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taylorvich writes:

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-zinc-air-batteries-future-powering-electric.html

Zinc-air batteries have emerged as a better alternative to lithium in a recent Edith Cowan University (ECU) study into the advancement of sustainable battery systems.

ECU's Dr. Muhammad Rizwan Azhar led the project which discovered lithium-ion batteries, although a popular choice for electric vehicles around the world, face limitations related to cost, finite resources, and safety concerns. The work is published in the journal EcoMat.
...
A zinc–air battery consists of a zinc negative electrode and an air positive electrode.
...
ECU's breakthrough has enabled engineers to use a combination of new materials, such as carbon, cheaper iron and cobalt based minerals to redesign zinc-air batteries.
"The new design has been so efficient it suppressed the internal resistance of batteries, and their voltage was close to the theoretical voltage which resulted in a high peak power density and ultra-long stability," Dr. Azhar said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

And this time nobody got sued:

In early August of 2008, almost exactly 15 years ago, the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas was hit with one of the worst scandals in its history. Just before a group of MIT students planned to give a talk at the conference about a method they'd found to get free rides on Boston's subway system—known as the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority—the MBTA sued them and obtained a restraining order to prevent them from speaking. The talk was canceled, but not before the hackers' slides were widely distributed to conference attendees and published online.

In the summer of 2021, 15-year-olds Matty Harris and Zachary Bertocchi were riding the Boston subway when Harris told Bertocchi about a Wikipedia article he'd read that mentioned this moment in hacker history. The two teenagers, both students at Medford Vocational Technical High School in Boston, began musing about whether they could replicate the MIT hackers' work, and maybe even get free subway rides.

They figured it had to be impossible. "We assumed that because that was more than a decade earlier, and it had got heavy publicity, that they would have fixed it," Harris says.

Bertocchi skips to the end of the story: "They didn't."

Now, after two years of work, that pair of teens and two fellow hacker friends, Noah Gibson and Scott Campbell, have presented the results of their research at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. In fact, they not only replicated the MIT hackers' 2008 tricks, but took them a step further. [...]

dw861 writes:

As reported by The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/17/23836287/microsoft-ai-recommends-ottawa-food-bank-tourist-destination

and

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/artificial-intelligence-microsoft-travel-ottawa-food-bank-1.6940356

In 2020 Microsoft laid off dozens of journalists, in a move to rely on artificial intelligence. Those journalists were responsible for selecting content for Microsoft platforms, including MSN and the Edge browser. A recent tourism article now reminds us of that earlier business decision.

Published last week and titled "Headed to Ottawa? Here's what you shouldn't miss!" the article listed 15 must-see attractions for visitors to the Canadian capital. Microsoft has since removed the article that advised tourists to visit the "beautiful" Ottawa Food Bank on an empty stomach. That appears to be an out-of-context rewrite of a paragraph on the food bank's website. "Life is challenging enough," it says. "Imagine facing it on an empty stomach."

The remainder of the must-see list was rife with errors. It featured a photo of the Rideau River in an entry about the Rideau Canal, and a photo of the Rideau Canal in an entry about Parc Omega near Montebello, Quebec. It advised tourists to enjoy the pristine grass of "Parliament Hills."

The article carried the byline "Microsoft Travel." There is nothing on the page that identifies it as the product of AI. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the article was generated. While now removed, it is still available via the Internet Archive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230814223742/https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/travel/headed-to-ottawa-here-s-what-you-shouldn-t-miss/ar-AA1faajY

Original Submission

upstart writes:

To Battle New Threats, Spy Agencies to Share More Intelligence With Private Sector:

U.S. spy agencies will share more intelligence with U.S. companies, nongovernmental organizations and academia under a new strategy released this week that acknowledges concerns over new threats, such as another pandemic and increasing cyberattacks.

The National Intelligence Strategy, which sets broad goals for the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, says that spy agencies must reach beyond the traditional walls of secrecy and partner with outside groups to detect and deter supply-chain disruptions, infectious diseases and other growing transnational threats.

The intelligence community "must rethink its approach to exchanging information and insights," the strategy says.

The U.S. government in recent years has begun sharing vast amounts of cyber-threat intelligence with U.S. companies, utilities and others who are often the main targets of foreign hackers, as well as information on foreign-influence operations with social-media companies.

[...] Illustrating the changing threats, a senior U.S. official said that the daily intelligence briefing prepared for President Biden and his top advisers—once dominated by terrorism and the Middle East—now regularly covers topics as varied as China's artificial-intelligence work, the geopolitical impacts of climate change, and semiconductor chips.

[...] The 16-page document, which contains no budget or program details, also says spy agencies must support the U.S. in its competition with authoritarian governments such as China and Russia, particularly in technological arenas.

On transnational threats such as financial crises, narcotics trafficking, supply-chain disruption and infectious diseases, the document calls on intelligence agencies to strengthen their internal capabilities to warn U.S. policymakers of looming threats.

[...] The emphasis on greater intelligence sharing is part of a broader trend toward declassification that the Biden administration has pursued. The United States has released unprecedented levels of formerly secret intelligence to warn of Russia's plans in Ukraine and its quest for weapons from China, Iran and North Korea.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Study of traditional society in Amazon suggests why evolution hasn't purged harmful variant:

Roughly one in five people are born with at least one copy of a gene variant called APOE4 that makes them more prone to heart disease and Alzheimer's disease in old age. That the variant is so common poses an evolutionary mystery: If it decreases our fitness, why hasn't APOE4 been purged from the human population over time?

Now, a study of nearly 800 women in a traditional society in the Amazon finds that those with the disease-promoting variant had slightly more children. Such a fertility benefit may have allowed the gene to persist during human evolution despite its harmful effects for older people today.

[...] The APOE gene encodes apolipoprotein E, a molecule that helps the body transport cholesterol in the blood. There are three main variants and people can inherit a mix from their parents, with the one called APOE3 being much more common than APOE4. In populations of European ancestry, having one copy of APOE4 raises a person's risk of cardiovascular disease and triples their odds of developing Alzheimer's disease; those with two copies face a 12-fold or higher risk of the brain condition.

[...] University of Copenhagen epidemiologist Rudolf Westendorp notes that his team, which saw a similar result in a Ghanaian population, has also observed such a trade-off in families with another cholesterol-related gene variant that raises heart disease risks: In the 19th century when many people died from infections, carriers actually lived longer. "In the past, carriers of that gene had a survival benefit, which explains why the variants are present nowadays," he says.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Moon is so hot right now, metaphorically speaking. Several US government agencies, private space ventures, and foreign governments like China are plotting for mankind’s return to the lunar surface over the next decade. Unlike the days of Apollo, the modern-day race to the Moon involves establishing a sustainable presence and a thriving economy on and around Earth’s natural satellite.

In an attempt to guide ongoing efforts in establishing a lunar infrastructure, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) kicked off a seven-month study dedicated to developing an analytical framework for scientific and commercial activity on the Moon. Through the 10-Year Lunar Architecture, or LunA-10, study, DARPA is seeking ideas for technology and infrastructure concepts that could help build a Moon-based economy within the next decade.

“A large paradigm shift is coming in the next 10 years for the lunar economy,” Michael Nayak, program manager at DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, said in a statement. “To get to a turning point faster, LunA-10 uniquely aims to identify solutions that can enable multi-mission lunar systems – imagine a wireless power station that can also provide comms and navigation in its beam.”

[...] Luna-10 will select a group of companies that have an idea for lunar services, allowing them to work together to develop an integrated system for lunar communication, energy, transmission or other building blocks necessary to create a future economy on the Moon. The participating companies will be announced in October 2023, with the final report due by June 2024.

DARPA, however, will not fund the construction or transportation of any of the concepts developed as part of the study. Instead, the agency will provide its “economic expertise to all LunA-10 teams to help analyze and validate definitions of a critical mass to create a thriving, survivable lunar economy,” DARPA wrote in its statement.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into Moon

Russia's unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon after spinning out of control, officials say.

It was Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years.

The craft was due to be the first ever to land on the Moon's south pole, but failed after encountering problems as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.

[...] Roscosmos, Russia's state space corporation, said on Sunday morning that it had lost contact with the Luna-25 shortly after 14:57pm (11:57 GMT) on Saturday.

Preliminary findings showed that the 800kg lander had "ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon", it said in a statement.

Previously: Russia Heads Back to the Moon With Luna 25

Original Submission

upstart writes:

But its suggestions are so annoyingly plausible:

ChatGPT, OpenAI's fabulating chatbot, produces wrong answers to software programming questions more than half the time, according to a study from Purdue University. That said, the bot was convincing enough to fool a third of participants.

The Purdue team analyzed ChatGPT's answers to 517 Stack Overflow questions to assess the correctness, consistency, comprehensiveness, and conciseness of ChatGPT's answers. The US academics also conducted linguistic and sentiment analysis of the answers, and questioned a dozen volunteer participants on the results generated by the model.

"Our analysis shows that 52 percent of ChatGPT answers are incorrect and 77 percent are verbose," the team's paper concluded. "Nonetheless, ChatGPT answers are still preferred 39.34 percent of the time due to their comprehensiveness and well-articulated language style." Among the set of preferred ChatGPT answers, 77 percent were wrong.

OpenAI on the ChatGPT website acknowledges its software "may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts." We've asked the lab if it has any comment about the Purdue study.

The pre-print paper is titled, "Who Answers It Better? An In-Depth Analysis of ChatGPT and Stack Overflow Answers to Software Engineering Questions." It was written by researchers Samia Kabir, David Udo-Imeh, Bonan Kou, and assistant professor Tianyi Zhang.

"During our study, we observed that only when the error in the ChatGPT answer is obvious, users can identify the error," their paper stated. "However, when the error is not readily verifiable or requires external IDE or documentation, users often fail to identify the incorrectness or underestimate the degree of error in the answer."

Even when the answer has a glaring error, the paper stated, two out of the 12 participants still marked the response preferred. The paper attributes this to ChatGPT's pleasant, authoritative style.

"From semi-structured interviews, it is apparent that polite language, articulated and text-book style answers, comprehensiveness, and affiliation in answers make completely wrong answers seem correct," the paper explained.

Journal Reference:
Kabir, Samia, Udo-Imeh, David N., Kou, Bonan, et al. Who Answers It Better? An In-Depth Analysis of ChatGPT and Stack Overflow Answers to Software Engineering Questions, arXiv (DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2308.02312)

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Chemical Found in Common Sweetener Damages DNA:

A new study finds a chemical formed when we digest a widely used sweetener is "genotoxic," meaning it breaks up DNA. The chemical is also found in trace amounts in the sweetener itself, and the finding raises questions about how the sweetener may contribute to health problems.

At issue is sucralose, a widely used artificial sweetener. Previous work by the same research team established that several fat-soluble compounds are produced in the gut after sucralose ingestion. One of these compounds is sucralose-6-acetate.

"Our new work establishes that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic," says Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study and an adjunct professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We also found that trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate can be found in off-the-shelf sucralose, even before it is consumed and metabolized.

"To put this in context, the European Food Safety Authority has a threshold of toxicological concern for all genotoxic substances of 0.15 micrograms per person per day," Schiffman says. "Our work suggests that the trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single, daily sucralose-sweetened drink exceed that threshold. And that's not even accounting for the amount of sucralose-6-acetate produced as metabolites after people consume sucralose."

[...] "In short, we found that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic, and that it effectively broke up DNA in cells that were exposed to the chemical," Schiffman says.

[...] "This work raises a host of concerns about the potential health effects associated with sucralose and its metabolites. It's time to revisit the safety and regulatory status of sucralose, because the evidence is mounting that it carries significant risks. If nothing else, I encourage people to avoid products containing sucralose. It's something you should not be eating."

Journal Reference:
Susan S. Schiffman et al., "Toxicological and pharmacokinetic properties of sucralose-6-acetate and its parent sucralose: in vitro screening assays" [open], Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 2023. DOI: 10.1080/10937404.2023.2213903

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

On August 16, the Debian blog announced that the project is now officially 30 years old. The Linux distro was established by Ian A. Murdock in 1993, with a message sent to the comp.os.linux.development newsgroup.

[...] Murdock sparked a movement within the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) community, the Debian blog remarks, and he continued to work on the OS before the Debian Project organization took over. The free operating system is now aided by volunteers all around the world, with support from users, contributors, developers, and of course sponsors.

Debian calls itself the "Universal Operating System," and the system can indeed be found almost everywhere. The OS powers cluster systems, data centers, desktop PCs, embedded systems, IoT devices, laptops, and servers. It can even be found on the computers aboard the International Space Station, with specific, embedded projects conceived to support educational institutions (Debian Edu), scientific research (Debian Science), accessibility (Debian Accessibility), and more.

The best testament to Debian's ongoing success is, however, the fact that it gave birth to more derivative projects than any other Linux distro. Debian is the beating "heart" of gLinux Rodete, the Linux OS internally run by Google, it provided a very convenient way (free as "free in beer") to build some of the most massive cloud infrastructures available today (AWS), and of course it was used as the foundation of Ubuntu.

Nowadays, Ubuntu Linux formally is the most popular free OS with a 33.9% market share, while Debian gets the second place with a 16% share. And then there's the ginormous Chinese market, where Beijing authorities promoted a program to replace Windows with Linux. Chinese users adopted Kylin, which is an Ubuntu remix, and Uniontech's UOS systems with the end-user Linux Deepin system, which is also based on Debian.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/science/smart-rust-estrogen-pollution-water/

Estrogen can harm aquatic plants and animals when passed into waterways via human and agricultural waste streams. Researchers have now developed a new way of removing the hormone from water, however, using what's known as "smart rust."

Developed by scientists at Germany's University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, smart rust takes the form of spherical iron oxide (aka rust) nanoparticles that are covered in phosphonic acid molecules. The molecules protrude from the surface of the spheres like hairs. By binding different compounds to the ends of those hairs, it's possible to make them adsorb different types of waterborne pollutants.

The iron oxide particles themselves are superparamagnetic, meaning they're attracted to magnets but not to one another. This quality keeps them from clumping together – so they can be thoroughly mixed into tainted water – while also making it possible to subsequently remove them from that water simply by swirling a magnet through the liquid.

[...] Due to the fact that estrogen molecules consist of a large steroid body with a slight negative charge, he coated smart rust particles with two types of molecules. One of these has particularly long "hairs," while the other is positively charged. When combined on the surface of the iron oxide spheres, these molecules form multitudes of estrogen-trapping pockets.

When tested on water spiked with estradiol, which is the most potent type of estrogen, the new form of smart rust successfully removed the hormone from that water. Further research will now explore how well the technology works in real-world conditions, and how many times the particles can be reused.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Company that makes rent-setting software for landlords sued for collusion:

Renters filed a lawsuit this week alleging that a company that makes price-setting software for apartments and nine of the nation's biggest property managers formed a cartel to artificially inflate rents in violation of federal law.

The lawsuit was filed days after ProPublica published an investigation raising concerns that the software, sold by Texas-based RealPage, is potentially pushing rent prices above competitive levels, facilitating price-fixing, or both.

The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed in US District Court in San Diego.

In an email, a RealPage representative said that the company "strongly denies the allegations and will vigorously defend against the lawsuit." She declined to comment further, saying the company does not comment on pending litigation.

[...] The lawsuit accused the property managers and RealPage of forming "a cartel to artificially inflate the price of and artificially decrease the supply and output of multifamily residential real estate leases from competitive levels."

RealPage's software uses an algorithm to churn through a trove of data each night to suggest daily prices for available rental units. The software uses not only information about the apartment being priced and the property where it is located, but also private data on what nearby competitors are charging in rents. The software considers actual rents paid to those rivals—not just what they are advertising, the company told ProPublica.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

YouTube tightens thumbscrew to crack down on ad-blockers:

Google has been testing several ways to combat users who use ad-blockers on its YouTube video streaming site. One of the first tests informed users that ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube. The prompt, which blocks access to the site, offers three options to users to react to it. The two prominent ones are to configure the content blocker to allow ads on YouTube or to subscribe to the paid service YouTube Premium.

A small close icon in the top right corner is the third and less focused option. Users have the option to click on the x-icon to close the prompt and continue using YouTube.

Now, it appears, Google is making this option less attractive to users on the site. Instead of displaying the close icon directly, YouTube is now showing a timer in its place. In other words: users who get the prompt have to wait between 30 to 60 seconds before they can close the entire prompt and start using the site.

The notification appears to hit users of different content blockers, including uBlock Origin. It seems that the majority of users are not getting these prompts, likely because Google is still testing reception and the rate of return.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/space/nasa-installs-laser-communication-system-psyche-asteroid-probe/

When NASA's Psyche probe launches in October on its mission to a metal asteroid as much as 309 million miles (497 million km) from Earth, it will be carrying a new laser communications system that promises to revolutionize deep space missions.
...
By relying on old-fashioned X-band radio systems, crewed and robotic missions suffer from bandwidths and transmission speeds that are ridiculously small and slow. A single high resolution image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can take an hour and a half to send and the data from the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby of Pluto took 16 days to download.

In light of this, NASA has been experimenting with using lasers as a way to not only create much faster direct links between space missions and Earth, but also to free up the Deep Space Network (DSN) of antennas for more important tasks than routine communications.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The data collection feature is enabled by default, but you can disable it during installation:

When Intel joined the discrete GPU market almost a year ago, everyone wondered when it would catch up with Nvidia and AMD. As of August 2023, it apparently has, at least in one respect; like its competitors, Intel has introduced a telemetry collection service by default in the latest beta driver for its Arc GPUs. You can opt out of it, but we all know most people just click "yes" to everything during a software installation. Intel's release notes for the drivers don't mention this change to how its drivers work, which is a curious omission.

News of Intel adding telemetry collection to its drivers is a significant change to how its GPU drivers work. Intel has even given this new collation routine a cute name—the Intel Computing Improvement Program. Gee, that sounds pretty wonderful. We want to improve our computing, so let's dive into the details briefly. According to TechPowerUp, which discovered the change, Intel has created a landing page for the program that explains what is collected and what isn't. At a high level, it states, "This program uses information about your computer's performance to make product improvements that may benefit you in the future."

[...] Though this sounds like an egregious overreach regarding the type of data captured, to be fair to Intel, it allows you to opt out of this program. That is apparently not the case with Nvidia, which doesn't even ask for permission at any point during driver installation, according to TechPowerUp. AMD, on the other hand, does give you a choice to opt out like Intel does, regardless of what other options you choose during installation, and even provides an explainer about what it's collecting.

Original Submission