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upstart writes:

Hopes melanoma breakthrough could save Scientists working on 'heat-seeking missile' to destroy deadly skin cancers:

Scientists think they might be on the verge of a melanoma breakthrough that could save the lives of thousands of people.

Adelaide researchers are working to develop a new treatment that would aim to wipe out dangerous cancer cells with a simple injection. The researchers have discovered that the most aggressive melanoma cells contain a protein known as Desmoglein-2.

[...] They're confident if they can target that protein, they can disarm those cancer cells.

Professor Claudine Bonder from the University of South Australia described how it works. "Research has shown that if we target Desmoglein-2 on the melanoma cells then the cancer cells are less likely to survive," she said. "They'll be like a heat-seeking missile that can be injected into the blood."

They are now working on a treatment that would involve injecting patients with nanoparticles programmed to find the protein. The researchers hope to have that treatment ready to go within five to 10 years, potentially a life-saving breakthrough for thousands of Australians.

The university is now seeking funding from the government and private donors to continue its research.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

FAA environmental review to allow Starship orbital launches after changes

A Federal Aviation Administration environmental review has concluded that SpaceX can conduct orbital launches of its Starship vehicle from its Texas test site, but only after completing dozens of mitigations to reduce impacts on the environment and the public.

The FAA issued June 13, after nearly half a year of delays, what is formally known as a mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for SpaceX's proposal to perform orbital launches of its Starship vehicle, atop its Super Heavy booster, from Boca Chica, Texas. The mitigated FONSI means that SpaceX is cleared, from an environmental standpoint, to carry out those launches once it implements more than 75 measures to mitigate environmental effects.

Among those mitigations is changes in closures in the road that leads to both the SpaceX site, called Starbase, as well as a public beach. SpaceX will provide more advanced notice of closures for testing and launches. It will be prohibited from closing access during 18 holidays and will be limited to five weekend closures per year. Closures will be limited to 500 hours a year for normal operations and up to 300 more hours "to address anomalies," according to FAA documents. The review is for up to five orbital launches per year, as well as five suborbital launches and ground tests.

Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) Executive Summary for Starship/Super Heavy (43 pages)

Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica (183 pages)

DannyB writes:

CNBC: FAA requires SpaceX to make environmental adjustments to move forward with its Starship program in Texas

Among the requirements, SpaceX will coordinate with a "qualified biologist" on lighting inspections to minimize the impact on sea turtles, operate an employee shuttle between the city of Brownsville and the facility, and perform quarterly cleanups of the local Boca Chica Beach.

[...] SpaceX has already made changes to its expansion of the Starbase facility, according to the FAA, with the company removing infrastructure plans for a desalination plant, natural gas pretreatment system, liquefier and a power plant.

Space is hard. SpaceX makes space look easy, routine and reusable. The SLS cost plus contracting spice must flow!

Also at Reuters, CNN, and Bloomberg.

Original Submission #1   Original Submission #2

upstart writes:

Lilium achieves main wing transition on its Phoenix 2 eVTOL aircraft:

German company Lilium, developer of the first electric vertical take-off and landing (eVOTL) aircraft, announced that it has successfully achieved the transition of the main wing of its Phoenix 2 model.

«This is a landmark moment for Lilium and for electric aviation as a whole», the company said. For the first time, it successfully completed a transition test of the aircraft's main wing from a stationary flight position to a configuration for horizontal flight.

A transition like this has never been completed in flight on a full-size demonstrator aircraft before. It is also one of the biggest hurdles in eVTOL operations.

From an aerodynamic point of view, completing the transition means that the aircraft is able to switch from generating lift solely from the engines (as occurs in the hover phase) to generating lift from the airflow above and below the wing (as occurs during horizontal flight).

[...] The Phoenix 2, unlike many of Lilium's competitors' models, uses a series of thirty fans located in the wings and powered by batteries.

Original Submission

Crocodile-faced Dinosaur May Have Been Europe's Largest Ever Predator

upstart writes:

Crocodile-faced dinosaur may have been Europe's largest ever predator:

An enormous crocodile-faced, spiny-backed dinosaur that prowled what is now England roughly 125 million years ago was one of the largest predatory animals to ever stalk across Europe.

Paleontologists unearthed the remains of this behemoth on the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England. The researchers nicknamed the newfound species the "White Rock spinosaurid," after the chalky geological layer found on the island where it was discovered. As the scientists unearthed only pieces of fossils, the animal has yet to be given an official scientific name.

The fragments are the youngest spinosaurid fossils ever found in the U.K., according to a new study, published June 9 in the journal PeerJ Life and Environment. Spinosaurids were bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs with crocodile-like skulls, slender necks and sturdy arms, and they lived during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). The new species is a close relative of the older, potentially amphibious Spinosaurus, which was bigger than Tyrannosaurus rex and had a large, flattened sail extending from its back.

Spinosaurids are somewhat mysterious as few fossils of the group have been discovered. Scientists suspect that the creatures hunted in lakes, rivers and lagoons, but how they captured their quarry is a subject of debate. Some paleontologists have proposed that spinosaurids actively swam after their prey (opens in new tab), propelling themselves by swishing their large tails as modern crocodiles do. Other experts suggest the monsters behaved more like herons, wading the lagoons and jabbing their long jaws into the water to snatch up fish. Either way, the creatures were enormous, and the newly discovered White Rock spinosaurid was among the biggest.

''This was a huge animal, exceeding 10m [33 feet] in length, and judging from some of the dimensions, [it] probably represents the largest predatory dinosaur ever found in Europe,'' study lead author Chris Barker, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton in England, said in a statement. ''It's just a shame it's only known from such scant material.''

hubie writes:

Hydrogen Peroxide E-Bandages Treat Wound Infections:

According to new research by investigators at the Mayo Clinic and Washington State University, e-bandages could be an effective alternative to antibiotics for managing wound infections. The findings are presented at ASM Microbe 2022, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

In a recent study conducted in mice, novel hydrogen peroxide producing bandages with electrical/chemical properties (electro-chemical bandages or e-bandages), under the control of wearable voltage devices, reduced methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) biofilm bacteria present in the wound by 99% after 2 days of treatment.

[...] Hydrogen peroxide solution is used to clean wounds. Although hydrogen peroxide has antibacterial and wound healing properties, hydrogen peroxide solution is unstable chemically and therefore, its effects are short-lived. Dr. Raval and colleagues have developed e-bandages to continuously produce hydrogen peroxide as a treatment of wound infections.

"Specifically, we have developed and examined antibacterial properties of a novel kind of bandage which continuously produces hydrogen peroxide through application of a specific negative voltage," said Dr. Raval.

E-bandages to treat your e-burns from your e-cigarettes.

Original Submission

Google Engineer Suspended After Claiming AI Bot Sentient

Frosty Piss writes:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine

A Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has been suspended with pay from his work

Google placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google "collaborator", and the company's LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system. He said LaMDA engaged him in conversations about rights and personhood, and Lemoine shared his findings with company executives in April in a GoogleDoc entitled "Is LaMDA sentient?"

The decision to place Lemoine, a seven-year Google veteran with extensive experience in personalization algorithms, on paid leave was made following a number of "aggressive" moves the engineer reportedly made? Including seeking to hire an attorney to represent LaMDA, the newspaper says, and talking to representatives from the House judiciary committee about Google's allegedly unethical activities.

Google said it suspended Lemoine for breaching confidentiality policies by publishing the conversations with LaMDA online, and said in a statement that he was employed as a software engineer, not an ethicist. Brad Gabriel, a Google spokesperson, also strongly denied Lemoine's claims that LaMDA possessed any sentient capability.

fliptop writes:

Over at ACM.org, Orit Hazzan (a professor in the Technion's Department of Education in Science and Technology) and Koby Mike (a Ph.D student) make the case that machine learning guides learners to ignore the application domain even when it is relevant for the modeling phase of data science:

From a historical perspective, machine learning was considered, for the past 50 years or so, as part of artificial intelligence. It was taught mainly in computer science departments to scientists and engineers and the focus was placed, accordingly, on the mathematical and algorithmic aspects of machine learning, regardless of the application domain. Thus, although machine learning deals also with statistics, which focuses on data and does consider the application domain, up until recently, most machine learning activities took place in the context of computer science, where it began, and which focuses traditionally on algorithms.

Two processes, however, have taken place in parallel to the accelerated growth of data science in the last decade. First, machine learning, as a sub-field of data science, flourished and its implementation and use in a variety of disciplines began. As a result, researchers realized that the application domain cannot be neglected and that it should be considered in any data science problem-solving situation. For example, it is essential to know the meaning of the data in the context of the application domain to prepare the data for the training phase and to evaluate the algorithm's performance based on the meaning of the results in the real world. Second, a variety of population began taking machine learning courses, people for whom, as experts in their disciplines, it is inherent and essential to consider the application domain in data science problem-solving processes.

[...] For example, consider a researcher in the discipline of social work who took a machine learning course but was not educated to consider the application domain in the interpretation of the data analysis. The researcher is now asked to recommend an intervention program. Since the researcher was not educated to consider the application domain, he or she may ignore crucial factors in this examination and rely only on the recommendation of the machine learning algorithm.

Other examples are education and transportation, fields that everyone feels they understand. As a result of a machine learning education that does not consider the application domain, non-experts in these fields may assume that they have enough knowledge in these fields, and may not understand the crucial role that professional knowledge in these fields plays in decision-making processes that are based on the examination of the output of machine learning algorithms. This phenomenon is further highlighted when medical doctors or food engineers, for example, are not trained or educated in machine learning courses to criticize the results of machine learning algorithms based on their professionalism in medicine and food engineering, respectively.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The skin can realistically bend, stretch, and wrinkle as the finger curls and extends:

Roboticists from the University of Tokyo have taken a tiny step toward creating the Terminator. They've built an articulated robot finger that's seamlessly covered in living human skin.

[...] A relatively simple robotic finger with three moving joints was first submerged in a solution made up of collagen, a structural protein, and dermal fibroblasts, the primary type of human cells found in skin's connective tissue and its sub-surface dermis layer. This solution shrank and tightly conformed itself to the robotic finger, creating a flexible foundation on which to apply multiple layers of epidermal keratinocytes, the primary type of human cells found in skin's outer epidermis layer.

[...] This research is just the earliest steps toward creating believable humanoid bots, however. The layer of human skin covering the finger is far less durable than natural human skin, and the robot is unable to provide it with a constant supply of nutrients that would allow it to grow and regenerate. As a result, it doesn't last very long, but the researchers are hoping to improve its longevity with future iterations that incorporate more complex structures and functionality, including neurons that could allow it to feel, and even sweat glands—so one day, robots might even stink like we do.

Journal Reference:
Michio Kawai et al., Living skin on a robot [open], Matter, June 09, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2022.05.019

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Astra launch fails on first TROPICS flight for NASA

The first of three flights to launch the TROPICS satellites for NASA lifted off on Sunday during at 1:43 PM EDT (17:43 UTC). Astra's LV0010 vehicle launched from SLC-46 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, making the company's seventh orbital launch attempt.

After a nominal first stage burn, the upper stage engine shut down early. As a result, the vehicle and payloads were lost.

[...] TROPICS-1 was Astra's seventh orbital launch attempt since the first and only flight of Rocket 3.1 in September 2020. After a few test flights that fell short of orbit, Astra successfully placed the LV0007 vehicle's upper stage with a hosted US Space Force payload into orbit from Kodiak in November 2021.

The next launch, LV0008 in February 2022, was Astra's first from Cape Canaveral's SLC-46 and the company's first for NASA. The ELaNa-41 mission failed to deploy multiple CubeSats into orbit due to a fairing separation failure. The following mission, LV0009 from Kodiak, was the first to successfully deploy payloads into orbit for Spaceflight Inc. in March 2022.

Also at Space News and Spaceflight Now.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

BBC: UK will not copy EU demand for common charging cable

The UK government says it is not "currently considering" copying European Union plans for a common charging cable.

The EU has provisionally agreed all new portable electronic devices must, by autumn 2024, use a USB Type-C charger, a move it says will benefit consumers.

[....] Under the current post-Brexit arrangements, the regulation would apply to Northern Ireland, according to EU and UK officials.

DailyMail: Britain will NOT follow the EU and make USB-C charging ports mandatory on all phones – meaning Apple's 'lightning connector' will be allowed everywhere in the UK except Northern Ireland

[....] Since the EU's announcement, it had been uncertain if the decision could affect Apple products sold in the UK and other non-EU countries in Europe.

But a UK government spokesperson has told MailOnline: 'We are not currently considering replicating this requirement.'

[....] This complicates things for Apple; the firm might have to make devices with USB-C ports to sell in EU countries and Northern Ireland, as well as making devices with a Lightning ports to sell in the UK and other non-EU countries.

To simplify things, Apple could just opt to make devices with USB-C ports in the whole of Europe.

upstart writes:

NASA's plan to get Ingenuity through the Martian winter:

Since a Martian year amounts to roughly two years on Earth, and the helicopter is in the northern hemisphere, this is Ingenuity's first winter. As the solstice approaches, days are getting shorter and nights longer, and dust storms could become more frequent. That all means less sunlight for the solar panels mounted above the helicopter's twin 4-foot rotor blades. Dust on solar panels recently spelled the end of operations for NASA's InSight Mars lander, and the effects of cold on electronics is believed to have played a role in the end of the Opportunity and Spirit Mars rover missions.

"We believe it's survivable," Dave Lavery, NASA's program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, told WIRED, but "every extra day is a gift." JPL Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos recently wrote in a NASA blog post that "each sol (Martian day) could be Ingenuity's last." that "each sol (Martian day) could be Ingenuity's last."

[...] As Ingenuity halts normal flight activity, the team will focus on transferring data like flight performance logs and high-definition images from the last eight flights and making software upgrades. Based on a climate model, NASA expects solar energy levels to rebound to a level that allows the resumption of normal activity this fall. By September or October, if Ingenuity is able to regain the ability to heat its systems at night, it could resume regular flight operations, scouting potential places for the Perseverance rover to stash a collection of rock and soil samples and explore what scientists believe used to be a river delta within the Jezero Crater.

upstart writes:

Japan asteroid probe finds 23 amino acids, researchers confirm:

A total of 23 types of amino acids were found in asteroid samples brought back by Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe, according to new studies published in the journal Science and elsewhere, shedding further light on the origins of life on Earth.

[...] Whether amino acids originated on Earth or arrived from space has been a topic of much scientific debate. The findings from Hayabusa2 appear to support the latter hypothesis.

"The search for extraterrestrial life could take off on hopes that amino-acid-based organisms could exist on Mars and beyond," said Tamagawa University professor Yoshitaka Yoshimura.

The findings also could shed more light on the birth of the solar system. Some of the samples are thought to contain compounds from when they were originally formed -- around 3 million years after the solar system was created roughly 4.6 billion years ago -- essentially making them a "fossil" of the solar system.

What happened before, during and after solar system formation? A recent study of the Asteroid Ryugu holds the answers!:

[...] Elemental and isotopic data revealed that Ryugu contains the most primitive pre-solar nebular (an ancient disk of gas and dust surrounding what would become the Sun) material yet identified and that some organic materials may have been inherited from before the solar system formed.

[...] The discovery of protein forming amino acids is important, because Ryugu has not been exposed to the Earth's biosphere, like meteorites, and as such their detection proves that at least some of the building blocks of life on Earth could have been formed in space environments. Hypotheses concerning the origin of life, such as those involving hydrothermal activity, require sources of amino acids, with meteorites and asteroids like Ryugu representing strong candidates due to their inventory of amino acids and because such material would have been readily delivered to the surface of the early Earth. Additionally, the isotopic characteristics of the Ryugu samples suggest that Ryugu-like material could have supplied the Earth with its water, another resource essential for the origin and sustainment of life on Earth.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Soylent readers, you'll need to click through to TFA to see the illusion referenced below.

An illusion new to science shows that the pupillary light reflex, which controls the width of the pupil in anticipation of expected changes in light, depends on the perceived environment rather than the physical reality:

Have a look at the above image. Do you perceive that the central black hole is expanding, as if you're moving into a dark environment, or falling into a hole? If so, you're not alone: a new study shows that this 'expanding hole' illusion, which is new to science, is perceived by approximately 86% of people.

[...] Optical illusions aren't mere gimmicks without scientific interest: researchers in the field of psychosociology study them to better understand the complex processes our visual system uses to anticipate and make sense of the visual world – in a far more roundabout way than a photometer device, which simply registers the amount of photonic energy.

[...] "Here we show based on the new 'expanding hole' illusion that that the pupil reacts to how we perceive light – even if this 'light' is imaginary like in the illusion – and not just to the amount of light energy that actually enters the eye. The illusion of the expanding hole prompts a corresponding dilation of the pupil, as it would happen if darkness really increased," said Laeng.

[...] "Our results show that pupils' dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor. Rather, the eye adjusts to perceived and even imagined light, not simply to physical energy. Future studies could reveal other types of physiological or bodily changes that can 'throw light' onto how illusions work," concluded Laeng.

Journal Reference:
Bruno Laeng, Shoaib Nabil and Akiyoshi Kitaoka, The Eye Pupil Adjusts to Illusorily Expanding Holes [open], Front. Hum. Neurosci., 30 May 2022 | DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.877249

Original Submission

upstart writes:

'Copyright Troll' Has Already Filed Over 1,000 Piracy Lawsuits This Year * TorrentFreak:

For more than 15 years, alleged file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees. These so-called 'copyright-trolling' efforts are pretty straightforward. Copyright holders obtain a list of 'pirating' IP-addresses and then request a subpoena from the court, compelling ISPs to hand over the associated customer data.

These schemes can be rather lucrative. With minimal effort, rights holders can rake in hundreds or thousands of dollars per defendant. That is, if a court grants expedited discovery, allowing the companies to request the personal details of alleged infringers from ISPs.

In the United States it was relatively easy to pursue these cases but over time that began to change. Most prominent was the 2018 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Cobbler v. Gonzales case. Here, the court ruled that identifying the registered subscriber of an IP-address was not sufficient to argue that this person is also the infringer. Rightsholders needed "something more".

This has made it harder to pursue legal actions against file-sharers, but not impossible. While pretty much all prolific lawsuit filers have ceased their activities, Strike 3 Holdings is still going strong.

upstart writes:

Scientists Create Cement Entirely Out of Waste Material:

[Scientists] have discovered a method to produce biocement from waste, making the alternative to traditional cement greener and more sustainable. Biocement is a kind of renewable cement that uses bacteria to create a hardening reaction that binds soil into a solid block. The NTU scientists have now created biocement from two common waste materials: industrial carbide sludge and urea (from mammalian urine).

They devised a method for forming a hard solid, or precipitate, from the interaction of urea with calcium ions in industrial carbide sludge. When this reaction occurs in soil, the precipitate binds soil particles together and fills gaps between them, resulting in a compact mass of soil. This produces a biocement block that is strong, durable, and less permeable. [...] It can also be used as biogrout to seal cracks in rock for seepage control and even to touch up and repair monuments like rock carvings and statues.

[...] Firstly, the team treats carbide sludge with an acid to produce soluble calcium. Urea is then added to the soluble calcium to form a cementation solution. The team then adds a bacterial culture to this cementation solution. The bacteria from the culture then break down the urea in the solution to form carbonate ions.

These ions react with the soluble calcium ions in a process called microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP). This reaction forms calcium carbonate – a hard, solid material that is naturally found in chalk, limestone, and marble.