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hubie writes:

Study: Video Game Players Show Enhanced Brain Activity, Decision-Making Skill:

Frequent players of video games show superior sensorimotor decision-making skills and enhanced activity in key regions of the brain as compared to non-players, according to a recent study by Georgia State University researchers.

The authors, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) in the study, said the findings suggest that video games could be a useful tool for training in perceptual decision-making.

"Video games are played by the overwhelming majority of our youth more than three hours every week, but the beneficial effects on decision-making abilities and the brain are not exactly known," said lead researcher Mukesh Dhamala, associate professor in Georgia State's Department of Physics and Astronomy and the university's Neuroscience Institute.

"Our work provides some answers on that," Dhamala said. "Video game playing can effectively be used for training — for example, decision-making efficiency training and therapeutic interventions — once the relevant brain networks are identified."

[...] "These results indicate that video game playing potentially enhances several of the subprocesses for sensation, perception and mapping to action to improve decision-making skills," the authors wrote. "These findings begin to illuminate how video game playing alters the brain in order to improve task performance and their potential implications for increasing task-specific activity."

The study also notes there was no trade-off between speed and accuracy of response — the video game players were better on both measures.

"This lack of speed-accuracy trade-off would indicate video game playing as a good candidate for cognitive training as it pertains to decision-making," the authors wrote.

Journal Reference:
Timothy Jordana and Mukesh Dhamala, Video game players have improved decision-making abilities and enhanced brain activities [open], Neuroimage: Reports, 2, 3, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2022.100112

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Uber lobbied politicians, broke laws in global push: reports:

Uber Technologies Inc. attempted to lobby politicians and flouted laws as part of efforts to expand globally from 2013 to 2017, according to newspaper reports based on leaked documents.

The company allegedly received assistance in its efforts from politicians including French President Emmanuel Macron, reports from outlets including the Guardian and Le Monde said. The so-called "Uber Files" — based on more than 124,000 documents shared with the non-profit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — cover a period of time when co-founder Travis Kalanick was chief executive officer and detail the lengths to which the company sought to expand into key cities like Paris.

In a statement released shortly after the reports were published, Uber didn't deny any of the allegations and instead focused on the changes that have been made since Dara Khosrowshahi was named CEO in 2017.

"There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber's mistakes prior to 2017," the San Francisco-based company said in a statement. "Thousands of stories have been published, multiple books have been written — there's even been a TV series."

Uber said that Khosrowshahi has transformed the company, making safety a top priority.

"When we say Uber is a different company today, we mean it literally: 90% of current Uber employees joined after Dara became CEO," according to the statement.

Uber's aggressive tactics as it took on the taxi industry have been reported on for years. Bloomberg News reported in 2018 that the company had deployed a remote system to prevent police from obtaining internal data during raids.

See Also: Leaked Documents Show Uber Thwarted Police and Secretly Courted Politicians

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Fentanyl Has Been Shown To Cause Autism-Like Behavior in a Harvard-Funded Study:

One of the most often administered analgesics in hospitals is fentanyl, a mu-opioid receptor agonist that has the potential to permanently damage rats' behavior and sensorimotor abilities. It is unknown, however, if fentanyl usage contributes to the development of autism. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Shanghai 10th People's Hospital, and the University of Pennsylvania have shown in an animal study that fentanyl can cause alterations in young male and female mice that are comparable to behaviors seen in autism. The results have been published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.

Other studies have demonstrated that N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor dysfunction contributes to autism. Autism is linked to variations in the Grin2a and Grin2b genes, which encode the GluN2A and GluN2B subunits of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. Autism also affects the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain.

The current study found that fentanyl causes autistic-like behaviors in young male and female mice by activating the mu-opioid receptor in the anterior cingulate brain. Furthermore, these fentanyl-induced autistic-like behaviors seem to be partially driven by the reduction of Grin2b expression in the mice's anterior cingulate cortex induced by hypermethylation.

"Because the anterior cingulate cortex is a hub for mediating social information, we focused on the expression of Grin2b in that area," says Yuan Shen, MD, Ph.D., the paper's senior author and a professor of Psychiatry at Shanghai 10th People's Hospital. "We found fentanyl decreased expression of Grin2b in the anterior cingulate cortex. The overexpression of Grin2b prevents fentanyl-induced autism-like behavior in the mice. These findings suggest a potential mechanism to prevent or treat the autism-like behavior," says Shen.

owl writes:

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/60248.html

After I mentioned that Lenovo are now shipping laptops that only boot Windows by default, a few people pointed to a Lenovo document that says:

"Starting in 2022 for Secured-core PCs it is a Microsoft requirement for the 3rd Party Certificate to be disabled by default."

"Secured-core" is a term used to describe machines that meet a certain set of Microsoft requirements around firmware security, and by and large it's a good thing - devices that meet these requirements are resilient against a whole bunch of potential attacks in the early boot process. But unfortunately the 2022 requirements don't seem to be publicly available, so it's difficult to know what's being asked for and why. But first, some background.

[...] Given the association with the secured-core requirements, this is presumably a security decision of some kind. Unfortunately, we have no real idea what this security decision is intended to protect against. The most likely scenario is concerns about the (in)security of binaries signed with the third-party signing key - there are some legitimate concerns here, but I'm going to cover why I don't think they're terribly realistic.

The first point is that, from a boot security perspective, a signed bootloader that will happily boot unsigned code kind of defeats the point. Kaspersky did it anyway. The second is that even a signed bootloader that is intended to only boot signed code may run into issues in the event of security vulnerabilities - the Boothole vulnerabilities are an example of this, covering multiple issues in GRUB that could allow for arbitrary code execution and potential loading of untrusted code.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Gregor Mendel, the Moravian monk, was indeed "decades ahead of his time and truly deserves the title of 'founder of genetics.'" So concludes an international team of scientists as the 200th birthday of Mendel approaches on 20 July.

The team, from KeyGene in the Netherlands and the John Innes Centre in the UK, draw on newly-discovered historical information to conclude that, when his proposals are viewed in the light of what was known of cells in the mid-19th century, Mendel was decades ahead of his time.

"Uncovering hidden details about Mendel has helped to build a picture of the scientific and intellectual environment in which he worked. At the outset Mendel knew nothing about Genetics and had to deduce it all for himself. How he went about this is highly instructive," said Dr Noel Ellis from the John Innes Centre, one of the contributors to the study.

The new information shows that Mendel began his work with the practical objectives of a plant breeder, before he became interested in the underlying biological processes that condition the heritable differences between organisms. It also shows that Mendel recognised the importance of understanding the formation of reproductive cells and the process of fertilisation.

[...] Thanks to modern technology, the authors were able to extract valuable information from 19th-century newspaper articles, proceedings, and yearbooks that have recently been digitised. These show how advanced the ideas and work of Mendel were as he used cell biological theory to come to conclusions on how traits of plants are transmitted from parents to their offspring.

Unfortunately paywalled. This looks like it would have made for some fascinating reading, but at least an interesting appendix is made available.

Journal Reference:
van Dijk, P.J., Jessop, A.P. & Ellis, T.H.N. How did Mendel arrive at his discoveries?. Nat Genet (2022). 10.1038/s41588-022-01109-9

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Microsoft is reworking its Office VBA macro blocks:

Microsoft is rolling back a planned change to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in a variety of Office apps. Announced earlier this year, Microsoft had been planning to prevent Office users from easily enabling certain content in files downloaded from the internet that include macros, in a move to improve security against malicious files. Microsoft had been testing this change ahead of a planned rollout to all Microsoft 365 users in June, but suddenly reverted the block on June 30th.

BleepingComputer reports that Microsoft notified IT admins last week that it was rolling back the VBA macro block based on feedback from Office users testing the changes. "We appreciate the feedback we've received so far, and we're working to make improvements in this experience," reads a Microsoft 365 message.

The unusual rollback has surprised some Microsoft 365 users, as many had been waiting years for Microsoft to be more aggressive about blocking macros from Office files. Hackers have been regularly targeting Office documents with malicious macros, and Office has typically prompted users to click to enable macros running with a simple button. Microsoft's planned changes meant Office users would only be able to enable the macros by specifically ticking an unblock option on the properties of a file.

See also: Microsoft rolls back decision to block Office macros by default

Original Submission

After experiencing extensive spamming, ad-hominem attacks, and trolling it became necessary to protect the site by preventing all Anonymous Coward (AC) comments by anyone who was not logged in. This was a reluctant measure but it proved to be 99.9% effective. It was however, far from ideal. It partially isolated many of the responsible ACs who contribute regularly to the site and provide a valuable input to many of our discussions. They are still able to use journals for posting as the editors of SoylentNews have no control over the content of journals or the comments made in them.

I sought an alternative solution and provided access to some of the stories on the front page and marked them as AC Friendly. I had hoped by demonstrating to those abusing the site that there was a simple solution that they would perhaps cease, or at least return to previously manageable levels. Unfortunately this was not to be. The abuse restarted almost immediately and has continued in every AC Friendly story that has been published. It has clearly demonstrated that this isn't a case of the abusers defending free speech or any other laudable and justifiable aim but simply an attempt to prevent the majority of the community from holding any form of discussion at all. I am not continuing the AC Friendly stories on the main page with the sole exception of this Meta story.

I next tried to switch the attempts to include our AC community around by providing stories from the front page initially to my own journal, but subsequently to the journal of a new account named 'AC Friendly'. This was rather labour intensive and was not something that I could continue to do in the long term. These efforts have been ignored and do not seem to be of any interest to the AC community. Likewise I will not continue this effort unless there is evidence that it is wanted.

There are many perfectly understandable reasons for wishing to post comments as an Anonymous Coward. This was recognised when the original Slashdot code was written and provision was made for such individuals in the software. It is a straightforward matter to log in to the site and then automatically post as AC from then on. This both protects the site itself and those using it. If your justification is that you do not trust the staff then I must question why you would want to remain on the site.

Free speech is an essential part of our ethos but it is necessary to realise that free speech and anonymity are not necessarily related. We want people to be able to express their views without fear of harassment, abuse, or unfair moderation. Only by doing so can we truly claim to have free speech. It means that even those with whom we strongly disagree have the right to express their opinions. Subsequent attempts to argue against those views should not involve any form of harassment of the individual making them. Any attempt to prevent someone from expressing their views is directly counter to the very concept of 'free speech'.

Likewise, anonymity is something to be valued. Attempts to unmask either named or anonymous accounts is unacceptable to this site's administration and will not be tolerated. Those who publish information that appears credible to us must be deterred from continuing by whatever means are necessary. We cannot verify every claim made regarding the personal information of a community member and we must therefore assume that it is has some basis in truth and is an attempt at doxing. It does not matter where the information stated in the claim originates or whether it has been stated on this site or elsewhere previously. If it has the potential to unmask a community member it will be treated as doxing. The site will do all it can to protect community members. We are also fortunate that in the 8 years we have been operating we have only had one account that felt it was an acceptable thing to do. That account has been closed.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the toxic environment that has developed on the site has cost us numerous valued community members - both staff and regular contributors of submissions and comments. It cannot be allowed to continue. There is also no doubt that there is a straightforward and simple solution, and that is to prevent AC participation without the creation of an account. The software was designed to do this and it is wasted effort trying to find alternatives when it is unnecessary to do so.

There has been quite a bit of discussion over the last week or so. We have had a former community member (who was also once a member of staff) return to the site with his own story. Initially he chose to remain anonymous but subsequently decided to continue his comments under his username. I encourage you all to read the link given and the subsequent comments given in reply. I am very grateful that has taken the effort to explain why he has did what he has done and I welcome him back to our community if he choses to stay. As part of my reply to him I made the following statement:

It is vitally important that everyone is able to express their own point of view without harassment or intimidation or even unfair moderation. We do not all agree with each other. That is the same in any community. But by full, frank and honest discussion we can at least understand each others point of view and possibly identify potential solutions. The freedom of expression is still essential on the site - but it can only exist if we can ensure that it can be conducted in a suitable environment.

I stand by that statement. Since that comment was published I have received other views and experiences of the toxicity of our site from a significant number of individuals, including regular community members and both current and former staff. Quite simply, if we do not change then in all likelihood we will not survive much longer. It is not too late to make the necessary changes but time is running out.

I promised you that no changes would be made to how the site operates without first giving you all the chance to express your own opinions. But you have to decide now which path you want the site to follow. This cannot be a simple vote - as an extreme example we have no way of verifying that AC comments are not the result of a single person, or if some sock-puppets are still active on the site. Everyone has the right to be heard. However, let me point out a few rules:

• Any attempt to disrupt this Meta by spamming, ad-hominem attacks or trolling abuse will count as someone expressing an opinion that we should insist on accounts for all those wishing to post as AC. If anyone thinks that by abusing the site they will be helping their case they are mistaken. However, such actions will clearly show to the community that those who have been making the most noise about being prevented from expressing themselves are not actually fighting for free speech, but rather they are determined to prevent you from exercising your right to it.
• It will be pointless to keep repeating the same views as an AC. We cannot separate them. You want to be anonymous, you choose to have the account ID #1, and this, unfortunately, is a direct consequence to that decision.
• All views will be collated and then a decision will be made based upon them by the staff. This will include the SN Board who may accept that decision, but who have the right to choose the path that the site eventually takes. It may not be the decision that any of us want.

This is an important issue. It cannot be a simple vote but I encourage as many people as possible to express their opinions. It might be the last chance for you to do so. The Meta will stay active for several days to at least mid-week - but if it is abused excessively then it will be taken down and we will be forced to make a decision base on whatever views we already have or can get from elsewhere. I will endeavour to move the Meta in the story queue so that it remains on the front page. Many of our community log on at different times of the day or only on specific days. I would like to give everyone a chance to see the Meta story and to make their views known.

This is your opportunity - please do not waste it.

[Ed's Comment: See bold text - warning 2022-07-10 12:36 UTC]

upstart writes:

Drones are to be used to courier drugs in a bid to speed up the delivery of vital medicines, the NHS has announced:

Chemotherapy drugs will be flown from Portsmouth to a hospital on the Isle of Wight as part of a pilot scheme.

NHS England said it was hoped that the technology would lead to "same-day delivery" of orders across the country.

[...] The scheme will cut delivery times to the island from four hours to 30 minutes, with one flight replacing two car journeys and one hovercraft or ferry journey per delivery.

The drugs will be flown directly from the pharmacy at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust to St Mary's Hospital, where staff will collect them before distributing it to hospital teams and patients.

An NHS England spokesman said chemotherapy drugs were difficult to transport as some doses have a short shelf life.

[...] A trial of the drone programme in Northumbria is expected to follow the initial Isle of Wight trial.

This seems like the perfect use case for drone delivery.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Immune changes can cause peanut allergy remission:

The potential of new, more focused allergy treatments is now possible thanks to the identification of the key immunological changes that allow the remission of peanut allergy in children.

For the first time, researchers discovered that particular gene networks are rewired to drive the transition from peanut allergy to clinical remission after combination treatment of a probiotic and peanut oral immunotherapy.

The research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and the Telethon Kids Institute, discovered that network reprogramming effectively shuts down the allergic immune response that causes a food allergy. The study was published in the journal Allergy.

[...] 62 Melbourne-based children with peanut allergies, ages 1 to 10, participated in the randomized controlled experiment. They were either given a placebo or a probiotic treatment that included oral immunotherapy (the progressive introduction of the allergenic food). After 18 months of treatment, 74% of patients receiving the combo therapy had remission, compared to 4% of those receiving a placebo.

DannyB writes:

TeslaRati:
North Carolina wants to spend $50K to trash free public EV chargers

[....] The bill, House Bill 1049, would set aside $50,000 to get rid of the free public EV chargers unless free gas pumps are built alongside the free public EV chargers.

[....] incoming state House representative, Ben Moss is sponsoring the bill. Dyer noted that there are three free public Level 2 EV chargers in his town and unless the towns and cities refuse to build free gas and diesel pumps next to the EV chargers, Moss wants them gone. Dyer wrote that the main theme of the bill is:

"We've simply got to do something about these free public chargers, even if it costs us $50,000! Those things cost tens of cents per hour when they're being used."

Car and Driver:
North Carolina Looks to Remove Public EV Chargers, Probably to the Trash

[....] Ben Moss cares about the consumers being harmed by these hypothetical free chargers—namely, any customer who arrived via internal-combustion vehicle, or on foot, or in a sedan chair. Why is someone else gaining some advantage based on a decision they made? That's not how life works.

[....] House Bill 1049 decrees that all customer receipts will have to show what share of the bill went toward the charger out in the lot. That way, anyone who showed up for dinner in an F-150 (not the electric one) can get mad that their jalapeño poppers helped pay for a business expense not directly related to them. It's the same way you demand to know how much Applebee's spends to keep the lights on in its parking lot overnight, when you're not there.

[....] Critics of this bill might point out that increasing the number of electric cars could actually benefit owners of internal-combustion vehicles, thanks to reduced demand for petroleum products—kind of like how, during the Colonial Pipeline gas shortage, there were no Ford Mustang Mach-Es in line at the local pumps. Or, to put it another way, if the price of paste skyrockets because your local politicians eat so much paste, those prices might come down if you could get them to eat some crayons.

EV drivers shouldn't turn onto a street marked NO OUTLET.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Sydney rubbish trucks and buses detecting potholes before they form:

Potholes are among the daily pitfalls plaguing Sydney drivers and for the first time the dangerous and costly hazards are being mapped in real time. New technology installed on buses and rubbish trucks is detecting cracks - and stopping potholes in their tracks. Cameras have been fitted on rubbish trucks and motion sensors on buses to map Sydney's damaged roads.

Customer Services Minister Victor Dominello said the vehicles were an "obvious" choice for the new technology."Garbage trucks travel on every road, buses travel on every major road - combining both of them to identify potholes is the obvious way forward," he said. More than 30 Transport for NSW buses are testing the technology in a three-month trial [...].

[...] With Sydney's intense rain recently, there's plenty of damage.

"The idea of the trial is to try and detect the road condition before it gets worse, so we can have predictive maintenance and so the council crews can go out there and fix it," [Transport Minister] Knox, said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Smaller Than a Flea – The Smallest Remote-Controlled Walking Robot Ever:

[...] The tiny crabs, which are about half a millimeter wide, can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn, and even leap. Additionally, the scientists created millimeter-sized robots that resemble inchworms, crickets, and beetles. The study is experimental at this time, but the researchers think their technique might move the field closer to developing tiny robots that can carry out useful tasks in small, cramped areas.

"Robotics is an exciting field of research, and the development of microscale robots is a fun topic for academic exploration," said John A. Rogers, who led the experimental work. "You might imagine micro-robots as agents to repair or assemble small structures or machines in industry or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries, to stop internal bleeding or to eliminate cancerous tumors — all in minimally invasive procedures."

"Our technology enables a variety of controlled motion modalities and can walk with an average speed of half its body length per second," added Yonggang Huang, who led the theoretical work. "This is very challenging to achieve at such small scales for terrestrial robots."

[...] The crab, which is smaller than a flea, is not propelled by sophisticated machinery, hydraulics, or electricity. Instead, the elastic resilience of its body is where its power rests. The researchers employed a shape-memory material to build the robot, which transforms to its "remembered" shape when heated. In this case, the scientists heated the robot quickly at several targeted spots all over its body using a scanned laser beam. Upon cooling, a thin layer of glass will elastically restore the distorted shape of the corresponding component of the structure.

upstart writes:

Low-code development becoming business skill 'table stakes':

A shortage of software developers and IT workers in general is forcing businesses to turn to "citizen developers" within their organizations to create business applications supporting digital transformation efforts.

Finding workers with software development skills, or training them in-house, is becoming a priority, according to John Bratincevic, a senior analyst at Forrester. When speaking with business clients, he says, the most common question he gets is how they can stand up and scale a citizen development strategy.

What makes citizen development possible is a raft of low-code and no-code development platforms, which enable business users with little to no coding experience to develop apps based on business needs. Companies are leveraging these platforms to create "hundreds or thousands of citizen developers in their organizations. They want to know how to nurture people, so they become really skilled in low-code," Bratincevic said.

"In my opinion, where this is all going is low-code development will just be table stakes for the business worker — just like personal productivity tools," he added.

upstart writes:

Akamai Linode now offers Kali Linux instances:

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for penetration testing or -- yes -- hacking. This Debian-based Linux is a security worker's favorite distribution. And, now Linode, which recently became part of Akamai, is offering Kali as a supported distribution.

With Kali on Akamai, you can test and secure your production systems.

[...] For example, while you can add open-source penetration testing tools to any Linux distro, you must then also set up and configure these tools by hand. Kali comes with these tools already optimized and ready to run.

Linode is working with Kali on further documentation on how to best use their combination of cloud and Linux.

I really hope somebody has thought this through properly.

Previously:
  Akamai to Acquire Linode
  Call Us Immediately if Your Child Uses Kali Linux, Squawks West Mids Police

Original Submission

hubie writes:

An international team including researchers from IMDEA Software and IMDEA Networks participated in a study that highlights the need to strengthen user privacy:

Previous studies have shown the widespread use of cookies to track users on websites on an unprecedented scale but this had not been studied so far on government sites.

The researchers considered studying the behavior of government websites and their compliance or non-compliance with data protection laws during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when citizen information was provided through official websites of international organizations and governments. "Our results indicate that official governmental, international organizations' websites and other sites that serve public health information related to COVID-19 are not held to higher standards regarding respecting user privacy than the rest of the web, which is an oxymoron given the push of many of those governments for enforcing GDPR," comments Nikolaos Laoutaris, Research Professor at IMDEA Networks.

A total of 5,500 websites of international organizations, official COVID-19 information, and governments of G20 countries were analyzed: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK, and the USA.

[...] Most of the websites of the G20 countries created at least one cookie without the user's consent. Japan is the country with the lowest percentage of websites with cookies, with 77.2%, and South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia lead the ranking with almost 100%.

With respect to the third-party cookies, the paper differentiates between generic third parties (TP) and third-party cookies originating from known trackers (TPT). Overall TP cookies range from 30% in the case of Germany, up to 95% for countries such as Russia. Germany is the only country where this percentage decreases significantly, with only 9% of official websites including a TPT cookie.

[...] The study shows that around 95% of the websites of international organizations set cookies and around 60% of these websites use at least one third-party (TP) cookie. Matic explains that " it seems that there is no special care in designing those webpages since 52% of websites of international organizations set at least one TPT cookie".

More than 99% of the websites analyzed in the COVID-19 information study add at least one cookie without the user's consent. In contrast, there is a lower presence of third-party (TP) cookies, at around 62%.

As Laoutaris points out, with this publication the research team aims to "put more pressure on governments to clean up their own house first and, by doing so, set an example and be more convincing about the importance of implementing the GDPR in practice".

Original Submission