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owl writes:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-defeats-patent-troll-sable-at-trial

For almost seven years, Cloudflare has been fighting against patent trolls. We've been doing this successfully through the efforts of our own legal team, external counsel, and the extraordinary efforts of people on the Internet looking for prior art (and getting rewarded for it) through our Project Jengo.

While we refuse to pay trolls for their meritless claims, we've been happy to award prizes to Project Jengo participants who help stop the trolls through prior art that invalidates their patents or claims. Project Jengo participants helped us in the past roundly beat the patent troll Blackbird (who subsequently went out of business).

[...] The jury found that Cloudflare did not infringe the patent asserted against Cloudflare by patent trolls Sable IP and Sable Networks.

And while that would have been enough to decide the case by itself, the jury went further and found that Sable's old and broadly-written patent claim was invalid and never should have been granted in the first place–meaning they can no longer assert the claim against anyone else. Since Sable first sued us, we've invalidated significant parts of three Sable patents, hamstringing their ability to bring lawsuits against other companies.

It's worth noting that very few lawsuits ever reach a jury. Most non-lawyers are shocked to learn that only about 1% of civil cases make it to trial, because trials are generally what they see on TV or in film. But professional litigators know that almost all cases are resolved much earlier through procedures that are much less entertaining to watch on screen: written motions, delay, or settlement. A big reason for this is that taking a case to trial–even on simple matters–is extremely costly. In patent cases, that means millions of dollars.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From The Register: 'Literally bulletproof' but needs constant cleaning to stave off corrosion

It's only been a few months since Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck made its way to those at the front of the queue, but the arrival has been tarnished for some.

[....] according to reports in the Cybertruck Owners Club forum. A trending thread titled "Rust Spots/Corrosion is the Norm" from a user going by "Raxar" states:

Just picked up my Cybertruck today. The advisor specifically mentioned the cybertrucks develop orange rust marks in the rain and that required the vehicle to be buffed out. I know I heard the story of never take out your Delorean in the rain but I just never read anything about rust and Cybertrucks.

This, as you might expect, provoked a strong reaction from the faithful. "Liar. Is this fun for you?" one asked, while another incorrectly riposted: "If it 'rusts', it's not stainless steel." This is a common misconception. Stainless steel is resistant to rust, but not completely immune.

[....] corrosion reports may stem from owners believing that "ultra-hard stainless steel" doesn't require much care. Tesla, it appears, would vehemently disagree.

Another thread from January included a screenshot of Cybertruck's maintenance documentation, where it is said that the car does not have a clear coat. Clear coat is the outermost layer of transparent paint that serves as a protective barrier, preventing UV radiation and weather from damaging the colored paint layer. Clear coat also takes abrasions that might otherwise scratch the paint job.

Cybertruck owners will be relieved to know that Starship has not exhibited this problem, so far.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/rare-bubonic-plague-case-in-oregon-spread-from-very-sick-pet-cat/

An Oregon resident contracted bubonic plague from their "very sick" pet cat, marking the first time since 2015 that someone in the state has been stricken with the Black Death bacterium, according to local health officials.

Plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, circulates cryptically in the US in various types of rodents and their fleas. It causes an average of seven human cases a year, with a range of 1 to 17, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cases tend to cluster in two regions, the CDC notes: a hotspot that spans northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado, and another region spanning California, far western Nevada, and southern Oregon.

The new case in Oregon occurred in the central county of Deschutes. It was fortunately caught early before the infection developed into a more severe, systemic bloodstream infection (septicemic plague).

[...] It's unclear how or why the cat became infected. But cats are particularly susceptible to plague and are considered a common source of infection in the US. The animals, when left to roam outdoors, can pick up infections from fleas as well as killing and eating infected rodents. Though dogs can also pick up the infection from fleas or other animals, they are less likely to develop clinical illness, according to the CDC.

[...] According to the CDC, there were 496 plague cases in the US between 1970 and 2020. And between 2000 and 2020, the CDC counted 14 deaths.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Ovrdrive does not encrypt its contents by default but has a uniquely physical security mechanism and can be rigged to self-destruct - by heating itself to over 100 degrees C:

Through GitHub and Crowd Supply, Ryan Walker of Interrupt Labs (via CNX Software) is releasing a security-focused, open-source USB flash drive called Ovrdrive USB, which boasts a self-destruct mechanism that heats the flash chip to over 100 degrees Celsius.

The Ovrdrive USB is unencrypted by default, so it should still be legal in countries where encryption is otherwise illegal while providing an extra degree of (physical) security not matched by our current best flash drives.

First, the Ovrdrive USB design functions pretty simply. It's mostly a run-of-the-mill USB flash drive with a unique activation mechanism. For it to be detected by your machine, you have to rapidly insert the drive three consecutive times actually to turn it on. Failure to do so will hide the drive's partition and give the impression that it's broken. Initially, it was supposed to self-destruct, but it proved too challenging to mass produce, forcing Walker to change the drive.

[...] In its crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply, the flash drive is slated for an August 2024 release and priced at $69 with free US domestic shipping or $12 international shipping for the rest of the world. At the original time of writing, the flash drive has reached 70% of its funding, with two days remaining on the funding deadline.

Related: Report Reveals Decline In Quality Of USB Sticks And MicroSD Cards

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year break – grows from 50MB to 700MB

Damn Small Linux (DSL) has returned with a new 2024 edition. The arrival of DSL 2024 has surprised many, as the last release of this compact Linux OS was more than a decade ago. Over the years DSL has put on weight (haven't we all) inflating from 50MB in 2008 to today's 700MB. That sounds like a lot, but the philosophy of making a usable desktop distribution for older PCs with limited hardware resources is similar. Moreover "applications, the kernel, and drivers have all mushroomed," explains John Andrews, the driving force behind this project.

Originally, DSL was launched as a business card-size live CD Linux distribution based on Debian and Knoppix. The relaunched version [is] a Debian and antiX distribution, will still run from a live CD, but it needs a full-sized CD. Andrews asserts that 700MB is a new hard limit for DSL going forward, and it needs to be for standard CDR compatibility.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-dna-elucidate-prehistoric-community.html

Deciduous and evergreen forests dominate the limestone karst formations of the northwestern highlands of Thailand. A vast number of caves and rock shelters intersperse the mountains.

In over 40 such caves in Mae Hong Son province, large wooden coffins mounted on stilts, dating between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, can be found. During the Iron Age period, each of these up to several-meter-long coffins was crafted from a single teak tree and features refined carvings of geometric, animal- or human-like shapes at the handles of both ends.

This archaeological assemblage has been studied for more than two decades by members of the Prehistoric Population and Cultural Dynamics in Highland Pang Mapha Project, led by Professor Rasmi Shoocongdej, from the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University.

"Our research examines the relationship between humans and their environments in the seasonal tropics. One crucial aspect is the exploration of the social structure of these prehistoric communities, as well as explaining their connections with other pre-Neolithic, Neolithic and post-Neolithic groups in this region," says Shoocongdej, an archaeologist and senior author of the study.

To understand the genetic profile of the Log Coffin-associated communities, and the connection of individuals buried in different caves, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Germany and Thailand has analyzed the DNA of 33 ancient individuals from five Log Coffin sites. The genomes recovered from the ancient individuals allow the first detailed study of the structure of a prehistoric community from Southeast Asia. The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

mendax writes:

Ars is reporting:

It turns out some of the informed speculation about the US military's latest X-37B spaceplane mission was pretty much spot-on.

When the semi-classified winged spacecraft launched on December 28, it flew into orbit on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is much larger than the Atlas V and Falcon 9 rockets used to launch the X-37B on its previous missions. [...] This immediately sparked speculation that the X-37B would reach higher altitudes than its past flights, which remained in low-Earth orbit at altitudes of a few hundred miles. A discovery from Tomi Simola, a satellite tracking hobbyist living near Helsinki, Finland, appears to confirm this suspicion.

On Friday, Simola reported on social media and on SeeSat-L, a long-running online forum of satellite tracking enthusiasts, that he detected an unidentified object using a sky-watching camera. [...]

"Exciting news!" Simola posted on social media. "Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7), which was launched to classified orbit last December, was seen by my SatCam! Here are images from the last two nights!"

Now if only we knew what it was doing so high in orbit!

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Contents of Charles Darwin's entire personal library revealed for first time:

Details of Charles Darwin's vast personal library, from a paper on epileptic guinea pigs to the Elizabeth Gaskell novel he adored, are being published in their entirety for the first time.

The project has involved nearly two decades of painstaking, detective-like work to track down the thousands of books, journals, pamphlets and articles in the naturalist's library.

John van Wyhe, the academic who has led the "overwhelming" endeavour, said it showed the extraordinary extent of Darwin's research into the work of others.

"It also shows how insanely eclectic Darwin was," Van Wyhe said. "There is this vast sea of things which might be an American or German news clipping about a duck or invasive grasshoppers. That's been the fun part, not the formal books but the other things ... all of which pool together to make the theories and publications we all know."

The 300-page catalogue published by Darwin Online details 7,400 titles across 13,000 items including journals, pamphlets and reviews.

Some of the books date back to Darwin's school days such as Oliver Goldsmith's A history of England (1821), which he won as a prize, or his headmaster's textbook on ancient geography.

canopic jug writes:

Multiple sites have covered the 100^th anniversary of the premier of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was premiered one hundred years ago today, on the snowy afternoon of February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall on Manhattan's West 43rd Street.

The 25-year-old composer was at the piano, joined by the dance band of Paul Whiteman, the noted bandleader who commissioned the work. It was presented near the end of a marathon concert, organized and promoted by Whiteman, entitled, An Experiment in Modern Music. Purportedly in attendance were such musical luminaries as Sergei Rachmaninov, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Leopold Stokowski, Ernest Bloch, Igor Stravinsky, Walter Damrosch, Victor Herbert, and John Philip Sousa. Whiteman later recalled that

it was a strange audience out front. Vaudevillians, concert managers came to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy.

Also at,

• US Library of Congress : Gershwin's "Rhapsody" at 100; Still Capturing the American Character
• US Library of Congress : "Rhapsody in Blue" at 100
• NPR : 'Rhapsody in Blue': After a century, Gershwin's musical melting pot still resonates
• University of Michigan : Category Archives: Rhapsody in Blue
• The New European : Rhapsody in Blue at 100: The European roots of an American anthem
• LPM : As "Rhapsody in Blue" turns 100, it reminds us to experiment boldly

and many others.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A German court has sided with R2 Semiconductor against Intel, ruling that the chip giant infringed one of R2's patent. This decision could lead to sales ban of select Intel processors as well as products based on them in Germany. Intel, for its part, has accused R2 of being a patent troll wielding a low-quality patent, and has said that it will appeal the decision.

The regional court in Düsseldorf, Germany, ruled that Intel infringed a patent covering an integrated voltage regulator technology that belongs to Palo Alto, California-based R2 Semiconductor. The court on Wednesday issued an injunction against sales of Intel's Core-series 'Ice Lake,' 'Tiger Lake,' 'Alder Lake,' and Xeon Scalable 'Ice Lake Server' processors as well as PCs and servers based on these CPUs. Some of these processors have already been discontinued, but there are Alder Lake chips are available in retail and inside many systems that are still on the shelves. Though the ruling does not mean that these CPUs will disappear from the German market immediately.

Meanwhile, the injunction does not cover Intel's current-generation Core 'Raptor Lake' and Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' processors for desktops and laptops, according to The Financial Times, so the impact of the injunction is set to be fairly limited.

Intel has expressed its disappointment with the verdict and announced its intention to challenge the decision. The company criticized R2 Semiconductor's litigation strategy, accusing it of pursuing serial lawsuits against big companies, particularly after Intel managed to invalidate one of R2's U.S. patents.

"R2 files serial lawsuits to extract large sums from innovators like Intel," a statement by Intel reads. "R2 first filed suit against Intel in the U.S., but after Intel invalidated R2's low-quality U.S. patent R2 shifted its campaign against Intel to Europe. Intel believes companies like R2, which appears to be a shell company whose only business is litigation, should not be allowed to obtain injunctions on CPUs and other critical components at the expense of consumers, workers, national security, and the economy."

In its lawsuit against Intel, R2 requested the court to halt sales of infringing processors, sales of products equipped with these CPUs, and to mandate a recall of items containing these processors, as Intel revealed last September. The company contended that imposing an injunction would be an excessive response.

Meanwhile, it is important to note that in this legal battle Intel is safeguarding its customers by assuming responsibility for any legal expenses or compensations they may incur. Consequently, as of September, Intel was unable to provide a reliable estimate of the possible financial impact or the scope of potential losses that could result from the legal battle as they can be vast.

In a stark contrast with Intel, R2 welcomes the court's decisions and presents the company's own view on the legal dispute.

"We are delighted that the highly respected German court has issued an injunction and unequivocally found that Intel has infringed R2's patents for integrated voltage regulators," said David Fisher, CEO of R2. "We intend to enforce this injunction and protect our valuable intellectual property. The global patent system is here precisely for the purpose of protecting inventors like myself and R2 Semiconductor."

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-odors-prompt-brain-cells-decisions.html

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that odors stimulate specific brain cells that may play a role in rapid "go/no-go" decision-making.

The scientists focused on the hippocampus, an area of the brain crucial to memory and learning. They knew that so-called "time cells" played a major role in hippocampal function, but didn't know their role in associative learning.

"These are cells that would remind you to make a decision—do this or do that," said the study's senior author Diego Restrepo, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The researchers observed that when mice were given the choice of responding to a fruity smell by licking on a spout that delivered sweet water, they quickly learned to lick the fruity smell as opposed to the smell of mineral oil.

"They have to associate the odor with the outcome of what they are doing so that's why they learn decision-making," said Ming Ma, Ph.D., a first author of the study and a senior instructor in cell and developmental biology at the CU School of Medicine. "When it's a fruit odor, they lick and get a reward. When it's mineral oil, they stop licking."

"The more they learned, the more the cells were stimulated, leading to more rapid decoding of the odors and allowing the mice to quickly become proficient at choosing the fruity smell," said Fabio Simoes de Souza, DSc, another first author of the study and an assistant research professor in cell and developmental biology at the CU School of Medicine.

The catalyst for the decision-making is the odor that travels up the nose, sending neural signals to the olfactory bulb and to the hippocampus. The two organs are closely connected. The information is swiftly processed and the brain makes a decision based on the input.

"Before this we didn't know there were decision-making cells in the hippocampus," Restrepo said. "The hippocampus is multitasking."

More information:
Ming Ma et al, Sequential activity of CA1 hippocampal cells constitutes a temporal memory map for associative learning in mice, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.021

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

One of the world’s most famous drug classes may have another trick up its sleeve. In a new study, scientists in the UK have found that erectile dysfunction drugs like sildenafil (more widely known as Viagra) are linked to a lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. The findings don’t prove a cause-and-effect connection, the team says, but do merit clinical trials that could confirm a genuine benefit.

Sildenafil and similar drugs are called phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, or PDE5Is. By inhibiting PDE5, these drugs can open up blood vessels in certain parts of the body, particularly the penis. That’s why, although sildenafil was originally developed to treat hypertension and chest pain, it was found to be especially effective at alleviating erectile dysfunction. And thus the little blue pill was born.

While these drugs are synonymous with ED, they are taken for other indications as well. Several are approved to treat pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in the arteries of the lung. And scientists have been studying them for other medical uses, in both humans and animals.

The most intriguing possibility for these drugs might be in their potential against Alzheimer’s, though. In 2021, a NIH-funded study found evidence in the lab and from the real world that sildenafil could noticeably prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s in older people—perhaps reducing people’s relative risk by as much as 69% compared to not taking the drug, based on insurance claims data. However, less than a year later, an October 2022 study from a separate team (also NIH-funded) that looked at Medicare data failed to find any link between reduced Alzheimer’s risk and sildenafil.

The conflicting findings were enough to draw the attention of Ruth Brauer, an epidemiologist at the University of College London, and her team. So they decided to investigate for themselves, using medical record data collected through the UK’s National Health Service—data that gave them an advantage compared to past studies, according to Brauer.

“UK healthcare data can often be followed up for a very long time, and longer than U.S. insurance data. That’s because most of our data are collected by general practitioners or primary care physicians, and they often have patients under their care for decades,” she explained. “The second thing that is unique about UK healthcare data is that we have a lot of lifestyle variables in our data set, which can affect the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. So things like smoking or BMI, but also information on socioeconomic status.”

Anonymous Coward writes:

US climate scientist Michael Mann wins $1m in defamation lawsuit

The high-profile climate scientist Michael Mann has been awarded $1m by a jury in a defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers who compared his depictions of global heating to the work of a convicted child molester.

The case stretches back 12 years. In a statement posted on Mann's X account, one of his lawyers said: "Today's verdict vindicates Mike Mann's good name and reputation. It also is a big victory for truth and scientists everywhere who dedicate their lives answering vital scientific questions impacting human health and the planet."

[...] Emails from Mann and other scientists were leaked in 2009 in an incident known as "Climategate", with climate denialists claiming Mann manipulated data. Investigations by Penn State and others, including an examination of the emails by the Associated Press, found no misuse of data by Mann.

Regardless, in 2012, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, published a blogpost by Rand Simberg that compared investigations by Penn State University into Mann's work with the case of Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach who was convicted of sexually assaulting multiple children.

According to the Mann legal team's statement, the four-week jury trial in the District of Columbia superior court resulted in punitive damages of $1,000 against Simberg and $1,000,000 against Steyn.

"I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech," Mann said.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Meta and TikTok owner ByteDance are not keen on the idea of paying the European Union to regulate them. The companies have challenged a supervisory fee set forth by EU moderators, who are now required to monitor Meta, TikTok, and other major platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Politico reports. Meta first announced its action, with ByteDance following suit a day later.

Under the current arrangement, all designated companies must split the €45.2 million ($48.7 million) that EU's regulators argue is necessary to properly supervise the 20 Very Large Online Platforms and two Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs). Each regulated platform has 45 million or more users with its financial contribution based on the size of that number. They also can't owe more than 0.05 percent of its 2022 net profits. However, companies like Amazon and Pinterest that reported little to no profits won't owe anything. Meta, on the other hand, got a €11 million ($11.9 million) bill under the current arrangement. ByteDance has not publicly announced how much it owes.

Meta takes issue with the European Union regulators' methodology for choosing each company's fees. "Currently, companies that record a loss don't have to pay, even if they have a large user base or represent a greater regulatory burden, which means some companies pay nothing, leaving others to pay a disproportionate amount of the total," a Meta spokesperson remarked. Failure to comply with the fee could lead to a fine of up to six percent of a company's global revenue.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The UK’s 40-year-old fusion reactor achieved a world record for energy output in its final runs before being shut down for good, scientists have announced.

The Joint European Torus (JET) in Oxfordshire began operating in 1983. When running, it was temporarily the hottest point in the solar system, reaching 150 million°C.

The reactor’s previous record was a reaction lasting for 5 seconds in 2021, producing 59 megajoules of heat energy. But in its final tests in late 2023, it surpassed this by sustaining a reaction for 5.2 seconds while also reaching 69 megajoules of output, using just 0.2 milligrams of fuel.

[...] JET forged together atoms of deuterium and tritium – two stable isotopes of hydrogen – in plasma to create helium, while also releasing a vast amount of energy. This is the same reaction that powers our sun. It was a type of fusion reactor known as a tokamak, which contains plasma in a donut shape using rings of electromagnets.

Scientists ran the last experiments with deuterium-tritium fuel at JET in October last year and other experiments continued until December. But the machine has now been shut down for good and it is being decommissioned over the next 16 years.

“It’s great that it’s gone out with a little flourish,” says Matthews. “It’s got a noble history. It’s served its time and they’re going to squeeze a bit more information out of it during its decommissioning period as well. So it’s not something to be sad about; it’s something to be celebrated.”

A larger and more modern replacement for JET, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, is nearing completion and its first experiments are due to start in 2025.

[...] Another reactor using the same design, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, recently managed to sustain a reaction for 30 seconds at temperatures in excess of 100 million°C.

Original Submission