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hubie writes:

Research found while heavy drinkers could tolerate some alcohol better than light drinkers, that disappeared when the heavy drinkers drank their typical amounts:

New research from the University of Chicago found that very heavy drinkers display the same impairment as light drinkers when consuming their usual excessive amount.

The study suggests that the concept of "holding your liquor" is more nuanced than commonly believed. They found heavy drinkers could tolerate some alcohol better than light drinkers, but that disappeared when the heavy drinkers drank their typical amounts.

"There's a lot of thinking that when experienced drinkers (those with alcohol use disorder) consume alcohol, they are tolerant to its impairing effects," said Andrea King, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at UChicago and senior author of the study. "We supported that a bit, but with a lot of nuances. When they drank alcohol in our study at a dose similar to their usual drinking pattern, we saw significant impairments on both the fine motor and cognitive tests that was even more impairment than a light drinker gets at the intoxicating dose."

dept.

X (née Twitter) wants to collect your biometric data and employment history:

X, the social network that you can access at twitter.com, is planning to collect users' biometric information, employment history, and educational history, according to an updated privacy policy. "Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes," the new policy says.

X posted the new version of its privacy policy yesterday, saying it will go into effect on September 29. The current privacy policy that doesn't include collecting biometric data and employment history will remain in effect until September 29.

The new policy says that X "may collect and use your personal information (such as your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement, and so on) to recommend potential jobs for you, to share with potential employers when you apply for a job, to enable employers to find potential candidates, and to show you more relevant advertising."

The biometric data and employment history disclosures are listed in the section, "information you provide us." The policy does not say what kind of biometric data X would collect. We contacted X about the changes and will update this article if we get a response.

The privacy policy changes are being made as X plans to offer video and audio calls. "Video & audio calls coming to X," owner Elon Musk wrote today. The call feature will work on iOS, Android, Mac, and PCs and will not require a phone number, according to Musk.

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coolgopher writes:

An article in The Age reports on a find that could up-end much of what we believe on the origin of humans.

Africa has always been considered the cradle of mankind, where humans evolved from apes on the continent before spreading to the rest of the world.

An intriguing find is challenging the long-standing assumption.

The partial skull of a new ancient ape has been discovered in Turkey, and it appears to predate African apes, suggesting that human origins may actually lie in Europe.

The fossil of Anadoluvius turkae was discovered in Cankiri, a city about 138 kilometres north-east of Ankara, and is thought to date from about 8.7 million years ago.

In contrast, early hominins – the group that includes chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, humans, and their fossil ancestors – were not seen in Africa until about 7 million years ago.

It suggests that the ancestors of African apes and humans evolved in Europe before migrating south between 9 million and 7 million years ago.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Microsoft will start unbundling Teams from its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 productivity suites in EU markets in October. The move is designed to avoid further antitrust scrutiny, after the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams software with the Office productivity suite last month.

“Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it,” says Nanna-Louise Linde, VP of Microsoft european government affairs. “These changes will impact our Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.”

[...] Alongside the Teams unbundling, Microsoft is also planning to improve its documentation on interoperability with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 for rivals like Zoom and Slack to integrate into Exchange, Outlook, and Teams. Microsoft will also allow rivals to host Office web applications within their competing apps, just like how Microsoft does in Teams.

Microsoft will now have to wait on EU regulators to decide whether its unbundling of Teams from Office suites in EU markets is enough. “We believe these changes balance the interests of our competitors with those of European business customers, providing them with access to the best possible solutions at competitive prices,” says Linde. “We also recognize that we are still in the early stages of the European Commission’s formal investigation. We will continue to engage with the Commission, listen to concerns in the marketplace, and remain open to exploring pragmatic solutions that benefit both customers and developers in Europe.”

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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

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The Chandrayaan-3 rover is the first to leave its track marks on the Moon’s south pole, and the six-wheeled explorer has made a breakthrough discovery that could have major implications for establishing a future lunar habitat.

Using the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) instrument onboard the Pragyan rover, the Chandrayaan-3 mission found traces of sulfur on the lunar surface near the Moon’s south pole, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter).

[...] The rover also found aluminum, calcium, chromium, iron, manganese, oxygen, titanium and silicon, according to ISRO. The presence of sulfur, however, was the most surprising.

Sulfur is a chemical element that’s found in soil, water, and plants on Earth. Its existence on the Moon suggests that it could be trapped in water ice in the lunar south pole; the detection of sulphur infers the presence of water ice. Accordingly, the presence of sulphur and other elements on the Moon’s south pole also suggests that this region is not as inhospitable as previously believed.

The south pole is of great interest to space agencies racing to get to the lunar surface, with plans to build a permanent lunar habitat and establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Previous evidence suggests that the lunar south pole has reservoirs of ice water in its permanently shadowed regions, which could be used for drinking water or fuel.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed on the Moon on August 23, making India the fourth country to achieve such feat after the Soviet Union, the U.S., and China. The mission is set to last for 14 days, the equivalent of one full lunar day when the sunlight reaches the Moon’s surface.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

IBM has returned to the facial recognition market — just three years after announcing it was abandoning work on the technology due to concerns about racial profiling, mass surveillance, and other human rights violations.

In June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests swept the US after George Floyd’s murder, IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna wrote a letter to Congress announcing that the company would no longer offer “general purpose” facial recognition technology. “The fight against racism is as urgent as ever,” he wrote. “IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency.” Later that year, the company redoubled its commitment, calling for US export controls to address concerns that facial recognition could be used overseas “to suppress dissent, to infringe on the rights of minorities, or to erase basic expectations of privacy.”

Despite these announcements, last month, IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government to develop a national biometrics platform that will offer a facial recognition function to immigration and law enforcement officials, according to documents reviewed by The Verge and Liberty Investigates, an investigative journalism unit in the UK.

hubie writes:

Complex organic molecules observed in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away from Earth:

The discovery of the molecules, which are familiar on Earth in smoke, soot and smog, demonstrates the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe's history. At least for galaxies, the new findings cast doubt on the old adage that where there's smoke, there's fire.

Using the Webb telescope, Texas A&M University astronomer Justin Spilker and collaborators found the organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away. Because of its extreme distance, the light detected by the astronomers began its journey when the universe was less than 1.5 billion years old — about 10% of its current age. The galaxy was first discovered by the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope in 2013 and has since been studied by many observatories, including the radio telescope ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope.

[...] The data from Webb found the telltale signature of large organic molecules akin to smog and smoke —building blocks of the same cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions on Earth that are key contributors to atmospheric pollution. However, Spilker says the implications of galactic smoke signals are much less disastrous for their cosmic ecosystems.

"These big molecules are actually pretty common in space," Spilker explained. "Astronomers used to think they were a good sign that new stars were forming. Anywhere you saw these molecules, baby stars were also right there blazing away."

The new results from Webb show that this idea might not exactly ring true in the early universe, according to Spilker.

hubie writes:

Metaverse could put a dent in global warming:

For many technology enthusiasts, the metaverse – a virtual 3D environment in which the physical and digital worlds converge – has the potential to transform almost every facet of human life, from work to education to entertainment.

New Cornell research shows the metaverse could have environmental benefits, too: lowering the global surface temperature by up to 0.02 degrees Celsius before the end of the century.

[...] The team used AI-based modeling to analyze data from key sectors – technology, energy, environment and business – to anticipate the growth of metaverse usage and the impact of its most promising applications: remote work, virtual traveling, distance learning, gaming and non-fungible tokens.

The researchers projected metaverse expansion through 2050 along three different trajectories – slow, nominal and fast – and they looked to previous technologies, such as television, the internet and the iPhone, for insight into how quickly that adoption might occur. They also factored in the amount of energy that increasing usage would consume. The modeling suggested that within 30 years, the technology would be adopted by more than 90% of the population.

"One thing that did surprise us is that this metaverse is going to grow much quicker than what we expected," You said. "Look at earlier technologies – TV, for instance. It took decades to be eventually adopted by everyone. Now we are really in an age of technology explosion. Think of our smartphones. They grew very fast."

owl writes:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/61116/why-did-old-phone-numbers-start-letters

On I Love Lucy, whenever Lucy or Ricky Ricardo gave out their phone number, they'd say it as "Murray Hill 5-9975." Even though that may look and sound like gibberish to modern phone-users, it was perfectly normal at the time. Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do.

Phone numbers looked like this in the middle of the 20th century because of telephone exchanges—the hubs through which an area's calls would be routed. Phone subscribers were given a unique five-digit number within their service area. These would be preceded by two digits, which were identified by letters, that denoted the telephone exchange you were connected to. (Before the 1950s, some cities used three letters and four numbers, while others had two letters and three numbers. The two letter, five number format—or "2L-5N"—was eventually standardized throughout the country).

Because these telephone exchanges could only facilitate around 10,000 subscribers, many large cities had multiple hubs. The Ricardo's MUrray Hill5-9975 meant their number was 685-9975 ("Hill" and its capital H served purely as a mnemonic), with the 68, or "MU," representing the east side of Manhattan's telephone exchange. This is also why phones still have letters over the numbers (three over 2 through 8, and four over 9).

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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

You may be surprised to know that Germany's wild boars are too radioactive to eat – and Chernobyl may not be solely to blame. Fallout from nuclear weapons testing decades ago during the Cold War is a significant contributor to that radiation, it turns out.

High levels of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 – or caesium-137 for those outside the US – found inside most animal species living in Bavarian forests have declined over time, except for wild swine. Scientists haven't been able to explain this so-called "wild boar paradox," though a team of researchers led by those at the Leibniz University Hannover may be one step closer to figuring out why.

They analyzed 48 wild boar meat samples to potentially pinpoint the source of the contamination. In 88 percent of the samples, the level of radiation from cesium-137 exceeded Germany's food safety limits of 600 Bq/kg. It's believed this radiocesium got into the boars' diet via truffles, which they root out from underground. The cesium-137 sinks down, is absorbed by the fungus, and then gobbled up by the pigs.

The radioactive cesium likely came from two possible sources: the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, and nuclear weapons testing during that century. To check for this, and using a mass spectrometer, the university team calculated the ratio of cesium-135 to cesium-137 in the wild boar, and found the ratio high enough to suggest that, as the scientists put it, "nuclear weapons fallout contributes significantly to the notorious contamination levels in wild boars in central Europe that were previously believed to be dominated by Chernobyl."

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

If you fancy creating a blog or website to discuss the Arm architecture or the Softbank-owned outfit that develops it, keep the British CPU designer's name out of the domain name you choose – or draw the wrath of its lawyers.

[...] Strictly speaking, the letter went to the web host provider for her Arm-related websites, who passed it onto Markstedter to handle. The missive demanded that the website come down as it featured Arm's "Arm" trademark in the domain name.

[...] Arm's rush to snatch up domain names is somewhat ironic, considering that in 2018 the biz create the website riscv-basics.com and used it to host content smearing rival RISC-V architecture and list multiple reasons why Arm's tech is superior. Arm pulled the dot-com after an internal revolt by its staff, and the domain has since lapsed into someone else's hands.

Arm's takedown comes just a week after the Neoverse designer officially filed for an IPO on the US Nasdaq. In the filing, Arm disclosed numerous risk factors, including many related to its operations in China. However, we don't recall any mention of experts writing tutorials about its ISA as something Arm thinks investors need to worry about.

That said, it did warn: "We primarily rely on patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark laws, trade secret protection and contractual protections ... to protect our IP rights.

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hubie writes:

The earliest reptiles, birds and mammals may have borne live young:

Until now, the hard-shelled egg was thought to be the key to the success of the amniotes - a group of vertebrates that undergo embryonic or foetal development within an amnion, a protective membrane inside the egg.

However, a fresh study of 51 fossil species and 29 living species which could be categorised as oviparous (laying hard or soft-shelled eggs) or viviparous (giving birth to live young) suggests otherwise.

The findings, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, show that all the great evolutionary branches of Amniota, namely Mammalia, Lepidosauria (lizards and relatives), and Archosauria (dinosaurs, crocodilians, birds) reveal viviparity and extended embryo retention in their ancestors.

Extended embryo retention (EER) is when the young are retained by the mother for a varying amount of time, likely depending on when conditions are best for survival.

While the hard-shelled egg has often been seen as one of the greatest innovations in evolution, this research implies it was EER that gave this particular group of animals the ultimate protection.

[...] "EER is common and variable in lizards and snakes today. Their young can be released, either inside an egg or as little wrigglers, at different developmental stages, and there appears to be ecological advantages of EER, perhaps allowing the mothers to release their young when temperatures are warm enough and food supplies are rich."

Professor Benton concluded: "Our work, and that of many others in recent years, has consigned the classic 'reptile egg' model of the textbooks to the wastebasket.

"The first amniotes had evolved extended embryo retention rather than a hard-shelled egg to protect the developing embryo for a lesser or greater amount of time inside the mother, so birth could be delayed until environments become favourable.

"Whether the first amniote babies were born in parchment eggs or as live, snapping little insect-eaters is unknown, but this adaptive parental protection gave them the advantage over spawning earlier tetrapods."

Journal Reference:
Jiang, B., He, Y., Elsler, A. et al. Extended embryo retention and viviparity in the first amniotes. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1131–1140 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02074-0

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hubie writes:

19-Hour Days for a Billion Years of Earth's History: Study:

It's tough accomplishing everything we want to get done in a day. But it would have been even more difficult had we lived earlier in Earth's history.

Although we take the 24-hour day for granted, in Earth's deep past, days were even shorter.

Day length was shorter because the Moon was closer. "Over time, the Moon has stolen Earth's rotational energy to boost it into a higher orbit farther from Earth," said Ross Mitchell, geophysicist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

"Most models of Earth's rotation predict that day length was consistently shorter and shorter going back in time," said Uwe Kirscher, co-author of the study and a research fellow now at Curtin University in Australia.

But a slow and steady change in day length going back in time is not what Mitchell and Kirscher found.

[Continues...]

Journal Reference:
Mitchell, R.N., Kirscher, U. Mid-Proterozoic day length stalled by tidal resonance. Nat. Geosci. 16, 567–569 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01202-6

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hubie writes:

This makes the chance of other habitable planets in the Universe more likely:

Up until now, researchers believed that it took more than 100 million years for the Earth to form. And it was also common belief that water was delivered by lucky collisions with water-rich asteroids like comets.

However, a new study from the University of Copenhagen suggests that it might not have happened entirely by chance.

"We show that the Earth formed by the very fast accumulation of small millimeter-sized pebbles. In this mechanism, the Earth was formed in just a few million years. Based on our findings, it appears that the presence of water on Earth is a byproduct of its formation" says Martin Bizzarro, who is a Professor at Globe Institute and one of the researchers behind the new study.

The results of the research not only show that the Earth was created much faster than previously thought, but that the presence of water is a predicted outcome of its formation process. This is important knowledge because it tells us something about planets outside our own Solar System.

"With this new planet formation mechanism, the chance of having habitable planets in the galaxy is much higher than we previously thought," says Martin Bizzarro.

Habitability is the potential for a planet to have the right ingredients at its surface for life to develop. One key ingredient for habitability is water.

[...] An example of this could be if comets, which are icy bodies, bombarded the surface of Earth towards the end of its formation.

"If that is how Earth was formed, then it is pretty lucky that we have water on Earth. This makes the chances that there is water on planets outside our Solar System very low," says Martin Schiller.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The International Gemini Observatory, a key player in global astronomical research, has temporarily halted astronomical operations following a cyberattack. The culprits and their motives remain unknown.

The computer hack, which took place on the morning of August 1, led to the suspension of the Gemini North and South Telescopes, as detailed in an August 24 statement from the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab). While the North telescope is situated in Hawaii, its southern counterpart is located on Cerro Pachón, Chili, with a few other smaller telescopes located in Cerro Tololo, also in Chile. Observatories stationed on Arizona’s Kitt Peak, however, remain unaffected by the intrusion, according to NOIRLab.

[...] “Like the entire astronomy community, we are disappointed that some of our telescopes are not currently observing. Fortunately, we have been able to keep some telescopes online and collect data with in-person workarounds,” NOIRLab stated in its release. “We are grateful for the support of the astronomy community during this difficult time and we thank everyone for their patience as our teams continue to work towards restoring normal operations.”

[...] For the time being, Gemini North has been securely positioned in its zenith-pointing orientation. NOIRLab credits the prompt actions of its security team for preventing any damage to the observatory. As to who is responsible for the hacks, or their motivations, that remains either unknown or undisclosed. NOIRLab has been tight-lipped about the incident, claiming that it is “limited” in what it can share about its “cybersecurity controls and investigatory findings.”

The nature of the hacks is not known, but as Space.com points out, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) had previously alerted the public about such threats—and even the potential for espionage—in the space sector, emphasizing the critical importance of space assets to national security and economic strength.

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