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taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-willow-bark-broad-spectrum-antiviral-effect.html

From a seasonal cold to a stomach bug, nobody likes catching a virus—and epidemics can be devastating. We need safe, sustainable antiviral options to treat the outbreaks of the future. Scientists in Finland have now shown that an extract of willow bark—a plant that has already provided several medicines, including the precursor to modern aspirin—has a broad-spectrum antiviral effect in cell sample experiments.

The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as COVID-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs that work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer.

"We need broadly acting and efficient tools to combat the virus load in our everyday life," said Prof Varpu Marjomäki of the University of Jyväskylä, senior author of the study in Frontiers in Microbiology. "Vaccinations are important, but they cannot deal with many of the newly emerging serotypes early enough to be effective on their own."

The scientists had previously tested willow bark extract on enteroviruses, and found it was highly successful. In this new study, they expanded the remit of their research to look at additional kinds of virus and to try to understand the mechanism of the extract's action.

To make the extract, they harvested commercially grown willow branches. The bark was cut into pieces, frozen, ground, and then extracted using hot water. This produced the extract samples that the scientists tested against enteroviruses—strains of Coxsackievirus A and B—and coronaviruses—a seasonal coronavirus and COVID-19.

More information: Willow (Salix spp.) bark hot extracts inhibit both enveloped and nonenveloped viruses: study on its anti-coronavirus and anti-enterovirus activities, Frontiers in Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1249794

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/data-brokers-staggering-sale-of-sensitive-info-exposed-in-unsealed-ftc-filing/

One of the world's largest mobile data brokers, Kochava, has lost its battle to stop the Federal Trade Commission from revealing what the FTC has alleged is a disturbing, widespread pattern of unfair use and sale of sensitive data without consent from hundreds of millions of people.

US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recently unsealed a court filing, an amended complaint that perhaps contains the most evidence yet gathered by the FTC in its long-standing mission to crack down on data brokers allegedly "substantially" harming consumers by invading their privacy.

The FTC has accused Kochava of violating the FTC Act by amassing and disclosing "a staggering amount of sensitive and identifying information about consumers," alleging that Kochava's database includes products seemingly capable of identifying nearly every person in the United States.
[...]
the FTC is seeking a permanent injunction to stop Kochava from its allegedly unfair use and sale of consumer data.

Winmill wrote in an order to unseal the amended complaint that the FTC still has to prove that Kochava has violated the FTC Act, but its arguments are sufficient to survive Kochava's motion for sanctions, which the judge's order also denied.

According to Winmill, Kochava "has not offered any compelling reason to maintain the amended complaint under seal."

"Certainly, the FTC's allegations cast Kochava's services in an unfavorable light," Winmill wrote. "But that is no reason to shield the complaint from public view."

Experts told The Record that the ruling was "a promising turnaround in a landmark FTC action against a major data broker" and noted that unsealing the complaint has now revealed "Kochava's shocking appetite for the most sensitive details of lives and the ways the company uses that data to profile, target, discriminate, and profit."
[...]
Winmill said that for now, the FTC has provided enough support for its allegations against Kochava for the lawsuit to proceed.

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looorg writes:

So much for the temporary delay or ban on AI. Musk named his AI Grok. I'm surprised by the lack of X:es in the name. Perhaps it would have looked odd considering the name of the Musk AI Company is xAI.

Somewhat unclear if the Grok is referring to Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy Grok or to Heinleins Stranger in a Strange Land. If you take inspiration from Hitchhikers then it shouldn't be that hard to program. If all else fails, the answer to a query is always 42. So I guess we'll know what it will default to when it starts looping hallucinations.

Also Grok should apparently be really into sarcasm, so that will end well and not lead to any kind of misunderstandings or interpretations. None.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/05/elon-musk-unveils-grok-an-ai-chatbot-with-a-rebellious-streak

https://grok.x.ai/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

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hubie writes:

Attempting to catch up on sleep over the weekend is insufficient to return cardiovascular health measures to normal:

Whether it's work or play that prevents us from getting enough shut-eye during the week, assuming we can make up for it by sleeping in over the weekend is a mistake. New research led by Penn State reveals that cardiovascular health measures, including heart rate and blood pressure, worsen over the course of the week when sleep is restricted to five hours per night, and attempting to catch up on sleep over the weekend is insufficient to return these measures to normal.

"Only 65% of adults in the U.S. regularly sleep the recommended seven hours per night, and there's a lot of evidence suggesting that this lack of sleep is associated with cardiovascular disease in the long term," said Anne-Marie Chang, associate professor of biobehavioral health and co-author of the work, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. "Our research reveals a potential mechanism for this longitudinal relationship, where enough successive hits to your cardiovascular health while you're young could make your heart more prone to cardiovascular disease in the future."

[...] Chang explained that the team's study is unique because it measured heart rate and blood pressure multiple times throughout the day for the duration of the study, which enabled them to account for any effects that time of day might have on heart rate and blood pressure. For example, heart rate is naturally lower upon waking than later in the day, so measuring heart rate multiple times throughout the day can account for this difference.

[...] "Both heart rate and systolic blood pressure increased with each successive day and did not return to baseline levels by the end of the recovery period," Reichenberger said. "So, despite having additional opportunity to rest, by the end of the weekend of the study, their cardiovascular systems still had not recovered."

canopic jug writes:

In part 5 of his "Keropunk" series, blogger Russell Graves, covers mantle lanterns.

All of the previous lanterns I've talked about use the flame as a source of light - carbureted in various ways, but "carbon in the flame glowing directly." A mantle is a device that, when heated, glows brightly in the visible regions - it puts out more light than a blackbody radiator at a given temperature, because it uses materials that are low emissivity in the infrared spectrum (heat), and high emissivity in the visible spectrum (light, useful to humans). There are also some benefits from helping contain the flame and the heat within the enclosure, but the end result is rather more light for a given amount of heat than you'd otherwise get.

Earlier parts in his "Keropunk" series:

• Keropunk Part 4: Kerosene Heaters Thermal Images and Operating Notes
• Keropunk Part 3: Kerosene Radiant Heaters
• Keropunk Part 2: Lantern Analysis
• Keropunk Part 1: Lanterns

Be careful of the thorium in some mantles.

I remember similar lanterns from my childhood, including the Tilley Lamp, but how many of our community have ever seen these lanterns anywhere other than on TV or in movies? Does anyone here still use a similar lamp? - JR

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owl writes:

https://blog.jgc.org/2023/11/my-1976-kim-1.html

Some years ago I wrote about programming a KIM-1 in 1985. By that time the KIM-1 was old, and definitely not state of the art. After all, it was released in 1976.

But it's a machine I enjoyed programming (which required punching in code via the hex keypad, or, if you were lucky, connecting a terminal (via a 20mA current loop designed to talk to an actual Teletype) to it and using the very basic monitor program). The KIM-1 could also interface to a paper-tape reader/punch and a cassette for storing and loading programs.

I have a tiny collection of machines that matter in my personal computing history: a Sharp MZ-80K, a Research Machines 380Z, a Research Machines 480Z, my original BBC Micro and a KIM-1 (that's a picture of my machine above). The (fully working) KIM-1 was made in 1976 and is serial number 2,793. It's still sitting in its original packaging:

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Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee is scheduled for Today, Wednesday, November 8th, 2023 at 21:00 UTC (4pm Eastern) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when complete. Note that due to the time change back to standard tine, this will be 4pm eastern time where it previously fell at 5pm eastern.

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

The community is welcome to observe and participate, and is invited to the meeting.

takyon writes:

Ariane 6 cost and delays bring European launch industry to a breaking point

European space officials will convene on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the future of space policy for the continent. The "Space Summit" gathering in Seville, Spain, will encompass several topics, including the future of launch.

[...] In the decade since [the Ariane 6] agreement was reached there have been at least three factors that have precipitated a crisis in European launch. One is the rise of SpaceX, which, through its reusable Falcon 9 rocket, has come to dominate the commercial market with prices about half those offered by the Ariane rockets. Because it has optimized for speed, SpaceX can also launch far more frequently and efficiently than Europe.

Secondly, the Ariane 6 rocket has been delayed from its original goal of launching in 2020. Now, if hot-fire tests late this year go well, it is possible that the Ariane 6 rocket could make its debut launch by mid-2024, or about four years late. With the retirement of the Ariane 5, and the Russian Soyuz rocket off the market due to the war in Ukraine, Europe finds itself in the embarrassing position of having to rely on SpaceX to get some of its most valuable missions into orbit.

Finally, there is the cost issue. The goal of reducing operations costs by 50 percent has dropped to 40 percent. And now, citing inflation, European officials say those cost cuts are not sustainable. In fact, the Ariane 6 rocket's primary contractor, ArianeGroup—which is co-owned by Airbus and Safran—is asking for a significant subsidy to operate the rocket. It wants 350 million euros a year, which would essentially wipe out any cost savings from going to the Ariane 6 rocket.

So Europe has spent a decade and many billions of euros developing the Ariane 6 rocket, but all it has gotten them to date is a gap in the capability of launching satellites to orbit. This has ratcheted up tensions heading into Seville this week.

Update: After the sting of Ariane 6, Europe finally embraces commercial rockets

Representatives from 22 European countries reached an agreement Monday to change the way the continent's rockets are developed, moving from a government-driven approach to a commercial paradigm that appears to be modeled after how NASA and the US military do business.

Original Submission

SomeGuy writes:

Australia's news.com.au reports:
During the Covid pandemic, restaurants introduced QR Code menu ordering in an attempt to minimize contact between staff and patrons. Australian restaurants have continued this trend while taking it to new levels of absurdity, sparking a recent flurry of criticism on social media.

"I'm so f***ing tired of 'tech' being used to solve an 'issue' but only making everything worse and more inconvenient for everybody," one Aussie wrote. Followed by a deluge of replies and comments.

His comment was in response to going to a restaurant and having only a QR code to order from - literally a menu at the table with only the QR code on it. The app required to order from it "proceeded to charge a 6.5% venue surcharge, a 2% payment processing fee, and then had the audacity to ask for a tip (10%, 15%, 25%) as the cherry on top.

Hundreds of others enthusiastically agreed and many added they also didn't like being asked to enter their personal details. "You're waiting your own table and paying an extra fee for the privilege. It's f***ed," one person responded. "It's also a big stinking FU to anyone old or not tech savvy. All just to hoover up your data," another added.

Some, however, shared they preferred using QR codes to order their food - they removed the need to move to order more and limited engagement with staff. "I actually like the QR ordering because I don't like people, but the surcharges and tipping can f*** off," one said. "I love the QR codes - don't need to leave the table to order another beer," someone else wrote...

Jonathan Holmes-Ross, owner of board game restaurant, The Lost Dice in Adelaide told news.com.au that the use of QR code ordering had let his eatery "reduce costs by around 25%... We no longer have to take orders, work out bills and manually take payments," he said. "This gives our wait staff more time to look after our customers, and the kitchen has excellent order information as the accuracy of the orders is great. We now have very few mistakes saving us time and waste. We can also mark items that have run out instantly on the app by using stock levels, again avoiding the disappointment of (the) customer."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Amazon and Meta have agreed to not use data collected from their marketplaces to unfairly benefit themselves, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority announced on Friday.

The monopoly watchdog launched separate investigations into both internet giants' business practices, and accused the Big Tech duo of not only gathering up information about sellers using their respective online souks, they also - surprise, surprise - exploited that info to get a commercial advantage.

In Amazon's case, the e-commerce giant used vendors' sales figures to decide which items it should sell, and how much to price products to get an edge over everyone else. The internet behemoth also promoted its own products with its Buy Box feature and it further cut into retailers' margins by charging extra costs if they wanted to use Amazon's Prime delivery services, the CMA said. 

Now Amazon has committed to doing less of that. The CMA said the online souk will be prevented from using third-party seller data that gives it an unfair commercial advantage, and will allow rivals to negotiate rates with independent delivery contractors working on behalf of Amazon. 

[...] Meanwhile, similar agreements have been negotiated between the CMA and Facebook's parent biz Meta too. 

The social media mega-corp was accused of exploiting advertisers hawking wares on Facebook Marketplace, and using competitors' data to improve its own products or services. 

"Going forward, competitors of Facebook Marketplace that advertise on Meta platforms can 'opt out' of their data being used to improve Facebook Marketplace. Without these measures in place, Meta risks having an unfair competitive advantage that could distort competition," the CMA said.

"Having assessed the commitments and the feedback received, including from sellers, advertisers and customers, we believe both sets of commitments address the specific competition concerns we had here in the UK," Ann Pope, the watchdog's senior director for antitrust enforcement, concluded.

Original Submission

YouTube is Taking its Fight Against Ad Blockers Global

Viewers have to enable ads if they don't want to pay for the $14-a-month YouTube Premium:

YouTube is no longer preventing just a small subset of its userbase from accessing its videos if they have an ad blocker. The platform has gone all out in its fight against the use of add-ons, extensions and programs that prevent it from serving ads to viewers around the world, it confirmed to Engadget. "The use of ad blockers violate YouTube's Terms of Service," a spokesperson told us. "We've launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube."

Youtubes anti-adblocking offensive appear to be working.

looorg writes:

Youtubes anti-adblocking offensive appear to be working.
The developers of various adblockers are reporting record amounts of un-installation during October. A majority of the people uninstalling their adblockers claim that it is due to the Youtube crackdown.

The cat-and-mouse game is sure to continue as new methods of blocking or skipping are sure to follow.

Previously unreported figures from ad blocking companies indicate that YouTube's crackdown is working, with hundreds of thousands of people uninstalling ad blockers in October. The available data suggests that last month saw a record number of ad blockers uninstalled - and also a record for new ad blocker installs as people sought alternatives that wouldn't trigger YouTube's dreaded pop-up.

https://www.wired.com/story/youtubes-ad-blocker-crackdown-spurs-record-uninstalls/

Youtube Users Avoiding Ad-Block Rules With These Alternatives

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

[...] However, that doesn't mean those users are just accepting YouTube's copious advertisements or paying for YouTube Premium ($13.99/mo) to get rid of them the preferred way. Instead, as Android Authority noted and as you can easily find on Reddit, people are frantically searching for working alternatives.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a free alternative that's guaranteed to work perfectly on an indefinite basis right now.

One popular browser extension called uBlock Origin seems to be the easiest and best bet right now, with users claiming it works best on Firefox (though it's worked for me on Chrome, too).

Some folks are switching browsers to Firefox or even Microsoft Edge just to find a way to watch YouTube videos in peace.

The problem with this is that YouTube will almost certainly weed out working alternatives over time, so some degree of adaptability may be required here on the user end. Or, you could just give in and pay for YouTube Premium. It's not fun or ideal, but you can at least guarantee it'll work.

Original Submission

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As for the new chips, both feature a hybrid core architecture and include a combination of Zen 4 and Zen 4c cores. The more high-end one is the Ryzen 5 7545U, which is a 6-core, 12-thread part with 2 Zen 4 cores and 4 Zen 4c cores. It comes with a 3.2GHz base clock and a 4.9GHz boost clock, a 15-30W TDP range, and Radeon 740M integrated graphics. The 7545U has 22MB of total cache, including 16MB of L3.

The other new chip in AMD's portfolio is the Ryzen 3 7440U, which is a 4-core, 8-thread part with a base clock of 3GHz and a boost clock of up to 4.7GHz. It has the same TDP range of 15-30W as the Ryzen 5 part, but only offers 12MB of total cache, including 8MB of L3. Like the 7545U, the 7440U also comes with Radeon 740M integrated graphics.

The new hybrid core architecture has thrown a spotlight on the new Zen 4c cores, with obvious questions about how they differ from Zen 4. According to AMD, the new cores are designed for density and power efficiency and are 35 percent smaller than Zen 4. The new core architecture also offers better scalability, with the potential for allowing higher core counts in future high-end mobile processors.

The company claimed that Zen 4c is a great option for entry-level devices, as the smaller cores with the same IPC consume less power than Zen 4, allowing the chips to deliver more performance below 15W. However, Zen 4 still supports a higher absolute clock limit compared to Zen 4c, enabling the new hybrid chips to offer optimized performance in heavy workloads while delivering a high degree of efficiency.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-sunflowers-sun-mechanism.html

Sunflowers famously turn their faces to follow the sun as it crosses the sky. But how do sunflowers "see" the sun to follow it? New work from plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, published Oct. 31 in PLOS Biology, shows that they use a different, novel mechanism from that previously thought.

"This was a total surprise for us," said Stacey Harmer, professor of plant biology at UC Davis and senior author on the paper.

Most plants show phototropism—the ability to grow toward a light source. Plant scientists had assumed that sunflowers' heliotropism, the ability to follow the sun, would be based on the same basic mechanism, which is governed by molecule called phototropin and responds to light at the blue end of the spectrum.

Sunflowers swing their heads by growing a little more on the east side of the stem—pushing the head west—during the day and a little more on the west side at night, so the head swings back toward the east. Harmer's lab at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences has previously shown how sunflowers use their internal circadian clock to anticipate the sunrise, and to coordinate the opening of florets with the appearance of pollinating insects in the morning.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

[Source]: IEEE Spectrum

Whether we like it or not, we all use the cloud to communicate and to store and process our data. We use dozens of cloud services, sometimes indirectly and unwittingly. We do so because the cloud brings real benefits to individuals and organizations alike. We can access our data across multiple devices, communicate with anyone from anywhere, and command a remote data center's worth of power from a handheld device.

But using the cloud means our security and privacy now depend on cloud providers. Remember: The cloud is just another way of saying "someone else's computer." Cloud providers are single points of failure and prime targets for hackers to scoop up everything from proprietary corporate communications to our personal photo albums and financial documents.

[...] It's not just attackers we have to worry about. Some companies use their access—benefiting from weak laws, complex software, and lax oversight—to mine and sell our data.

Our message is simple: It is possible to get the best of both worlds. We can and should get the benefits of the cloud while taking security back into our own hands. Here we outline a strategy for doing that.

In the last few years, a slew of ideas old and new have converged to reveal a path out of this morass, but they haven't been widely recognized, combined, or used. These ideas, which we'll refer to in the aggregate as "decoupling," allow us to rethink both security and privacy.

Here's the gist. The less someone knows, the less they can put you and your data at risk. In security this is called Least Privilege. The decoupling principle applies that idea to cloud services by making sure systems know as little as possible while doing their jobs. It states that we gain security and privacy by separating private data that today is unnecessarily concentrated.

[...] The needed protocols and infrastructure exist, and there are services that can do all of this already, without sacrificing the performance, quality, and usability of conventional cloud services.

But we cannot just rely on industry to take care of this. Self-regulation is a time-honored stall tactic: A piecemeal or superficial tech-only approach would likely undermine the will of the public and regulators to take action. We need a belt-and-suspenders strategy, with government policy that mandates decoupling-based best practices, a tech sector that implements this architecture, and public awareness of both the need for and the benefits of this better way forward.

Do you think this strategy will work ?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Forty percent of parents who worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic reported higher parenting stress compared with only 27 percent of parents who worked onsite, reports a new survey from scientists at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

The study results revealed a gender difference: Fathers who worked from home were twice as likely to report that parenting was stressful all or most of the time compared to fathers who worked onsite. Parenting stress for mothers who worked at home was slightly higher, but it did not reach statistical significance.

The study found no differences in mental or general health between parents who worked remotely or onsite.

"Our survey results show that teleworking during the pandemic was associated with more parenting stress, especially for fathers," said lead author Dr. John James Parker, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a pediatrician at Lurie Children's. "This might be a reflection of societal expectations that men should prioritize work obligations over family needs, which creates additional stress for fathers working from home."

[...] The study authors recommend parents reflect on their family and work situation and try to find an arrangement that limits stress and promotes well-being.

"This can be as simple as putting a noise-cancelling machine in the workspace, rearranging schedules to limit distractions and planning time for parents to step away from work to be fully engaged with their children," said Parker, who also is an internist at Northwestern Medicine.

Original Submission