogs, no one had previously reported on morbidity, or the presence of disease. This study revealed that if dogs are of smaller size and not inbred, they are much healthier than larger dogs with high inbreeding."

The average inbreeding based on genetic analysis across 227 breeds was close to 25%, or the equivalent of sharing the same genetic material with a full sibling. These are levels considered well above what would be safe for either humans or wild animal populations. In humans, high levels of inbreeding (3-6%) have been associated with increased prevalence of complex diseases as well as other conditions.

"Data from other species, combined with strong breed predispositions to complex diseases like cancer and autoimmune diseases, highlight the relevance of high inbreeding in dogs to their health," said Bannasch, who also serves as the Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in Genetics at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Journal Reference:
Danika Bannasch, Thomas Famula, Jonas Donner, et al. The effect of inbreeding, body size and morphology on health in dog breeds [open], Canine Medicine and Genetics (DOI: 10.1186/s40575-021-00111-4)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SiFive Details New Performance P650 RISC-V Core

SiFive's Performance P650 licenseable processor IP core will debut to lead partners in Q1'2022 while the general availability is expected in "summer" 2022. Whether the Performance P650 will make its way into any public SiFive developer boards or the like remain unknown, but hopefully they will come out next year with some performant successor to the HiFive Unmatched.

This successor to their Performance P550 is expected to be the fastest RISC-V processor IP core on the market. Over the P550 should be around a 40% performance increase per-clock cycle. Overall there should be around a 50% performance gain over the P550. SiFive is reporting the Performance P650 will be faster than the Arm Cortex-A77.

SiFive Performance P650 RISC-V core to outperform Arm Cortex-A77 performance per mm²

Building upon the Performance P550 design, the SiFive Performance P650 is scalable to sixteen cores using a coherent multicore complex, and delivers a 40% performance increase per clock cycle based on SiFive engineering estimated performance in SPECInt2006/GHz, thanks to an expansion of the processor's instruction-issue width. The company compares P650 to the Arm family by saying it "maintains a significant performance-per-area advantage compared to the Arm Cortex-A77".

Other architecture enhancements over the previous generation include a higher maximum clock frequency (Liliputing says up to 3.5 GHz), platform-level memory management, interrupt control units, and support for the new RISC-V hypervisor extension for virtualization.

ARM Cortex-A77.

Previously: Intel Will License SiFive's New P550 RISC-V Core
SiFive Teases Fast New RISC-V Processor Core; Intel Acquisition Attempt Failed

Original Submission