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I hope this reaches you after a safe and healthy holiday!

Where We're At:
In our last fundraising update on 2021-21-20 we stood at $1510.49 towards our goal of $3,500.00 for the second half of the year. I am happy to report that we have since collected additional net subscriptions totaling $279.72. Thank You! You Rock!

mysql> SELECT SUM(payment_gross) AS Gross, SUM(payment_net) AS Net, ts, max(spid) AS SPID FROM subscribe_payments WHERE ts >= '2021-07-01' ;
+---------+---------+---------------------+------+
| Gross   | Net     | ts                  | SPID |
+---------+---------+---------------------+------+
| 1908.06 | 1808.21 | 2021-07-01 00:41:45 | 1711 |
+---------+---------+---------------------+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

There were a total of 81 (YAY!) subscriptions purchased in the second half of this year (click to see):

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

mysql> SELECT ts, payment_gross, payment_net, method, submethod, payment_type FROM subscribe_payments WHERE ts >= '2021-07-01' AND payment_gross > 0 ORDER BY ts ;
+---------------------+---------------+-------------+--------+-----------+--------------+
| ts                  | payment_gross | payment_net | method | submethod | payment_type |
+---------------------+---------------+-------------+--------+-----------+--------------+
| 2021-07-01 00:41:45 |         20.00 |       19.12 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-01 02:15:00 |         20.00 |       18.82 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-01 02:20:50 |         20.00 |       19.12 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-01 02:34:13 |         20.00 |       18.82 | paypal | NULL      | gift         |
| 2021-07-01 03:26:34 |         20.00 |       18.82 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-01 14:19:33 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-01 16:35:50 |         22.34 |       21.39 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-01 18:36:56 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-02 10:49:17 |         20.00 |       19.12 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-02 14:43:16 |         20.00 |       19.12 | paypal | NULL      | gift         |
| 2021-07-02 21:06:24 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-05 21:59:27 |         40.00 |       37.94 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-05 22:07:16 |        400.00 |      388.10 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-06 14:07:24 |          5.00 |        4.55 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-18 14:27:40 |          5.00 |        4.55 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-19 15:13:31 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-22 12:14:55 |          4.00 |        3.52 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-07-25 07:14:27 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-07-29 11:57:17 |         10.00 |        9.41 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-08-06 12:30:41 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-08-13 10:28:11 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-08-18 11:54:17 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-08-22 12:11:44 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-08-29 13:03:40 |         10.00 |        9.16 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-03 12:33:49 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-06 10:20:14 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-06 13:35:17 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-10 18:30:22 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-11 23:56:46 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | gift         |
| 2021-09-18 10:37:19 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-22 10:12:38 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-09-29 14:37:56 |         10.00 |        9.16 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-05 00:31:51 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-10-06 10:58:25 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-14 11:33:56 |         30.00 |       28.46 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-16 09:38:51 |         13.72 |       13.02 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-10-18 11:21:58 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-21 13:29:39 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-22 12:00:55 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-24 19:27:39 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-26 19:43:45 |         40.00 |       38.11 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-29 12:01:11 |         10.00 |        9.16 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-10-30 18:22:11 |         50.00 |       47.01 | paypal | NULL      | gift         |
| 2021-11-06 12:28:43 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-08 15:02:34 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-09 19:14:31 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-10 06:40:55 |         50.00 |       47.76 | paypal | NULL      | gift         |
| 2021-11-10 11:47:46 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-12 03:08:14 |         30.00 |       28.46 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-17 01:01:32 |         12.00 |       11.35 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-11-18 12:22:21 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-21 14:54:31 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-22 12:28:08 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-27 18:53:45 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-11-29 10:45:50 |         10.00 |        9.16 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-03 15:58:30 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | gift         |
| 2021-12-04 02:20:36 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-06 11:29:58 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-11 04:02:13 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-11 12:38:48 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-12 11:08:54 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-13 20:52:42 |         12.00 |       11.09 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-15 09:21:39 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-15 16:00:03 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-16 10:32:40 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-16 13:42:40 |        100.00 |       96.80 | stripe | CC        | gift         |
| 2021-12-18 10:16:24 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-18 10:52:56 |          5.00 |        4.34 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-20 23:21:01 |         20.00 |       18.81 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-21 02:21:21 |         40.00 |       38.11 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-21 05:25:20 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-21 17:14:58 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-12-21 21:00:59 |         50.00 |       48.25 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-12-22 10:26:01 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-22 10:45:00 |          4.00 |        3.31 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-23 05:17:16 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-12-23 18:26:06 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | gift         |
| 2021-12-23 20:05:03 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | gift         |
| 2021-12-25 12:02:11 |         40.00 |       38.11 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
| 2021-12-26 01:32:21 |         20.00 |       19.12 | stripe | CC        | user         |
| 2021-12-28 13:01:56 |         20.00 |       18.51 | paypal | NULL      | user         |
+---------------------+---------------+-------------+--------+-----------+--------------+
81 rows in set (0.00 sec)

What's Next?

The sharp-eyed among you have already recognized something: that's not nearly enough:

We need to net an additional $1691.79 to reach our goal.

WE CAN DO THIS! 😃

Just click on Subscribe and follow the instructions! (Click the "*SPOILER* for more details.)

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Select whether it's a subscription for yourself or a Gift to someone else. For a Gift sub you can provide your name to tell the recipient who the subscription is from or blank it out if you want to remain anonymous. Then choose a duration (30, 180, or 365 days). Important! You can accept the minimum amount offered (4.00, 12.00, or 20.00) OR type another (larger) amount into the field. Then click the "[Continue]" button.

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You're on the Home Stretch! Click a button: PayPal (1) "[PayPal Buy Now], (2) "[PayPal Subscribe]", or (3) "[Pay with Card or BitCoin]" (Actually only "Card" is accepted at this time).

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These funds pay for hosting our servers, incorporation fees, taxes, and a CPA. All income goes to paying for the site. Period. Staff is all-volunteer. Nobody here has ever been paid anything for working on SoylentNews!

--martyb

upstart writes:

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021:

The privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo continues to grow rapidly, with the company now averaging over 100 million daily search queries and growing by almost 47% in 2021.

Unlike other search engines, DuckDuckGo says they do not track your searches or your behavior on other sites. Instead of building user profiles used to display interest-based ads, DuckDuckGo search pages display contextual advertisements based on the searched keywords.

[...] Furthermore, to build their search index, the search engine uses the DuckDuckBot spider to crawl sites and receive data from partners, such as Wikipedia and Bing. However, they do not build their index using data from Google.

While Google remains the dominant search platform, DuckDuckGo has seen impressive year-over-year growth. In 2020, DuckDuckGo received 23,653,663,401 total search queries and achieved a daily average of 79 million search queries by the end of December. In 2021, DuckDuckGo received 34.6 million search queries and currently has an average of 100 million search queries per day, showing a 46.4% growth for the year.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Riot Games agrees to pay $100 million in settlement of class-action gender discrimination suit:

"League of Legends" publisher Riot Games announced Monday that it is settling a 2018 gender-based discrimination class-action suit with California state agencies and current and former women employees for $100 million. The company will pay $80 million to members of the class-action suit and approximately $20 million toward plaintiffs' legal fees.

The Los Angeles lawsuit was filed in November 2018 by now-former employees Melanie McCracken and Jess Negrón, alleging gender discrimination as well as sexual harassment and misconduct at Riot Games. The suit was followed by two inquiries led by California state agencies. The suit came after gaming news site Kotaku published an exposé about a culture of sexism at Riot Games, where female employees were asked in job interviews to be "core gamers" and "League of Legends" players. In the article, women said they were turned away for insufficiently satisfying those criteria during the hiring process.

"This is a great day for the women of Riot Games — and for women at all video game and tech companies — who deserve a workplace that is free of harassment and discrimination," said the plaintiffs' counsel, the employment and sexual harassment lawyer Genie Harrison. "We appreciate Riot's introspection and work since 2018 toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive company."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Dies at 90

upstart writes:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies at 90:

In a statement confirming his death on Sunday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his condolences to Tutu's family and friends, calling him "a patriot without equal."

"A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world," Ramaphosa said.

Tutu had been in ill health for years. In 2013, he underwent tests for a persistent infection, and he was admitted to hospital several times in following years.

For six decades, Tutu -- known affectionately as "the Arch" -- was one of the primary voices in exhorting the South African government to end apartheid, the country's official policy of racial segregation. After apartheid ended in the early '90s and the long-imprisoned Nelson Mandela became president of the country, Tutu was named chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

upstart writes:

Black Holes of All Shapes and Sizes in Largest Catalog of Gravitational Wave Events Ever Assembled:

The largest catalog of gravitational wave events ever assembled has been released by an international collaboration that includes Penn State researchers. Gravitational waves are ripples in space time produced as aftershocks of huge astronomical events, such as the collision of two black holes. Using a global network of detectors, the research team identified 35 gravitational wave events, bringing the total number of observed events to 90 since detection efforts began in 2015.

The new gravitational wave events were observed between November 2019 and March 2020, using three international detectors: The two Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in Louisiana and Washington state in the U.S. and the Advanced Virgo detector in Italy. Data from these three detectors were carefully analyzed by a team of scientists from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration and the KAGRA Collaboration. The catalog of new events from the second half of LIGO's third observing run is described in a new paper.

"In the third observation run of LIGO and Virgo, we have begun to detect the more elusive types of gravitational wave events," said Debnandini Mukherjee, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and a member of the LIGO collaboration. "This has included heavy mass black holes, more extreme mass ratio binaries and neutron star–black hole coalescences detected with higher confidence. We are in the exciting era where such observations have begun to question conventionally known astrophysics and have begun to contribute towards a clearer understanding of formations of such objects."

upstart writes:

CDC cuts isolation, quarantine time for health workers as omicron cases surge:

Doctors, nurses and other staff who test positive for covid-19 can more quickly return to work under recommendations issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, as short-staffed hospitals brace for a winter surge of cases.

According to the CDC's new guidance, health workers who contract the coronavirus but are asymptomatic can return to work after seven days with a negative test. "[T]hat isolation time can be cut further if there are staffing shortages," CDC wrote. Previously, the agency had recommended that infected health workers isolate for at least 10 days to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

CDC shortens recommend quarantine duration, with restrictions:

On Monday, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered the amount of time that Americans with COVID-19 need to spend in isolation, reducing guidance from 10 days to five, provided they aren't experiencing symptoms and stay masked around other people for an additional five days. The quarantine guidance for anyone exposed to the virus received the same revision.

[...] Booster shots of Pfizer and Moderna have been shown to be effective in protecting against the variant, with CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky saying that the organization was considering revising the definition of "fully vaccinated" to include booster shots.

The important distinction in the new guidance is that infected people are free of symptoms and remain masked around other people.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

[...] The egg cell is capable of forming every type of tissue in the organism, whether it is bone, skin, muscle or the brain. Its daughter cells are genetically identical to it; so in principle they should be able to do the same. But in these cells, certain programs in the genetic material are activated very early on, which irreversibly determines their course of development.

This process must be coordinated down to the smallest detail. After all, this is the only way to ensure that the eyes form at the appropriate location on the face, while other cells very close by develop into the nasal cartilage. [...] "Embryo development is largely based on self-organization," explains Prof. Dr. Hubert Schorle of the Institute of Pathology at the University of Bonn. "Each cell releases messenger substances into its environment and thereby helps determine the fate of its neighbors." It is as if in an orchestra everyone only pays attention to what the musicians around them are playing. And yet this would not result in a cacophony, but in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

[...] The researchers from Bonn succeeded in maturing embryonic stem cells (ES cells) from mice into a so-called embryoid. ES cells are pluripotent; different tissue types can form from them. Unlike omnipotent fertilized eggs, however, they are not all-rounders -- so they no longer have every career open to them. "In addition to the actual embryo, the membrane that surrounds it and parts of the placenta also emerge from the egg," Schorle explains. "ES cells, on the other hand, cannot form these tissue structures outside the embryo."

However, they apparently play a decisive role in embryonic development: If ES cells are stimulated to divide, they merely turn into an undifferentiated cluster of cells. "We have now genetically modified some of the ES cells in our study," explains Schorle's colleague Jan Langkabel. [...] "Some ES cells were then able to form the membrane and others the embryonic portion of the placenta."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A document containing President Abraham Lincoln's signed pardon of a Civil War soldier has been the source of much controversy since its 1998 discovery, after historians concluded that the date had likely been altered to make the document more historically significant. A new analysis by scientists at the National Archives has confirmed that the date was indeed forged (although the pardon is genuine), according to a November paper published in the journal Forensic Science International: Synergy. The authors also concluded that there is no way to restore the document to its original state without causing further damage.

Among then was a pardon for a Civil War solider in the Union Army named Patrick Murphy, a private who had been court-martialed for desertion and condemned to death. The pardon is written perpendicularly in the left margin of a letter dated September 1, 1863, requesting a pardon for Murphy. Lincoln's statement reads, "This man is pardoned and hereby ordered to be discharged from the service." It was signed "A. Lincoln."

It was the date that made the document significant: April 14, 1865, meaning the pardon was likely one of the last official acts of President Lincoln, since he was assassinated later that same day at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. The pardon was broadly interpreted as evidence for a historical narrative about the president's compassionate nature: i.e., his last act was one of mercy. The discovery made headlines and brought Lowry considerable renown.

upstart writes:

These fish work together by the hundreds of thousands to make waves:

"At first we didn't quite understand what the fish were actually doing," said David Bierbach (@CollectiveBRL), co-first author along with Carolina Doran and Juliane Lukas, also at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries and Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence. "Once we realized that these are waves, we were wondering what their function might be."

[...] They decided to investigate the anti-predator benefits of the animals' wave action. Their studies confirmed that the fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic. Experimentally induced fish waves also doubled the time birds waited until their next attack to substantially reduce their attack frequency.

For one of their bird predators, capture probability, too, decreased with wave number. Birds also switched perches in response to wave displays more often than in control treatments, suggesting that they'd decided to direct their attacks elsewhere.

Taken together, the findings support an anti-predator function of fish waves. The findings are the first to show that a collective behavior is causally responsible for reducing an animal's predation risk. As such, the researchers say that this discovery has important implications for the study of collective behavior in animals more broadly.

[...] It's clear that the fish's waving reduces birds' chances of carrying out a successful attack on sulphur mollies. What's not yet clear is exactly why that is. Do the birds get confused? Do the waves tell them they've been noticed and are less likely to succeed in capturing their prey as a result?

Journal Reference:
Carolina Doran, David Bierbach, Juliane Lukas,et al. Fish waves as emergent collective antipredator behavior. Current Biology, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.068

Original Submission

upstart writes:

"Doomsday Glacier" Threat: Rapid Retreat of Antarctica's Riskiest Glacier:

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, sometimes referred to as the Doomsday Glacier, is retreating rapidly as a warming ocean slowly erases its ice from below, leading to faster flow, more fracturing, and a threat of collapse, according to an international team of scientists. The glacier is the size of Florida or Britain and currently contributes four percent of annual global sea level rise. If it does collapse, global sea levels would rise by several feet—putting millions of people living in coastal cities in danger zones for extreme flooding.

"Thwaites is the widest glacier in the world," said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). "It's doubled its outflow speed within the last 30 years, and the glacier in its entirety holds enough water to raise sea level by over two feet. And it could lead to even more sea-level rise, up to 10 feet, if it draws the surrounding glaciers with it."

Scambos is the U.S. lead coordinator for the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC): a team of nearly 100 scientists funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.K. Natural Environment Research Council dedicated to studying the vulnerable glacier. The five-year collaboration is aimed at collecting instrument data throughout the glacier and the adjacent ocean, and modeling ice flow and the future of the ice sheet. Their work has revealed major changes in the ice, the surrounding water, and the area where it floats off the bedrock below.

takyon writes:

Russian-Made Elbrus CPUs Fail Trials, 'A Completely Unacceptable Platform'

SberTech, a technology arm of Sber, Russia's biggest bank, has evaluated the Russian-made MCST Elbrus-8C processors in multiple workloads, but the results were utterly disappointing and the processors failed the test. The testers cited "Insufficient memory, slow memory, few cores, low frequency. Functional requirements not been met at all" as key reasons for the failure. However, there is hope, according to SberTech engineers.

[...] "The Elbrus-8C server is very weak compared to Intel Xeon 'Cascade Lake'," said Anton Zhbankov, a representative for SberTech, said at the Elbrus Partner Day conference (via ServerNews.ru) earlier this month. "Insufficient memory [256MB], slow memory, few cores, low frequency. Functional requirements not been met at all."

[...] In fact, SberTech's evaluation was the first in-depth testing of the Elbrus-8C platform in a banking application. The evaluators compared dual- and quad-socket Elbrus-8C machines (16 - 32 cores per box) to a dual-processor server based on Intel's Xeon Gold 6230 processor that the company currently uses. SberTech could not test the more powerful Elbrus-8CB as it is still not available despite being formally introduced.

[...] "One of the surprising things about the Elbrus-8C server was that it is a real product," said Zhbankov. "It was a real server that we were given. [...] It is an actual product that has its disadvantages, loads of disadvantages, but we can work with them."

[...] [While] SberTech's engineers expected the Elbrus-8C machine to perform much worse and be orders of magnitude slower than Intel's Xeon Gold 6230 machine from 2019, even a two to three times performance difference is significant enough for commercial companies not to deploy a platform since it makes no financial sense. "At the moment, Sberbank says no, we cannot deploy Elbrus machines into our ecosystem, but we are pleasantly surprised that it works at all," said Zhbankov.

The complaints were only partly about the CPU's relatively low performance, with problems concerning the build quality of the server(s) being highlighted.

1.3 GHz 8-core, 8-thread CPU does not beat 20-core, 40-thread Xeon. Surprise?

Previously: Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Stress Ball Morphogenesis: Humble Lizards Offer Surprising Approach to Engineering Artificial Lungs:

A new study from Princeton University shows how the brown anole lizard solves one of nature's most complex problems — breathing — with ultimate simplicity. Whereas human lungs develop over months and years into baroque tree-like structures, the anole lung develops in just a few days into crude lobes covered with bulbous protuberances. These gourd-like structures, while far less refined, allow the lizard to exchange oxygen for waste gases just as human lungs do. And because they grow quickly by leveraging simple mechanical processes, anole lungs provide new inspiration for engineers designing advanced biotechnologies.

"Our group is really interested in understanding lung development for engineering purposes," said Celeste Nelson, the Wilke Family Professor in Bioengineering and the study's principal investigator. "If we understand how lungs build themselves, then perhaps we can take advantage of the mechanisms mother nature uses to regenerate or engineer tissues."

While avian and mammalian lungs develop great complexity through endless branching and complicated biochemical signaling, the brown anole lung forms its relatively modest complexity through a mechanical process the authors likened to a mesh stress ball — the common toy found in desk drawers and DIY videos. The study, published on December 22, 2021, in the journal Science Advances, is the first ever to look at the development of a reptile lung, according to the researchers.

mrpg writes:

https://hakaimagazine.com/news/the-future-is-full-of-zombie-garbage/

In the early 2010s, garbage started falling out of the sand dunes in Lingreville, France. Beset by chronic coastal erosion, a long-forgotten landfill was spewing its rotten trove into the ocean. In 2016, a powerful storm dug into the site. The next year, cleanup crews stripped 14,000 cubic meters of sand mixed with waste—including asbestos—from the site. Now, researchers are warning that coastal communities around the world are set to face the same fate, with destabilized landfills on the verge of releasing large amounts of waste into the ocean.

Humans have been throwing everything from hazardous industrial waste to domestic rubbish into landfills for decades. Landfills were originally seen as eternal dumping grounds that could hold waste forever. It didn't take long for environmental concerns to arise, and today legislation often dictates what can and can't be chucked into a landfill. But the vast majority of landfills predate such rules. And with sea level rise causing more extreme erosion, flooding, and storm surges, we are on the verge of being reunited with much of this refuse.

upstart writes:

Intel apologizes to China for shunning slave-labor region Xinjiang:

Intel has joined a growing number of large western tech firms who have had to backtrack on their moves pertaining to China's internal policies, which are criticized internationally for violating human rights.

But when the US chipmaker seemed to try to take a stance on the Xinjiang region and labor conditions there calling on its suppliers not to source components or rely on the local workforce, the company quickly issued an apology.

In the apology, posted in Chinese on the giant WeChat platform, Intel said its original letter – effectively calling its partners to boycott Xinjiang-based supply-chain and labor – was motivated solely by Intel's desire to comply with US laws when it came to doing business in China.

It was in no way meant to express a position on the matter – (i.e., support western claims that Chinese authorities are resorting to forced labor in the troubled region), it said.

"For causing trouble to our esteemed Chinese customers, partners and the general public, we express our sincere apologies," Intel's apology reads.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

[...] The cells in the body can be thought of as tiny archery targets, each vulnerable to the deadly arrow of cancer. The more cells a given animal has and the longer it lives, the greater its odds of accumulating harmful cell mutations that can eventually lead to cancer. Or at least, this is what intuition suggests.

Nevertheless, many very large animals bearing huge cell populations, including elephants and whales, not only survive to old age, but have remarkably low rates of cancer. This biological enigma bears the name Peto’s paradox. In short, the paradox says that species size and longevity should be proportional to cancer incidence, yet the real-world data across species suggest this association does not hold.

In a new study appearing in the journal Nature, Carlo Maley, a researcher with the Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society at Arizona State University, along with international colleagues, explore recent implications of Peto’s paradox and highlight what science is learning about cancer across the tree of life.

The researchers analyze the largest cross-species database of its kind—a pool of adult mammalian life from zoo records that includes 110,148 individuals spanning 191 species.