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hubie writes:

Smallpox has plagued humans since ancient Egyptian times, new evidence confirms:

Smallpox was once one of humanity's most devastating diseases, but its origin is shrouded in mystery. For years, scientific estimates of when the smallpox virus first emerged have been at odds with historical records. Now, a new study reveals that the virus dates back 2,000 years further than scientists have previously shown, verifying historical sources and confirming for the first time that the disease has plagued human societies since ancient times.

[...] Until relatively recently, the earliest genetic evidence for smallpox was only from the 1600s. Then in 2020, a study that sampled skeletal and dental remains of Viking-age skeletons recovered multiple strains of variola and confirmed the virus' existence at least another 1,000 years earlier.

However, some historians believe that smallpox has been around since long before the Vikings. Suspicious scarring on ancient Egyptian mummies (including the Pharoah Ramses V who died in 1157 BC) leads some to believe that the history of smallpox stretches back at least 3,000 years. So far, the missing piece of scientific evidence to support this theory has remained hidden.

By comparing the genomes of modern and historic strains of variola virus, researchers at the Scientific Institute Eugenio Medea and University of Milan in Italy have traced the evolution of the virus back in time. They found that different strains of smallpox all descended from a single common ancestor and that a small fraction of the genetic components found in Viking-age genomes had persisted until the 18th century.

upstart writes:

While app development is faster and easier, security is still a concern:

In a report last year, silicon design automation outfit Synopsys found that 97 percent of codebases in 2021 contained open source, and that in four of 17 industries studied – computer hardware and chips, cybersecurity, energy and clean tech, and the Internet of Things (IoT) – open source software (OSS) was in 100 percent of audited codebases. The other verticals had open source in at least 93 percent of theirs. It can help drive efficiency, cost savings, and developer productivity.

"Open source really is everywhere," Fred Bals, senior technical writer at Synopsys, wrote in a blog post about the report.

That said, the increasing use of open source packages in application development also creates a path for threat groups that want to use the software supply chain as a backdoor to myriad targets that depend on it.

The broad use of OSS packaging in development means that often enterprises don't know exactly what's in their software. Having a lot of different hands involved increases complexity, and it's hard to know what's going on in the software supply chain. A report last year from VMware found that concerns about OSS included having to rely on a community to patch vulnerabilities, and the security risks that come with that.

Varun Badhwar, co-founder and CEO of Endor Labs – a startup working to secure OSS in app development – called it "the backbone of our critical infrastructure." But he added that developers and executives are often surprised by how much of their applications' code comes from OSS.

Badhwar noted that 95 percent of all vulnerabilities are found in "transitive dependencies" – open source code packages that are indirectly pulled into projects rather than selected by developers.

[...] Developers pull the source components together and add business logic, Fox told The Register. This way, open source becomes the foundation of the software. What's changed in recent years is the general awareness of it – not only among well-meaning developers that are creating the software from these disparate parts.

"The attackers have figured this out as well," he said. "A big notable change over the last five or so years has been the rise of intentional malware attacks on the supply chain."

upstart writes:

NASA Confirms 1,000-Pound Meteorite Landed in Texas:

Those who saw the meteoroid fly across the sky on Wednesday thought they saw a shooting star—until they lost sight of the fireball and felt its impact as it struck Earth. Home security footage from residents west of McAllen, Texas, shows the meteorite's impact shaking the ground, causing wildlife to flee and homes to shiver. Those who felt and heard the collision didn't know what to make of it, and with so-called "spy balloons" and UFO conspiracies in the news cycle at the time, their best guesses were unsettling. Thankfully, NASA's Johnson Space Center has since confirmed that the boom was caused by a meteorite, which struck Earth just north of Texas' border with Mexico.

NASA's Meteor Watch shared the agency's statement on Facebook. The meteorite is believed to have been about two feet wide and 1,000 pounds before it entered Earth's atmosphere at approximately 27,000 miles per hour. Atmospheric entry broke the meteorite into at least a few different fragments. American Meteor Society member and tireless fragment collector Robert Ward found the first of these pieces Saturday on private property in El Sauz, a tiny farm town an hour from McAllen's city center.

Meteorites themselves aren't uncommon, but impacts like this one are. Most rocky space masses burn up upon atmospheric entry, leaving only dusty particles in their wake. NASA says that car-sized asteroids strike Earth's atmosphere about once a year, creating a generous fireball and turning to dust before impacting the ground. Now and then, however, larger masses survive their passage through Earth's atmosphere. The consequences of such survival can be catastrophic.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Navy is embracing autonomous vessels:

Shipbuilder Austal USA has just delivered a ship to the US Navy that can operate for up to 30 days at sea without human intervention. The delivery comes after the Chief of Naval Operations said uncrewed vessels would start to play an increasingly important role within the military branch.

Austral writes that it has delivered Expeditionary Fast Transport USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13) to the United States Navy. Its 337-foot hull makes it the largest surface ship in the fleet with autonomous capabilities. This class of ship can travel at a maximum speed of 40 knots, has a maximum payload capacity of 544 metric tons, and a daft [sic] – the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull – of just 12.5 feet, allowing it to operate in comparatively shallow waters.

The Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport ships, designed by Austal Australia, already feature automated hull and mechanical & electrical systems, but the Austal USA team added automated maintenance, health monitoring, and mission readiness to EPF 13, allowing it to operate autonomously for up to 30 days.

[...] Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, sang the praises of autonomous ships at the West 2023 conference in San Diego. "We're getting to the point, probably within the next four or five years, where we'll begin to deploy unmanned platforms with carrier strike groups," he said. "And the idea is that we need more ships, we need more. We need to distribute ourselves across the Pacific Ocean and across the globe [...] We can do that faster and, we think, more effectively by having a combination of manned and unmanned."

upstart writes:

So-called "quiet quitting" could decrease if companies move to a four-day workweek:

According to an ongoing study in the UK, the four-day workweek may be the key to success for companies and their employees. The world's biggest four-day workweek trial included the participation of 61 British companies, some of whom now say they won't return to the regular Monday through Friday work schedule.

The study was conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge alongside academics from Boston College in the U.S. from June through November last year. During that time, companies ranging from restaurants to banks rated the levels of productivity and performance. At the halfway point of the trial, 46% of companies said productivity remained about the same, 34% said they saw a slight improvement and 15% reported a significant improvement.

While shaving off a day of work seemed to increase overall well-being, there was also a reported increase in the pace of work. 62% of employees said they thought their pace of work increased, 36% thought it was the same, and just 2% felt their pace of work decreased. Although many employees reported having to work faster, the study said a majority of workers didn't believe there was a significant increase in their workloads.

Researchers also found a significant drop in the number of employees who left their positions and of the 2,900 workers observed in the study, more people reported they saw an increase in productivity, mental well-being, an increased work-life balance, and reduced levels of anxiety.

[...] The poll found the main cause for quiet quitting is the worldwide problem of stress and burnout. But not only did the UK report find this is less likely to happen when provided with the four-day workweek but by decreasing the workweek by one day, 70% of employees reported they had reduced levels of burnout and 40% said their sleep difficulty levels had improved.

Nearly half of the employees in the study reported an improvement in their mental health, while 37% noted an improvement in their physical health.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Another Person Cured of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant:

The Düsseldorf patient is the fifth suspected HIV cure, following a stem cell transplant from a donor genetically resistant to the virus.

[...] According to the man's doctors, he has lived essentially free of the virus for about a decade. Though the treatment isn't practical for the general population living with HIV, the knowledge gained from these patients may help scientists figure out a more scalable cure down the road.

The 53-year-old German resident, known only as the Düsseldorf patient (after the city in Germany) underwent the procedure more than nine years ago. He needed the stem cell transplant to help treat a case of acute myeloid leukemia, a form of cancer that affects white blood cells. But his doctors had the opportunity to rebuild his immune system with compatible donor bone marrow from someone with a rare genetic mutation that provides natural resistance to HIV-1, the most common type of the virus.

Though the man did experience some health problems over the years (including a brief recurrence of his cancer a few months after the transplant), his HIV viral loads stayed consistently undetectable while he remained on antiretroviral therapy. At the same time, some tests suggested that his body still contained traces of HIV RNA and DNA, while others indicated that no surviving fragment would be able to replicate and restart the infection. Eventually, in 2018, his doctors made the choice to wean him completely off HIV treatment and monitor him closely. Thankfully, more than four years later, the infection has not returned and they feel confident enough to declare him cured of HIV.

Journal Reference:
Jensen, Björn-Erik Ole, Knops, Elena, Cords, Leon, et al. In-depth virological and immunological characterization of HIV-1 cure after CCR5Δ32/Δ32 allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation [open], Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02213-x)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Raspberry Pi gets a dedicated Debug Probe that has more uses, too:

Raspberry Pi has unveiled a new probe that allows users to debug code running on a Raspberry Pi Pico or other Arm-based microcontrollers.

The Debug Probe, which is based on the Pi Pico and its RP2040 microcontroller, is available now for $12. It's the company's first new product for 2023 and comes as the firm works to improve availability of the Zero W, 3A+, and the 2GB and 4GB variants of Raspberry Pi 4, which have been in short supply since the coronavirus pandemic.

The company decided to make the probe after noticing people were using one Pico to debug programs running on another. The probe package includes a USB to Serial Wire Debug (SWD) bridge, a generic USB serial adapter, and cables to connect to a host computer, and to the debug target.

But even if you don't want to debug code, the probe might still be a useful addition. "The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe's low price makes it a cost-effective alternative to other USB serial adapters. It has largely replaced the once-ubiquitous FTDI cable as our adapter of choice here at Pi Towers," notes Raspberry Pi chief executive Eben Upton in a blogpost.

While it has been designed with Raspberry Pi Pico, and other RP2040-based targets, in mind, he said the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe can be used to debug any Arm-based microcontroller that provides an SWD port with 3V3 I/O.

[...] The probe provides a bridge between USB and the Serial Wire Debug (SWD) protocol: on the RP2040, the SWD port provides access to the Debug Port (DP). The Debug Probe provides a bridge between USB and SWD to allow the host to access the target's debug port. Upton notes its more convenient to connect via USB, which is also the only option when using a PC or Mac.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

"Further investment will cement Texas as the preeminent location for innovation":

Everything is bigger in Texas, or so the saying goes. When it comes to investing in commercial space, it just might be true.

As part of the state's biennial budget process, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called on the state legislature to provide $350 million to create and fund a Texas Space Commission for the next two years.

"With companies seeking to expand space travel in coming years, continued development of the space industry in the state will ensure Texas remains at the forefront not only in the United States, but the entire world," Abbott stated in his budget document for the 88th Legislature. "Further investment will cement Texas as the preeminent location for innovation and development in this rapidly growing industry. Due to increased competition from other states and internationally, further planning and coordination is needed to keep Texas at the cutting edge."

Texas has a historic budget surplus this year due to oil prices, inflation, and other factors driving economic growth. The state is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024–2025 period, a surplus of $32.7 billion over spending during the previous two years.

[...] According to this document, the commission would "focus on policy and arranging statewide strategy by monitoring local, state, and federal policies and opportunities and establishing an economic ecosystem for Texas' space enterprises." It would include 15 members, including those appointed by political officials, as well as an appointee each from SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Subsurface tactile tomography can detect details beneath a material's surface:

The human fingertip is an exquisitely sensitive instrument for perceiving objects in our environment via the sense of touch. A team of Chinese scientists has mimicked the underlying perceptual mechanism to create a bionic finger with an integrated tactile feedback system capable of poking at complex objects to map out details below the surface layer, according to a recent paper published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.

"We were inspired by human fingers, which have the most sensitive tactile perception that we know of," said co-author Jianyi Luo of Wuyi University. "For example, when we touch our own bodies with our fingers, we can sense not only the texture of our skin, but also the outline of the bone beneath it. This tactile technology opens up a non-optical way for the nondestructive testing of the human body and flexible electronics."

[...] When we touch something with our fingers, the skin experiences mechanical deformation such as compression or stretching, which triggers mechanoreceptors to send out electrical impulses. These impulses travel through the central nervous system to the brain's somatosensory cortex. The brain integrates those electrical impulses to identify the features of the object that we touch. That tactile feedback enables us to recognize a material's shape, surface texture, and stiffness or softness.

The smart bionic finger mimics this feedback system. A metallic cylinder mounted on top of the finger serves as the contact tip, while carbon-fiber beams serve as tactile mechanoreceptors (the sensing unit). These are connected to a signal-processing module. The finger "scans" the target object's surface by periodically applying pressure, akin to a poke or a prod. This compresses the carbon fibers, and how much the material compresses conveys information about its relative stiffness or softness. That information, along with where on the surface it was recorded, is then sent to a computer, which translates the data into a 3D map.

Journal Reference:
Yizhou Li, Zhiming Chen, Youbin Chen, et al., A smart bionic finger for subsurface tactile tomography [open], Cell Rep, 4, 2, 2023. (DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2023.101257)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

NASA's NuSTAR Observatory Pinpoints Hottest Spots on the Sun:

Every day, astronomers learn more about the stars spread around the cosmos, but there's still plenty to learn about the star closest to Earth. NASA has released a new composite image of the Sun featuring data from the NuSTAR space telescope. It reveals some of the hottest areas of the Sun, which may help scientists unravel a stellar mystery that has remained unsolved for decades.

[...] NASA believes the NuSTAR data could help scientists understand why the Sun's corona is so hot. While the Sun's surface is a toasty 5,500 degrees Celsius, the corona reaches scorching temperatures of more than 1 million degrees Celsius. The Sun's heat radiates out from the core, so no one is certain how the star's atmosphere ends up so much hotter than the surface. Solar flares don't happen often enough to keep the corona so hot, but nanoflares might be the key. That's what you're seeing in the blue regions above.

Individual nanoflares, small eruptions originating deep inside the Sun, are too faint compared with the blazing brightness of the Sun to appear in today's instruments. However, NuSTAR can detect the high-energy output when multiple nanoflares occur close together. This could help physicists determine how often nanoflares happen and how much energy they release.

NuSTAR mosaic image

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Suggest fundamental semiconductor physics research is needed if China is to build viable local industry:

China's Academy of Science has offered a blueprint to create a semiconductor industry that circumvents the USA's bans on exports of technology to the Middle Kingdom.

In an article from the Proceedings of the Chinese Academy of Sciences titled "Strengthening the construction of basic semiconductor capabilities and lighting the 'beacon' of semiconductor self-reliance and self-improvement, academicians Luo Junwei and Li Shushen argue that all China needs to do is research the right topics, find the talent to do that research, commercialise their work and then sit back and enjoy the benefits of home-grown silicon.

There's a bit more to it than that, of course: the authors identify existing patent portfolios as a barrier to Chinese chip tech, because building and designing with existing techniques will by necessity mean using of protected intellectual property.

The pair therefore call for Chinese semiconductor policy to "Vigorously promote the spirit of scientists pursuing originality, and resist low-level repetitive follow-up research." Instead, [they] want original research, if only to match efforts they've observed in the US, South Korea, and elsewhere, in pursuit of innovations that go beyond well-understood semiconductor physics.

The pair also want physical infrastructure to support researchers, and for academic career paths to reward the long efforts required to produce published work on semiconductor innovations.

upstart writes:

Researchers disagree on how to define burnout. Helping people cope at work still matters:

When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who garnered international praise for how she handled the pandemic in her country, recently announced her intention to resign, here's how she summed up her surprise decision: "I know what the job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice."

Social scientists and journalists worldwide largely interpreted Ardern's words in her January 19 speech as a reference to burnout.

"She's talking about an empty tank," says Christina Maslach, a psychological researcher who has been interviewing and observing workers struggling with workplace-related distress for decades. In almost 50 years of interviews, says Maslach of the University of California, Berkeley, "that phrase [has come] up again and again and again."

Numerous studies and media reports suggest that burnout, already high before the pandemic, has since skyrocketed worldwide, particularly among workers in certain professions, such as health care, teaching and service. The pandemic makes clear that the jobs needed for a healthy, functioning society are burning people out, Maslach says.

But disagreement over how to define and measure burnout is pervasive, with some researchers even questioning if the syndrome is simply depression by another name. Such controversy has made it difficult to estimate the prevalence of burnout or identify how to best help those who are suffering.

upstart writes:

It's unclear if the two lawmakers know what messenger RNA is exactly:

Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines—namely the lifesaving and remarkably safe COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. If passed as written, it would also preemptively ban the use of countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale, both staunch conservatives who say they stand for freedom and the right to life. But their bill, HB 154, proposes that "a person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid [mRNA] technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state." If passed into law, anyone administering lifesaving mRNA-based vaccines would be guilty of a misdemeanor, which could result in jail time and/or a fine.

While presenting the bill to the House Health & Welfare Committee last week, Nichols said their anti-mRNA stance stems from the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines were initially allowed under emergency use authorizations (EUAs) from the Food and Drug Administration, not the agency's full regulatory approval. "We have issues that this was fast-tracked," she told fellow lawmakers, according to reporting from local news outlet KXLY.com.

The EUAs for the two mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines were issued in December 2020, and the FDA has subsequently granted full approval to both (Pfizer-BioNTech's in August 2021 and Moderna's in January 2022). This was pointed out to Nichols in the hearing last week.

upstart writes:

A touchscreen that's always clean:

Touchscreens are a growing part of daily life. Not just on our phones and tablets but laptops, refrigerators, cars, and more. These days, more vehicles are coming with giant touchscreens replacing every button or dial. Eventually, everything will be a dusty screen covered with fingerprints.

The patent, spotted by AutoEvolution, is a "self-cleaning system for displays using light emitting diodes emitting invisible violet light." The idea is pretty technical, but it's essentially a regular display with some extra elements to handle dirty jobs.

Most LED screens have red, green, and blue (RGB) colored pixels, which display everything we see. However, GM's system utilizes a fourth invisible "ultraviolet" pixel. Then, GM would equip screens with a transparent photocatalyst layer that absorbs and interacts with those violet pixels and creates a chemical reaction.

That chemical reaction does several different things, including adding some moisture, then drying out the screen's surface and cleaning it of dirt, dust, debris, fingerprints, grease, and more. If this sounds familiar, a similar technology is available for self-cleaning solar panels.

Original Submission

The Supreme Court Battle for Section 230 Has Begun

upstart writes:

The future of recommendation algorithms could be at stake:

The first shots have been fired in a Supreme Court showdown over web platforms, terrorism, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Gonzales v. Google — one of two lawsuits that are likely to shape the future of the internet.

Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh are a pair of lawsuits blaming platforms for facilitating Islamic State attacks. The court's final ruling on these cases will determine web services' liability for hosting illegal activity, particularly if they promote it with algorithmic recommendations.

The Supreme Court took up both cases in October: one at the request of a family that's suing Google and the other as a preemptive defense filed by Twitter. They're two of the latest in a long string of suits alleging that websites are legally responsible for failing to remove terrorist propaganda. The vast majority of these suits have failed, often thanks to Section 230, which shields companies from liability for hosting illegal content. But the two petitions respond to a more mixed 2021 opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which threw out two terrorism-related suits but allowed a third to proceed.

Gonzalez v. Google claims Google knowingly hosted Islamic State propaganda that allegedly led to a 2015 attack in Paris, thus providing material support to an illegal terrorist group. But while the case is nominally about terrorist content, its core question is whether amplifying an illegal post makes companies responsible for it. In addition to simply not banning Islamic State videos, the plaintiffs — the estate of a woman who died in the attack — say that YouTube recommended these videos automatically to others, spreading them across the platform.

Google has asserted that it's protected by Section 230, but the plaintiffs argue that the law's boundaries are undecided. "[Section 230] does not contain specific language regarding recommendations, and does not provide a distinct legal standard governing recommendations," they said in yesterday's legal filing. They're asking the Supreme Court to find that some recommendation systems are a kind of direct publication — as well as some pieces of metadata, including hyperlinks generated for an uploaded video and notifications alerting people to that video. By extension, they hope that could make services liable for promoting it.