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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/annoying-desktop-watermark-comes-to-users-of-unsupported-windows-11-pcs/

Windows 11 has stricter system requirements than any Windows version before it, dropping support for a wide range of pre-2018 PCs in the name of improving the Windows platform's security baseline. You can work around these requirements to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs relatively easily, but Microsoft added warnings to its installer and has threatened to withhold updates from these systems. So far, the company hasn't followed through on that threat. But using Windows 11 on these somewhat older computers is about to get more annoying.

A new Windows 11 update adds a "system requirements not met" watermark to the desktop of unsupported PCs, similar to the watermark you might see if you were running an early beta or unactivated version of Windows. This message will presumably appear when your PC doesn't meet one or more of the operating system's core security requirements: a supported Intel, AMD, or ARM processor; Secure Boot support; and TPM 2.0 hardware or firmware.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

New PCR Test Can Identify All COVID-19 Variants in a Positive Patient Sample:

[...] Identifying specific strains reveals important information such as the length of incubation period, length of contagious period, transmissibility, pathogenicity, and even changes in the predominant symptoms.

Information on strain types is generally reported by the international community or a few states with large populations that perform genetic sequencing. The deep sequencing needed to identify SARS-CoV-2 strains is accurate and can identify each mutation present in a sample, but it is costly, slow and requires specialized equipment. Yet knowledge of the strain type provides important information for public health professionals, policymakers, and individuals.

[...] Using real-time PCR probes designed by Rutgers University and already used around the world for many purposes, Rutgers designed the Rutgers-RP RT-PCR assay to detect mutations in SARS-CoV-2 that have been shown to increase immune escape, avoid neutralization, and increase transmissibility. They pioneered the use of molecular beacons to identify specific genetic mutations. Molecular beacons are hairpin-shaped molecules that can be designed to selectively bind to a specific mutant sequence, avoiding wild-type sequences that often differ by a single nucleotide.

Nine mutations were selected for testing, and the beacon for each has differently colored dyes. Every original variant of concern – alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and omicron — has a unique combination of these mutations. and when the beacon binds to its target molecule, its distinct color can be detected by the assay.

Journal Reference: "Multiplex PCR Assays for Identifying all Major Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Variants" by Ryan J. Dikdan, Salvatore A.E. Marras, Amanda P. Field, Alicia Brownlee, Alexander Cironi, D. Ashley Hill and Sanjay Tyagi, 1 February 2022, Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoldx.2022.01.004

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Browser-in-the-Browser Attack Makes Phishing Nearly Invisible:

We've had it beaten into our brains: Before you go wily-nily clicking on a page, check the URL. First things first, the tried-and-usually-but-not-always-trueadvice goes, check that the site's URL shows "https," indicating that the site is secured with TLS/SSL encryption.

If only it were that easy to avoid phishing sites. In reality, URL reliability hasn't been absolute for a long time, given things like homograph attacks that swap in similar-looking characters in order to create new, identical-looking but malicious URLs, as well as DNS hijacking, in which Domain Name System (DNS) queries are subverted.

Now, there's one more way to trick targets into coughing up sensitive info, with a coding ruse that's invisible to the naked eye. The novel phishing technique, described last week by a penetration tester and security researcher who goes by the handle mr.d0x, is called a browser-in-the-browser (BitB) attack.

upstart writes:

Australia's big move on cryptocurrency:

Australia will make its next move towards regulating cryptocurrency after the government promised the biggest overhaul of the nation's payment systems since the early days of the internet.

A taxation system for cryptocurrency, protections for investors from unscrupulous dealers and methods of regulating digital banks, crypto exchanges and brokers are all on the table under the proposed changes.

"The government can't guarantee your crypto any more than it can guarantee a painting or a share in a company, and nor should it," Financial Services Minister Jane Hume said on Sunday.

"But we can make sure Australian exchanges, custodians and brokers – Australian players in the crypto ecosystem – work within a regulatory framework that is better, safer and more secure."

Survey data from 2021 suggested that 25 per cent of Australians held or had previously held cryptocurrencies, making Australia one of the biggest adopters of cryptocurrencies on a per capita basis.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

How will climate change impact American companies? The SEC thinks you have a right to know:

Groundbreaking federal regulation expected to be unveiled Monday could change how Americans—and American companies—think about climate change. The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet to discuss whether public companies must disclose the risks they face from global warming.

Much as homebuyers are protected by rules requiring a seller to disclose problems, the new SEC rule would allow investors to judge how well or poorly a company is prepared for the future costs of a warming planet.

The anticipated rule would require publicly traded U.S. companies to tell investors about their greenhouse gas emissions and how they manage risks related to climate change and future climate regulations.

"There's increasing concern that investors are not fully informed of the climate risks companies face," said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "These disclosures will shine a harsh light on companies that have climate exposure who maybe would rather lurk in the dark."

upstart writes:

Beyond Gravity doubles production capacity for satellite dispensers - SpaceNews:

Beyond Gravity is doubling its production capability of satellite dispensers in Linköping, Sweden, with the construction of a new facility.

Beyond Gravity is [a] manufacturer for dispensers used for satellite constellations where multiple satellites of the same design are launched into orbit in quick succession. Beyond Gravity has successfully placed more than 1,100 satellites into orbit – from the European Galileo satellite navigation constellation, the OneWeb internet constellation, the TerraBella Earth Observation satellite constellation to the Canadian Radarsat Earth Observation constellation. All Beyond Gravity dispensers and separation systems are manufactured in Linköping, Sweden.

Construction of the new facility is scheduled for completion in 2023. With this new building, Beyond Gravity will double its production capacity in Linköping. Instead of one dispenser system every month, the company will produce one every two weeks in the future. The capacity expansion will cover the increased dispenser production volume required to support the growth of large satellite constellations. This will also lead to the creation of new jobs in Linköping, as the number of employees in dispenser systems production will increase by 60, from about 140 at present to about 200 in 2023.

The new plant in Linköping provides an additional state-of-the-art production area of 4,600 square meters, in addition to the existing production area of 3,000 square meters. The new hall is designed for series production. "

[...] Beyond Gravity's separation systems have been used to perform more than 1,100 in-orbit separations, with a 100% success rate.

[Updated: 23-03-2022 08:33 UTC]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scammers have 2 clever new ways to install malicious apps on iOS devices:

Apple has long required that apps pass a security review and be admitted to the App Store before they can be installed on iPhones and iPads. The vetting prevents malicious apps from making their way onto the devices, where they can then steal cryptocurrency and passwords or carry out other nefarious activities.

[...] Enter TestFlight, a platform Apple makes available for the beta testing of new apps. By installing Apple's TestFlight app from the App Store, any iOS user can download and install apps that have not yet passed the vetting process. Once TestFlight is installed, the user can download the unvetted apps using links attackers publish on scam sites or in emails. People can use TestFlight to invite up to 10,000 testers using their email address or by sharing a public link.

"Some of the victims who contacted us reported that they had been instructed to install what appeared to be BTCBOX, an app for a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange," Jagadeesh Chandraiah, a malware analyst at security firm Sophos wrote. "We also found fake sites that posed as the cryptocurrency mining firm BitFury peddling fake apps through TestFlight. We continue to look for other CryptoRom apps using the same approach."

Wednesday's post showed several of the images used in the CryptoRom campaign. iOS users who took the bait received a link that, when clicked, caused the TestFlight app to download and install the fake cryptocurrency app.

Chandraiah said that the TestFlight vector provides attackers with advantages not available with better-known App Store bypass techniques that also abuse legitimate Apple features. One such feature is Apple's Super Signature platform, which allows people to use their Apple developer account to deliver apps on a limited ad hoc basis. The other feature is the company's Developer Enterprise Program. It lets big organizations deploy proprietary apps for internal use without employees having to use the App Store. Both methods require scammers to pay money and clear other hurdles.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Machine learning will be one of the best ways to identify habitable exoplanets:

The field of extrasolar planet studies is undergoing a seismic shift. To date, 4,940 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,711 planetary systems, with another 8,709 candidates awaiting confirmation. With so many planets available for study and improvements in telescope sensitivity and data analysis, the focus is transitioning from discovery to characterization. Instead of simply looking for more planets, astrobiologists will examine "potentially-habitable" worlds for potential "biosignatures."

[...] Water is something that all life on Earth depends on, hence its importance for exoplanet and astrobiological surveys. As Lisa Kaltenegger told Universe Today via email, this importance is reflected in NASA's slogan—"just follow the water"—which also inspired the title of their paper.

"Liquid water on a planet's surface is one of the smoking guns for potential life—I say potential here because we don't know what else we need to get life started. But liquid water is a great start. So we used NASA's slogan of 'just follow the water' and asked, how can we find water on the surface of rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone? Doing spectroscopy is time intensive, thus we are searching for a faster way to initially identify promising planets—those with liquid water on them."

Currently, astronomers have been limited to looking for Lyman-alpha line absorption, which indicates the presence of hydrogen gas in an exoplanet's atmosphere. This is a byproduct of atmospheric water vapor that's been exposed to solar ultraviolet radiation, causing it to become chemically disassociated into hydrogen and molecular oxygen (O2)—the former of which is lost to space while the latter is retained.

This is about to change, thanks to next-generation telescopes like the James Webb (JWST) and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes (RST), as well as next-next-generation observatories like the Origins Space Telescope, the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx), and the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR). There are also ground-based telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

Journal Reference:
Pham, Dang, Kaltenegger, Lisa. Follow the Water: Finding Water, Snow and Clouds on Terrestrial Exoplanets with Photometry and Machine Learning, (DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2203.04201)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Record-breaking suspension bridge set to open in Yunnan, China:

Stretching 798 meters over a river valley, Lvzhijiang Bridge's mere length may not sound all that extreme when compared to some of the world's longest bridges. But the complexity of the project is earning it recognition as an engineering marvel.

Built in a mountainous V-shaped valley, it is the world's first single-tower, single-span suspension bridge; it's only held up by one tower and is supported at both ends by cables. There are no additional columns, giving it a dramatic, gravity-defying look.

The bridge's single span -- the distance between two supports -- is 780 meters. In addition, officials say it has the world's steepest tunnel anchorage, which is angled at 54 degrees.

Due to the area's rugged landscape, all of the main supporting elements -- the 156-meter-high tower, the bridge approach slab on one end of the structure and the tunnel anchorage on the other end of the structure -- are built upon steep slopes.

The project manager told Chinese state media that "the height difference between the bridge deck and the assembly yard is 320 meters high, or about 100 stories high ... the complexity of this project is rarely seen in China."

Any engineers want to explain why this is such an 'engineering marvel'? - asking for a friend, of course.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

New Therapies Could Stop T Cells From Attacking Brain Cells in Parkinson's Disease:

Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have found that people with Parkinson's disease have a clear "genetic signature" of the disease in their memory T cells. The scientists hope that targeting these genes may open the door to new Parkinson's treatments and diagnostics.

"Parkinson's disease is not usually seen as an autoimmune disease," says LJI Research Assistant Professor Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, Ph.D. "But all of our work points toward T cells having a role in the disease."

"Now that we can see what these T cells are doing, we think intervening with antibody therapies could have an impact on the disease progression, especially early on, " adds LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci., who led the work with Lindestam Arlehamn.

[...] Parkinson's progresses as dopamine-producing neurons in the brain die. Unfortunately, scientists have been unable to pinpoint what causes this cell death—though they do have a clue: The doomed neurons contain clumps of a damaged protein called alpha-synuclein.

LJI research suggests these clumps may be the kiss of death for dopamine-producing neurons. Sette and Lindestam Arlehamn recently showed that people with Parkinson's have T cells that target alpha-synuclein early on in Parkinson's disease.

The new study offers a way to stop these T cells in their tracks. The LJI team found that people with Parkinson's disease have memory T cells with a very specific gene signature. These genes appear responsible for targeting alpha-synuclein and potentially causing ongoing inflammation in cases of Parkinson's.

Journal Reference:
Dhanwani, Rekha, Lima-Junior, João Rodrigues, Sethi, Ashu, et al. Transcriptional analysis of peripheral memory T cells reveals Parkinson's disease-specific gene signatures [open], npj Parkinson's Disease (DOI: 10.1038/s41531-022-00282-2)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

OneWeb to Restart Internet Satellite Launches Using SpaceX Rockets:

After canceling business with Russia's space program, OneWeb is tapping rival SpaceX to help it launch its remaining internet satellites into orbit.

"We are pleased to announce that we have entered into a launch agreement withSpaceX that will enable OneWeb to resume satellite launches," UK-based OneWeb announced on Twitter today. The first launch of the OneWeb satellites using SpaceX rockets is scheduled for sometime later this year, the company added.

OneWeb previously relied on Russia's Roscosmos to launch the satellites. However, the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions from Europe caused Roscosmos to essentially retaliate by postponing an upcoming launch of OneWeb satellites.

Roscosmos then demanded the UK government divest itself from OneWeb. In response, the company canceled all launches through Russia's space program.

OneWeb's contingency plan of using SpaceX is a little surprising since both companies are competing in the internet satellite market. This has resulted in some bickering amongst each other in government regulatory filings. Last year, for example, OneWeb accused SpaceX's satellite internet system of colliding with its own.

upstart writes:

Waste Heat From Microsoft Servers to Warm Residents in Southern Finland:

Microsoft has announced a major new data center in Finland. As welcome as that news alone might be, with the expected 11,000 new jobs, the project will also provide district heating for a large swathe of southern Finland. Finnish broadcaster and news provider YLE highlights that Microsoft's collaboration with energy company Fortum will also create the "world's largest waste heat recovery project for data centers."

Finland's biggest energy company, the majority-state-owned Fortum, has been looking for a data center partner for the last four years. [...]

On the scale of the investment in this new data center, LYE reports that it is "one of the biggest single ICT investments in Finnish history." Microsoft reckons that the new infrastructure, its upkeep and services will sustain 11,000 new local jobs. Moreover, such a large project usually has a positive effect on local businesses. At the very least 11,000 people, many with high skilled roles and a commensurate salary, will be very happy to have nearby food outlets, goods and services.

It is estimated that Microsoft and its ecosystem in Finland will also stimulate the local economy, generating more than 17.2 billion Euros over the next four years. Lastly, considering the core server business activity of Microsoft in southern Finland, locals will benefit from the fastest loading and latency times when using Microsoft's popular cloud services (and perhaps great PC and Xbox cloud gaming too).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Asahi Linux Is The First Linux Distro To Support Apple Silicon:

Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon has launched for the public. It is the first Linux distribution to offer native support for Apple M1 chips. As this is an alpha release, please be aware of the likelihood of easy to stumble upon bugs and some significant missing features. However, this critical milestone now made, "things will move even more quickly going forward," promises the Asahi Linux development team.

[...] "We're really excited to finally take this step and start bringing Linux on Apple Silicon to everyone," wrote the development team in a blog post. Importantly, installing Asahi Linux on your Mac doesn't require a jailbroken device. In addition, it won't affect the security level of your macOS install, so Mac features like FileVault, running iOS apps, and watching Netflix in 4K can continue.

While the team has shared a list of system requirements, an installation guide, and a list of (in)compatible features, this alpha release is intended primarily "for developers and power users." In other words, "expect things to be a bit rough," the devs candidly admit.

upstart writes:

Psychedelic Medicine: LSD, a Future Anti-Anxiety Pill?:

The craze for psychedelics used for therapeutic purposes is real. However, the scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness and explaining their mode of action in treating mental health disorders is still very thin. A new study led by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a senior scientist in the Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience (BRaIN) Program at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), sheds light on previously unexplained neurobiological mechanisms by which LSD is believed to relieve anxiety.

While preliminary studies suggested that psychotherapy-assisted microdosing was effective in alleviating anxiety and depressive symptoms in people with severe psychiatric or neurological problems, the biological mechanisms underlying these effects had remained unclear to date. The study conducted by Dr. Gobbi's team demonstrates for the first time that regular administration of low doses of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) reduces anxiety symptoms through neurobiological mechanisms that are similar to some commonly prescribed classes of antidepressants and anxiolytics: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). SSRIs are better known by their trade names: Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Cipralex, etc.

upstart writes:

The TikTok-Oracle deal would set two dangerous precedents:

In August 2020, President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell executive order banning TikTok in the United States. Since then, as TikTok has competed against other Big Tech companies—growing among teen users while Facebook and others have struggled—its ability to survive in the United States has remained under a cloud of uncertainty. Would regulators step in and kill off a product that had become a staple form of communication for some 100 million Americans?

That cloud seemed to lift last week in the wake of reports that TikTok will enter into a data storage deal with Oracle. In the short term, the agreement would be good for US users, enabling TikTok to invest more of its resources and energy into improving its product, rather than wrestling with the government.

But in the long run, the forecast looks bleaker. The deal would establish precedents likely to harm technology companies and their users.

[...] The main concern US politicians have raised about TikTok is that because it's owned by China's ByteDance, the Chinese government could conceivably access any American data held by the company. The other big concern has been security risk. This deal would address both. Under the agreement, Oracle would store TikTok data for US users, ensure that data is not transferred to ByteDance, and be responsible for protecting user data from cybersecurity threats. Because this sensitive task will be performed by a US company with close ties to the government, TikTok should finally be able to put to rest the concern that its operations in the United States constitute a grave threat to American security.