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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Very low concentrations of the popular organic insecticide spinosad have profound effects on beneficial insect species, including vision loss and neurodegeneration, new research led by the University of Melbourne has found.

The study, published in eLife, used the vinegar fly Drosophila to analyze the impact of chronic exposure to low concentrations (0.2 parts per million) of spinosad and the resulting physiological impacts on the brain and other tissues.

Spinosad is commonly used to control insect pests including thrips, leafminers, spider mites, mosquitoes, ants and fruit flies, in both commercial and domestic settings.

"Within a matter of 20 days, tiny doses of spinosad can have an alarming impact on the brains of adult Drosophila. Observing sections of brain tissue under microscope demonstrated there was an average of 17% of the fly brains destroyed due to exposure," said Dr. Felipe Martelli from Monash University, who completed this work as part of his Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne.

"Neurons that serve vital functions die leaving large vacuoles, fluid-filled sacs, in the brain. This leads to neurodegeneration, blindness and behavioral changes in adult vinegar flies. Due to the Drosophila's genetic and biochemical similarities to other insects, the research indicates that these impacts could be translated to other beneficial insects such as bees," Dr. Martelli said.

[...] "When you look at insect species disappearing it's almost like randomly pulling blocks out of a Jenga tower; its destabilizing ecosystems making them vulnerable to collapse."

Journal Reference:
Felipe Martelli, Natalia H. Hernandes, Zhongyuan Zuo, et al. Low doses of the organic insecticide spinosad trigger lysosomal defects, elevated ROS, lipid dysregulation, and neurodegeneration in flies, (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.73812)

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upstart writes:

Police forces 'must' do data protection due diligence checks before using PDS-backed AWS cloud:

Police forces across England and Wales are being cautioned to remember that the onus is on them to ensure their use of the Police Digital Service's (PDS) Amazon-powered cloud platform is in compliance with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This is in the wake of ongoing concerns about whether police forces across the UK are doing enough to ensure compliance with the required data protection laws before adopting public cloud services.

PDS went public earlier this month with the news that the latest iteration of its Amazon Web Services (AWS)-powered cloud platform is now available for use by all 43 police forces across England and Wales.

The platform, known as the Police Assured Landing Zone (PALZ), is designed to provide forces with access to a suite of tools – spanning online storage, compute capacity and cloud-based collaboration – that will allow them to incorporate cloud technologies into their ICT systems.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

NASA’s plans to shift from the International Space Station to commercial space stations may force one key partner to rethink how it cooperates in low Earth orbit.

Speaking at a panel on space diplomacy organized by George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute Feb. 23, Sylvie Espinasse, head of the European Space Agency’s Washington office, said the current arrangements between ISS partners to barter resources won’t work well on future commercial stations in low Earth orbit.

“ESA-NASA cooperation on the ISS is based on non-exchange of funds and barter of goods and services between the partners,” she said. “This allows ESA to use its asset in orbit, the Columbus module, and to fly its European astronauts.”

Once NASA shifts to commercial stations, though, “ESA will probably not be in a position to buy commercial services from U.S. providers for its research activities in LEO or to fly its astronauts,” she warned. “This will probably not be acceptable for our member states.” Buying services from U.S. companies, she explained, would contradict an ESA mandate to support Europe’s space industry.

upstart writes:

Largest ever human family tree: 27 million ancestors:

The past two decades have seen extraordinary advancements in human genetic research, generating genomic data for hundreds of thousands of individuals, including from thousands of prehistoric people. This raises the exciting possibility of tracing the origins of human genetic diversity to produce a complete map of how individuals across the world are related to each other.

Until now, the main challenges to this vision were working out a way to combine genome sequences from many different databases and developing algorithms to handle data of this size. However, a new method published today by researchers from the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute can easily combine data from multiple sources and scale to accommodate millions of genome sequences.

Dr Yan Wong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Big Data Institute, and one of the principal authors, explained: "We have basically built a huge family tree, a genealogy for all of humanity that models as exactly as we can the history that generated all the genetic variation we find in humans today. This genealogy allows us to see how every person's genetic sequence relates to every other, along all the points of the genome."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Dymo causes a stir by adding DRM to printer paper:

[...] But some people do need a printer, and it seems that label printer maker Dymo is giving us yet another reason to hate printers.

It's building DRM directly into the printer paper. Or in this case, rolls of labels.

Yes, that's right, according to author, journalistc, and activist Cory Doctorow writing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Dymo is putting RFID readers into its latest label printers, and using those to prevent owners from putting third-party labels through their printers.

"The new label rolls come with a booby-trap," writes Doctorow, "a RFID-equipped microcontroller that authenticates with your label-maker to attest that you bought Dymo's premium-priced labels and not a competitor's. The chip counts down the labels as you print them (so you can't transplant it to a generic label roll)."

This goes back to the original question that gets asked a lot around here, who owns the products that you buy?

Also, as the video points out, it's possible that the anti-circumvention law of the DMCA may possibly make it illegal for you to circumvent these restrictions(?). As the video points out, these corporations are huge on free market capitalism but only when it suits them. When it doesn't they're suddenly in favor of more government restrictions.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Peloton Outage Prevents Customers From Using $2,500 Exercise Bikes:

Peloton hasn't been having a great run lately. While business boomed during the pandemic, things have taken a sour turn of late on a bizarre host of fronts.

[...] adding insult to injury, connectivity issues this week prevented Peloton bike and treadmill owners from being able to use their $2000-$5000 luxury exercise equipment for several hours Tuesday morning. The official Peloton Twitter account tried to downplay the scope of the issues:

We are currently investigating an issue with Peloton services. This may impact your ability to take classes or access pages on the web.

We apologize for any impact this may have on your workout and appreciate your patience. Please check https://t.co/Dxcht2tQB0 for updates.

— Peloton (@onepeloton) February 22, 2022

[...] For much of Tuesday morning the pricey equipment simply wouldn't work. While the company's app still worked (For some people), Bike, Bike+, and Peloton Tread owners not only couldn't ride in live classes, they couldn't participate in recorded classes because there's no way to download a class to local storage (despite the devices being glorified Android tablets). The outage (which occurred at the same time as a major Slack outage) was ultimately resolved after several hours, but not before owners got another notable reminder that dumb tech can often be the smarter option.

Perhaps one day in the future, scientists will invent a way to make exercise machines that do not require internet access. Such a fantastic invention would be locked up behind patents.

See also:
Peloton Admits It's in Hot Water With DOJ, DHS, and SEC Over Its Treadmill Mess
Peloton treadmill owners will be able to run again without a subscription
Peloton disabled a free running feature on its treadmills, forcing owners to pay up
Peloton disabled a free feature on its $4,000 Tread+, forcing owners to pay a $39 monthly fee to use the machine
Peloton faces backlash after disabling free running feature on its $4,000 treadmills
Music Publishers Say Peloton Stole Even More Music, Ask for $300 Million
Peloton's Countersuit Against Music Publishers Over Song Copyrights Just Got Thrown Out

Original Submission

upstart writes:

An Optical Spy Trick Can Turn Any Shiny Object Into A Bug:

At the Black Hat Asia hacker conference in Singapore this May, researchers from Israel's Ben Gurion University of the Negev plan to present a new surveillance technique designed to allow anyone with off-the-shelf equipment to eavesdrop on conversations if they can merely find a line of sight through a window to any of a wide variety of reflective objects in a given room. By pointing an optical sensor attached to a telescope at one of those shiny objects—the researchers tested their technique with everything from an aluminum trash can to a metallic Rubik's cube—they could detect visible vibrations on an object's surface that allowed them to derive sounds and thus listen to speech inside the room. Unlike older experiments that similarly watched for minute vibrations to remotely listen in on a target, this new technique let researchers pick up lower-volume conversations, works with a far greater range of objects, and enables real-time snooping rather than after-the-fact reconstruction of a room's audio.

[...] The researchers' trick takes advantage of the fact that sound waves from speech create changes in air pressure that can imperceptibly vibrate objects in a room. In their experimental setup, they attached a photodiode, a sensor that converts light into voltage, to a telescope; the longer-range its lenses and the more light they allow to hit the sensor, the better. That photodiode was then connected to an analog-to-digital converter and a standard PC, which translated the sensor's voltage output to data that represents the real-time fluctuations of the light reflecting from whatever object the telescope points at. The researchers could then correlate those tiny light changes to the object's vibration in a room where someone is speaking, allowing them to reconstruct the nearby person's speech.

The researchers showed that in some cases, using a high-end analog-to-digital converter, they could recover audible speech with their technique when a speaker is about 10 inches from a shiny metallic Rubik's cube and speaking at 75 decibels, the volume of a loud conversation. With a powerful enough telescope, their method worked from a range of as much as 115 feet. Aside from the Rubik's cube, they tested the trick with half a dozen objects: a silvery bird figurine, a small polished metal trash can, a less-shiny aluminum ice-coffee can, an aluminum smartphone standard, and even thin metal venetian blinds.

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The automation of U.S. manufacturing—robots replacing people on factory floors—is fueling rising mortality rate among America's working-age adults, according to a new study by researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.

The study, published Feb. 23 in the journal Demography, found evidence of a causal link between automation and increasing mortality, driven largely by increased "deaths of despair," such as suicides and drug overdoses. This is particularly true for males and females aged 45 to 54, according to the study. But researchers also found evidence of increased mortality across multiple age and sex groups from causes as varied as cancer and heart disease.

[...] To understand the role of automation on increased mortality, O'Brien and co-authors Elizabeth F. Blair and Atheendar Venkataramani, both of the University of Pennsylvania, used newly available measures that chart the adoption of automation across U.S. industries and localities between 1993 and 2007. They combined these measures with U.S. death-certificate data over the same time period to estimate the causal effect of automation on the mortality of working age adults at the county level and for specific types of deaths.

According to the study, each new robot per 1,000 workers led to about eight additional deaths per 100,000 males aged 45 to 54 and nearly four additional deaths per 100,000 females in the same age group. The analysis showed that automation caused a substantial increase in suicides among middle-aged men and drug overdose deaths among men of all ages and women aged 20 to 29. Overall, automation could be linked to 12% of the increase in drug overdose mortality among all working-age adults during the study period. The researchers also discovered evidence associating the lost jobs and reduced wages caused by automation with increased homicide, cancer, and cardiovascular disease within specific age-sex groups.

Journal Reference:
O'Brien, Rourke, Bair, Elizabeth F., Venkataramani, Atheendar S.. Death by Robots? Automation and Working-Age Mortality in the United States [open], Demography (DOI: 10.1215/00703370-9774819)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

RNA Molecules Control Repair of Damaged Human DNA in Cancer Cells:

It was long assumed that RNA molecules – basic molecules that exist in all living organisms – only participated in protein synthesis. New research demonstrates, however, that RNA molecules have a much broader function and can play a key role in the development of disease.

One such disease in cancer, where damage to our cells' DNA can be a contributing factor. DNA damage occurs and is repaired continuously, but in some cases it can lead to carcinogenic mutations in the genome. A fundamental understanding of how our cells repair DNA is therefore key to the design of new treatments.

In this current study, the researchers examined how certain RNA molecules affected the ability of the cancer cells to repair radiation-damaged or broken DNA strings. They discovered that two molecule types – small Cajal body-specific RNA 2 (scaRNA2) and WRAP53 – interacted to regulate the enzyme DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK), which in turn affected the DNA-repair mechanisms.

quietus writes:

European airplane maker Airbus and a 50/50 joint partnership between General Electric (GE) and Safran Aircraft Engines are going to equip an A380 superjumbo with a hydrogen engine, by 2026. The plan is to go the cryogenic route with hydrogen: using its liquid form at -253°C (-425°F), and burning it directly in a GE Passport turbofan.

The modified A380 will keep its 4 conventional turbines, with an additional fifth being the hydrogen-powered one.

The number of technical challenges are large. Under the plans, 400kg of liquid hydrogen will be stored in four tanks at minus 253 degrees Celsius. A new cryogenic distribution system will need to be developed. The hydrogen will also need to be converted into a gas before it is burnt. The gas burns at a much higher temperature than conventional jet fuel, so special cooling and coating materials will also need to be developed.

The modified GE Passport jet engine needs a complete overhaul of its combustor, fuel system and controls system to make them compatible with liquid hydrogen fuel. The group picked the Passport because of its size, advanced turbomachinery and ability to operate at the appropriate pressures and temperatures for the flight platform. As the liquid hydrogen needs to be vaporized into gas to be used as fuel, certain parts of the engine could see temperature differences of some 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

upstart writes:

China suggests it doesn't own the rocket debris poised to collide with the Moon:

Don't expect China to readily accept blame for the rocket debris expected to collide with the Moon on March 4th. SpaceNews and The Verge report Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin denied that the debris came from the 2014 Chang'e-5 T1 Moon mission. The upper stage of that rocket burned up "completely" in Earth's atmosphere, Wang said. He maintained that China's aerospace efforts were always in line with international laws, and that the country was determined to protect the "long-term sustainability" of outer space.

[...] The dispute over the debris' origins also reflects the difficulty of tracking space debris. While there are more advanced sensors for spotting debris in Earth orbit, deep space monitoring simply hasn't been a priority. The impending collision might change that focus, particularly with Moon missions like NASA's Artemis program on the horizon.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Revealed: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

A massive leak from one of the world's biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes.

Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn)* held in one of Switzerland's best-known financial institutions.

The leak points to widespread failures of due diligence by Credit Suisse, despite repeated pledges over decades to weed out dubious clients and illicit funds. The Guardian is part of a consortium of media outlets given exclusive access to the data.

We can reveal how Credit Suisse repeatedly either opened or maintained bank accounts for a panoramic array of high-risk clients across the world.

They include a human trafficker in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery, a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend and executives who looted Venezuela's state oil company, as well as corrupt politicians from Egypt to Ukraine.

One Vatican-owned account in the data was used to spend €350m (£290m) in an allegedly fraudulent investment in London property that is at the centre of an ongoing criminal trial of several defendants, including a cardinal.

The huge trove of banking data was leaked by an anonymous whistleblower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. "I believe that Swiss banking secrecy laws are immoral," the whistleblower source said in a statement. "The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders."

See also: The Credit Suisse leaks expose an industry that has got away with too much for too long

Original Submission

upstart writes:

China Says Rover Discovered Glass Spheres on the Dark Side of the Moon:

China's Yutu-2 rover just won't stop making — or at least claiming – weird discoveries on the Moon. Case in point, Chinese space authorities now say it's found several mysterious glass spheres found on the far side of the lunar surface.

The team behind the discovery published a paper about the findings in the journal Science Bulletin, in which they describe the objects as "translucent glass globules."

The spheres are roughly a centimeter in diameter, they say, and were spotted in images taken by the panorama camera on the Yutu-2 rover on the dark side of the Moon.

[...] Though the globules seem plausible, it's worth noting that Yutu-2 has been the source of some sketchy claims during its tenure on the Moon. Remember that "moon cube" that turned out to be a boring rock? Or that "gel" that turned out to be, uh, another rock?

Journal Reference:
Zhiyong Xiao, Pan Yan, Bo Wu, et al. Translucent glass globules on the Moon, Science Bulletin (DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2021.11.004)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Linux Developers Discuss Deprecating & Removing ReiserFS

Besides no discussion in years over possibly upstreaming Reiser4 nor have any been brought up about eventually trying to mainline Reiser5, it looks like the original and feature-rich for its original time ReiserFS file-system could be on its way out of the Linux kernel in 2022.

ReiserFS was introduced 21 years ago as the Linux kernel's first journaling file-system to be mainlined and offered innovative features for its time among early open-source file-systems. For a time ReiserFS was used by default on SUSE Linux and during the Namesys times was continuing to see active feature development. But since lead ReiserFS developer Hans Reiser was convicted of murdering his wife a decade and a half ago, there hasn't been much work on ReiserFS (or Reiser4) besides notably the work of former Namesys developer Edward Shishkin. While Shishkin has been pushing forward with Reiser4/Reiser5 out-of-tree, ReiserFS has basically been left to code rot with diminishing user interest and no company seeming to want to get involved with it given its connection to Hans Reiser. Plus these days EXT4, XFS, and Btrfs are all better choices and even OpenZFS.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

EV coach drives from California to Seattle and back using public chargers:

An electric coach just completed a 1,700-mile (2,743-km) trip from Newark, California, to Seattle and back. The journey was a demonstration of battery-electric transport and was organized by the coach operator MTRWestern and ABC Companies, the US importer for Van Hool coaches.

What makes this trip noteworthy [...] is that it relied on public fast chargers. The coach averaged 280 miles (450 km) between charging stops, with some stretches of over 300 miles (482 km).

The coach averaged 55 mph (88.5 km/h) on its trip and used 3.4 MWh of electricity. Half a mile per kWh sounds like pretty bad efficiency if you're used to thinking about (comparatively) tiny passenger EVs, but with 660 kWh onboard, the CX45E has more than enough lithium to stave off range anxiety. A comparable trip by diesel coach would consume 262 gallons of the fuel, according to ABC.

Original Submission