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mrpg writes:

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-01-transistors-based-monolayer-black-phosphorus.html

Journal Reference:
Li, Wanying, Tao, Quanyang, Li, Zhiwei, et al. Monolayer black phosphorus and germanium arsenide transistors via van der Waals channel thinning, Nature Electronics (DOI: 10.1038/s41928-023-01087-8)

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-ancient-roman-wine-production-clues.html

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The 200-foot Vulcan Centaur, in development since 2014, is set for its first flight and poised to make a big impact in the industry:

On Monday, January 8, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur could finally perform its first flight. ULA has been a rock in the spaceflight industry since its founding in 2006, and with this pending launch, the company is ready to take its next bold step into space. Here's how America's new powerhouse rocket could disrupt the sector and compete with the ever-dominant SpaceX.

The Vulcan Centaur rocket, towering at 202 feet (61.6 meters), is scheduled for liftoff from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex-41. ULA, a collaboration between Lockheed Martin Corporation and Boeing Company, hasn't created a rocket that compares technologically to those belonging to SpaceX, but it still represents a big achievement for the company.

Vulcan Centaur could make serious waves in the spaceflight industry, with ULA potentially matching SpaceX's lower launch prices, according to the Motley Fool. SpaceX, known for revolutionizing space travel with affordable launches like the $67 million Falcon 9, prompted ULA to respond with a more affordable option. Vulcan, set to launch at under $100 million, marks a substantial cost reduction from the company's $400 million Delta IV Heavy. This strategic pricing means ULA can stay somewhat competitive, demonstrated by its shared $2.5 billion Space Force contract with SpaceX, and even without the benefit of reusable rockets.

While this might mean lower revenues for Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Vulcan Centaur's cost-effectiveness could prove beneficial in the long term. This development signals—hopefully—a tightening competition in the space launch sector. What's more, customers must weigh other considerations beyond just launch costs, such as fairing adaptability and the increasing issue of backlogs. Needless to say, the introduction of SpaceX's Starship megarocket could complicate the landscape for ULA, but only time will tell.

Target launch time: 08-JAN-2024 07:18 UTC

Live coverage begins 06:30 UTC on the ULA website

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Multiple sites are reporting on 13-year-old Tetris player, Willis Gibson, also known as Blue Scuti, who played until the NES version gave out. New play methods, such as rolling and hypertapping, were needed to reach a skill level where one can play as long as endurance and the software hold out. In his case it took over half an hour on the NES using rolling:

Blue Scuti is a Tetris prodigy who employs the "rolling" controller technique, a new way of holding and using the NES controller that was popularized in 2021. Rolling surpassed "hyper tapping," which requires players to tap the controller's D-pad 12 times per second, as the fastest and best way of playing Tetris. Rolling is a method where players roll their fingers on the bottom of an NES controller and use that pressure to push the controller into their other hand, which presses the D-pad to move the blocks. With rolling, players can push the D-pad at least 20 times per second, which is fast enough to theoretically play the game until it breaks. The technique has completely revolutionized competitive Tetris over the last few years.

Also at Tom's Hardware, Tetris was finally beaten after 34 years, game kill screen pops up at Level 157 — hypertapping and rolling were key techniques and the BBC, Tetris: How a US teenager achieved the 'impossible' and what his feat tells us about human capabilities.

Previously:
(2023) Hackers' Delight: a History of MIT Pranks and Hacks
(2023) Tetris' Creators Reveal the Game's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries
(2021) Tetris is no Longer Just a Game, but an Algorithm that Ensures Maximum Hotel Room Occupancy
(2014) Happy 30th Birthday Tetris!

Original Submission

upstart writes:

SpaceX Illegally Fired Workers Critical of Elon Musk, US Labor Agency Says:

Rocket and satellite maker SpaceX on Wednesday was accused by a U.S. labor agency of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating a letter calling founder and CEO Elon Musk a "distraction and embarrassment."

A regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint claiming SpaceX violated the workers' rights under federal labor law to band together and advocate for better working conditions.

The letter sent to SpaceX executives in June 2022 focused on a series of tweets Musk had made since 2020, many of which were sexually suggestive. The employees claimed Musk's statements did not align with the company's policies on diversity and workplace misconduct, and called on SpaceX to condemn them.

The complaint also accuses SpaceX of interrogating employees about the letter, disparaging the workers who were involved, and threatening to fire workers who engaged in similar activity.

[...] The case is the latest to accuse companies run by Musk of violating employees' rights under labor and employment laws.

Reuters in November documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at SpaceX facilities, including crushed limbs, electrocution, head injuries and one death. SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment on the findings.

In October, the NLRB issued a complaint accusing X, the Musk-owned social media service formerly known as Twitter, of illegally firing an employee over tweets challenging the company's return-to-office policy. X has denied wrongdoing.

And electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), where Musk is CEO, has faced several NLRB complaints amid a union organizing campaign and numerous lawsuits alleging widespread race discrimination at its factories. Tesla has said it does not tolerate discrimination.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

An incredibly early release of 86-DOS has been found, imaged, and shared on the Internet Archive. The disk appears to be an original release of version 0.1 C of 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products (1980) and includes several utilities, along with a game. Moreover, according to the disk label, what we see is just the eleventh disk off the duplication line. This is an important finding, as 86-DOS is a direct ancestor of PC DOS and MS-DOS.

Archive.org member f15sim shared the early 86-DOS disk image on the Internet Archive’s site just ahead of the New Year.  We even get to see a photo of the disk in its paper sleeve, where “Serial #11” can be seen printed. Before this 86-DOS release was unearthed on its 5.25-inch floppy disk, the earliest version that had been saved for posterity was version 0.34.

[...] NTDEV highlights the Spartan nature of 86-DOS version 0.1 C. The OS is delivered as a floppy disk containing just nine files. The core OS standard COMMAND.COM was included, which interprets command line instructions like dir, copy, clear, and format. The disk also contained utilities for file and disk copying, a basic text editor, plus two or three development utilities.

The development utilities were important to 86-DOS releases as users would be short on software unless they sourced or translated existing 8-bit Z80 CP/M programs for the 8086 architecture. Thus, there was an assembly language program called ASM.COM, a code compiler app called HEX2BIN.COM, and a Z80 to 8086 translator dubbed TRANS.COM.

Last but not least, it is interesting to see that an OS as primitive as this release included a game. CHESS.COM was accompanied by instructions in CHESS.DOC, which would probably be essential reading on a no-graphics rendition of this complex strategic game.

To test 86-DOS yourself, you can grab the disk image directly from Archive.org and then follow the instructions provided here to get a working SIMH/AltairZ80 Simulator compatible with the disk image.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

'Giant' predator worms more than half a billion years old discovered in North Greenland:

Fossils of a new group of animal predators have been located in the Early Cambrian Sirius Passet fossil locality in North Greenland. These large worms may be some of the earliest carnivorous animals to have colonized the water column more than 518 million years ago, revealing a past dynasty of predators that scientists didn't know existed.

The new fossil animals have been named Timorebestia, meaning 'terror beasts' in Latin. Adorned with fins down the sides of their body, a distinct head with long antennae, massive jaw structures inside their mouth, and growing to more than 30cm in length, these were some of the largest swimming animals in the Early Cambrian times.

"We have previously known that primitive arthropods were the dominant predators during the Cambrian, such as the bizarre-looking anomalocaridids," said Dr. Jakob Vinther from the University of Bristol's Schools of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences, a senior author on the study. "However, Timorebestia is a distant, but close, relative of living arrow worms, or chaetognaths. These are much smaller ocean predators today that feed on tiny zooplankton."

[...] "Timorebestia were giants of their day and would have been close to the top of the food chain. That makes it equivalent in importance to some of the top carnivores in modern oceans, such as sharks and seals back in the Cambrian period."

fliptop writes:

Facing more than 30 lawsuits from victims of its massive data breach, 23andMe is now deflecting the blame to the victims themselves in an attempt to absolve itself from any responsibility, according to a letter sent to a group of victims seen by TechCrunch:

"Rather than acknowledge its role in this data security disaster, 23andMe has apparently decided to leave its customers out to dry while downplaying the seriousness of these events," Hassan Zavareei, one of the lawyers representing the victims who received the letter from 23andMe, told TechCrunch in an email.

[...] But in a letter sent to a group of hundreds of 23andMe users who are now suing the company, 23andMe said that "users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords following these past security incidents, which are unrelated to 23andMe."

"Therefore, the incident was not a result of 23andMe's alleged failure to maintain reasonable security measures," the letter reads.

Zavareei said that 23andMe is "shamelessly" blaming the victims of the data breach.

"This finger pointing is nonsensical. 23andMe knew or should have known that many consumers use recycled passwords and thus that 23andMe should have implemented some of the many safeguards available to protect against credential stuffing — especially considering that 23andMe stores personal identifying information, health information, and genetic information on its platform," Zavareei said in an email.

"The breach impacted millions of consumers whose data was exposed through the DNA Relatives feature on 23andMe's platform, not because they used recycled passwords. Of those millions, only a few thousand accounts were compromised due to credential stuffing. 23andMe's attempt to shirk responsibility by blaming its customers does nothing for these millions of consumers whose data was compromised through no fault of their own whatsoever," said Zavareei.

Previously:

• 23andMe: Profiles of 6.9 Million People Hacked
• 23andMe Says Private User Data is Up for Sale After Being Scraped

Original Submission

Frosty Piss writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/03/gentoo_starts_offering_binaries/

I'm not one of these Nancy-Boys who just downloads some binaries and call it an operating system. I compiled my Gentoo, right here on my own computer, but now that's history.

In what many thought might be a prank, The geeks at Gentoo announced they will now offers 20-plus gigabytes of pre-compiled binaries, from desktops to office suites, to speed up installations and updates.

Although this is exactly how basically all other current Linux distributions work, it is a significant departure for Gentoo, which previously was an almost entirely source-based distro. With Gentoo, the install disk that gets you started must by definition be pre-compiled, up to now, when you install Gentoo, it fetches the source code and compiles it on your machine for your machine, specifically optimized for your computer's specific CPU and the individual functionality and configuration you chose.

For now, the full range of pre-compiled binary packages will focus on x86-64 and Arm64.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical/regenerate-pancreatic-beta-cells-insulin-type-1-diabetes/

Researchers have taken a big step forward in the quest to regenerate the pancreatic beta-cells damaged by type 1 diabetes. Using FDA-approved drugs usually given to patients with rare cancers, they reprogrammed pancreatic cells to produce and secrete insulin in response to glucose. The discovery could mean that, one day, diabetics won't need to take multiple daily insulin injections.

Pancreatic beta-cells synthesize, store and release insulin. But, in type 1 diabetes (T1D), the immune system selectively destroys these cells over time, leading to a lifelong dependence on exogenous insulin administration for survival. While insulin therapy helps control blood glucose, it doesn't prevent, stop, or reverse the destruction of the pancreas' insulin-secreting cells.

For many years, research has focused on identifying novel therapies that stimulate beta-cell growth and function to restore insulin production in type 1 diabetics. Now, in an exciting breakthrough, researchers at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have brought us a step closer to making this a reality, regenerating damaged pancreatic cells so they can produce insulin and functionally respond to blood glucose levels.

"We consider this regenerative approach an important advance towards clinical development," said Sam El-Osta, the study's corresponding author. "Until now, the regenerative process has been incidental and lacking confirmation; more importantly, the epigenetic mechanisms that govern such regeneration in humans remains poorly understood."

The study builds upon previous proof-of-concept research by Baker Institute scientists, where they used an EZH2 inhibitor with a naturally derived drug to stimulate ductal progenitor cells, descendants of stem cells, into beta-like cells capable of producing insulin. Ductal cells are exocrine cells that form the lining of the tubes (ducts) that deliver pancreatic enzymes.

Journal Reference:
Al-Hasani, Keith, Marikar, Safiya Naina, Kaipananickal, Harikrishnan, et al. EZH2 inhibitors promote β-like cell regeneration in young and adult type 1 diabetes donors [open], Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (DOI: 10.1038/s41392-023-01707-x)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microsoft adding new PC button in its first significant keyboard change in decades

Microsoft is adding an artificial intelligence button to its Windows keyboards in a move that marks the company's first significant keyboard change in nearly three decades.

The button — called the Copilot key — will launch Microsoft's AI chatbot, the company's executive vice president Yusuf Mehdi wrote in the Thursday announcement. He said Microsoft sees the key addition as "the entry point into the world of AI on the PC."

"We believe it will empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily," Mehdi wrote.

[...] Starting this month, some new PCs running Windows 11 will have the Copilot keyboard button. The key will also be included on some upcoming Surface devices.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/spacex-launches-first-starlink-satellites-that-will-work-with-t-mobile-phones/

SpaceX last night launched the first six Starlink satellites that will provide cellular transmissions for customers of T-Mobile and other carriers.

SpaceX said it launched 21 satellites overall, including "the first six Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities that enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters without changing hardware or firmware. The enhanced Starlink satellites have an advanced modem that acts as a cellphone tower in space, eliminating dead zones with network integration similar to a standard roaming partner," the company said.
[...]
While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote that the satellites will "allow for mobile phone connectivity anywhere on Earth," he also described a significant bandwidth limit. "Note, this only supports ~7Mb per beam and the beams are very big, so while this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks," Musk wrote.
[...]
T-Mobile said that field testing of Starlink satellites with the T-Mobile network will begin soon.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Over at ACM.org, Herbert Bruderer posits:

Digitization has many downsides. It puts many people at a disadvantage and relegates them to the sidelines. Many service providers apparently are unaware of this, or consciously accept it. It disadvantages many weaker, disabled, and older people. Digital devices are often more difficult to use than analog ones. The more (mostly unused) options, the more difficult it is.

The analog landline telephone is easy to use and works even in the event of a power failure. Countless people are overwhelmed by digital cell phones. Digitization excludes many people from social or economic life. They are left behind. Without computer skills, it is difficult to use ticket machines, for example. Analog coffee machines, washing machines, stoves, and refrigerators are more user-friendly than digital ones. This is especially true for radios and televisions.

The author gives examples on being penalized for not using digital payment transactions, and places where if you're without a cell phone you're on your own in an emergency, concluding:

The digital world is often ruthless and undemocratic. It also consumes a lot of electrical energy, especially artificial intelligence.

Original Submission

New antibiotic family kills superbugs in a way they can't resist

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical/antibiotic-polymer-family-kills-superbugs-resistance/

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are poised to become a global health concern in the coming decades. In the race to develop new weapons, scientists from Texas A&M have created a novel family of antibacterial polymers that can kill 'superbugs' in a way they can't evolve resistance to.
...
Bacteria are adaptable little pests, and so they quickly evolved defenses against antibiotics. Scientists in turn developed new ones, but of course bacteria soon evolved resistance to those too, in a cycle that lasted decades. Unfortunately, in recent years the tides have begun to turn in favor of bacteria – we're running out of new drugs, but they're not running out of evolution. Our last lines of defense are beginning to fail, and there are now strains of superbugs that are immune to anything and everything we can throw at them.

We need brand new tactics if we're going to prevent a global health crisis, and antibiotic polymers are a decent step in that direction. These synthetic molecules latch onto and disrupt the outer membranes of bacteria, in a form of attack that the bugs can't develop resistance to.

In the new study, the Texas A&M team developed new polymers that are more customizable, allowing them to be tuned to fight superbugs even more effectively. The key is a catalyst called AquaMet, which can handle a high concentration of charges and is water-soluble. That charge tolerance is important – antibacterial polymers work because their positive charge attracts them to the negative charge of the bacteria.

Journal Reference:
Sarah N. Hancock, Nattawut Yuntawattana, Emily Diep, and Quentin Michaudel, Ring-opening metathesis polymerization of N-methylpyridinium-fused norbornenes to access antibacterial main-chain cationic polymers, PNAS, 120 (51) e2311396120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2311396120

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The kind of benchmark that IT normally worries about isn't without importance. How fast a particular data set is learned, how quickly prompts can be processed, what resources are required and how it all scales? If you're creating an AI system as part of your business, you'd better get those things right, or at the least understand their bounds.

They don't much matter otherwise, although you can be sure marketing and pundits will disagree. The fact it doesn't matter is a good thing: benchmarks too often become targets that distort function, and they should be kept firmly in their kennels.

The most important benchmark for AI is how truthful it is or, more usefully, how little it is misrepresented by those who sell or use it. As Pontius Pilate was said to have said 2,000 years ago, what is truth? There is no benchmark. Despite the intervening millennia and infinite claims to have fixed this, there still isn't. The most egregious of liars can command the support of nations in the midst of what should be a golden age of reason. If nobody's prepared or able to stop them, what chance have we got to keep AI on the side of the angels?

The one mechanism that's in with a chance is that curious synthesis of regulatory bodies and judicial systems which exists – in theory – outside politics but inside democratic control. Regulators set standards, the courts act as backstop to those powers and adjudicators of disputes.

[...] Which takes us to the regulators. It should be that the more technical and measurable the field being regulated, the easier the regulator's job is. If you're managing the radio spectrum or the railways, something going wrong shows up quickly in the numbers. Financial regulators, operating in the miasma of capital economics and corporate misdirection, go through a cycle of being weakened in the name of strong growth until everything falls apart and a grand reset follows. Wince and repeat. Yet very technical regulators can go wrong, as with the FAA and Boeing's 737 MAX. Regulatory capture by their industries or the politicians is a constant threat. And sometimes we just can't tell – GDPR has been with us for five years. Is it working?