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takyon writes:

NASA's Webb Reaches Alignment Milestone, Optics Working Successfully

Following the completion of critical mirror alignment steps, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team expects that Webb's optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve.

On March 11, the Webb team completed the stage of alignment known as "fine phasing." At this key stage in the commissioning of Webb's Optical Telescope Element, every optical parameter that has been checked and tested is performing at, or above, expectations. The team also found no critical issues and no measurable contamination or blockages to Webb's optical path. The observatory is able to successfully gather light from distant objects and deliver it to its instruments without issue.

[...] Over the next six weeks, the team will proceed through the remaining alignment steps before final science instrument preparations. The team will further align the telescope to include the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument, and Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph. In this phase of the process, an algorithm will evaluate the performance of each instrument and then calculate the final corrections needed to achieve a well-aligned telescope across all science instruments. Following this, Webb's final alignment step will begin, and the team will adjust any small, residual positioning errors in the mirror segments.

The team is on track to conclude all aspects of Optical Telescope Element alignment by early May, if not sooner, before moving on to approximately two months of science instrument preparations. Webb's first full-resolution imagery and science data will be released in the summer.

Image (5.74 MB).

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Both girls and boys are subjected to digital sexual harassment from schoolmates in the form of unwanted nude images and sexual videos. A new thesis shows that young people often lack strategies to protect themselves, and that this can lead to shame, bullying and mental health problems. However, some young people find ways to resist.

"Schoolchildren describe receiving unwanted nude images as a relatively common phenomenon that affects their everyday social relationships at school," says Kristina Hunehäll Berndtsson. "Previous research has mainly focused on the vulnerability of girls. But this thesis shows that boys are also vulnerable."

Kristina investigated students' experiences of digital sexual harassment by interviewing around 80 year 9 students [age 14/15 years] at three schools located in different geographic and socio-economic areas. Students described examples such as photos and videos that were shared with consent being passed on to others, being tricked or threatened into sending photos that are then circulated, and receiving unsolicited 'dick pics' and 'nudes.'

"Young people tend to lack strategies for dealing with digital sexual harassment. It's a sensitive subject that's hard to talk about. Some don't even talk to their closest friends about it. There's a risk of rumors spreading if it gets out. And they don't talk to adults about it, either. They don't think that adults know about the phenomenon.

upstart writes:

'Remarkable' find under Notre-Dame:

Archaeologists at Notre-Dame in Paris have made a "remarkable" discovery under the medieval Catholic cathedral in Paris. Several tombs and a leaden sarcophagus likely dating from the 14th century have been uncovered by archaeologists at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.

The discovery comes after a devastating fire tore through the medieval Catholic cathedral in 2019.

The burial sites "of remarkable scientific quality" were unearthed during preparatory work for rebuilding the ancient church's spire at the central spot where the transept crosses the nave, the culture ministry announced late Monday. Among the tombs was the "completely preserved, human-shaped sarcophagus made of lead". It is thought the coffin was made for a senior dignitary in the 1300s — the century following the cathedral's construction.

As well as the tombs, elements of painted sculptures were found just beneath the current floor level of the cathedral, identified as parts of the original 13th-century rood screen — an architectural element separating the altar area from the nave.

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upstart writes:

AWS is making a billion-dollar investment into the UK:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is set to pump billions into the UK as it looks to make a long-term commitment in the region.

The cloud computing giant has announced it will spend more than £1.8 billion over the next two years on UK-related expansion, more than double its existing total investment in the country.

The funding will go towards building and operating data centres in the UK, including an expansion of the AWS London Region that was first launched in December 2016.

[...] The news follows an announcement by AWS earlier this year that will see the company create 25,000 permanent jobs across the UK, taking its total workforce in the country to over 70,000.

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upstart writes:

Intel plans to build a $19 billion chip plant in Germany:

Intel has confirmed plans to build a semiconductor plant in Germany as part of an investment of up to €80 billion ($88 billion) in Europe over the next decade. The initial outlay for the facility in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, is €17 billion ($19 billion).

The so-called "mega-site" will actually comprise two factories. Planning will start right away with construction expected to get under way in the first half of next year, as long as Intel gets the thumbs up from the European Commission. Production should commence at what Intel is calling "Silicon Junction" in 2027. As such, the plant won't help offset the global chip shortage any time soon.

Intel says the dual plants will build chips using its top-of-the-line Angstrom-era transistor tech. It expects to create 7,000 construction jobs for the duration of the build, 3,000 permanent positions and thousands more jobs across partners and suppliers.

Elsewhere, Intel will invest another €12 billion ($13 billion) to expand a factory in Leixlip, Ireland. It will double the manufacturing space and expand foundry services there. The company's also in discussions with Italy to build an assembly and packing facility there at a cost of up to €4.5 billion ($4.9 billion).

Intel plans to build its European research and development hub near Plateau de Saclay, France. It expects to create 1,000 jobs as a result, with 450 of those opening up by the end of 2024. Intel aims to set up its main European foundry design center in France too. Further investments are earmarked for Poland and Spain.

Hat-tip to takyon for also sumitting Intel to announce its manufacturing and R&D plans for European Union tomorrow.

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upstart writes:

RISC-V house SiFive is coming for Arm's crown:

SiFive has announced plans to utilize a new cash injection to challenge the dominance of Arm with its RISC-V CPU cores.

The company has sealed an additional $175 million in funding in a recent investment round, which will combine with the takings from the sale of its connectivity business, OpenFive, to create a $350 nest egg.

According to Patrick Little, SiFive CEO, the firm will use the funds to accelerate the development of new RISC-V based cores capable of besting Arm across performance and efficiency metrics.

In today's market, Arm-based processors are ubiquitous. The company dominates the mobile computing landscape, and the success of Apple's M1 series shows Arm has a promising future inside laptops and desktops too. Arm designs also feature in chips for TVs, smart cars, drones, various IoT devices and some data center servers.

RISC-V is a free, open source instruction set architecture (ISA) built around the same design principles as Arm's proprietary designs, which command royalties each time they are integrated into an SoC. Although RISC-V-based processors are currently far less common, data from Deloitte suggests the number of RISC-V cores in circulation will double in each of the next two years.

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upstart writes:

Scientists Warn: Nutritious Fish Stocks Are Being Squandered by Salmon Farming:

Scientists studying the Scottish salmon farming industry say that using only fish by-products — such as trimmings — for salmon feed, rather than whole wild-caught fish, would deliver significant nutritional and sustainability gains.

This would allow 3.7 million tonnes of fish to be left in the sea, and enable global annual seafood production to increase by 6.1 million tonnes.

"If we want to feed the growing global population well and sustainably, we must stop catching wild fish to feed farmed fish." — David Willer

[...] As the world's fastest growing food sector, aquaculture is often presented as a way to relieve pressure on wild fish stocks. But many aquaculture fish — such as Atlantic salmon — are farmed using fish oil and meal made from millions of tonnes of wild-caught fish, most of which is food-grade and could be eaten directly to provide vital nutrition.

The team collected data on fish nutrient content, fishmeal, and fish oil composition, and salmon production, and examined the transfer of micronutrients from feed to fish in Scotland's farmed salmon industry. They found that over half of the essential dietary minerals and fatty acids available in wild fish are lost when these fish are fed to farmed salmon.

upstart writes:

Hundreds of GoDaddy sites caught up in hacking campaign:

A new hacking campaign infecting hundreds of sites hosted by GoDaddy-hosted sites has been uncovered.

An investigation by the Wordfence Incident Response team found more than 280 websites hosted with GoDaddy's Managed WordPress service were infected with a backdoor.

Among the compromised services are MediaTemple, tsoHost, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, and Host Europe, with a total of 298 sites found to be infected.

[...] This unnamed backdoor, it was further explained, has been in use for at least seven years. The threat actors add it to the beginning of wp-config.php and its goal seems to be to generate spammy Google search results, including resources customized to the infected site.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Russia is risking the creation of a "splinternet":

[...] So what would a real splinternet look like in practice? And how close are we to it? An actual splintering of the internet—rather than different countries using different platforms on the same underlying architecture—could take one of two forms, according to Milton Mueller of the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"A major, serious splintering of the internet would involve a technically incompatible protocol used by a critical mass of the world's population," he says. This first type of splintering would not be catastrophic. "Technologists would probably find a way to bridge the two protocols in short order," says Mueller.

The second form of splintering would be to continue using technically compatible protocols, but to have different governing bodies managing those services.  This might prove trickier to reverse.

If Russia, China, or some other countries formed rivals to the bodies that manage IP addresses and DNS and got them established, that could be even harder to put back together than if they built rival technological protocols. Vested interests would form, wanting to stay with one or the other body, making the politics of reconnection almost impossible.

The problem of reconnecting these disparate networks into one global internet would thus be a political one, not a technical one—but it's often the political problems that are the most difficult to solve.

Famous Navy UFO Video Was Actually Camera Glare, Evidence Suggests

upstart writes:

Famous Navy UFO Video Was Actually Camera Glare, Evidence Suggests:

The footage in question appears to show a UFO defying modern aerodynamics off the coast of San Diego before it appears to vanish into the ocean. The footage was captured in 2004 and was originally leaked in 2017 before it was officially released in 2019.

The video was supposedly never supposed to be made public and has been one of the poster child pieces of the footage used to definitively point to the existence of extraterrestrials. The Pentagon performed a detailed analysis of the footage and found that there was no evidence that it came from a source outside of Earth, but was unable to eliminate the possibility either. This, of course, continued to fuel conspiracy theories about the existence of aliens.

But a new detailed analysis by self-described debunker, skeptic, and UFO investigator Mick West focuses on four aspects of the footage to demonstrate that what is likely being seen is actually a camera artifact. West says his primary focus is investigating the claims of evidence around conspiracy theories and he does so in this recent video using facts and science.

[...] West contends that what is being seen in the video is actually infrared glare that hides a hot object behind it and only rotates in the way it does because the camera rotates when tracking the target from left to right.

[...] As detailed as West's analysis is, it very likely won't convince those who have decided that it is footage of a UFO.

upstart writes:

Chinese CPUs could soon give Intel a run for its money:

If Intel's venture into the graphics card market has you wishing for more variety for processors too then you might be in luck. According to a report from Taiwan's DigiTimes, an Intel exec claims that Chinese CPU makers will become "strong competitors" to Intel within the next three to five years.

These comments were made by Rui Wang, SVP of Intel Corporation and chair of Intel China at the 2022 National Party Congress on March 11, though no specific maker of Chinese processors was named. Tom's Hardware also notes in its own report that this could simply be Wang trying to be polite given the event was hosted by the Chinese Communist Party given the lack of data provided alongside the predictions.

In fact, the only real support we can see provided for this prediction comes from China's Minister of Information and Technology, Xiao Yaqing, who asserted that the domestic chip industry had grown by a third since this time last year.

[...] Still, China's IT infrastructure is growing at an incredible rate, so while these claims may seem like nothing but appeasement, there is a chance that they could prove true if we see hardware that was previously exclusive to the region released globally. Right now, China provides around a quarter of Intel's annual revenue alone though, so whatever rival processors are hoping to bring the heat, they will need to start on home turf first.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Type 1 diabetes can be predicted with epigenetic changes:

Epigenetic changes can affect how our genes work. Environmental factors, such as viral infections, can cause epigenetic changes.

Earlier studies have shown that certain antibodies detected in children's blood samples indicate an increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes in the near future. So that medical professionals could intervene in the disease even sooner, earlier disease indicators than the antibodies are needed to detect the risk. This involves searching for biomarkers indicating type 1 diabetes, and epigenetic changes could be such a biomarker.

[...] In Finland, children's risk of developing type 1 diabetes is the highest in the world. In addition to the genetic susceptibility, environmental factors have a great significance for developing the disease. The environmental factors include, for example, excessive level of hygiene, biodiversity loss, and environmental toxins.

The newly published studies are based on long-term interdisciplinary research collaboration with international partners. The project has included doctors who are in charge of the patients and also conduct clinical research, researchers in molecular medicine and immunology, and experts in computational science. In the studies, researchers analysed longitudinal samples with deep sequencing covering the entire genome as well as with computational methods and artificial intelligence.

Journal Reference:
Suomi, Tomi, Kalim, Ubaid Ullah, Rasool, Omid, et al. Type 1 Diabetes in Children With Genetic Risk May Be Predicted Very Early With a Blood miRNA, Diabetes Care (DOI: 10.2337/dc21-2120)
Starskaia, Inna, Laajala, Essi, Grönroos, Toni, et al. Early DNA methylation changes in children developing beta cell autoimmunity at a young age [open], Diabetologia (DOI: 10.1007/s00125-022-05657-x)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Stackable 'holobricks' can make giant 3D images:

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Disney Research, developed a holobrick proof-of-concept, which can tile holograms together to form a large seamless 3D image. This is the first time this technology has been demonstrated and opens the door for scalable holographic 3D displays. The results are reported in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

As technology develops, people want high-quality visual experiences, from 2D high resolution TV to 3D holographic augmented or virtual reality, and large true 3D displays. These displays need to support a significant amount of data flow: for a 2D full HD display, the information data rate is about three gigabits per second (Gb/s), but a 3D display of the same resolution would require a rate of three terabits per second, which is not yet available.

Holographic displays can reconstruct high quality images for a real 3D visual perception. They are considered the ultimate display technology to connect the real and virtual worlds for immersive experiences.

[...] For 2D displays, it's standard practice to tile small size displays together to form one large display. The approach being explored here is similar, but for 3D displays, which has not been done before. "Joining pieces of 3D images together is not trivial, because the final image must be seen as seamless from all angles and all depths," said Chu, who is also Director of the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE). "Directly tiling 3D images in real space is just not possible."

canopic jug writes:

NewScientist covers highly efficient 2-actuator robotic legs. Apparently these are far more efficient than more complex devices.

"We're using just two actuators, one to move the leg back and forward, and one to lift it. Just the bare minimum required," says Badri-Spröwitz. "Usually in robotics, you're looking to improve efficiency by just 10 per cent or so, but we're seeing a 300 per cent increase."

The motors pull the tendons. Power is stored in a spring during compression and released when each foot strikes the floor, to help drive the robot forward.

Taking many actuators, sensors and electronics out of the system makes the robot lighter and cheaper to manufacture. It can also stand upright using no power.

See also the paywalled main article, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.abg4055

Previously:
(2021) These Virtual Obstacle Courses Help Real Robots Learn to Walk
(2018) Festo's New Bionic Robots Include Rolling Spider, Flying Fox
(2014) Tiny Walking Robots Powered by Muscle Cells

Original Submission

upstart writes:

UK businesses struggling to support flexible work:

The challenges of the pandemic have driven and are continuing to drive employees restless, yet just over three in five employees in the UK don't believe their company's policies and technologies effectively enable flexible work, according to research from SAP Concur.

The Employee Experience Campaign research questioned 1,700 employees, taking a closer look at the way employee expectations have shifted.

It revealed that 90% of respondents indicated that their work can be done virtually, and that 87% prefer to work virtually most of the time, feeling that they should be able to decide where and when they work. Employers would like to follow suit, as more than 50% of executives expect to work remotely at least some of the time in the next two years, but only 42% agree that the technology their company has in place will be able to support flexible work.

In addition, 60% of employees agree that the pandemic caused them to re-evaluate what they want in the workplace. An overwhelming majority of staff (78%) now believe that employers are responsible for their job satisfaction and well-being, meaning that creating a better employee experience is essential to support flexible work while also increasing employee productivity.

Original Submission