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upstart writes:

The US Marshals Service claims the shutdown isn't affecting its ability to track down fugitives:

Ransomware attacks against companies and government agencies are on the rise despite efforts by cybersecurity experts to prevent such incidences. Since the start of the pandemic, hundreds of U.S. businesses have reported being ransomware victims, with the largest known attack being the Kaseya hack in 2021.

More recently, the U.S. government has also faced a string of cybersecurity incidents, with the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the United States Marshals Service (USMS) all confirming multiple data leaks and targeted attacks this year. Just last week, the USMS announced that cybercriminals had targeted its systems with a ransomware attack, exposing a large amount of data, including personally identifiable information (PII) of employees. Thankfully, the incident did not expose the witness protection program database, meaning no witnesses are in danger.

[...] According to The Washington Post, the system has remained down for so long because the USMS decided not to pay any ransom to unlock the network. Instead, officials moved to shut down the entire system, which included remotely wiping the cellphones of all employees who worked in the department. The sudden move, which was implemented without any prior warning, cleared out all their files, contacts and emails, inconveniencing many.

However, despite the apparent roadblock, the USMS remains adamant that the shutdown isn't affecting its ability to conduct investigations. In a statement this week, Marshals spokesperson Drew Wade said that most of the critical investigative tools have already been restored, and the agency is planning to soon deploy "a fully reconstituted system with improved IT security countermeasures" for the future.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Mechanism for breaching the blood-brain barrier described for the first time:

Among the biggest environmental problems of our time, micro- and nanoplastic particles (MNPs) can enter the body in various ways, including through food. And now for the first time, research conducted at MedUni Vienna has shown how these minute particles manage to breach the blood-brain barrier and as a consequence penetrate the brain. The newly discovered mechanism provides the basis for further research to protect humans and the environment. The study results were recently published in the scientific journal nanomaterials.

The study was carried out in an animal model with oral administration of MNPs, in this case polystyrene, a widely-used plastic which is also found in food packaging. Led by Lukas Kenner (Department of Pathology at MedUni Vienna and Department of Laboratory Animal Pathology at Vetmeduni) and Oldamur Hollóczki (Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Debrecen, Hungary) the research team was able to determine that tiny polystyrene particles could be detected in the brain just two hours after ingestion. The mechanism that enabled them to breach the blood-brain barrier was previously unknown to medical science. "With the help of computer models, we discovered that a certain surface structure (biomolecular corona) was crucial in enabling plastic particles to pass into the brain," Oldamur Hollóczki explained.

upstart writes:

The biofuel's bipartisan support isn't about science, but politics:

Two decades ago, when the world was wising up to the threat of climate change, the Bush administration touted ethanol — a fuel usually made from corn — for its threefold promise: It would wean the country off foreign oil, line farmers' pockets, and reduce carbon pollution. In 2007, Congress mandated that refiners nearly quintuple the amount of biofuels mixed into the nation's gasoline supply over 15 years. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, projected that ethanol would emit at least 20 percent fewer greenhouse gasses than conventional gasoline.

Scientists say the EPA was too optimistic, and some research shows that the congressional mandate did more climatic harm than good. A 2022 study found that producing and burning corn-based fuel is at least 24 percent more carbon-intensive than refining and combusting gasoline. The biofuel industry and the Department of Energy, or DOE, vehemently criticized those findings, which nevertheless challenge the widespread claim that ethanol is something of a magic elixir.

"There's an intuition people have that burning plants is better than burning fossil fuels," said Timothy Searchinger. He is a senior researcher at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University and an early skeptic of ethanol. "Growing plants is good. Burning plants isn't."

Given all that, not to mention the growing popularity of electric vehicles, you'd think ethanol is on the way out. Not so. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continue to tout it as a way to win energy independence and save the climate. The fuel's bipartisan staying power has less to do with any environmental benefits than with disputed science and the sway of the biofuel lobby, agricultural economists and policy analysts told Grist.

"The only way ethanol makes sense is as a political issue," said Jason Hill, a bioproducts and biosystems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota.

upstart writes:

Samsung to unveil first details about SF3 process technology with MBCFETs:

Although Samsung Foundry started to produce chips using its SF3E (aka 3nm gate-all-around early) manufacturing technology last June, the company only uses this tech for select chips, and it's not expected to be used widely. Meanwhile, the company is working on its second-gen 3nm-class node called SF3 (3GAP) and will disclose more information about it at the upcoming 2023 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Kyoto, Japan.

Samsung's Sf3 (3nm-class) fabrication technology (set to be introduced at the T1-2 session) will use the company's second-gen Multi-Bridge-Channel field-effect transistors (MBCFET). This new fabrication technology builds upon the first-gen GAA device (SF3E) that's already in mass production, incorporating further optimization.

Samsung claims that compared to SF4 (4LPP, 4nm-class, low power plus), SF3 offers a 22% higher performance at the same power and transistor count, a 34% power reduction at the same clocks and complexity, and a 0.79x logic area reduction. However, Samsung doesn't compare its SF3 to SF3E, and there is no word about the SRAM and analog circuit scaling.

One of the main benefits of GAA transistors over FinFET devices is the reduced leakage current since their gate is surrounded by the channel on all four sides. Additionally, the channel thickness can be adjusted to enhance performance or reduce power consumption.

Samsung now says that the SF3 platform offers greater design flexibility enabled by various nanosheet (NS) widths of the MBCFET device within the same cell type. It is unclear whether it means that the original SF3E lacks one of the key capabilities of GAA transistors, but Samsung's phrasing at least implies it.

An image that Samsung demonstrates in its paper depicts damage on top of the nanosheet during the metal gate process, so we may speculate that one of the aspects that the company will cover are production challenges it encountered with its GAA-based SF3E production node.

Interestingly, recently the company admitted that its fabrication processes are behind those of TSMC, and it will take at least five years to catch up.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Australia: Woman survives on wine during five days stranded in Australian bush:

A 48-year-old woman survived five days stranded in the bush in Australia by eating sweets and drinking a single bottle of wine.

Lillian Ip set off on what was meant to be a short trip on Sunday, travelling through dense bush in Victoria state.

But she hit a dead-end after taking a wrong turn, and her vehicle became stuck in the mud.

Ms Ip - who doesn't drink - only had a bottle of wine in the car as she was planning to give it as a present.

After five nights stranded, she was discovered by emergency services on Friday as they flew overhead as part of a search.

"The first thing coming in my mind, I was thinking 'water and a cigarette,'" Ms Ip told 9News Australia. "Thank god the policewoman had a cigarette."

[...] "The only liquid Lillian, who doesn't drink, had with her was a bottle of wine she had bought as a gift for her mother so that got her through," Wodonga Police Station Sergeant Martin Torpey said.

"She used great common sense to stay with her car and not wander off into bushland, which assisted in police being able to find her."

Ms Ip was taken to hospital to be treated for dehydration, but has since returned home to Melbourne.

I'm just off to repack my survival bag.....

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The co-creator of the Internet's protocols admits his crystal ball had a few cracks:

Vint Cerf, the recipient of the 2023 IEEE Medal of Honor for "co-creating the Internet architecture and providing sustained leadership in its phenomenal growth in becoming society's critical infrastructure," didn't have a perfect view of the Internet's future. In hindsight, there are a few things he admits he got wrong. Here some of those mistakes, as recently told to IEEE Spectrum:

• 1) "I thought 32 bits ought to be enough for Internet addresses."
• 2) "I didn't pay enough attention to security."
• 3) "I didn't really appreciate the implications of the World Wide Web."

These are only his top three - can you think of some that are missing from that group? What about any mistakes that aren't top 3 but still in hindsight should have been done differently?

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Sex in space is a real possibility with the expected growth in space tourism over the next decade:

It could be a crucial question posed by the expected growth in space tourism over the next decade – namely what would a human conception in space mean for the sector?

That's the situation posed by an international group of scientists, clinicians and other interested parties, who have authored a consultative green paper led by David Cullen, Professor of Astrobiology & Space Biotechnology at Cranfield University.

It highlights that the emerging space tourism sector has not openly considered or discussed the risks of sex in space or prepared suitable mitigation approaches. It argues it is unrealistic to assume all future space tourists will abstain from sexual activities – opening the possibility of human conception and the early stages of human reproduction occurring in space.

This appears to pose several risks, those of a biological nature such as embryo developmental risks and those of a commercial nature such as liability, litigation, and reputational damage. The authors recommend that an open discussion is now needed within the space tourism industry to consider the risks.

[...] The findings of the study have been published today (24 April) as a green paper for community consultation.

[...] Alex Layendecker, director of the Astrosexological Research Institute and a co-author of the green paper, said: "The sociological and cultural aspects are fascinating to consider, given the approaching shift from well-trained professional and private astronauts to true 'space tourists'. That shift will encapsulate changes in motivations, social interactions, and behavioural norms, the impacts of which we need to take seriously."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

AI chatbots oftentimes make headlines for their strange behavior. Nvidia's new software could fix that.:

Nvidia, the tech giant responsible for inventing the first GPU -- a now crucial piece of technology for generative AI models, unveiled a new software on Tuesday that has the potential to solve a big problem with AI chatbots.

The software, NeMo Guardrails, is supposed to ensure that smart applications, such as AI chatbots, powered by large language models (LLMs) are "accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure," according to Nvidia.

The open-source software can be used by AI developers can utilize to set up three types of boundaries for AI models: Topical, safety, and security guardrails.

[...] The safety guardrails are an attempt to tackle the issue of misinformation and hallucinations.

When employed, it will ensure that AI applications respond with accurate and appropriate information. For example, by using the software, bans on inappropriate language and credible source citations can be reinforced.

[...] Nvidia claims that virtually all software developers will be able to use NeMo Guardrails since they are simple to use, work with a broad range of LLM-enabled applications, and work with all the tools that enterprise app developers use such as LangChain.

The company will be incorporating NeMo Guardrails into its Nvidia NeMo framework, which is already mostly available as an open-source code on GitHub.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Millimeter-wave fizzles and regulatory hurdles plague progress:

By now, the cellular industry's rollout of 5G networks is three or four years old. And while the industry is still hunting for that killer use case that will cement 5G's place in the highest echelons of cellular technology, the generation is doing, at its core, what it was supposed to do—sort of.

5G networks are continuing to deliver better and faster service than 4G in general. Compared to 5G service from a year ago, however, the networks' upload and download times have generally declined around the world, according to speed test data from network diagnostics company Ookla. Even the most robust 5G networks are currently barely cracking 1 gigabit per second, well short of the International Telecommunication Union's stated ideal download speed of 20 Gbps.

Part of the problem is the same problem had by every cellular generation. There are the normal growing pains as more customers buy new phones and other devices that can tap into these networks. [...]

[...] Outside of cities, different problems are taking root. A big selling-point for 5G is the ability to tap into new bands of spectrum, most notably the millimeter wave band (24 gigahertz to 40 GHz), which can support lower latencies and greater data rates. [...]

Millimeter wave has also seen barely any uptake outside of a handful of countries, including the United States, and even there it's been limited. Companies like Verizon—initially bullish on millimeter wave—have instead pivoted to other newly-available bands, most notably the C-band (4 to 8 GHz).

[...] It's too early to say whether or how 6G development will be impacted by 5G's early stumbles, but there are a handful of possible impacts. It's conceivable, for example, given the lackluster debut of millimeter wave, that the industry devotes less time in terahertz wave research and instead considers how cellular and Wi-Fi technologies could be merged in areas requiring dense coverage.

"I think it's revealing the disconnect between the vision for these Gs and what's actually on the ground," Giles says. "I think that's what this degradation is really highlighting."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Australia will create a new privacy commissioner position as part of the ongoing effort to improve privacy laws following devastating data breaches.

A standalone privacy commissioner will be appointed to deal with the growing threats to data security to protect the personal information of millions of Australians.

The privacy regulator will have the resources and powers to meet the ongoing challenges of the digital age.

Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus stated that "The large-scale data breaches of 2022 were distressing for millions of Australians, with sensitive personal information being exposed to the risk of identity fraud and scams,"

Mr Dreyfus ordered a complete review of the Privacy Act last year after declaring it was no longer "fit for purpose".

Penalties for companies that fail to protect data from being stolen was increased to 50m in 2022.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Modern technology is helping researchers make new discoveries using old data:

Data science technologies available to today's researchers play a key role in shaping our understanding of the solar system. It not only uncovers new findings from the latest data, it also allows researchers to glean new information from previously collected data. Thanks to this tech, researchers reviewing decades-old data from NASA's Voyager 2 probe have uncovered exciting secrets locked below the surface of Uranus' moons.

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched in 1977 to study our solar system's outer planets and beyond. In 1986, the probe became the first of its kind to visit Uranus, returning never before seen images and data about the ice giant during its five-and-a-half-hour fly-by on the way to Neptune. During the trip, the probe discovered and provided data about 10 new moons orbiting the planet, two new rings (in addition to nine previously known rings), and information about Uranus' tilted, off-axis magnetic field.

Despite the data being more than 37 years old, researchers analyzing it using modern modeling techniques have made significant discoveries on four of Uranus' largest moons. Based on the new findings, four of the planet's 27 moons (Titania, Oberon, Ariel, and Umbriel) appear to have an ocean layer between their cores and the icy surface that covers them.

The study incorporated the original data gathered during Voyager 2's fly-bys with more recent data from ground-based stations and other NASA spacecraft, including Galileo, Cassini, Dawn, and New Horizons. The augmented Voyager 2 data models allowed researchers to determine that the moons may generate enough internal heat to maintain a liquid ocean, possibly even some with habitable temperatures.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A race to reserve usernames is kicking off on Discord:

Starting in the next couple of weeks, millions of Discord users will be forced to say goodbye to their old four-digit-appended names. Discord is requiring everyone to take up a new common platform-wide handle. For Discord, it's a move toward mainstream social network conventions. For some users, though, it's a change to the basics of what Discord is — a shift that's as much about culture as technology.

Discord has historically handled usernames with a numeric suffix system. Instead of requiring a completely unique handle, it allowed duplicate names by adding a four-digit code known as a "discriminator" — think TheVerge#1234. But earlier this week, it announced it was changing course and moving toward unique identifiers that resemble Twitter-style "@" handles.

Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy acknowledged the change would be "tough" for some people, but he said the discriminators had proven too confusing. He noted that over 40 percent of users don't know their discriminator number, which leads to "almost half" of all friend requests failing to connect people to the right person, largely due to mistyped numbers.

Over on Reddit, Vishnevskiy argued that the new handles wouldn't even show up in the interface that often since Discord will allow users to set a separate display name that's not unique. Carrying more than 500 downvotes on some Reddit replies, he called the original system a "halfway measure" and rejected ideas like just adding more numbers to the end of a handle. "This was not a change that we decided to do lightly and have been talking about doing for many years, trying to avoid it if we could," he posted.

During the change, Discord users will have to navigate a process that's fraught with uncertainty and cutthroat competition. Users will need to wait for an in-app prompt for when it's their turn to select a new username, which will eventually roll out to all users over the course of "several months." The company will assign priority to users based on their Discord registration dates, so people who have had their name "for quite a while" will have a better chance to get a desired name.

quietus writes:

"Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes." -- Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase.

Ninety-two (92) percent of Kenya's electricity comes from renewable resources. About 50 percent of all that is covered by the 5 geothermal power stations at Olkaria, near Hell's Gate National Park.That park is just a tiny part of the thousands of miles long East African Rift System, where the Indian, Arabian and African continental plates meet.

The big advantage of geothermal power is that it produces a steady base load of electricity -- currently 5GW at Olkaria, with an estimated total 10GW potential.

That has aroused the interest of the German government, co-investors and providers of technical expertise for the project. The potential for geothermal power in Germany, through deep (miles deep) drilling is estimated at a quarter of the country's heating needs: before 2030, at least 100 geothermal power projects should be in place.

Geothermal energy projects, however, are capital intensive -- the Olkaria project actually started getting steam in the 90s, mainly supported by the Japanese government and the United Nations Development Programme; Germany has been coinvesting for the last 20 years, alongside with the European Investment Bank. Besides, utility-scale solar and onshore wind is hovering at around $35 per MWh, while geothermal currently is slotted around $70 per MWh.

However, solar and wind are intermittent sources of energy: if you want to buy reliability, nuclear or coal- and gas-fired plants are your comparison. In an April 2023 comparison, investment bank Lazard comes to an estimated cost, unsubsidized, between $68 and $166 per MWh for coal, $141 and $221 for nuclear, and $61 to $102 per MWh for geothermal energy. Only gas-combined-cycle power generation could potentially be cheaper ($39 to $101 per MWh), for providing base load (see page 2 in the pdf).

upstart writes:

Introducing OURphone—an open-source DIY smartphone made with our favorite SBC:

It's easy to build your own desktop PC but, if you want a phone, you usually have to settle for a sealed box that's made by one of a handful of large corporations. Maker Evan Robison wants to change all that as he posted instructions for an open-source, Raspberry Pi-powered called OURPhone with the acronym OURS standing for Open-source, Upgradable, Repairable Smartphone.

According to Robinson, the idea was to create a smartphone alternative for people looking to control their privacy. He also wanted to make a smartphone that could be easily modified and repaired, so an open-source solution was the perfect fit. The OURphone project has quite a few specs that you'll find on many smartphones including 4G LTE internet support, GPS support, Bluetooth and WiFi capability, as well as basic phone operations like the ability to call, text and save contacts in an address book.

However, instead of running on Android or iOS, the phone uses Raspberry Pi OS, the Linux-based native operating system for Raspberry Pis. This means that you have very fine control over what software you run on it, but the UI (as pictured) is not particularly touch or phone friendly. You can find all of the code used in the project (as well as detailed instructions) at GitHub.

In his build guide, Robinson is using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ but there's no reason you couldn't upgrade it to a Pi 4. It's accompanied by a 4G HAT with GSM and GPS antennas. It has a Waveshare touchscreen for video output and user input. A camera can be attached but it isn't necessary for the build. A pair of headphones with a built-in microphone is used for call support. To keep the unit mobile, it operates off of a couple of 18650 batteries.

The housing, [m]ade out of 3mm MDF board, is a bit bulky but necessary to contain all of the hardware. It's laser cut with port access made available all around the edges.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The decades-old Sullivan's conjecture, about the best way to minimize the surface area of a bubble cluster, was thought to be out of reach for three bubbles and up:

[T]o understanding the shape of bubble clusters, mathematicians have been playing catch-up to our physical intuitions for millennia. Soap bubble clusters in nature often seem to immediately snap into the lowest-energy state, the one that minimizes the total surface area of their walls (including the walls between bubbles). But checking whether soap bubbles are getting this task right—or just predicting what large bubble clusters should look like—is one of the hardest problems in geometry. It took mathematicians until the late 19th century to prove that the sphere is the best single bubble, even though the Greek mathematician Zenodorus had asserted this more than 2,000 years earlier.

The bubble problem is simple enough to state: You start with a list of numbers for the volumes, and then ask how to separately enclose those volumes of air using the least surface area. But to solve this problem, mathematicians must consider a wide range of different possible shapes for the bubble walls. And if the assignment is to enclose, say, five volumes, we don't even have the luxury of limiting our attention to clusters of five bubbles—perhaps the best way to minimize surface area involves splitting one of the volumes across multiple bubbles.

Even in the simpler setting of the two-dimensional plane (where you're trying to enclose a collection of areas while minimizing the perimeter), no one knows the best way to enclose, say, nine or 10 areas. As the number of bubbles grows, "quickly, you can't really even get any plausible conjecture," said Emanuel Milman of the Technion in Haifa, Israel.