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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/stability-ai-releases-stable-video-diffusion-which-turns-pictures-into-short-videos/

On Tuesday, Stability AI released Stable Video Diffusion, a new free AI research tool that can turn any still image into a short video—with mixed results. It's an open-weights preview of two AI models that use a technique called image-to-video, and it can run locally on a machine with an Nvidia GPU.

Last year, Stability AI made waves with the release of Stable Diffusion, an "open weights" image synthesis model that kick started a wave of open image synthesis and inspired a large community of hobbyists that have built off the technology with their own custom fine-tunings. Now Stability wants to do the same with AI video synthesis, although the tech is still in its infancy.
[...]
In our local testing, a 14-frame generation took about 30 minutes to create on an Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics card, but users can experiment with running the models much faster on the cloud through services like Hugging Face and Replicate (some of which you may need to pay for). In our experiments, the generated animation typically keeps a portion of the scene static and adds panning and zooming effects or animates smoke or fire. People depicted in photos often do not move, although we did get one Getty image of Steve Wozniak to slightly come to life.

Previously on SoylentNews:
Search: Stable Diffusion on SoylentNews.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical/traffic-triggers-blood-pressure-surge/

Inching forward bumper to bumper on a highway when you're on the way to an appointment, or worse, the airport, is enough to spike anyone's blood pressure (BP). But researchers have found that a BP surge occurs independent of external stressors, and it could be due to the poor air flowing into the car from surrounding traffic.

The University of Washington (UW) researchers undertook a randomized crossover trial and were surprised to see that sitting in traffic and breathing unfiltered air was linked to a 4.5 mm Hg surge in blood pressure, which peaked at around 60 minutes of exposure but lingered for up to 24 hours following the event.

"The body has a complex set of systems to try to keep blood pressure to your brain the same all the time," said lead researcher Joel Kaufman, a physician and professor at UW. "It's a very complex, tightly regulated system, and it appears that somewhere, in one of those mechanisms, traffic-related air pollution interferes with blood pressure."

In the study, 16 participants aged 22-45 years were driven as passengers through peak-hour traffic in Seattle for periods across three days, to measure the impact of traffic pollution on blood pressure. For two days, the air flowed into the vehicle normally, to mirror how most of us drive, and on another day the car was fitted with a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, which blocked 86% of particulate pollution.

Blood pressure readings were taken a day before, during and after the drive, with 14 three-minute tests collected. Image-based central retinal arteriolar equivalents (CRAEs) were also measured before and after. Brachial artery diameter and gene expression were also taken.

The mean adjusted systolic blood pressure reading of 4.5 mm Hg higher than baseline is comparable to the effect of a high-sodium diet.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A data-destroying bug has been discovered in a new feature of OpenZFS 2.2.0, as found in FreeBSD 14 among other OSes.

OpenZFS 2.2.0 was released just last month with a new feature called block cloning, as we reported when we looked at release candidate 3. Unfortunately, there's a bug in that code somewhere, as found by Gentoo-toting Terin Stock, who reported bug #15526. As a result, OpenZFS 2.2.1 is already out, which disables the new feature.

This is a bit of an embarrassment for OpenZFS, a project with an enviable reputation for data integrity. It's also less than ideal for fixed-release-cycle OSes that have the new version of OpenZFS, including the newly released FreeBSD 14. Fortunately for FreeBSD, though, version 14.0 ships with the feature disabled by default.

We have mentioned the work of BSD boffin Colin Percival before, but anyone brave enough to have already installed this point-zero release should heed his warning on Twitter X: "FreeBSD 14's ZFS code supports 'block cloning'. This is turned off by default. DO NOT ENABLE THIS FEATURE UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE DATA."

The bug manifests as corruption of the contents of files when they're copied; instead of their expected contents, there are stretches of zeroes, mixed with blocks of what looks like Base64-encoded data. It showed up when using Gentoo's portage command, the distro's package-management tool – an operation that typically involves copying lots of data. Worse still is that the file system's own health checks don't detect any problem. For now, release 2.2.1 simply disables the feature.

It seems very likely that OpenZFS 2.2.1, which simply turns off block-cloning, will quickly be followed by a 2.2.2 release to fix the underlying dnode handling.

fliptop writes:

They were asked about it, and they deleted everything:

There was nothing in Drew Ortiz's author biography at Sports Illustrated to suggest that he was anything other than human.

"Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature," it read. "Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm."

The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he's described as "neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes."

Ortiz isn't the only AI-generated author published by Sports Illustrated, according to a person involved with the creation of the content who asked to be kept anonymous to protect them from professional repercussions.

"There's a lot," they told us of the fake authors. "I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist."

[...] The AI content marks a staggering fall from grace for Sports Illustrated, which in past decades won numerous National Magazine Awards for its sports journalism and published work by literary giants ranging from William Faulkner to John Updike.

But now that it's under the management of The Arena Group, parts of the magazine seem to have devolved into a Potemkin Village in which phony writers are cooked up out of thin air, outfitted with equally bogus biographies and expertise to win readers' trust, and used to pump out AI-generated buying guides that are monetized by affiliate links to products that provide a financial kickback when readers click them.

What's next? Six-fingered AI-generated models for the swimsuit edition?

Related:

• The AI Hype Bubble is the New Crypto Hype Bubble
• OpenAI Has Released the Largest Version Yet of its Fake-News-Spewing AI
• Inside the Secret List of Websites That Make AI Like ChatGPT Sound Smart

Original Submission

hubie writes:

The analysis compares innovations and policies related to plant-based and lab-grown alternatives to animal meat and dairy in the U.S. and European Union:

The summertime barbecue – an American tradition synonymous with celebrating freedom – may be tainted by a decidedly unfree market. A new Stanford study reveals how meat and dairy industry lobbying has influenced government regulations and funding to stifle competition from alternative meat products with smaller climate and environmental impacts. The analysis, published Aug. 18 in One Earth, compares innovations and policies related to plant-based meat alternatives and lab-grown meat in the U.S. and European Union. Its findings could help ensure legislation, such as the $428 billion U.S. Farm Bill set to expire Sept. 30, levels the food industry playing field.

"The lack of policies focused on reducing our reliance on animal-derived products and the lack of sufficient support to alternative technologies to make them competitive are symptomatic of a system still resisting fundamental changes," said study lead author Simona Vallone, an Earth system science research associate in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability at the time of the research.

[...] The researchers reviewed major agricultural policies from 2014 to 2020 that supported either the animal food product system or alternative technologies, and compared government spending on both systems. They also looked at related lobbying trends.

They found that governments consistently devoted most of their agricultural funding to livestock and feed production systems, avoided highlighting food production sustainability dimensions in nutrition guidelines, and attempted to introduce regulatory hurdles, such as narrow labeling standards, to the commercialization of meat alternatives. Major U.S. meat and dairy companies actively lobbied against environmental issues and regulations to tip the scales in their favor.

[...] To ensure a fair marketplace for alternative meat products, policymakers should craft legislation that ensures meat's price reflects its environmental costs, increases research on alternative meat and dairy products, and informs consumers on alternatives to meat via dietary guidelines, according to the researchers.

"It's clear that powerful vested interests have exerted political influence to maintain the animal-farming system status quo," said study senior author Eric Lambin, the George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor at Stanford and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "A significant policy shift is required to reduce the food system impact on climate, land use, and biodiversity."

The press release comes with a 2-minute video for those who prefer the spoken word.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-solar-storms-locally-current-instrument.html

A new study shows that there is greater local variation in the impact of solar storms on Earth than previously estimated. Researchers show that the effects can vary widely even over distances as small as 100 kilometers. The findings are published in Scientific Reports.

Local changes in the magnetic environment have so far remained largely unexplored due to the sparse magnetometer array in the main observing area. Today, solar storms, or geomagnetic storms, are recorded on average by magnetometers spaced about 400 km apart.

Solar storm effects are caused by fast solar wind streams, which cause large electric currents to flow through the ionosphere of the Earth's auroral region, but the behavior of these currents during storms is still not fully understood. Solar storms also appear as auroras.

Researchers from the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (SGO) and the Ionospheric Physics Group at the University of Oulu, Finland studied the local magnetic field perturbations in the auroral region during space storms using historical data.

The new study looked at data from a strong solar storm in December 1977 from all 32 stations of the then Scandinavian Magnetometer Array (SMA) network in the Nordic countries, which is denser than the current network, and largely unexplored.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/features/2023/11/the-ars-guide-to-time-travel-in-the-movies/

Since antiquity, humans have envisioned various means of time travel into the future or the past. The concept has since become a staple of modern science fiction. In particular, the number of films that make use of time travel has increased significantly over the decades, while the real-world science has evolved right alongside them, moving from simple Newtonian mechanics and general relativity to quantum mechanics and the notion of a multiverse or more exotic alternatives like string theory.
[...]
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list; rather, we selected films that represented many diverse approaches to time travel across multiple subgenres and decades. We then evaluated each one—grading on a curve—with regard to its overall entertainment value and scientific logic, with the final combined score determining a film's spot on the overall ranking. For the "science" part of our scoring system, we specifically took three factors into account. First and foremost, does the time travel make logical sense? Second, is the physical mechanism of time travel somewhat realistic? And third, does the film use time travel in narratively interesting ways? So a movie like Looper, which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it too hard, gets points for weaving time paradoxes thoroughly into the fabric of the story.

[Sampling: More Entertaining and Less Scientific (Back to the Future), Less Entertaining and More Scientific (The Time Machine), Less Entertaining and Less Scientific (Timecop), More Entertaining and More Scientific (12 Monkeys)]

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

TSMC chairman Mark Liu believes Nvidia will become the largest semiconductor firm by the end of the year (via Trendforce). Speaking at a lecture held by the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, Liu discussed the future of TSMC in an AI-focused world and stated that Nvidia would develop into the world's largest semiconductor company thanks to AI.

[...] As for Nvidia's rivals, the company made more revenue than Intel, Samsung, and even TSMC, the company that produces the vast majority of Nvidia's chips. Nvidia also beat them all in profit, especially Intel, which lost $8 million, and Samsung, which saw $2.86 billion wiped out due to factors like the NAND flash crisis. That's presumably why Liu believes Nvidia will be the largest of its peers by the end of the year.

However, there are some caveats to Liu's claims. Although Nvidia did beat out its immediate rivals and made the most money in Q3, that might only have been possible since Intel, Samsung, and TSMC are in a slump. All three companies were doing significantly better in revenue before the start of the year, and they all have posted at least one quarter with more than $20 billion in revenue since 2021. If this turns out to be a temporary dip rather than a permanent development, Nvidia would need to make even more money to keep up.

[...] Liu also noted that fabless chip designers like Nvidia, AMD, and Google are expected to grow by 10% in the next five years, while projections for Intel and Samsung (the only chip designers to own their fabs) are at just 4% in the same time frame. Both companies have declined for a year or so, with Intel taking great measures to reform its business. TSMC, of course, stands as a major beneficiary if these projections prove accurate, as most fabless companies who want to make cutting-edge processors go to TSMC.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/27/23978042/popular-science-digital-magazine-discontinued

After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer be available to purchase as a magazine. In a statement to The Verge, Cathy Hebert, the communications director for PopSci owner Recurrent Ventures, says the outlet needs to "evolve" beyond its magazine product, which published its first all-digital issue in 2021.

PopSci, which covers a whole range of stories related to the fields of science, technology, and nature, published its first issue in 1872. Things have changed a lot over the years, with the magazine switching to a quarterly publication schedule in 2018 and doing away with the physical copies altogether after 2020.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/researchers-beat-windows-hello-fingerprint-sensors-with-raspberry-pi-and-linux/

Since Windows 10 introduced Windows Hello back in 2015, most Windows laptops and tablets have shipped with some kind of biometric authentication device installed. Sometimes that means a face- or iris-scanning infrared webcam; sometimes it means a fingerprint sensor mounted on the power button or elsewhere on the device.

While these authentication methods are convenient, they aren't totally immune to security exploits. In 2021, researchers were able to fool some Windows Hello IR webcams with infrared images of users' faces. And last week, researchers at Blackwing Intelligence published an extensive document showing how they had managed to work around some of the most popular fingerprint sensors used in Windows PCs.
[...]
Blackwing's post on the vulnerability is also a good overview of exactly how fingerprint sensors in a modern PC work.

Original Submission

Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee is scheduled for Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 29th, 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.

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

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The CEO of Australian telco Optus, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, has resigned after deciding it was in the best interests of her former employer.

Bayer Rosmarin's resignation follows a November 8 outage that saw around ten million Australians unable to connect to any Optus services for fourteen hours.

Optus hid its explanation of the outage in an FAQ at the bottom of this page, where the incident is described as follows:

At around 4.05am Wednesday morning, the Optus network received changes to routing information from an international peering network following a software upgrade. These routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset safety levels on key routers. This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves.

It was later revealed that the source of the routing information was Singtel, the Singapore-based telco that owns Optus. The Optus network connects to Singtel internet exchanges in North America and Asia.

Optus later blamed the incident on default settings in its Cisco routers, which couldn't cope with the volume of changes sent by Singtel as they exceeded safety limits. Optus's submission explaining the outage is, however, silent on or why its network accepted such changes without testing their impact on its kit – a common and sensible approach to operating mission-critical infrastructure.

[...] The danger Optus's outage posed, and the mass inconvenience, earned Bayer Rosmarin an appearance before a parliamentary committee.

[...] Yet Bayer Rosmarin did not do well in her appearance regarding the outage, revealing that the nation's second-largest telco's disaster recovery regime did not envisage a total network outage. Another admission was that the former CEO's personal DR strategy had evolved to see her carry SIM cards for Australia's two rival mobile networks.

[...] Left unanswered is how Singtel poisoned the network in the first place, amid an undercurrent of concern that a foreign carrier – even one from a friend like Singapore – had deep enough access to an Australian network to bring it down.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/2019/02/22/the-history-behind-aspirin-81/

Patients often come into clinics on a grocery list of medications. Common prescriptions include lisinopril 20 mg, amlodipine 2.5 mg, metformin 500 mg, and aspirin 81 mg. One dosage stands out from the others. While most medications come in dosages of round numbers or common decimals, low-dose aspirin has a standard dose of 81 mg.

Why is aspirin available at a dose of 81 milligrams? The answer is historical in nature and is rooted in a medieval and now defunct system of measurement called the apothecary system of weights and measures. The full explanation of aspirin 81 requires some background information on the apothecary system and is best explained in comparison to the more familiar metric system.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-soot-pollution-coal-fired-power-deadly.html

Burning coal to generate electricity is on the way out in the United States, but the nation's long dependence on the fossil fuel took a devastating toll.

A new study determined for the first time that soot pollution from coal-fired power plants is more dangerous than soot from other sources. During the past two decades, the researchers found, coal plant soot contributed to the deaths of at least 460,000 Americans, including 25% of all deaths among Medicare recipients before 2009.

Only Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio recorded more deaths associated with coal plant pollution than the 25,000 deaths in Illinois during the period studied.

An interactive map accompanying the study, published in the journal Science, reveals glimmers of hope amid the grim statistics.

Deaths attributed to coal plant soot have declined dramatically in recent years as utilities closed scores of their dirtiest plants and cleaned up others—changes prompted by more stringent federal clean air regulations, competition from less expensive gas-fired power plants and legal pressure from environmental groups.

"The fact that they estimated more than 40,000 deaths a year two decades ago and the number is now down to 1,600 a year is a pretty remarkable success story," said Jonathan Levy, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University, who wasn't involved in the study.

Soot, also known as particulate matter, is a byproduct of incomplete combustion and can be formed by chemical reactions between sulfur dioxide emitted by fossil fuel power plants and other compounds in the atmosphere. The type of soot that most concerns public health researchers—PM2.5—is so tiny that thousands of the fine particles could fit on the period at the end of this sentence.

Breathing even small amounts can inflame the lungs and trigger asthma attacks. Previous studies have linked soot exposure with heart attacks and premature death.

Journal Reference:
Lucas Henneman et al, Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adf4915

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Simple ballpoint pen can write custom LEDs:

Researchers working with Chuan Wang, an associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, have developed ink pens that allow individuals to handwrite flexible, stretchable optoelectronic devices on everyday materials including paper, textiles, rubber, plastics and 3D objects.

In a paper published Aug. 7 in Nature Photonics, the team reports their simple and versatile fabrication approach to allow anyone to make a custom light-emitting diode (LED) or photodetector without the need for any specialized training or bulky equipment. The new handheld fabrication technology builds on earlier work by Wang and first author Junyi Zhao, a doctoral candidate in Wang's lab, in which they demonstrated a novel way to fabricate stretchable LEDs with an inkjet printer.

"Handwriting custom devices was a clear next step after the printer," Wang said. "We had the inks already, so it was a natural transition to take the technology we had already developed and modify it to work in regular ballpoint pens where it could be cheap and accessible to all."

Journal Reference:
Zhao, J., Lo, LW., Yu, Z. et al. Handwriting of perovskite optoelectronic devices on diverse substrates. Nat. Photon. 17, 964–971 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01266-1

Original Submission