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upstart writes:

This capability could unlock new possibilities in medicine:

Artificial intelligence has altered the practise of science by enabling researchers to examine the vast volumes of data generated by current scientific instruments. Using deep learning, it can learn from the data itself and can locate a needle in a million haystacks of information. AI is advancing the development of gene searching, medicine, medication design, and chemical compound synthesis.

To extract information from fresh data, deep learning employs algorithms, often neural networks trained on massive volumes of data. With its step-by-step instructions, it is considerably different from traditional computing. It instead learns from data. Deep learning is far less transparent than conventional computer programming, leaving vital concerns unanswered: what has the system learnt and what does it know?

[...] For fifty years, computer scientists have unsuccessfully attempted to solve the protein-folding issue. Then in 2016, DeepMind, an AI subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, launched its AlphaFold programme. It utilised the protein databank, which contains the empirically determined structures of over 150,000 proteins, as its training set.

In fewer than five years, AlphaFold had solved the protein-folding issue, or at least the most important aspect of it: identifying the protein structure from its amino acid sequence. AlphaFold can not explain how proteins may fold so rapidly and precisely. It was a tremendous victory for AI since not only did it earn a great deal of scientific reputation, but it was also a major scientific breakthrough that may touch everyone's life.

hubie writes:

The stellar structures are thought to be created when galaxies collide with hot gas in a process that could be likened to doing a belly flop in a swimming pool:

University of Arizona astronomers have identified five examples of a new class of stellar system. They're not quite galaxies and only exist in isolation.

The new stellar systems contain only young, blue stars, which are distributed in an irregular pattern and seem to exist in surprising isolation from any potential parent galaxy.

The stellar systems – which astronomers say appear through a telescope as "blue blobs" and are about the size of tiny dwarf galaxies – are located within the relatively nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. The five systems are separated from any potential parent galaxies by over 300,000 light years in some cases, making it challenging to identify their origins.

[...] "We observed that most of the systems lack atomic gas, but that doesn't mean there isn't molecular gas," Jones said. "In fact, there must be some molecular gas because they are still forming stars. The existence of mostly young stars and little gas signals that these systems must have lost their gas recently."

[...] The fact that the new stellar systems are abundant in metals hints at how they might have formed.

"To astronomers, metals are any element heavier than helium," Jones said. "This tells us that these stellar systems formed from gas that was stripped from a big galaxy, because how metals are built up is by many repeated episodes of star formation, and you only really get that in a big galaxy."

There are two main ways gas can be stripped from a galaxy. The first is tidal stripping, which occurs when two big galaxies pass by each other and gravitationally tear away gas and stars.

The other is what's known as ram pressure stripping.

"This is like if you belly flop into a swimming pool," Jones said. "When a galaxy belly flops into a cluster that is full of hot gas, then its gas gets forced out behind it. That's the mechanism that we think we're seeing here to create these objects."

The team prefers the ram pressure stripping explanation because in order for the blue blobs to have become as isolated as they are, they must have been moving very quickly, and the speed of tidal stripping is low compared to ram pressure stripping.

Journal Reference:
Michael G. Jones, David J. Sand, Michele Bellazzini et al., Young, blue, and isolated stellar systems in the Virgo Cluster. II. A new class of stellar system, arXiv:2205.01695 [astro-ph.GA]

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Study shows electric vehicles could be charged on the go via peer-to-peer system

Every day, Americans see more battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) on the road. According to Fortune Business Insights, the market for electric vehicles in the U.S. is expected to grow from $28.24 billion in 2021 to $137.43 billion in 2028. [...]

However, one drawback has made some consumers wary of purchasing a BEV — limited range. Unlike those plentiful gas stations, charging stations for EVs still can be few and far in between, and recharging a BEV's lithium-ion battery might take hours, making EVs impractical for some long-range road trips.

Now, a researcher at the University of Kansas School of Engineering has co-written a study in Scientific Reports proposing a peer-to-peer system for BEVs to share charge among each other while driving down the road by being matched-up with a cloud-based control system.

[...] A cloud-based system would match the two BEVs in the same vicinity, likely along major interstates. Like bicyclists in a Peloton, the two matched cars could travel close together, sharing charge en route with no need to stop for hours at a charging station. The cars would drive at the same locked speed while charging cables would link the vehicles automatically.

[...] "We'd have a complete cloud-based framework that analyzes the charging state of all participating vehicles in the network, and based on that the cloud tells you, 'Hey, you can actually pair up with this car which is nearby and share charge,'" Hoque said. "All of this has to be controlled by cloud infrastructure, which has algorithms to efficiently charge all the different BEVs."

[...] Hoque said the initial setup of a peer-to-peer charging infrastructure likely would require support from a major manufacturer of BEVs but then could expand organically.

"People who have electric vehicles will have this incentive of selling charge and earning extra money — these two things will work in parallel to grow this idea," he said.

Journal Reference:
Prabuddha Chakraborty, Robert Parker, Tamzidul Hoque, et al. Addressing the range anxiety of battery electric vehicles with charging en route [open]. Sci Rep 12, 5588 (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-08942-2

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists unveil bionic robo-fish to remove microplastics from seas:

Scientists have designed a tiny robot-fish that is programmed to remove microplastics from seas and oceans by swimming around and adsorbing them on its soft, flexible, self-healing body.

Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles which fragment from the bigger plastic things used every day such as water bottles, car tyres and synthetic T-shirts. They are one of the 21st century's biggest environmental problems because once they are dispersed into the environment through the breakdown of larger plastics they are very hard to get rid of, making their way into drinking water, produce, and food, harming the environment and animal and human health.

[...] The robo-fish is just 13mm long, and thanks to a light laser system in its tail, swims and flaps around at almost 30mm a second, similar to the speed at which plankton drift around in moving water.

The researchers created the robot from materials inspired by elements that thrive in the sea: mother-of-pearl, also known as nacre, which is the interior covering of clam shells. The team created a material similar to nacre by layering various microscopic sheets of molecules according to nacre's specific chemical gradient.

This made them a robo-fish that is stretchy, flexible to twist, and even able to pull up to 5kg in weight, according to the study. Most importantly, the bionic fish can adsorb nearby free-floating bits of microplastics because the organic dyes, antibiotics, and heavy metals in the microplastics have strong chemical bonds and electrostatic interactions with the fish's materials. That makes them cling on to its surface, so the fish can collect and remove microplastics from the water. "After the robot collects the microplastics in the water, the researchers can further analyse the composition and physiological toxicity of the microplastics," said Wang.

takyon writes:

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 Source Code Published

After AMD announced FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 back in March, as of today they have made good on their word to open-source it.

This temporal upscaling solution for game engines is now available under an MIT license. AMD self-describes FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 as, "FSR 2 uses cutting-edge temporal algorithms to reconstruct fine geometric and texture detail, producing anti-aliased output from aliased input. FSR 2 technology has been developed from the ground up, and is the result of years of research from AMD. It has been designed to provide higher image quality compared to FSR 1, our original open source spatial upscaling solution launched in June 2021."

FSR 2 on GitHub.

Previously:
AMD at Computex 2021: 5000G APUs, 6000M Mobile GPUs, FidelityFX Super Resolution, and 3D Chiplets
Testing Shows AMD's FSR 2.0 Can Even Help Lowly Intel Integrated GPUs

Original Submission

upstart writes:

US Supreme Court rejects Bayer's bid to end Roundup lawsuits:

The US Supreme Court has rejected Bayer's bid to dismiss legal claims by customers who say its weedkiller causes cancer, as the German company seeks to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages.

The justices turned away a Bayer appeal's on Tuesday and left in place a lower court decision that upheld $25m in damages awarded to California resident Edwin Hardeman, a user of its product Roundup, who blamed his cancer on the pharmaceutical and chemical giant's glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The Supreme Court's ruling dealt a blow to Bayer as the company manoeuvres to limit its legal liability in thousands of cases. The justices have a second Bayer petition pending on a related issue that they could act upon in the coming weeks.

Roundup-related lawsuits have dogged Bayer since it acquired the brand as part of its $63bn purchase of agricultural seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto in 2018.

[...] The lawsuits against Bayer have said the company should have warned customers of the alleged cancer risk.

[...] Bayer plans to replace glyphosate in weedkillers for the US residential market of non-professional gardeners with other active ingredients.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Chandra Press Room :: NASA's Chandra Catches Pulsar in X-ray Speed Trap :: 15 June 2022:

NASA's Chandra Catches Pulsar in X-ray Speed Trap

A young pulsar is blazing through the Milky Way at a speed of over a million miles per hour. This stellar speedster, witnessed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, is one of the fastest objects of its kind ever seen. This result teaches astronomers more about how some of the bigger stars end their lives.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that are formed when some massive stars run out of fuel, collapse, and explode. This pulsar is racing through the remains of the supernova explosion that created it, called G292.0+1.8, located about 20,000 light-years from Earth.

"We directly saw motion of the pulsar in X-rays, something we could only do with Chandra's very sharp vision," said Xi Long of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), who led the study. "Because it is so distant, we had to measure the equivalent of the width of a quarter about 15 miles away to see this motion."

To make this discovery, the researchers compared Chandra images of G292.0+1.8 taken in 2006 and 2016. From the change in position of the pulsar over the 10-year span, they calculated it is moving at least 1.4 million miles per hour from the center of the supernova remnant to the lower left. This speed is about 30% higher than a previous estimate of the pulsar's speed that was based on an indirect method, by measuring how far the pulsar is from the center of the explosion.

takyon writes:

PCI-SIG Announces PCI Express 7.0 Specification to Reach 128 GT/s

PCI-SIG today announced that the PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification will double the data rate to 128 GT/s [gigatransfers per second] and is targeted for release to members in 2025.

PCI-SIG technical workgroups will be developing the PCIe 7.0 specification with the following feature goals:

• Delivering 128 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 512 GB/s bi-directionally via x16 configuration
• Utilizing PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) signaling
• Focusing on the channel parameters and reach
• Continuing to deliver the low-latency and high-reliability targets
• Improving power efficiency
• Maintaining backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology

Also at Phoronix and Tom's Hardware.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Micro-device could pick up early signs of heart attack or stroke:

In Australia each year, approximately 55,000 people suffer a heart attack, with a similar number suffering from stroke. Many are caused by blood clots that block the flow of blood to the heart, often in at-risk individuals without any physical warning.

However, long before a heart attack or stroke occurs, tiny changes in the blood begin taking place. Often, blood flow is disturbed, leading to blood clotting and inflammation which can block blood vessels.

Award-winning University of Sydney biomedical engineer Dr. Arnold Lining Ju is developing a biomedical micro-device to detect these subtle platelet changes before a heart attack or stroke takes place.

Using a pin-prick test, the micro-device would take a blood sample from a person's finger. The sample would then be analyzed for platelet clotting and white cell inflammation responses, information that would be immediately processed by an external operating system.

[...] Research assistant Laura Moldovan said that, historically, it has been difficult to predict when a heart attack or stroke might happen: "They appear to occur at random, sometimes without any physical symptoms, however in fact there are tiny physical changes that occur in the blood—the key to this device is being able to sensitively monitor these microscopic changes."

Journal Reference:
Lining Arnold Ju, Sabine Kossmann, Yunduo Charles Zhao, et al. Microfluidic post method for 3-dimensional modeling of platelet–leukocyte interactions, Analyst, 2022. DOI: 10.1039/D2AN00270A

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A five-minute test only lasted for five seconds:

The International Space Station sometimes has to shift its path to stay in the right orbit or to avoid debris (like it did last week). Usually, the ISS crew calls on Russian equipment to provide the thrust for the adjustments, but NASA tried to use a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft in a "reboost" test on Monday. It didn't go as planned.

Cygnus-17 was supposed to fire its engine for a little over 5 minutes, but the firing aborted after just 5 seconds. In a statement on Monday, NASA said the "the cause for the abort is understood and under review," but didn't elaborate on what happened.

The ISS flies in a low Earth orbit, and the planet's atmosphere is constantly dragging on it. Regular reboosts help the station stay in orbit. "The reboost is designed to provide Cygnus with an enhanced capability for station operations as a standard service for NASA," the space agency said.

[...] SpaceX founder Elon Musk suggested in February that SpaceX's Dragon capsules could also handle reboost duties if needed.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Hidden Anti-Cryptography Provisions in Internet Anti-Trust Bills - Schneier on Security:

Two bills attempting to reduce the power of Internet monopolies are currently being debated in Congress: S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act; and S. 2710, the Open App Markets Act. Reducing the power to tech monopolies would do more to "fix" the Internet than any other single action, and I am generally in favor of them both. (The Center for American Progress wrote a good summary and evaluation of them. I have written in support of the bill that would force Google and Apple to give up their monopolies on their phone app stores.)

There is a significant problem, though. Both bills have provisions that could be used to break end-to-end encryption.

Let's start with S. 2992. Sec. 3(c)(7)(A)(iii) would allow a company to deny access to apps installed by users, where those app makers "have been identified [by the Federal Government] as national security, intelligence, or law enforcement risks." That language is far too broad. [...]

Sec. 3(c)(7)(A)(vi) states that there shall be no liability for a platform "solely" because it offers "end-to-end encryption." This language is too narrow. The word "solely" suggests that offering end-to-end encryption could be a factor in determining liability, provided that it is not the only reason. [...]

upstart writes:

Testing the use of human urine as a natural fertilizer for crops:

Humans have known for thousands of years that their urine is an excellent fertilizer for crops. It contains phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium—many of the same ingredients as commercial fertilizers. But because of the squeamishness associated with using urine to grow crops, its use has been limited. [...]

The first step in the experiment involved renaming urine because its common name was considered offensive. They settled on Oga. Next, they separated the farmers into two groups; one ran their farms in the traditional way, the other fertilized their wheat using Oga. Over two growing seasons, crop yields were measured for both groups. The Oga for the second group of 27 farmers was provided by the farmers themselves, who were taught how to pasteurize, store and dilute their urine for use as fertilizer. They also added small amounts of animal manure.

The data collected from the farms showed that those that had been fertilized using Oga produced on average 30% more grain than the traditional farms. The researchers note that the differences were so great that other women in the region began emulating those in the experiment. Two years after the experiment, they found that more than a thousand women farmers were using Oga to fertilize their crops.

Journal Reference:
Moussa, Hannatou O., Nwankwo, Charles I., Aminou, Ali M., et al. Sanitized human urine (Oga) as a fertilizer auto-innovation from women farmers in Niger [open], Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s13593-021-00675-2

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-science-coverage-climate-mindsbriefly.html

Science reporting on climate change does lead Americans to adopt more accurate beliefs and support government action on the issue—but these gains are fragile, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that these accurate beliefs fade quickly and can erode when people are exposed to coverage skeptical of climate change.

"It is not the case that the American public does not respond to scientifically informed reporting when they are exposed to it," said Thomas Wood, associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

"But even factually accurate science reporting recedes from people's frame of reference very quickly."

fliptop writes:

Over at The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel wonders if Google Search is becoming a victim of its own success:

In February, an engineer named Dmitri Brereton wrote a blog post about Google's search-engine decay, rounding up leading theories for why the product's "results have gone to shit." The post quickly shot to the top of tech forums such as Hacker News and was widely shared on Twitter and even prompted a PR response from Google's Search liaison, Danny Sullivan, refuting one of Brereton's claims. "You said in the post that quotes don't give exact matches. They really do. Honest," Sullivan wrote in a series of tweets.

Brereton's most intriguing argument for the demise of Google Search was that savvy users of the platform no longer type instinctive keywords into the search bar and hit "Enter." The best Googlers—the ones looking for actionable or niche information, product reviews, and interesting discussions—know a cheat code to bypass the sea of corporate search results clogging the top third of the screen. "Most of the web has become too inauthentic to trust," Brereton argued, therefore "we resort to using Google, and appending the word 'reddit' to the end of our queries." Brereton cited Google Trends data that show that people are searching the word reddit on Google more than ever before.

[...] Google has built wildly successful mobile operating systems, mapped the world, changed how we email and store photos, and tried, with varying success, to build cars that drive themselves. [...] Most of the tech company's products—Maps, Gmail—are Trojan horses for a gargantuan personalized-advertising business, and Search is the one that started it all. It is the modern template for what the technology critic Shoshana Zuboff termed "surveillance capitalism."

The article goes on at length about ruthless commercialism via ever-intrusive ads, constant tweaks to the search algorithm, and how different generations use the ubiquitous search engine.

Previously:
Google's Ad Business Could Finally Crack Open
Google Allegedly Hid Documents From Search Monopoly Lawsuit, DOJ Claims
EU and UK Open Antitrust Probe Into Google and Meta Over Online Ads

Original Submission

upstart writes:

NASA finally succeeds with its Artemis 1 wet launch test:

NASA encountered a couple of issues while conducting the Artemis 1 "wet dress rehearsal," but it still checked off a major milestone by the time the test had ended. The agency was able to fully fuel all the Space Launch System's propellant tanks for the first time and was able to proceed to terminal launch countdown. [...]

This attempt wasn't flawless either: NASA had to put fueling on hold a couple of times since the rehearsal started on Saturday. Fueling was first put on hold on early Monday morning due to an issue with the rocket's backup supply of gaseous nitrogen. The team was able to repair the valve for the gaseous nitrogen line, however, and fueling recommenced a couple of hours later. As CNN notes, though, a few issues popped up just as the team was finishing up the fueling process on Monday afternoon. They discovered a hydrogen leak and had to find options to seal it after their first solution didn't work. Plus, the flare stack, which burns excess liquid hydrogen from the rocket, caused a small fire in the grassy area around the launch site.

In the end, the launch controllers came up with a plan to mask data associated with the leak so as not trigger a hold by the launch computer. That wouldn't fly in a real launch scenario, but they wanted to get as far into the countdown as possible to gather the data they need. They were successfully able to resume the 10-minute final launch countdown after an extended hold and got to T-29 seconds before they had to end the test completely. [...]

Regardless, they successfully performed several critical operations needed for launch during the test, including handing over control from the ground launch sequencer to the automated launch sequencer controlled by the rocket's flight software.

Previously:
    Space Launch System Test Delayed for Weeks After Three Failed Attempts
    Artemis I Wet Dress Rehearsal Now Scheduled to Begin April 12
    NASA's Big Rocket Faces its Last Test Before Launching

Original Submission