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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Since their inception in the 1940s, the so-called forever chemicals have woven themselves into the fabric of our modern world. But recently, they've been appearing in alarming news headlines about their damaging effects on our health.

PFAS have, in fact, come under intense scrutiny due to new research showing their persistent nature in the environment and potential health impacts.

[...] The strength of their carbon-fluorine bonds is also what makes them resist breakdown by natural processes. Their longevity, often measured in centuries, has earned them the moniker of "legacy compounds."

Their presence has been detected in worrying concentrations in drinking water, soil, air and even in Arctic ice. Recent scientific investigations have unveiled a concerning connection between PFAS exposure and damage to health, both in humans and animals.

These effects include an increased risk of cancer, liver damage, compromised immune function, developmental disorders and hormonal disruption.

The adverse health effects can be traced to their persistence within the human body. Unlike many substances that are metabolized and eliminated over time, PFAS accumulate in bodily tissues and fluids without breaking down.

This accumulation creates a perpetual, self-sustaining cycle: PFAS contamination permeates rivers, soil and the food chain. These chemicals find their way into the bodies of humans and animals, where they continue to accumulate over time.

hubie writes:

Employees in financial, sales and management occupations are more likely to conclude that their jobs are of little use to society:

In recent years, research showed that many professionals consider their work to be socially useless. Various explanations have been proposed for the phenomenon. The much-discussed "bullshit jobs theory" by the American anthropologist David Graeber, for example, states that some jobs are objectively useless and that this occurs more frequently in certain occupations than others.

Other researchers suggested that the reason people felt their jobs were useless was solely because they were routine and lacked autonomy or good management rather than anything intrinsic to their work. However, this is only one part of the story, as a recent study by sociologist Simon Walo of the University of Zurich shows. It is the first to give quantitative support to the relevance of the occupations.

[...] "The original evidence presented by Graeber was mainly qualitative, which made it difficult to assess the magnitude of the problem," says Walo. "This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilised dataset and provides new evidence. This paper is therefore the first to find quantitative evidence supporting the argument that the occupation can be decisive for the perceived pointlessness." Walo also found that the share of workers who consider their jobs socially useless is higher in the private sector than in the non-profit or the public sector.

However, Walo's study also confirms other factors that influence employees' perceptions of their own work, including, e.g., alienation, unfavorable working conditions and social interaction. "Employees' assessment of whether their work is perceived as socially useless is a very complex issue that needs to be approached from different angles," the author therefore concludes. "It depends on various factors that do not necessarily have anything to do with the actual usefulness of work as claimed by Graeber. For example, people may also view their work as socially useless because unfavorable working conditions make it seem pointless."

Journal Reference:
Simon Walo: 'Bullshit' After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless. Work, Employment and Society. 21 July 2023. DOI:10.1177/09500170231175771

Related:
    Bullshit Jobs and the Yoke of Managerial Feudalism
    Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs

Original Submission

upstart writes:

OEMs are increasingly focused on using TVs as a way to show customers ads:

People who buy a Fire TV from Amazon are probably looking for a cheap and simple way to get an affordable 4K smart TV. When Amazon announced its first self-branded TVs in September 2021, it touted them as being a "great value." But owners of the devices will soon be paying for some of those savings in the form of more prominently displayed advertisements.

[...] Some of the changes targeting advertisers, like connecting display placement ads with specific in-stream video ads, seem harmless enough. Others could jeopardize the TV-watching experience for owners.

For example, Amazon is preparing to make Alexa with generative AI more useful for finding content on Fire TVs. This could help Alexa, which has struggled alongside other tech giants' voice assistants to generate significant revenue. Amazon gets money every time someone interacts with digital content through Alexa.

However, the company is double-dipping on this idea by also tying ads to generative AI on Fire TVs. When users ask Alexa to help them find media with queries such as "play the show with the guy who plays the lawyer in Breaking Bad," they will see ads that are relevant to the search.

[...] Maines told StreamTV Insider that advertisers had been asking for a way to advertise against Fire TV searches. "It just makes sense to expand our existing sponsor tile offering to show advertisements on the search screen with no extra effort or cost for the advertiser," she said.

[...] Amazon Fire TV users will also start seeing banner ads on the device's home screen for things that have nothing to do with entertainment or media. This ad space was previously reserved for advertising media and entertainment, making the ads feel more relevant, at least. Amazon opening the ad space to more types of advertisers is similar to a move Google TV made early this year.

The company seems to be aware of how dominating these types of advertisements can be. Maines emphasized to StreamTV Insider how the native ads are "right at the top of the Fire TV's home screen" and take "up half the screen."

[...] The banner ads will occupy the first slot in the rotating hero area, which Amazon believes is the first thing Fire TV users see. These users may have purchased a Fire TV primarily for streaming content from ad-free subscriptions, but Maines described how Fire TVs can still manage to force ads on these users.

owl writes:

https://www.righto.com/2023/11/reverse-engineering-intel-386.html

The groundbreaking Intel 386 processor (1985) was the first 32-bit processor in the x86 line. It has numerous internal registers: general-purpose registers, index registers, segment selectors, and more specialized registers. In this blog post, I look at the silicon die of the 386 and explain how some of these registers are implemented at the transistor level. The registers that I examined are implemented as static RAM, with each bit stored in a common 8-transistor circuit, known as "8T". Studying this circuit shows the interesting layout techniques that Intel used to squeeze two storage cells together to minimize the space they require.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Swedish firm's system will now be transferred to the Faroe Islands in Denmark for installation and commissioning:

The global movement of the seas through tidal streams and ocean currents generates a rich supply of energy that may be transformed into a dependable and local renewable energy source.

Aiming to further this mission, Swedish firm Minesto has now completed onshore testing on its 1.2 MW Dragon 12 tidal energy kite system. The system will be directly transferred to the Faroe Islands in Denmark for installation and commissioning.

[...] According to the firm, its kite system technology is a lightweight, flexible, and scalable solution to harvest tidal energy, which unlocks a predictable renewable energy resource.

[...] The firm's power plant comprises a wing that houses a turbine directly connected to a generator in a nacelle. The control system directs the kite's trajectory by manipulating the rudders and elevators at the back of the kite. The tether holds the tether as well as communication and power lines. The tether is attached to the seabed foundation via a simple connection that is locked and unlatched for installation and retrieval.

The kite is moved by the wing's utilization of the hydrodynamic lift force provided by the underwater stream. An onboard control system autonomously controls the kite in a predefined figure-of-eight trajectory, dragging the turbine through the water at a water flow several times greater than the stream speed.

The turbine shaft drives the generator, sending power to the grid via a cable in the tether and a seabed umbilical to the coast. According to Minesto, the subsea kite is intended to fly in the opposite direction of the main flow, attaining a relative speed several times that of the current rate. Compared to a stationary turbine, this speed increase minimizes the size of the kite and rotor necessary to capture energy. As a result, it is inexpensive to install, run, and maintain.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

'Lice are like living fossils we carry around on our own heads':

Reviled the world over for making our scalps itch and rapidly spreading in schools, lice have hitched their destiny to our hair follicles. They are the oldest known parasites that feed on the blood of humans, so learning more about lice can tell us quite a bit about our own species and migratory patterns.

A study published November 8 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE found that lice likely came into North America in two waves of migration. First when some humans potentially crossed a land bridge that connected Asia with present day Alaska roughly 16,000 years ago during the end of the last ice age and then again during European colonization.

[...] Lice are wingless parasites that live their entire lives on their host and there are three known species that infest humans. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest louse specimen known to scientists is 10,000 years old and was found in Brazil in 2000. Since lice and humans have a very intertwined relationship, studying lice can offer clues into human migratory patterns.

[...] Researchers found genetic evidence that head lice mirrored both the movement of people into the Americas from Asia and European colonization after Christopher Columbus's arrival in the late 1400's.

"Central American head lice harbored the Asian background associated with the foundation of the Americas, while South American lice had marks of the European arrival," Ariel Toloza, a study co-author and insect toxicologist at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica (CONICET) in Argentina, tells PopSci. "We also detected a recent human migration from Europe to the Americas after WWII."

hubie writes:

NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems determined that the 462-MW project would likely not reach a sufficient subscription level to continue toward deployment:

NuScale Power and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems announced Wednesday that they've agreed to terminate the small modular reactor Carbon Free Power Project, or CFPP.

"Despite significant efforts by both parties to advance the CFPP, it appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment. Therefore, UAMPS and NuScale have mutually determined that ending the project is the most prudent decision for both parties," NuScale and UAMPS said in a press release.

[...] The project, which was expected to be the first commercial SMR in the U.S. faced rising costs. In January, NuScale raised the target price for power from the SMR to $89/MWh from $58/MWh, citing a "changing financial landscape for the development of energy projects nationwide."

Despite the termination of the CFPP, NuScale President and Chief Executive Officer John Hopkins said Wednesday during NuScale's Q3 earnings call that the company is focused on deploying its SMR modules and is "poised to expand into new markets, applications and capabilities." Hopkins highlighted a number of other partnerships and projects, including plans to develop two NuScale VOYGR-12 power plants that will have a combined capacity of nearly 2 GW and power nearby data centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"Though there are risks to any project, the CFPP presented unique challenges that NuScale does not expect will be replicated with other customers," Diane Hughes, vice president of marketing and communications at NuScale, said in a statement to Utility Dive.

Industry groups expressed disappointment but understanding of the decision.

"Innovation — particularly in new technologies — is defined by fits and starts. And innovation in next-generation nuclear is no different," a spokesperson for the Nuclear Energy Institute said in an email.

Previously: First Major Modular Nuclear Project Having Difficulty Retaining Backers

Original Submission

Booga1 writes:

From The Electronic Frontier Foundation: Debunking the Myth of "Anonymous" Data

Personal information that corporations collect from our online behaviors sells for astonishing profits and incentivizes online actors to collect as much as possible. Every mouse click and screen swipe can be tracked and then sold to ad-tech companies and the data brokers that service them.

In an attempt to justify this pervasive surveillance ecosystem, corporations often claim to de-identify our data. This supposedly removes all personal information (such as a person's name) from the data point (such as the fact that an unnamed person bought a particular medicine at a particular time and place). Personal data can also be aggregated, whereby data about multiple people is combined with the intention of removing personal identifying information and thereby protecting user privacy.

...

However, in practice, any attempt at de-identification requires removal not only of your identifiable information, but also of information that can identify you when considered in combination with other information known about you. Here's an example:

• First, think about the number of people that share your specific ZIP or postal code.
• Next, think about how many of those people also share your birthday.
• Now, think about how many people share your exact birthday, ZIP code, and gender.

According to one landmark study, these three characteristics are enough to uniquely identify 87% of the U.S. population. A different study showed that 63% of the U.S. population can be uniquely identified from these three facts.

We cannot trust corporations to self-regulate. The financial benefit and business usefulness of our personal data often outweighs our privacy and anonymity. In re-obtaining the real identity of the person involved (direct identifier) alongside a person's preferences (indirect identifier), corporations are able to continue profiting from our most sensitive information. For instance, a website that asks supposedly "anonymous" users for seemingly trivial information about themselves may be able to use that information to make a unique profile for an individual.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The US Commerce Department has promised to stop promoting American-made commercial spyware to foreign governments.

In a letter sent to US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the federal government dept finally provided details about the policies adopted by its International Trade Administration (ITA) intended to prevent any further promotion of US surveillance technology overseas.

"For the first time the department is making clear that the United States will not help companies find foreign markets for products or services that undermine democracy or enable repressive surveillance and discrimination," Wyden said in a statement. 

The ITA, which is part of the Commerce Department, promotes American goods and services abroad. In May, Wyden sent a letter to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo demanding answers about its pushing of commercial spyware overseas. 

[...] Last year, the ITA confirmed to Senator Wyden that it has encouraged foreign governments to buy this type of tech, but it refused to answer the senator's questions about which products it endorsed and in which markets. The Department of Commerce still seems to be stonewalling on both, but more on that later.

[...] "Promoting the use of surveillance tech and spyware under the guise of 'advocating for US businesses' smacks uncomfortably of eroding global human rights for a profit," Schroeder said. "The very nature of the technology makes it impossible to promote use of spyware in a way that does not threaten human rights values." 

While a review process is "helpful," the US has no business exporting things like spyware and facial recognition tech, and others, including advanced data analytics and automated license plate readers, should be added to the list, she said. 

"We've repeatedly seen this technology abused and, once exported, the ITA and the US as a whole has very little control over whether it will be abused or fall into the hands of repressive regimes," Schroeder said.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-super-melanin-skin-injuries-sunburn.html

Imagine a skin cream that heals damage occurring throughout the day when your skin is exposed to sunlight or environmental toxins. That's the potential of a synthetic, biomimetic melanin developed by scientists at Northwestern University.

In a new study, the scientists show that their synthetic melanin, mimicking the natural melanin in human skin, can be applied topically to injured skin, where it accelerates wound healing. These effects occur both in the skin itself and systemically in the body.

When applied in a cream, the synthetic melanin can protect skin from sun exposure and heals skin injured by sun damage or chemical burns, the scientists said. The technology works by scavenging free radicals, which are produced by injured skin such as a sunburn. Left unchecked, free radical activity damages cells and ultimately may result in skin aging and skin cancer.

The study, titled "Topical Application of Synthetic Melanin Promotes Tissue Repair," is published Nov. 2 in npj Regenerative Medicine.

Melanin in humans and animals provides pigmentation to the skin, eyes and hair. The substance protects your cells from sun damage with increased pigmentation in response to sunlight—a process commonly referred to as tanning. That same pigment in your skin also naturally scavenges free radicals in response to damaging environmental pollution from industrial sources and automobile exhaust fumes.

Journal Reference:
Biyashev, D., Siwicka, Z.E., Onay, U.V. et al. Topical application of synthetic melanin promotes tissue repair. npj Regen Med 8, 61 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41536-023-00331-1

Original Submission

takyon writes:

X-37B Headed Deeper Into Space With Falcon Heavy Rocket's Help

The countdown is on for the next mission of the U.S. Space Force's secretive X-37B spaceplane. While all of the X-37B's missions so far have been highly intriguing, to say the least, the next one — the seventh — will involve some particular novelties. Not only will it explore what the Space Force describes as "new orbital regimes," but the reusable spaceplane will ride atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful commercial rocket operational anywhere in the world, with the potential to put it into much higher orbit than was possible on previous missions.

The Space Force announced yesterday that X-37B Mission 7 is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 7, 2023. The spaceplane's first mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket will be designated USSF-52 and it will be run by the Space Force together with the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

[...] Using the Falcon Heavy rocket comes after six previous missions that employed the medium-lift Atlas V or Falcon 9 rockets.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Study: People expect others to mirror their own selfishness, generosity:

New research shows that a person's own behavior is the primary driver of how they treat others during brief, zero-sum-game competitions. Generous people tend to reward generous behavior and selfish individuals often punish generosity and reward selfishness – even when it costs them personally. The study found that an individual's own generous or selfish deeds carry more weight than the attitudes and behaviors of others.

[...] Previous research into this arena of human behavior suggested that social norms are the primary factor guiding a person's decision-making in competitive scenarios, said Paul Bogdan, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the research in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology with U. of I. psychology professors Florin Dolcos and Sanda Dolcos.

"The prevailing view before this study was that individuals form expectations based on what they view as typical. If everyone around me is selfish, then I'm going to learn to accept selfishness and behave accordingly," Bogdan said. "But we show that your judgments of other people's behavior really depend on how you behave yourself."

[...] Cultural norms toward self-interest or generosity do influence people, as other studies have found, Florin Dolcos said. "But we are not only observers. This study is showing that we filter information about the world through our own view."

Those individuals whose behavior switched from generous to selfish over time were more likely to punish generosity and reward selfishness – but only after their own behavior changed, the team found.

This helps explain the phenomenon of social alignment, for better and for worse, Florin Dolcos said.

"You may have groups of selfish people who are more accepting of other selfish people, and in order to be part of that group, newcomers might display the same behavior," he said.

Ultimately, the study finds that a person's own generous or selfish nature drives their behavior in many arenas of life, Sanda Dolcos said.

"This is not just about decision-making," she said. "It has practical relevance to many types of social interactions and social evaluations."

Journal Reference:
Paul C Bogdan, Florin Dolcos, Matthew Moore, et al., Social Expectations are Primarily Rooted in Reciprocity: An Investigation of Fairness, Cooperation, and Trustworthiness, Cogn Sci. 2023 Aug;47(8):e13326. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13326

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Maze Runner director, Jurassic World writer, and no release date yet:

Sony and Nintendo haven't collaborated on much of anything since the Nintendo PlayStation went awry. But Sony's film division is putting its money together with its console semi-rival to produce a live-action The Legend of Zelda film.

Details are scant beyond a Nintendo press release and Hollywood reporting by Deadline. The director is Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner film trilogy, and the writer is Derek Connolly, who wrote the Jurassic World trilogy and was tagged to work on a putative Metal Gear film.

[...] Nintendo will provide more than 50 percent of the financing, according to Deadline, with Sony handling the theatrical release. The Super Mario Bros. Movie ranks as the year's second-highest-grossing film at $1.36 billion, which likely helped green-light another film centered on another well-regarded Nintendo property.

[...] No release date or plot details are available.

Original Submission

Former U.S. astronaut Frank Borman has died at the age of 95, NASA said on Thursday.

He commanded the 1968 Apollo 8 mission that carried three astronauts farther from Earth than anyone had ever travelled.

I'm old enough to remember Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968, the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. Three astronauts—Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to witness and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.

Born in Gary, Indiana, on March 14, 1928, he was the oldest American astronaut still living; that mantle now passes to Jim Lovell, who is also 95 but eleven days younger.

upstart writes:

Google's "solution" can't do anything for bootlooping devices:

It's the start of November, and that means a new Android security patch. Google claims this one is fixing a high-profile Android 14 storage bug that was locking some people out of their devices. The November Security Bulletin contains the usual pile of security fixes, while consumer-oriented Pixel patch notes list a few user-facing changes. The important line is "Fix for issue occasionally causing devices with multiple users enabled to show out of space or be in a reboot loop." A footnote points out that this is for the "Pixel 6, Pixel 6a, 6 Pro, 7, 7 Pro, 7a, Tablet, Fold, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro."

We're on about day 33 of the Android 14 storage bug. For devices with multiple users set up, there is some kind of storage issue that is locking users out of their device. Some are completely unusable, with the phone bootlooping constantly and never reaching the home screen. Others are able to boot up the device but don't have access to lock storage, which causes a huge amount of issues. Some users likened the bug to "ransomware," a type of malware that encrypts your local storage and then demands money for your data. One fix is to completely erase your device with a factory reset, but a lot of users don't want to do that.

The earliest reports of this started just days after the October 4 launch date. Google usually rolls updates out slowly so it can pull them if issues like this pop up to minimize damage. That didn't happen here, though. Google failed to respond quickly to initial reports and just let the bug roll out to everyone. Some people even report being freshly hit with the bug just four days ago because Google 1) let the update roll out without stopping it and 2) can't patch its software quickly enough. The biggest issue tracker thread on this bug is up to 1,000-plus likes and 850 comments of people locked out of their devices, and it took two separate rounds of news coverage for Google to acknowledge the bug after about 20 days.