SoylentNews

hubie writes:

Research could pave the way to new anti-malarials that work by "jet-lagging" the parasites that cause the disease:

Health officials warn that drug resistance could wipe out recent progress against malaria, particularly in Africa and southeast Asia. Now, researchers looking for other ways to fight the mosquito-borne parasites that cause the disease have zeroed in on a potential new target: biological clocks.

Most living things have internal clocks that govern fluctuations in everything from hunger and hormone levels to when genes are active throughout the day.

In a study published June 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers analyzed gene activity in patients who showed up at medical facilities along the Thailand-Cambodia border, showing signs of a malaria infection in their blood.

The team found that malaria parasites somehow sync their molecular rhythms with the internal 24-hour clocks of their hosts, their respective genes rising and falling in perfect lockstep with each other over the course of a day, like two pendulum clocks with synchronized swings.

[...] When someone has malaria, a deadly loop repeats itself inside their body. The disease's recurring fever spikes are caused by microscopic Plasmodium parasites that invade the person's red blood cells, multiply, and then burst out in unison, spewing into the bloodstream by the millions to invade other cells and begin the cycle anew.

This cycle repeats itself every 24, 48 or 72 hours depending on the Plasmodium species. Which got scientists wondering: could the parasites be coordinating in some way with the 24-hour circadian rhythms of their hosts?

owl writes:

https://gist.github.com/kj800x/be3001c07c49fdb36970633b0bc6defb

I recently bought an LG ULTRAGEAR monitor secondhand off of a coworker. I really love it and it's been great so far, but I ran into some minor issues with it in Linux. It works great on both Mac and Windows, but on Linux it displays just a black panel until I use the second monitor to go in and reduce the refresh rate down to 60 Hz.

This has worked decent so far but there's some issues:

It doesn't work while linux is booting up. The motherboards boot sequence is visible just fine, but as soon as control is handed over to Linux and I'd normally see a splash screen while I'm waiting for my login window, I see nothing.

It doesn't work on the login screen. This would be fine if login consistently worked on my second screen, but I need to manually switch the cables between my work computer and the desktop for the second screen and sometimes I don't feel like doing that. Even when I switch the cables, the second screen seems to be moody and doesn't always show the login screen either.

Once I've logged in and fixed the settings on my second screen it seems to go fine, unless I actually unplug the second screen. If I do, it looks like the graphics settings go reset back to default (settings that don't work) and I lose the main monitor too.

And down the rabbit hole we go.....

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Gentle cleansers are just as effective in killing viruses – including coronavirus – as harsh soaps:

Health care professionals often substitute harsh soaps or alcohol-based hand sanitisers with skin-friendly cleansers in order to treat or prevent irritant contact dermatitis - a common skin disease which causes red and swollen skin with a dry and damaged surface.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, incidence and severity of the disease amongst healthcare professionals increased from 20 per cent to 80 per cent.

Despite the widespread use of gentle cleansing products for handwashing, there has been limited evidence to show the antiviral efficacy of the products to prevent the spread of viruses such as human coronavirus, herpes simplex virus, norovirus and influenza.

[...] The findings, published in the journal Frontiers Virology, show gentle cleansers were effective in killing enveloped viruses, but non-enveloped viruses displayed resistance against skin-friendly cleansers, as well as harsh soaps.

Lead author of the study, Dr Munitta Muthana from the University of Sheffield's Department of Oncology and Metabolism, said: "Washing our hands with soap and warm water for 20 seconds was a fundamental message advocated in the UK to help stop the spread of Covid-19. But for healthcare professionals, who can wash their hands as many as 100 times during a 12 hour shift, this may cause unintended adverse effects.

[...] "For the first time, our study has shown substituting harsh soaps with milder wash products such as gentle cleansers is effective in fighting against enveloped viruses, including human coronavirus, which is very encouraging - especially for those in jobs in which irritant contact dermatitis is an occupational hazard. We also found that using additional agents such as moisturisers to help protect the skin didn't prevent the products' antiviral activity, which means we don't have to use very harsh products on our skin in order to kill viruses."

upstart writes:

Comcast and other ISPs asked FCC to ditch listing-every-fee rule. FCC says "no":

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday rejected requests to eliminate an upcoming requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees.

Five major trade groups representing US broadband providers petitioned the FCC in January to scrap the requirement before it takes effect. In June, Comcast told the FCC that the listing-every-fee rule "impose[s] significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the broadband label requirements."

The five trade groups kept up the pressure earlier this month in a meeting with FCC officials and in a filing that complained that listing every fee is too hard. The FCC refused to bend, announcing yesterday that the rules will take effect without major changes.

"Every consumer needs transparent information when making decisions about what Internet service offering makes the most sense for their family or household. No one wants to be hit with charges they didn't ask for or they did not expect," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said.

Yesterday's order "largely affirms the rules... while making some revisions and clarifications such as modifying provider record-keeping requirements when directing consumers to a label on an alternative sales channel and confirming that providers may state 'taxes included' when their price already incorporates taxes," the FCC said.

[...] Rejecting the broadband industry's request, the FCC order yesterday said:

[W]e affirm our requirement that providers display all monthly fees with respect to broadband service on the label to provide consumers with clear and accurate information about the cost of their broadband service. We thus decline providers' request that they not disclose those fees or that they instead display an "up to" price for certain fees they choose to pass through to consumers.

Specifically, "providers must itemize the fees they add to base monthly prices, including fees related to government programs they choose to 'pass through' to consumers, such as fees related to universal service or regulatory fees," the FCC said.

Ha Ha!

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Samsung's compliance committee chair has told local media the massive conglomerate is now on the straight and narrow, after years spent dealing with the legal fallout of past ethical lapses.

Lee Chan-hee told South Korean newswire Yonhap the chaebol's culture has changed, and potentially sensitive issues are now investigated by the committee he chairs.

"I think management now believes abiding by the law is much more helpful in doing business. They paid a costly price for caving to short-sighted gain and political pressure," said Lee.

The compliance committee Lee heads was launched in 2020 following a 2019 court order requiring Samsung to adopt preventative measures against ethical breaches.

Lee's comments come a week after Samsung reportedly decided to rejoin industry group the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI).

Samsung left the group six years ago amidst scandal when South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, was found to have used FKI as a means to secure payments from member companies – including Samsung. That finding diminished the Federation's reputation and saw Park impeached and jailed for nearly five years.

[...] FKI since then has sought to rehabilitate its image. Last week it even changed its name to Korea Economic Association and set up an ethics committee.

In his inaugural address, the lobby group's newly appointed chairman, Ryu Jin, pledged to "clean up the dark past and cut off the wrong links," adding that the reconstituted org will "practice ethical management and ensure that a transparent corporate culture takes root throughout the business world."

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/we-dont-understand-how-a-freakishly-heavy-exoplanet-could-have-formed/

Neptune-sized planet has a density similar to pure silver.

Scientists have been working on models of planet formation since before we knew exoplanets existed. Originally guided by the properties of the planets in our Solar System, these models turned out to be remarkably good at also accounting for exoplanets without an equivalent in our Solar System, like super Earths and hot Neptunes. Add in the ability of planets to move around thanks to gravitational interactions, and the properties of exoplanets could usually be accounted for.

Today, a large international team of researchers is announcing the discovery of something our models can't explain. It's roughly Neptune's size but four times more massive. Its density—well above that of iron—is compatible with either the entire planet being almost entirely solid or it having an ocean deep enough to drown entire planets. While the people who discovered it offer a couple of theories for its formation, neither is especially likely.

Journal Reference:
Naponiello, L., Mancini, L., Sozzetti, A. et al. A super-massive Neptune-sized planet. Nature (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06499-2

Original Submission

Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee will be Friday, September 1st, 2023 at 20:30 UTC (1:30pm PDT, 4:30pm EDT) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when available.

The agenda for the upcoming meeting will also be published when available. Minutes and agenda, and other governance committee information are to be found on the SoylentNews Wiki at: https://wiki.staging.soylentnews.org/wiki/Governance

Our community is always encouraged to observe and participate, and is invited to the meeting. Hope to see you then!

looorg writes:

From a pool of 32 university-level courses from eight disciplines, from political science to computer science, the average university student is being surpassed by ChatGPT. Exceptions in Maths, which is odd since it's basically a giant calculator, and with tick questions, that it apparently can't identify and detect properly.

It is not made clear the level of the courses beyond that it mainly appears to be undergraduate courses, there should still be a difference between first and last year in level. Perhaps there is a difference from first year courses where it's mostly a matter of reciting known facts and data to the later half when the requirements of more critical thinking and interpretation and analysis is required.

Other findings include that AI plagiarism detecting is poor and mostly unable to tell which text was written by a human and which is regurgitated AI text blobs.

Alternatively it could also be that the average student have just gotten worse over the years. The bottom end of the spectrum has increased as more and more students are forced into academia.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38964-3
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/25/chatgpt_outperforms_average_uni_students/

Original Submission

"dalek" writes:

Gizmodo and Wired, among other sources, report that Polish railways were halted on Friday and Saturday due to unauthorized radio broadcasts. Polish railroads use the broadcasting of three tones on the 151.010 MHz frequency to instruct trains to stop. This occurred in three locations around Poland. Cheap radio equipment would be sufficient to issue the stop command, though it required that whoever broadcasted the signal would need to be in close proximity to the location affected. Despite the simplicity of the attack, there probably needed to be some coordination to broadcast the signals at different places in Poland.

There is no authentication or encryption to issue the emergency stop command, though discussions on various forums suggest that only the stop command is broadcast in this manner. A general design principle in railroad signaling systems is that the default should be to stop trains. For example, the multi-colored signaling lights commonly used in the United States and Canada that still mechanically switch between colors will default to a red stop signal. Trains require long distances to stop, and defaulting to a stop signal will prevent collisions. Authorities in Poland insist that there was there was no safety risk to rail passengers, and this seems reasonable if the unauthorized broadcasts were only able to issue an emergency stop command but not to instruct trains to move.

When this topic was discussed on Slashdot, it quickly turned to politics, but I find the technical aspects of this much more interesting. In North America, lights and semaphores are common and simple signaling mechanisms that have widespread use. For example, I know from experience that the same signaling system described in the video for use in Canada is also used on many BNSF main lines in the United States. However, other systems are also in use like the Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) and Positive Train Control (PTC). At some locations in the US, it was possible to use a software defined radio and software like ATCSMon to track the locations of trains in the area. However, railroads also generally also use unencrypted voice communications between trains and dispatchers, and these can still be monitored with a scanner.

upstart writes:

Tourists Give Themselves Away by Looking Up. So Do Most Network Intruders.

In large metropolitan areas, tourists are often easy to spot because they're far more inclined than locals to gaze upward at the surrounding skyscrapers. Security experts say this same tourist dynamic is a dead giveaway in virtually all computer intrusions that lead to devastating attacks like data theft and ransomware, and that more organizations should set simple virtual tripwires that sound the alarm when authorized users and devices are spotted exhibiting this behavior.

In a blog post published last month, Cisco Talos said it was seeing a worrisome "increase in the rate of high-sophistication attacks on network infrastructure." Cisco's warning comes amid a flurry of successful data ransom and state-sponsored cyber espionage attacks targeting some of the most well-defended networks on the planet.

But despite their increasing complexity, a great many initial intrusions that lead to data theft could be nipped in the bud if more organizations started looking for the telltale signs of newly-arrived cybercriminals behaving like network tourists, Cisco says.

"One of the most important things to talk about here is that in each of the cases we've seen, the threat actors are taking the type of 'first steps' that someone who wants to understand (and control) your environment would take," Cisco's Hazel Burton wrote. "Examples we have observed include threat actors performing a 'show config,' 'show interface,' 'show route,' 'show arp table' and a 'show CDP neighbor.' All these actions give the attackers a picture of a router's perspective of the network, and an understanding of what foothold they have."

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Babies' and toddlers' access to more screen time could lead to developmental risks, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association of Pediatrics (JAMA) on Monday. The study, conducted by researchers in Japan looked at the amount of time 7,097 children spent on tablets, phones, watching TV, or using other technology and how it related to their corresponding mental and physical abilities as they got older.

[...] The study found that by two years old, babies who spent up to four hours per day in front of a screen were three times more likely to experience communication and problem-solving delays, while those who spent four or more hours on their devices were 5.78 times more likely to experience the same delays. They were also 1.74 times more likely to have underdeveloped fine motor skills and two times more likely to have not properly developed their personal and social skills.

The study reported that four-year-old children who had more screen time had developmental delays in communication, gross motor and fine motor skills, problem-solving skills, and personal and social skills.

“Kids learn how to talk if they’re encouraged to talk, and very often, if they’re just watching a screen, they’re not having an opportunity to practice talking,” Dr. John Hutton, associate professor of general and community pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, who wasn’t involved in the study told CNN. “They may hear a lot of words, but they’re not practicing saying a lot of words or having a lot of that back-and-forth interaction.”

taylorvich writes:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/23/discovered-in-the-deep-octopus-garden-davidson-seamount-california-like-hot-tub-hatchery

Scientists have solved the mystery of why tens of thousands of octopuses cluster on the foothills of a giant underwater mountain, two miles down off the coast of California. The pearl octopuses, so named because from a distance they look like scattered gems, seek out warm water seeping through the seabed and use it to speed up the hatching of their eggs
...
The mauve, grapefruit-sized female octopuses each lay about 60 eggs and cement them to the bare rock, then guard them until they hatch. Temperature probes showed the water bathing the eggs ranged from 5C to 10C (40-50F), while less than a metre away it dropped to a frigid 1.6C.

Revisiting individual nests, the team saw that rather than taking a decade or longer to hatch, as would happen in the very cold deep sea, baby octopuses emerge from their cosy nests after less than two years, dramatically boosting their chances of survival.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Excel gets containerized, cloud-based Python analytics and visualization powers:

If you're decent in Python (or aspire to be) but don't have the chops for advanced data work in Excel, Microsoft now offers the kind of peanut butter-and-chocolate combination that you may consider a gift. At least until it goes behind the paywall.

Microsoft's Stefan Kinnestrand, writing about "the best of both worlds for data analysis and visualization," writes that this public preview of Python in Excel will allow spreadsheet tinkerers to "manipulate and explore data in Excel using Python plots and libraries and then use Excel's formulas, charts, and PivotTables to further refine your insights."

Microsoft partnered with Python analytics repository Anaconda to bring libraries like Pandas, Statsmodels, and Matplotlib into Excel. Python in Excel runs on Microsoft's cloud servers, and the company is touting the security that should offer. Python runs in isolated containers, with no access to devices, your network, or user tokens, Microsoft states. Python and Excel can only really talk to each other through limited functions—xl() and =PY()—that can only return code results, not macros, VBA code, or other data, Microsoft claims.

[...] It will be interesting to see how Python's integration into Excel works out. It's a very specialized, cloud-hosted, and seemingly containerized and secured code offering. But Office apps' history with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) scripts and macros has a long history of exploits, patches, and more exploits. Early last year, Microsoft all but banned downloaded macros in Office unless someone goes out of their way to get infected. Barring that, it's an intriguing expansion of a code environment that is already Turing complete.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Secure your domain name for the next 100 years with Wordpress, a company that has only been around for about 20 years.
For only $38k including hosting fees and domain name. It's not exactly cheap, but I guess they had to include the cost of inflation and other increases for the next 100 years.

Still unsure what is the weirdest part of it -- that they in general believe the system with domain names will be around in a century or that Wordpress will still be around. Also do you have to pay the century fee in advance or is it an installment plan per year or decade or? Not sure I would care to plonk down $38k at once for a domain name.

Is this the future of the web? A necropolis of dead sites that never update. Who is there to secure that you actually remain online after death? Beyond trust and that you are hoping that Wordpress remains online.

https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/08/25/introducing-the-100-year-plan/
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-100-year-domain-name-registrations/

Original Submission

upstart writes:

What's the point of locks when hackers can easily get the keys to unlock them?

In July, security researchers revealed a sobering discovery: hundreds of pieces of malware used by multiple hacker groups to infect Windows devices had been digitally signed and validated as safe by Microsoft itself. On Tuesday, a different set of researchers made a similarly solemn announcement: Microsoft's digital keys had been hijacked to sign yet more malware for use by a previously unknown threat actor in a supply-chain attack that infected roughly 100 carefully selected victims.

The malware, researchers from Symantec's Threat Hunter Team reported, was digitally signed with a certificate for use in what is alternatively known as the Microsoft Windows Hardware Developer Program and the Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Program. The program is used to certify that device drivers—the software that runs deep inside the Windows kernel—come from a known source and that they can be trusted to securely access the deepest and most sensitive recesses of the operating system. Without the certification, drivers are ineligible to run on Windows.

Somehow, members of this hacking team—which Symantec is calling Carderbee—managed to get Microsoft to digitally sign a type of malware known as a rootkit. Once installed, rootkits become what's essentially an extension of the OS itself. To gain that level of access without tipping off end-point security systems and other defenses, the Carderbee hackers first needed its rootkit to receive the Microsoft seal of approval, which it got after Microsoft signed it.

With the rootkit signed, Carderbee went on to pull another audacious feat. Through means that aren't yet clear, the group attacked the infrastructure of Esafenet, a China-based developer of software, known as the Cobra DocGuard Client, for encrypting and decrypting software so it can't be tampered with. Then, Carderbee used its newfound control to push malicious updates to roughly 2,000 organizations that are Cobra DocGuard customers. Hacking group members then pushed the Microsoft-signed rootkit to roughly 100 of those organizations. Representatives with Esafenet and its parent company, NSFOCUS, didn't respond to an email asking for verification.