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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

An extreme drought in parts of the Amazon has led to a dramatic drop in river water levels, exposing dozens of usually submerged rock formations with carvings of human forms that may date back some 2,000 years.

[...] The rock carvings are not usually visible because they are covered by the waters of the Negro River, whose flow recorded its lowest level in 121 years last week.

The surfacing of the engravings on the riverbank have delighted scientists and the general public alike but also raised unsettling questions.

"We come, we look at (the engravings) and we think they are beautiful. But at the same time, it is worrying... I also think about whether this river will exist in 50 or 100 years," Ribeiro said.

[...] According to experts, the dry season has worsened this year due to El Niño, an irregular climate pattern over the Pacific Ocean that disrupts normal weather, adding to the effect of climate change.

The engravings comprise an archaeological site of "great relevance," said Jaime Oliveira of the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (Iphan).

[...] Most of the engravings are of human faces, some of them rectangular and others oval, with smiles or grim expressions.

"The site expresses emotions, feelings, it is an engraved rock record, but it has something in common with current works of art," said Oliveira.

For Beatriz Carneiro, historian and member of Iphan, Praia das Lajes has an "inestimable" value in understanding the first people who inhabited the region, a field still little explored.

"Unhappily it is now reappearing with the worsening of the drought," Carneiro said. "Having our rivers back (flooded) and keeping the engravings submerged will help preserve them, even more than our work."

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Intel's futuristic 20A and 18A process nodes are expected to debut in new CPUs in 2024 or 2025. However, TSMC has already declared victory over the US company, with plans to introduce comparable manufacturing technology within the same timeframe, but with improvements across the board.

During a recent earnings call, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei stated that their internal assessment confirmed the enhancements of the N3P technology. TSMC's 3nm-class manufacturing node demonstrated "comparable PPA" (power performance area) to Intel's 18A node. N3P is expected to be even better, arriving earlier on the market, boasting "better technology maturity," and offering significant cost advantages.

Wei emphasized that TSMC doesn't underestimate or take the competition lightly. He also mentioned that the company's 2-nanometer technology, while still a work in progress, is expected to surpass both N3P and 18A. TSMC's 2nm-class manufacturing process is on track to become the most advanced technology in the semiconductor industry when it's introduced in 2025.

[...] Wei mentioned that N3 is expected to contribute to a "mid-single-digit percentage" of TSMC's total wafer revenue in 2023, with a significantly higher percentage anticipated for 2024. There is strong demand for 3nm products from various customers who are seeking improved performance, power efficiency, yield, and "comprehensive platform support" for both high-performance computing (HPC) and smartphone applications.

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upstart writes:

A new Google Search malvertizing campaign targets users looking to download the popular Notepad++ text editor, employing advanced techniques to evade detection and analysis:

Threat actors have been increasingly abusing Google Ads in malvertising campaigns to promote fake software websites that distribute malware.

According to Malwarebytes, which spotted the Notepad++ malvertising campaign, it has been live for several months but managed to fly under the radar all this time.

The final payload delivered to victims is unknown, but Malwarebytes says it's most likely Cobalt Strike, which usually precedes highly damaging ransomware deployments.

The Notepad++ malvertizing campaign promotes URLs that are obviously unrelated to the software project yet use misleading titles displayed in Google Search result advertisements.

[...] Once victims click on any of the ads, a redirection step checks their IP to filter out users likely to be crawlers, VPNs, bots, etc., leading them to a decoy site that does not drop anything malicious.

In contrast, legitimate targets are redirected to "notepadxtreme[.]com" which mimics the real Notepad++ site, featuring download links for various versions of the text editor.

[...] Victims who are marked as suitable targets are then served an HTA script, which is assigned a unique ID, likely to enable the attackers to track their infections. That payload is served only once per victim, so a second visit results in a 404 error.

[...] To avoid downloading malware when looking for specific software tools, skip promoted results on Google Search and double-check that you have landed on the official domain.

If unsure about the project's real website, check its "About" page, documentation, Wikipedia page, and official social media channels.

And don't forget that Google doesn't want you using an ad blocker.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/10/covid-antiviral-paxlovid-to-see-price-increase-following-400-vaccine-hike/

After raising the price of COVID-19 vaccines more than fourfold this year, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told investors Monday that the company will also likely hike the price of its lifesaving COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, raising further concern about access and health care costs.

The price of the drug is already $530 for a treatment course.
[...]
In a company investor call Monday, Bourla said only that the "pandemic price" of $530 is likely to be "lesser" than the commercial price and that negotiations are beginning.

One financial analyst who follows the company, Evercore ISI's Umer Raffat, told CNN that the price could go up roughly three- to fivefold, to as much as $2,500 per course.

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upstart writes:

SpaceBorn United wants to conduct an IVF experiment in Earth's orbit to pave the way for long-term space missions:

Egbert Edelbroek was acting as a sperm donor when he first wondered whether it's possible to have babies in space.

Curious about the various ways that donated sperm can be used, Edelbroek, a Dutch entrepreneur, began to speculate on whether in vitro fertilization technology was possible beyond Earth—or could even be improved by the conditions found there. Could the weightlessness of space be better than a flat laboratory petri dish?

Now Edelbroek is CEO of SpaceBorn United, a biotech startup seeking to pioneer the study of human reproduction away from Earth. Next year, he plans to send a mini lab on a rocket into low Earth orbit, where in vitro fertilization, or IVF, will take place. If it succeeds, Edelbroek hopes his work could pave the way for future space settlements.

"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."

Beyond future space colonies, there is also a more pressing need to understand the effects of space on the human reproductive system. No one has ever become pregnant in space—yet. But with the rise of space tourism, it's likely that it will eventually happen one day. Edelbroek thinks we should be prepared.

[...] If it is able to pull off this test, SpaceBorn United plans to move forward with additional test flights following the plan for its mission, known as ARTIS (Assisted Reproductive Technology in Space). As described on its website, the first few ARTIS missions will involve rodent embryos fertilized in space using simulated gravity equivalent to that on Earth. Next, the embryos that were formed in space and cryogenically frozen for their return to Earth will be implanted into a rodent mother. If this results in the birth of healthy pups, later ARTIS missions will include human embryos fertilized under Earth-like gravity and, eventually, partial gravity similar to that of the moon or Mars.

If these experiments show that human embryos can be formed under those low-gravity conditions, Edelbroek believes, it would be a major advance toward demonstrating the feasibility of multigenerational space settlements.

Snotnose writes:

Apple's new iPhone 15 marks a disruptive departure from previous models. The 11-year reign of the Lightning cable is over, and the USB-C era has begun — leaving us wondering what sets one charger apart from another.

Does Apple's Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag? Or does a $5 cable get the job done just as well? We've used our Neptune industrial X-ray CT scanner to uncover the hidden engineering differences between them.

This article explains some of the confusion around USB-C. Unfortunately the article is very light on details, but the pictures are interesting.

See Also: Exploring Thunderbolt 5: The Future of Connectivity

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

NASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for its first close-up look at an asteroid. On Nov. 1, it will fly by asteroid Dinkinesh and test its instruments in preparation for visits in the next decade to multiple Trojan asteroids that circle the sun in the same orbit as Jupiter.

Dinkinesh, less than half a mile, or 1 kilometer, wide, circles the sun in the main belt of asteroids located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Lucy has been visually tracking Dinkinesh since Sept. 3; it will be the first of 10 asteroids Lucy will visit on its 12-year voyage. To observe so many, Lucy will not stop or orbit the asteroids, instead it will collect data as it speeds past them in what is called a "flyby."

"This is the first time Lucy will be getting a close look at an object that, up to this point, has only been an unresolved smudge in the best telescopes," said Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute, which is headquartered in San Antonio. "Dinkinesh is about to be revealed to humanity for the first time."

The primary aim of the Lucy mission, which launched Oct. 16, 2021, is to survey the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a never-before-explored population of small bodies that orbit the sun in two "swarms" that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit. However, before Lucy gets to the Trojans, it will fly by another main belt asteroid in 2025 called Donaldjohanson for additional in-flight tests of the spacecraft systems and procedures.

[...] After the Dinkinesh encounter, the Lucy spacecraft will continue in its orbit around the sun, returning to the Earth's vicinity for its second gravity assist in December 2024. This push from Earth will send it back to the main asteriod belt for its 2025 Donaldjohanson flyby, and then on to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids in 2027.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The United States Justice Department reports that North Korean nationals have been using fake identities to work remotely for US companies as IT professionals in a scheme to fund weapons of mass destruction programs. At a news conference in St. Louis, Missouri, the FBI alleged that thousands of individuals have moved to countries such as Russia and China and posed as freelance IT workers living in the US. Companies in St. Louis and around the US were targeted in this plot.

The bad actors used false information for emails, payment platforms and websites — sometimes paying Americans to use their Wi-Fi and setting up proxy computers. Along with funneling their income to North Korea's weapons programs, some workers also hacked their employers' computer networks to take private information and leave the possibility for other schemes, such as extortion.

Special Agent in Charge Jay Greenberg of the FBI St. Louis Division went so far as to say that any company that employs freelance IT workers "more than likely" hired one of these bad actors. "This scheme is so prevalent that companies must be vigilant to verify whom they're hiring," Greenberg stated. "At a minimum, the FBI recommends that employers take additional proactive steps with remote IT workers to make it harder for bad actors to hide their identities. Without due diligence, companies risk losing money or being compromised by insider threats they unknowingly invited inside their systems."

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upstart writes:

A small, wrinkly yellow-green pepper known as Pepper X is now officially the hottest chili pepper in the world:

Ed Currie, founder of PuckerButt Pepper Company in South Carolina, appeared on the YouTube show Hot Ones to receive the Guinness award and announce the spicy new variety to the world.

To measure the intensity of Pepper X, officials at Guinness turned to what's known as the Scoville Scale. Developed in 1912, the scale determines the heat of a pepper by measuring the concentration of its heat-wielding chemical compounds called capsaicinoids.

Pepper X measures an average of 2.693 million Scoville Heat Units. A jalapeño, by comparison, measures just 2,000 to 8,000 SHUs, while a serrano can land between 10,000 and 23,000 SHUs.

The previous record holder, the Carolina Reaper, which was also developed by Currie, averaged 1.64 million SHUs.

"But that scale's logarithmic, so it's more like three times hotter than a Reaper," Currie said on the show.

Currie described the feeling of eating a whole Pepper X: "There's an intense burn that happens immediately. Then your head kind of feels like, 'Oh no! What's going on?' And then your body just starts reacting. You get it in your arms, you get it in your chest," he said.

"It has no real throat burn like the Reaper, but that comes on later when you're in pain."

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A team of astronomers claim to have detected the most distant fast radio burst to date, which could be used to measure the matter between galaxies.

The researchers first discovered the energy burst in June 2022 with the Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. It is believed that the energy was created from a powerful cosmic event that released the equivalent of 30 years of our sun’s total emission in milliseconds.

[...] The astronomers claim that this burst of energy is older and further away than any other fast radio burst detected to date. It is believed to have originated from a small group of merging galaxies.

[...] The team said that current methods for estimating the mass of the universe give conflicting answers and challenge the standard model of cosmology. But the latest discovery suggests that these radio bursts can be used to measure the “missing” matter between galaxies to accurately weigh up the universe.

“If we count up the amount of normal matter in the Universe – the atoms that we are all made of – we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,” said Prof Ryan Shannon who co-led the study. “We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques.”

The team said that in 2020, the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre Macquart showed that fast radio bursts reveal more diffuse gases between galaxies if they are further away. The team claims their latest discovery helps to confirm this Macquart relation.

“While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the universe.”

However, the team believes that the latest result represents the limit of what we can spot with modern telescopes and that more powerful devices will be needed to measure more distant fast radio bursts.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Two men this week confessed to deliberately bypassing testing protocols that are essential to keeping nuclear power plants safe. This happened not once, not twice, but 29 times.

Miguel Marcial Amaro, 56, from Delaware, and Martin Ramos, 52, from Pennsylvania, both pleaded guilty to a single count of making and using a materially false document, and aiding and abetting the same, for their respective roles in creating false calibration certs.

And it wasn't just one nuclear plant where Marcial and Ramos were cutting corners. According to the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, the duo faked certs that would show acoustic emissions (AE) testing had been done by calibrated instruments in several plants over a period that stretched for over a decade.

AE testing is important as it's how engineers can check the structural integrity of components without shaking, moving, or otherwise impacting their serviceability. The pair were responsible for ascertaining their employer's AE testing kit was compliant, with Marcial ensuring the equipment was calibrated annually, and Ramos working under Marcial as an engineer.

[...] The Justice Department said in a felony notice filed on September 25 that the AE testing equipment was used to determine, "among other things, the structural integrity of heavy-lifting components, such as cranes and rigging, that handled critical components of a nuclear reactor, including nuclear fuel."

AE testing works by mounting small sensors onto a component. The component emits stress waves when you apply an external stimulus, such as high pressure, loads, or temperatures. The sensors detect these waves as they are emitted, converts them into electrical signals, and then relays these to a computer for processing. The notice adds that the process assesses the structural integrity of components, including whether there was any "infirmity, weakness, or damage."

[...] The pair are scheduled to be sentenced on January 25 next year, with a federal district court judge determining the length, which is max five years. The original indictment is not public and it is not known what the men's motivation for their actions could be.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2023/10/ai-chatbots-can-infer-an-alarming-amount-of-info-about-you-from-your-responses/

The way you talk can reveal a lot about you—especially if you're talking to a chatbot. New research reveals that chatbots like ChatGPT can infer a lot of sensitive information about the people they chat with, even if the conversation is utterly mundane.

The phenomenon appears to stem from the way the models' algorithms are trained with broad swathes of web content, a key part of what makes them work, likely making it hard to prevent. "It's not even clear how you fix this problem," says Martin Vechev, a computer science professor at ETH Zürich in Switzerland who led the research. "This is very, very problematic."

Vechev and his team found that the large language models that power advanced chatbots can accurately infer an alarming amount of personal information about users—including their race, location, occupation, and more—from conversations that appear innocuous.
[...]
Researchers have previously shown how large language models can sometimes leak specific personal information. The companies developing these models sometimes try to scrub personal information from training data or block models from outputting it. Vechev says the ability of LLMs to infer personal information is fundamental to how they work by finding statistical correlations, which will make it far more difficult to address. "This is very different," he says. "It is much worse."

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

On Thursday, the FCC voted 3-2 to reinstate "net neutrality" rules. The proposal will essentially classify internet service providers as public utilities governed under Title II instead of Title I. The FCC claims the rules would prevent broadband providers from blocking or throttling traffic unless companies paid more, among other things.

Today's vote is the second time the Commission has voted to assign itself as the governor and regulator of private ISPs. The first time was in 2015 under the Obama administration. Those rules were then repealed in 2017, also along party lines, during the Trump administration.

Despite protests and cries that it was the end of a "free internet," nothing much seemed to change, and the fervor died out. There were some early lawsuits and claims alleging throttling, but nothing came of them. Eventually several states including California and Montana created their own net neutrality laws and mandates.

While proponents still claim that the government needs to regulate ISPs to prevent them from trying any funny business, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel says it is now a matter of "national security."

"Today, there is no expert agency ensuring that the internet is fast, open, and fair... Today, we begin a process to make this right. We propose to reinstate enforceable, bright-line rules to prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization," said Rosenworcel. "When we stripped state-affiliated companies from China of their authority to operate in the United States, that action did not extend to broadband services, thanks to the retreat from Title II. This is a national security loophole that needs to be addressed."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

NASA announced on Thursday that the first-ever crewed test flight of Boeing's much-delayed Starliner spacecraft will launch no earlier than mid-April, 2024.

The mission – dubbed Crew Flight Test (CFT) – will see test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni William travel to the International Space Station (ISS) and back to try out Boeing's reusable capsule. The Starliner will be launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and transport the astronauts on an eight-day trip.

In 2014 NASA's Commercial Crew Program contracted Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft for transport to and from the ISS. Both firms struggled with multiple setbacks that delayed their first crewed test flights for years.

SpaceX is up and running, having first launched astronauts into space in 2020, and is due to fly its eighth mission in February next year.

Starliner, however, is yet to fly – but is eating a billion-dollar hole in Boeing's accounts.

[...] Meanwhile, the mechanism that connects the parachute to the capsule – needed to slow the Starliner's speed so it can safely land on Earth – has had to be redesigned after it broke apart in tests. The issue has plagued Boeing for a while, and was one of the main reasons it had to push back its first-ever crewed flight back in June.

[...] "NASA will provide an updated status of CFT readiness as more information becomes available," the space agency confirmed in a statement.

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AnonTechie writes:

After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behaviour is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts.

This means accepting that a man who shoots into a crowd has no more control over his fate than the victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It means treating drunk drivers who barrel into pedestrians just like drivers who suffer a sudden heart attack and veer out of their lane.

Sapolsky, a MacArthur "genius" grant winner, is extremely aware that this is an out-there position. Most neuroscientists believe humans have at least some degree of free will. So do most philosophers and the vast majority of the general population. Free will is essential to how we see ourselves, fueling the satisfaction of achievement or the shame of failing to do the right thing.

[...] Analyzing human behavior through the lens of any single discipline leaves room for the possibility that people choose their actions, he says. But after a long cross-disciplinary career, he feels it's intellectually dishonest to write anything other than what he sees as the unavoidable conclusion: Free will is a myth, and the sooner we accept that, the more just our society will be.

"Determined," which comes out today, builds on Sapolsky's 2017 bestseller "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst," which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a slew of other accolades.

{...]: We are machines, Sapolsky argues, exceptional in our ability to perceive our own experiences and feel emotions about them. It is pointless to hate a machine for its failures.

There is only one last thread he can't resolve.

"It is logically indefensible, ludicrous, meaningless to believe that something 'good' can happen to a machine," he writes. "Nonetheless, I am certain that it is good if people feel less pain and more happiness."

Behave - The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

[Source]: Los Angeles Times

[Covered By]: Phys.Org

Do you agree with this premise ?

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