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upstart writes:

One algorithm to rule decision-making:

For most animals, life is about deciding where to go. Running, swimming, or flying through the world, animals are constantly making decisions while on the move-decisions that allow them to choose where to eat, where to hide, and with whom to associate. Breakthroughs in neurobiology over the past decades, including those awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine, have pieced together a picture of how animals represent spatially-distributed options. Now, an international team of researchers have applied this neurobiological knowledge to understand how animals choose among options scattered in space.

[...] Drawing inspiration from neurobiology, physics and animal behavior, the interdisciplinary team constructed a computational model of decision-making in the brain. The model took features of how the brain represents options in "space" -- in this case direction to potential destinations -- in order to understand how decisions are made on the move.

[...] The resulting model predicted that the brain spontaneously breaks down decisions among multiple options to a series of two-choice decisions until only one option -- the one ultimately selected -remains. This was found to result in animals exhibiting a series of abrupt changes in direction, each associated with the exclusion of one of the remaining options. Each change of direction was a result of sudden changes in neural dynamics -- a property scientists call a "bifurcation" -- at very specific geometrical relationships between the animal and the remaining options.

The algorithm was found to be so robust that the researchers predicted, not only would this "bifurcation" process result in highly accurate decisions, but also that it could be 'universal'. By overlaying many trajectories of their simulated animals, they found a branching structure that should, they expected, also be apparent if they overlaid many trajectories taken by real animals making spatial decisions.

Journal Reference:
Vivek H. Sridhar, Liang Li, Dan Gorbonos, et al. The geometry of decision-making in individuals and collectives [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102157118)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Giving bug-like bots a boost: A new fabrication technique produces low-voltage, power-dense artificial muscles that improve the performance of flying microrobots.:

MIT researchers have demonstrated diminutive drones that can zip around with bug-like agility and resilience, which could eventually perform these tasks. The soft actuators that propel these microrobots are very durable, but they require much higher voltages than similarly-sized rigid actuators. The featherweight robots can't carry the necessary power electronics that would allow them [to] fly on their own.

Now, these researchers have pioneered a fabrication technique that enables them to build soft actuators that operate with 75 percent lower voltage than current versions while carrying 80 percent more payload. These soft actuators are like artificial muscles that rapidly flap the robot's wings.

This new fabrication technique produces artificial muscles with fewer defects, which dramatically extends the lifespan of the components and increases the robot's performance and payload.

"This opens up a lot of opportunity in the future for us to transition to putting power electronics on the microrobot. People tend to think that soft robots are not as capable as rigid robots. We demonstrate that this robot, weighing less than a gram, flies for the longest time with the smallest error during a hovering flight. The take-home message is that soft robots can exceed the performance of rigid robots," says Kevin Chen, who is the D. Reid Weedon, Jr. '41 assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the head of the Soft and Micro Robotics Laboratory in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and the senior author of the paper.

upstart writes:

Backdoor gives hackers complete control over federal agency network:

A US federal agency has been hosting a backdoor that can provide total visibility into and complete control over the agency network, and the researchers who discovered it have been unable to engage with the administrators responsible, security firm Avast said on Thursday.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, associated with international rights, regularly communicates with other US agencies and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The security firm published a blog post after multiple attempts failed to report the findings directly and through channels the US government has in place. The post didn't name the agency, but a spokeswoman did in an email. Representatives from the commission didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

upstart writes:

Visuals increase attention; now science explains why: Chemical's release in brain tied to processing of imagery, cells' activation:

In a paper published Dec. 17 in the journal Science Advances, authors from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (also referred to as UT Health San Antonio) report that norepinephrine, a fundamental chemical for brain performance, is locally regulated in a brain region called the visual cortex.

"Before our study, research suggested the possibility of local regulation of norepinephrine release, but it had never been directly demonstrated," said study senior author Martin Paukert, MD, assistant professor of cellular and integrative physiology at UT Health San Antonio.

[...] Norepinephrine is known to be involved in paying attention. "A certain amount of this chemical needs to be released for optimum brain performance and ability to pay attention," Dr. Paukert said. "So, if there is either too much of it or too little of it, it may affect how we process information."

[...] The team's findings also extend to cells called astrocytes that function as helper cells in the brain and central nervous system.

"When a person makes a movement, such as turning the head to listen to a parent, and that is combined with visual stimulation, then more norepinephrine is released where visual information is processed," Dr. Paukert said. "Our second finding, also important, is that astrocytes can reliably detect the rate of norepinephrine release."

Journal Reference:
Shawn R. Gray, Liang Ye, Jing Yong Ye, Martin Paukert. Noradrenergic terminal short-term potentiation enables modality-selective integration of sensory input and vigilance state, Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abk1378)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The first true millipede has been discovered in Australia. It has the most legs of any living animal:

Millipedes have lots of legs. It's defining feature of this creature, which is neither worm nor insect.

However, despite a name derived from the Latin for thousand (mille) and feet (pes), no millipede has been found with more than 750 legs -- until now.

Scientists have discovered the first millipede that has more than 1,000 legs -- 1,306 to be precise -- and the most legs of any living creature on Earth. It was found living 60 meters (200 feet) below ground in a drill hole created for mineral exploration in Western Australia.

The eyeless invertebrate -- it's 3.7 inches (9.5 centimeters) long and 0.04 inch (1 millimeter) wide -- has 330 body segments, antennae, a beak for feeding and a cone-shaped head.

"It's as if you pulled a 3-inch white thread from a shirt (but it had 1,306 legs)," said Paul Marek, an associate professor at the department of entomology at Virginia Tech via email.

How do you count the legs of such a tiny creature?

To make sure no limbs were missed or counted twice, Marek said he color-coded each 10-leg segment using a high-resolution image of the uncurled millipede in Adobe Illustrator.

"I counted three times, and it took about 1 hour," said Marek, the author of the study that published in the journal Scientific Reports on Thursday.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Is Santa's sleigh zero carbon? The answer lies in reindeer poo:

Santa's sleigh is famously pulled by eight reindeer, nine if you include the luminous Rudolf who pitches in when it's foggy. The classic eight are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Vixen and Blitzen. Those last two are an easy-on-the-ear translation of Dutch, but the whole eight sound like a fun stag party.

[...] The trouble for Santa is that reindeer are ruminants: they eat plants that ferment and produce methane in their guts—a potent greenhouse gas. But while reindeer are grounded, they nibble small shrubs, and this grazing has a significant effect on the carbon budget of the Arctic landscape.

A recent study from the Norway-Finland border compared the soil fungi in areas subject to year-round grazing by reindeer with places where reindeer only graze during the winter (presumably except for Christmas Eve). Winter-only grazing allowed birch woodland to spread across the tundra. But places with year-round nibbling by reindeer had more heathland vegetation. The fertile soils created by birch, and the species of fungi that live in the soils below the trees, released more carbon. But the more specialist fungi of the heathland soil work more slowly, allowing carbon stocks to build.

[...] Incidentally, birch woodlands are just the place to find the fly agaric toadstool Amanita muscaria: the classic cartoon fungi that look like a bright red cushion artfully flecked with popcorn.

upstart writes:

New meteorological phenomenon dubbed 'atmospheric lakes':

Brian Mapes, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami who recently noticed and described the unique storms, will present his findings on Thursday, 16 December at AGU's Fall Meeting 2021.

Like the better-known streams of humid, rainy air called atmospheric rivers that are famous for delivering large amounts of precipitation, atmospheric lakes start as filaments of water vapor in the Indo-Pacific. These phenomena are defined by the presence of water vapor concentrated enough to produce rain, rather than being formed and defined by a vortex, like most storms on Earth. Unlike the fast-flowing atmospheric rivers, the smaller atmospheric lakes detach from their source as they move at a sedate pace toward the coast.

Atmospheric lakes begin as water vapor streams that flow from the western side of the South Asian monsoon and pinch off to become their own measurable, isolated objects. They then float along ocean and coastal regions at the equatorial line in areas where the average wind speed is around zero.

In an initial survey to catalog such storms, Mapes used five years of satellite data to spot 17 atmospheric lakes lasting longer than six days and within 10 degrees of the equator, in all seasons. Lakes farther off the equator also occur, and sometimes those become tropical cyclones.

The atmospheric lakes last for days at a time and occur several times a year. If all the water vapor from these lakes were liquified, it would form a puddle only a few centimeters (a couple inches) deep and around 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) wide. This amount of water can create significant precipitation for the dry lowlands of eastern African countries where millions of people live, according to Mapes.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Artificial Intelligence Can Generate Plausible, Entertaining, and Scientifically Interesting Titles for Research Articles:

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology can generate plausible, entertaining, and scientifically interesting titles for potential research articles, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.

A study of The BMJ's most popular Christmas research articles — which combine evidence based science with light hearted or quirky themes — finds that AI generated titles were as attractive to readers but that, as in other areas of medicine, performance was enhanced by human input.

[...] AI is already used to help doctors diagnose conditions, based on the idea that computer systems can learn from data and identify patterns. But can AI be used to generate worthwhile hypotheses for medical research?

To find out, the researchers used the titles of The BMJ's 13 most-read Christmas research articles of the past 10 years to prompt similar AI generated titles, which they scored for scientific merit, entertainment, and plausibility.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

With the first update of youtube-dl since June of this year, the December 17th release has a nice changelog, but also the Core Developer, Sergey M., AKA dstftw, steps down[1]. What will this mean for future releases, or is the project now dead?

Some have moved on to a fork of youtube-dl, known simply as, "yt-dlp."

Speculation: Considering the amount of controversial news the youtube-dl project has received in the past year or so, could someone with enough power/influence have "convinced" the developer to walk away?

[1] The correct message was that he marked himself as, "inactive", but IMO this may as well be called "stepping down." [Ed's Note: ... or his wife is having a baby, or he is going on holiday, or he is having an operation for a medical problem, or... ]

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvme-ssd-for-audiophiles

If you thought a $2,500 audiophile-focused ethernet switch was strange, then you'll also be amused with this NVMe SSD designed specifically for audiophiles. Last known to be in the sampling phase, the new device was posted to the Audiophilestyle forums. Supposedly, the drive can increase audio quality and give you real 3D sound along with an experience that only comes from vinyl recordings, but don't look for this drive on our list of Best SSDs any time soon — its impact on audio quality is questionable, to say the least.

The developer claims to have designed and built the device from the ground up in close collaboration with an unnamed SSD controller manufacturer. The pictured device has a Realtek SSD controller, which is a company better known for its sound processors, though it began making SSD controllers a few years ago.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Researchers call NSO zero-click iPhone exploit 'incredible and terrifying':

Google researchers have described NSO Group's zero-click exploit used to hack Apple devices as "incredible and terrifying," Wired has reported. Project Zero researchers called it "one of the most technically sophisticated exploits we've ever seen" that's on par with attacks from elite nation-state spies.

The Project Zero team said it obtained one of NSO's Pegasus exploits from Citizen Lab, which managed to capture it via a targeted Saudi activist. It also worked with Apple's Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR) group on the technical analysis.

NSO's original exploit required the user to click on a link, but the latest, most sophisticated exploits require no click at all. Called ForcedEntry, it takes advantage of the way iMessage interprets files like GIFs to open a malicious PDF file with no action required from the victim. It does so by using old code from the 1990s used to process text in scanner images.

Also at: Google Warns That NSO Hacking Is On Par With Elite Nation-State Spies:

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A domestic newspaper warns of the Russian space program's "rapid collapse"

A long and strikingly critical article that reviews the state of the Russian space program was published in the state-aligned newspaper MK this week. None of the findings in the 2,800-word article were particularly surprising. Western observers who track the Russian space industry realize the program is deeply troubled, and to a great extent running on the fumes of its past and very real glory. What is notable, however, is that a major Russian media outlet has published such a revelatory article for a domestic audience.

[...] The article, translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, is titled "The Space Program Is Rotting from Within." It begins with the declaration that Russia's space program has a shortage of competent and highly qualified staff, obsolete facilities and technology, and "systemic leadership weakness." And that's just the opening paragraph.

Popov goes on to state that Russian space companies are delinquent on promised deliveries for hundreds of contracts. For example, the Khrunichev Center agreed to deliver 10 booster cores for the Angara A5 rocket five years ago. [...] Popov said Roscosmos is struggling even to build its mainstay vehicles, the Soyuz rockets and Progress spacecraft. Consider a recent docking issue with the Progress vehicle, which carries supplies to the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

[...] The overall portrait Popov paints of Roscosmos is that of a wasteful, increasingly decrepit enterprise where almost no money is being invested into the present or future. Instead, the focus seems to be providing high-paying jobs for a handful of technocrats, whose salaries are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Meanwhile, the average monthly wages for technical specialists who build the country's rockets and spacecraft range from $500 to $1,000 a month.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD Becomes TSMC's Third Largest Customer

AMD's focus to produce all of its most advanced products at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and increasing orders have made the company the foundry's third largest customer, according to estimates from Bloomberg and DigiTimes. Apple is still TSMC's No.1 customer and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But AMD's position ahead of Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm enables the company to negotiate better business terms, work closer with the contract maker of chips, and have an influence on development of next-generation nodes.

[...] AMD's share in TSMC's balance sheet is poised to grow as the company increases adoption of the foundry's advanced packaging technologies as well as embraces more expensive N5 for its upcoming Zen 4-based processors. Furthermore, once AMD absorbs Xilinx, it will be a considerably larger semiconductor company in general and therefore will use more of TSMC's services (and will pay more money).

[...] Bloomberg and DigiTimes estimated that Intel's input to TSMC's revenue as of December, 2021, was around 0.84% (though they do not divulge the exact period they considered as normally Intel's contribution to TSMC's earnings is significantly higher). Meanwhile, once Intel begins to use TSMC's leading-edge N3 technology (which is a rumor for now) in 2022 ~ 2023, its contribution may skyrocket all the way into the Top 3 of TSMC's clients.

Original Submission

owl writes:

http://www.breatharian.eu/hw/atx80/index_en.html

The ATX-80 is a microcomputer derived from the ZX-80, with an ATmega8 processor. It does not emulate code, but replaces the original computer with custom code with similar functionality in AVR assembly. It allows output of the video to a VGA monitor or to a PAL/NTSC television. BASIC programs can be stored in internal EEPROM, internal Flash or external EEPROM memory (32 memory slots) and also transferred between PC and memory. The advantages are easy construction and small size. It can be used as a small inexpensive computer for teaching basic BASIC programming. Includes 32 sample programs.

[...] The original intent of the project was to create a computer with similar features and technical limitations as the original ZX-80. That is, a fully functional BASIC interpreter with only 1 KB of RAM and as close to 4 KB of ROM as possible. The project was also conceived as a study of the original ZX-80 BIOS ROM. It must be admitted that the original ZX-80 BIOS was an admirable creation. In addition to being very innovative, it was created with a high optimization of code size, and although this required a considerable amount of clarity in the flow of data between functions, the author maintained an overview of the code with minimal errors. I have tried to keep the functionality of the original code as accurate as possible and commented my code in detail, which can be a useful addition to explain the BIOS functionality. The ZX-80 BIOS is a very useful and informative study material and, despite its age, deserves more attention as an admirable work.

Original Submission