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upstart writes:

A popular tool for identifying meteorites can destroy scientific information:

It's time to drop the magnets, meteorite hunters. The commonly used method for identifying space rocks can destroy scientific information.

Touching even a small magnet to a meteorite can erase any record the rock might have retained about the magnetic field of its parent body, researchers report in the April Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. And the concern isn't theoretical: a subset of the oldest known Martian meteorites appear to have already had their magnetic memories wiped, the team showed.

[...] Planetary scientist Foteini Vervelidou uses meteorites from Mars — chunks of the planet that were blasted into space by an impact and later captured by Earth's gravity — to study its ancient past. Just a few hundred are known to exist. Rarer still are specimens that contain minerals carrying imprints of the Red Planet's magnetic field, which collapsed about 3.7 billion years ago (SN: 9/7/15). The oldest known Martian meteorites, which date to roughly 4.4 billion years ago, therefore present an "amazing chance to study the magnetic field," says Vervelidou, of MIT and the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris.

But such opportunities can be readily squandered, Vervelidou and colleagues have shown. The team's numerical calculations and experiments with earthly rocks — stand-ins for meteorites — confirmed that bringing a hand magnet close to a rock can rearrange the spins of the rock's electrons. That rearrangement overwrites the imprint of a previous magnetic field, a process called remagnetization.

[...] It is possible to evaluate a meteorite without destroying its magnetic properties. Vervelidou uses a lab instrument called a susceptibility meter, which measures how an object would respond to a magnetic field. And portable versions exist: She and a team of meteorite researchers used one to find nearly 1,000 meteorites on a recent expedition in Chile. Hopefully, Vervelidou says, some of those space rocks will shed light on Mars' magnetic past.

Anyone here ever find a meteorite?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Hearing Aids Are Changing. Their Users Are, Too.

As more young people risk hearing loss, over-the-counter hearing aids are providing new options, but also confusing choices.

Ayla Wing's middle school students don't always know what to make of their 26-year-old teacher's hearing aids. The most common response she hears: "Oh, my grandma has them, too."

But grandma's hearing aids were never like this: Bluetooth-enabled and connected to her phone, they allow Ms. Wing to toggle with one touch between custom settings. She can shut out the world during a screeching subway ride, hear her friends in noisy bars during a night out and even understand her students better by switching to "mumbly kids."

A raft of new hearing aids have hit the market in recent years, offering greater appeal to a generation of young adults that some experts say is both developing hearing problems earlier in life and — perhaps paradoxically — becoming more comfortable with an expensive piece of technology pumping sound into their ears.

Some of the new models, including Ms. Wing's, are made by traditional prescription brands, which usually require a visit to a specialist. But the Food and Drug Administration opened up the market last year when it allowed the sale of hearing aids over the counter. In response, brand names like Sony and Jabra began releasing their own products, adding to the new wave of designs and features that appeal to young consumers.

"These new hearing aids are sexy," said Pete Bilzerian, a 25-year-old in Richmond, Va., who has worn the devices since he was 7. He describes his early models as distinctly unsexy: "big, funky, tan-colored hearing aids with the molding that goes all around the ear." But increasingly, those have given way to sleeker, smaller models with more technological capabilities.

Nowadays, he said, no one seems to notice the electronics in his ear. "If it ever does come up as a topic, I just brush it off and say, 'Hey, I got these very expensive AirPods.'"

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A high-profile legal case recently showed how useful dashcams can be, but French regulations are unclear over whether they can be used as evidence:

Sales of dashcams are starting to take off in France, with most car-parts shops offering models from €50, but their use falls into a legal grey area. Exact figures are hard to come by, but a survey in 2015 estimated there were at least 300,000 dashcams bought in France that year.

It is now not uncommon to see the cameras in cars parked on the street, even in small rural towns. Some even have features that set off the camera if anyone is close to the parked car, or if the car is touched by another vehicle. Images are usually sent to the owner's smartphone, where they can then be stored.

[...] France has very strict privacy laws, and among them is a law that states that while it is legal to film or photograph people in public spaces in France, you cannot use the images without the express consent of all the people who might be identified, either through their features or through the car they drive.

Obviously, people who have recorded someone driving into their car, or filmed another driver being aggressive towards them, will want to use the images, but doing so can be complicated.

Some years ago, the German insurance company Allianz, which has a big presence in the French market, offered a discount to clients who used dashcams. Now the company seems to have removed the offer.

Similarly, carmaker Citroën, which offers dashcams as factory-fitted options on new C3 and C4 models, went silent when asked how the images they record might be used.

upstart writes:

As the country looks to decarbonize, nuclear’s popularity climbs to the highest level in a decade:

A Gallup survey released in late April found that 55 percent of U.S. adults support the use of nuclear power. That's up four percentage points from last year and reflects the highest level of public support for nuclear energy use in electricity since 2012.

[...] Nuclear energy has historically been a source of immense controversy. A series of high-profile nuclear accidents and disasters, from Three Mile Island in 1979 to Chernobyl in 1986 to Fukushima in 2011, have raised safety concerns — even though the death toll from fossil fuel power generation far outstrips that of nuclear power generation. Several government nuclear programs have also left behind toxic waste that place disproportionate burdens on Indigenous communities.

But nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions, and it's more consistent and reliable than wind and solar energy, which vary depending on the weather. For these reasons, the Biden administration has identified nuclear energy as a key climate solution to achieve grid stability in a net-zero future. The administration is pushing for the deployment of a new generation of reactors called "advanced nuclear": a catch-all term for new nuclear reactor models that improve on the safety and efficiency of traditional reactor designs.

In a recent report, the Department of Energy found that regardless of how many renewables are deployed, the U.S. will need an additional 200 gigawatts of advanced nuclear power — enough to power about 160 million homes — to reach President Joe Biden's goal of hitting net-zero emissions by 2050.

hubie writes:

Learning multiple tasks led to cognition improvements that got better with the passage of time:

A set of recent studies demonstrates for the first time that learning multiple new tasks carries benefits for cognition long after the learning has been completed.

The finding affirms a long-held assertion of the lead researcher, Rachel Wu, who is an associate professor of psychology at UC Riverside. That is, older adults can learn new tasks and improve their cognition in the process, if they approach learning as a child does.

"Our findings provide evidence that simultaneously learning real-world skills can lead to long-term improvements in cognition during older adulthood," Wu and her colleagues wrote in a recently published paper in the journal Aging and Mental Health. "Overall, our findings promote the benefits of lifelong learning, namely, to improve cognitive abilities in older adulthood."

[...] For both studies, the participants learned at least three new skills, such as Spanish, using an iPad, photography, painting, and music composition over three months in a UC Riverside classroom for older adults. Cognitive tests were administered in a research lab before the start of the classes, halfway through the classes, and after three months of classes. There were then follow-up tests at three months, six months, and one year after the end of the classes.

[...] The overall cognitive scores at three months, six months, and one year after the intervention were significantly higher than before the intervention, more than three times higher by many measures. In fact, the more time that passed after the learning had ceased, the higher the scores grew.

takyon writes:

'Too greedy': mass walkout at global science journal over 'unethical' fees

More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the "greed" of publishing giant Elsevier.

The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King's College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.

Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and Amazon.

Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now "open access" rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a research paper to be published. The former editors say this is "unethical" and bears no relation to the costs involved.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Pinging Locations - The Hacker Factor Blog:

Honeypots provide a great opportunity for identifying how attackers operate, how to defend your servers, and how to protect your privacy. They allow the operators to evaluate new threats and test different response options without putting the production servers at risk.

My honeypots have been collecting a lot of data. Interestingly, most of the logs show ICMP echo-request packets (aka "ping"). Ping is one of the simplest diagnostic tools. You send an echo-request (ping) packet to a server and the server reponds with an echo-reply (pong) packet. If you receive a packet back, then you can identify the latency and determine if there is some kind of unexpected delay or networking issue. And if you get nothing back, then either the server is down or the network is unreachable.

On the open internet, ping is usually used for reconnaissance or attacks. However, this time the majority of ping packets appear to have a different purpose: geolocation.

[...] Here are two sample packets that I received. I've redacted my IP addresses and highlighted the payload's timestamp:

14:00:05.241484 IP 15.228.95.55 {ipv4}: ICMP echo request, id 15, seq 5256, length 16
0x0000: 4528 0024 3783 4000 f001 xxxx 0fe4 5f37 E(.$7.@......._7
0x0010: xxxx xxxx 0800 9fef 000f 1488 1759 947e xxxx.........Y.~
0x0020: 2082 771f 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ..w...........

09:56:04.114187 IP6 2600:1f13:b75:1c01:e121:1e4c:7569:34af {ipv6}: ICMP6, echo request, seq 3428, length 16
0x0000: 6002 1cab 0010 3af1 2600 1f13 0b75 1c01 `.....:.&....u..
0x0010: e121 1e4c 7569 34af xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx .!.Lui4.&..@xxxx
0x0020: xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx 8000 c8ac 0007 0d64 xxxx...4.......d
0x0030: 1759 d5c1 b532 ceff .Y...2..

With both the IPv4 and IPv6 packets, you'll see the payload contains an 8 byte hex value that begins with "1759". That's the embedded timestamp. It's encoded as Unix epoch time in nanoseconds. (Number of billionths of a second since 1-Jan-1970.)

[...] So what are they doing? It looks like they are doing packet-based geolocation.

upstart writes:

Paper details previously unknown step in process of converting light energy to chemical energy:

Photosynthesis – the process by which plants and some other organisms convert sunlight to food – is complex, and scientists don't fully understand how it works. But a team of researchers led by the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory reckon they're closer to solving the mystery – they captured an image of the atoms inside cyanobacteria undergoing photosynthesis just as the tiny organism released oxygen.

X-ray lasers at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford University, and the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser (SACLA) at a synchrotron radiation facility in Japan's SPring-8 lab, were directed at a specific protein used to catalyze the chemical reaction. The protein complex, dubbed Photosystem II, is used by organisms like cyanobacteria or algae to photosynthesize.

Photosystem II carries a molecule, made up of four manganese (Mn) atoms and one calcium (Ca) atom connected by oxygen atoms, and splits a water molecule apart to release oxygen. The research team managed to image the different steps in the reaction, and discovered a previously unknown step in the process.

[...] Tens or even hundreds of thousands of these snapshots are required to see how the atoms move over time. Capturing them is a tedious process that constantly requires fresh cyanobacteria samples, since each one gets destroyed after being exposed to the powerful X-ray pulse. The experimental setup to facilitate the research took six years to build, as the authors explained in a study published by Nature on Wednesday.

upstart writes:

Samsung bans use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT after April internal data leak:

A month after internal, sensitive data from Samsung was accidentally leaked to ChatGPT, Samsung is cracking down on usage of the generative AI service. The electronics giant is planning a temporary block of the use of generative AI tools on company-owned devices, covering computers, tablets, phones, as well as non-company-owned devices running on internal networks. The ban would cover not just ChatGPT, but services that use the technology like Microsoft's Bing, as well as competing generative AI services like Bard from Google.

[...] According to a memo from Monday seen by Bloomberg, the restriction would be temporary, lasting until it builds "security measures to create a secure environment for safely using generative AI to enhance employees' productivity and efficiency." The South Korea-headquartered tech firm is said to be developing its own in-house AI tools for "software development and translation," according to the report.

[...] The tech giant initially allowed employees at its device solutions (DS) division, which manages its semiconductor and display businesses, to use generative AI from March 11. In the aftermath of the data leak, Samsung also asked staff using generative AI tools elsewhere "not to submit any company-related information or personal data," which could disclose its intellectual property, by the memo reviewed by Bloomberg.

One of the issues that Samsung noted that it is difficult to "retrieve and delete" the data on external servers, and the data transmitted to such AI tools could be disclosed to other users. Based on Samsung's internal survey in April, about 65% of participants said using generative AI tools carries a security risk.

Original Submission

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