SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

At advanced nodes, chips are not getting cheaper.

Apple's A-series smartphone processors have evolved significantly from the A7 (28nm) to the A18 Pro (3nm), gaining more cores, transistors, and features. With each new node, TSMC charged Apple more per wafer, so the price increased from $5,000 for a 28nm wafer with A7 processors to $18,000 for a 3nm-class wafer for A17 and A18-series processors, reports Ben Bajarin, the chief executive and principal analyst at Creative Strategies.

Bajarin notes that as Apple's A-series chips have evolved, their transistor count has consistently increased, starting at 1 billion in the A7 and reaching 20 billion in the A18 Pro. That makes sense because the number of cores and features has also increased: in 2013, the A7 featured two high-performance cores and a four-cluster GPU, whereas, in 2024, the A18 Pro features two high-performance cores, four energy-efficient cores, a 16-core NPU, and a six-cluster GPU. 

Got a detailed price/die/density analysis of Apple A-silicon over time at TSMC. Some nuggets.From A7 to A18:- progression from 28nm to 3nm- Most dramatic shrinks occurred early (28nm → 20nm → 16nm/14nm)- Steady increase in transistor count from 1 billion (A7) to 20…December 18, 2024

A-series processors are aimed at smartphones, and Bajarin says their die sizes have remained relatively consistent, ranging between 80 and 125 square millimeters across generations. This was enabled by a steady increase in transistor densities facilitated by TSMC's latest process technologies. 

The most substantial transistor density increases occurred in the earlier nodes, such as transitions from 28nm to 20nm and then to 16nm/14nm. However, recent process technologies (N5, N4P, N3B, N3E) exhibit slower density improvements. The peak period for transistor density improvements occurred around the A11 (N10, 10nm-class) and A12 (N7, 7nm-class), with gains of 86% and 69%, respectively. Recent chips, including the A16 to A18 Pro, show a noticeable slowdown in density advancements, primarily due to slower SRAM scaling. 

However, despite diminishing returns, Bajarin notes that production costs have risen sharply. Wafer prices climbed from $5,000 for the A7 to $18,000 for the A17 and A18 Pro, while the cost per square millimeter increased from $0.07 to $0.25. 

owl writes:

They can't even follow their own rules:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/08/eu-court-fines-european-commission-for-breaching-its-own-data-privacy-laws/

A top court has ordered the European Union's top executive authority to pay €400 (around $410) in damages to a German citizen for breaching its own data protection laws.

In a statement, the EU General Court said the European Commission violated the citizen's rights by transferring some of his personal data to the United States without proper safeguards.

The court said the German citizen registered for a conference, managed by the European Commission, using the "Sign in with Facebook" option on the conference's website. But the citizen said information about his IP address, browser and device were transferred to companies in the United States — namely Amazon, which hosts the conference's website, and Meta, which owns Facebook — which the citizen said violated his rights under the bloc's data privacy rules.

The European Commission committed a "sufficiently serious breach" of the rules that cover the 27 European nations, the EU General Court ruled on Wednesday. Reuters, which first reported the news, said the fine is a first for the European Commission.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

The European Union has investigated itself and found ... actual wrongdoing ! For the first time ever, the EU has been found to have violated its own privacy rules established by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and will have to pay a fine, per a ruling handed down by the EU General Court.

The victim of the EU's brazen disregard for the law was a German citizen who used the "Sign in with Facebook" option when registering for a conference through a European Commission webpage. When the user clicked that button, data about their device, browser, and IP address were transferred through a content delivery network managed by Amazon Web Services and eventually found its way to servers operated by Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms in the United States. The court determined this transfer of data took place without proper safeguards, which amounts to a breach of GDPR rules, and the EU was ordered to pay a fine of €400 (about $412) directly to the person who brought the case.

[Source]: GIZMODO

Original Submission

Motor Trend is reporting on early production of a new permanent magnet material https://www.motortrend.com/features/niron-magnetics-clean-earth-permanent-magnets-ces-2025/ suitable for replacing the rare-earth magnets used, for example, in electric car motors, as well as loud speakers and many other products.

Invented some time back by university researchers and now in the pilot production stage (with suitably large investors like car companies),

Science has long known that a certain rare phase of iron nitride­­, known as an alpha-double-prime crystal structure of Fe16N2, holds extremely strong magnetic properties. But when produced by conventional means over the decades, the phase would degrade into more common, less magnetic phases. Then researchers at the University of Minnesota figured out a way to form this magic magnet material on a nano-scale using chemical vapor deposition or liquid phase epitaxy, and then developed a process for compacting and sintering nanoparticles of α″-Fe16N2 into magnets in the sizes and form factors allowing direct replacement of today's rare-earth permanent magnet motors.

Magnetic strength in the magnets used in electric motors is measured in tesla (where 1 tesla = 10,000 Gauss, for those more familiar with the unit used to measure Earth's magnetic pull). Weaker hard ferrite (iron-oxide) permanent magnets typically max out at around 0.35 tesla. The world's strongest permanent magnets made of neodymium measure around 1.4‑1.6 teslas. Niron's Clean Earth iron nitride permanent magnets peg the meter at 2.4 teslas. Niron Clean Earth magnets are also said to lose less magnetism over the typical operating temperature range than today's rare-earth permanent magnets.

Better yet: Niron's entire manufacturing process, from raw ore material to finished magnets, can be produced in a single factory on existing equipment, with 80 percent less CO2 and vastly less water usage, at a price that is currently on par with rare-earth magnets and utterly immune to price volatility due to supply chain and geopolitical forces.

Further icing on the cake: the iron is best sourced from iron salts that are a byproduct of steel manufacturing, with nitrogen sourced from ammonia. Produce that ammonia from air and water in a location that generates surplus solar or wind energy, and you get both clean nitrogen and a source of clean hydrogen that can help power the process.

One less thing to import from China...

For some perspective, here's a page on very high power research magnets (note, these are not permanent magnets as described above), https://new.nsf.gov/science-matters/maglab-makes-magic-magnets

The 100 tesla pulsed magnet at MagLab's Los Alamos site produces the highest nondestructive magnetic field in the world. Higher-field magnets exist but can't withstand a field that high and explode after brief experiments. By pulsing the magnet in bursts that last 15 milliseconds, Los Alamos holds the world record for the highest field ever generated without blowing something up, enabling rare precision measurements.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are ditching third-party fact-checkers in favor of a Community Notes program inspired by X, according to an announcement penned by Meta's new Trump-friendly policy chief Joel Kaplan. Meta is also moving its trust and safety teams from California to Texas:

"We've seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see." Meta said. "We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they're seeing – and one that's less prone to bias."

The Community Notes feature will first be rolled out in the US "over the next couple of months" according to Meta, and will display an unobtrusive label indicating that there is additional information available on a post in place of full-screen warnings that users have to click through. Like the X feature, Meta says its own Community Notes will "require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings."

The moderation changes aim to address complaints that Meta censors "too much harmless content" on its platforms, and is slow to respond to users who have their accounts restricted. Meta is also moving its trust and safety teams responsible for its content policies and content reviews content out of California to Texas and other US locations, instead of wholesale moving its California headquarters like Elon Musk did with SpaceX and X.

Also at BBC, MSN and NYP.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-mediterranean-diet-linked-memory-gut.html

A new Tulane University study suggests the Mediterranean diet's brain-boosting benefits may work by changing the balance of bacteria in the gut.

In a study published in Gut Microbes Reports, researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine found that subjects following a Mediterranean diet developed distinctly different gut bacteria patterns compared to those eating a typical Western diet. These bacterial changes correlated with better memory and cognitive performance.

"We've known that what we eat affects brain function, but this study explores how that could be happening," said lead author Rebecca Solch-Ottaiano, Ph.D., neurology research instructor at Tulane's Clinical Neuroscience Research Center. "Our findings suggest that dietary choices can influence cognitive performance by reshaping the gut microbiome."

The study found that rats fed a Mediterranean-style diet rich in olive oil, fish and fiber over 14 weeks showed increases in four beneficial types of gut bacteria and decreases in five others compared to rats eating a Western diet high in saturated fats. These bacterial changes were linked to improved performance on maze challenges designed to test memory and learning.

Specifically, higher levels of bacteria such as Candidatus Saccharimonas were associated with better cognitive performance, while increased levels of other bacteria, such as Bifidobacterium, correlated with poorer memory function.

The Mediterranean diet group also showed better cognitive flexibility—the ability to adapt to new information—and improved working memory compared to the Western diet group. They maintained lower levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol.

Journal Reference: Rebecca J. Solch-Ottaiano et al, Comparison between two divergent diets, Mediterranean and Western, on gut microbiota and cognitive function in young sprague dawley rats, Gut Microbes Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1080/29933935.2024.2439490

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Florida witnessed a massive rise in VPN demand on New Year's Day after Pornhub began prohibiting people from accessing its site from within the Sunshine State, it is claimed.

Between the clock striking midnight and 4am on January 1, the day of the Pornhub pullout, the folks at VPN-pushing vpnMentor documented a rather incredible 1150 percent spike in Floridians wanting to use a VPN to mask their public IP addresses.

January 1 marked the implementation of Florida's age-verification mandate, so perhaps all those netizens were scrambling for a VPN client and provider so that they appeared to the adult dot-com to be visiting from somewhere outside the Sunshine State, and thus evade Pornhub's blockade.

[...] Here's the back story: In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed the Online Protection for Minors act, aka House Bill 3, into law. The legislation requires websites to verify visitors' ages, and for those hosting a "substantial portion of material harmful to minors," such as Pornhub, to block access to anyone under 18 in an effort to prevent kids and teens from peeping on any pornographic videos. Making sure children aren't looking at smut online requires identity and age verification, which Pornhub isn't willing to get into.

HB3 allows fines of up to $50,000 for websites that don't comply with the regulations. 

And so in response, Pornhub's parent company Aylo decided to yank the site from Florida users as it had already done in other states with similar laws, including Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. 

"Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous," Aylo told news outlets in a statement.

"Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws."

[...] For what it's worth, Robin Tombs, boss of Yoti, which provides age checks for blue-movie sites in the US, argued earlier this week that its age confirmation system, using facial analysis, and identity document verification is secure and safe, as you might imagine.

[...] The New Year may ring in some good news for southern states' smut surfers, however. Over the summer, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging the legality of the Texas law, which could set a precedent for similar age-verification mandates — and, thus, Pornhub blocks.

The Texas case, Free Speech Coalition, et al v. Paxton, is set for argument on January 15. ®

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Lukasz Olejnik opines:

While I once hoped 2017 would be the year of privacy, 2024 closes on a troubling note, a likely decrease in privacy standards across the web. I was surprised by the recent Information Commissioner's Office post, which criticized Google's decision to introduce device fingerprinting for advertising purposes from February 2025. According to ICO, this change risks undermining user control and transparency in how personal data is collected and used. Could this mark the end of nearly a decade of progress in internet and web privacy? It would be unfortunate if the newly developing AI economy started from a decrease of privacy and data protection standards. Some analysts or observers might then be inclined to wonder whether this approach to privacy online might signal similar attitudes in other future Google products, like AI.

[...] What Is Fingerprinting? Device fingerprinting involves collecting information about user devices, such as smartphones or computers, to create a unique identifier, often to track people or their activities as they browse around the web. This data may include IP addresses, browser user-agent strings, screen resolution, or even details like battery discharge rate. Fingerprinting is particularly concerning because it can be passive—requiring no user interaction. Data is collected without the user's knowledge and linked to their device. Upon subsequent browsing, systems can recognize the same visitor, enabling ad tracking or uncovering private information, such as browsing habits.

This form of identification is neither transparent nor user-friendly. Users are often unaware it is happening, and when done without their consent, awareness, or other legal grounds, it breaches laws. Unlike cookies or other mechanisms, such identifiers cannot be easily "cleared," making them especially invasive. Nevertheless, websites, advertising technologies, and others have continued to use them. Remarkably, large technology companies like Apple and Google once vowed not to engage in such practices. This commitment marked a major achievement for privacy, driven by advancements in privacy research and engineering. Large platforms even began competing to enhance user privacy, benefiting users' welfare and reducing the risk of data misuse or leaks. This issue cannot simply be reduced to "Google does this, and the ICO critiques it."

The editorial goes on to describe the Google Ads policy change, discusses why it's drastic, and notes the contradictions it creates.

Originally spotted on Schneier on Security.

Previously: ICO Puts Foot Down on Google's Planned Fingerprinting Change

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

On December 30, at around 3 pm local time, a massive metallic ring weighing approximately 1,100 pounds came crashing into the village. The loud impact startled residents, some of whom initially feared it was an attack or a bomb explosion.

Joseph Mutua, a local villager, recounted the event to Kenyan news station NTV. While tending to his cows, he heard "a loud bang" and assumed it might be a car accident. However, there were no signs of a collision nearby.

The source of the disturbance turned out to be space debris – a separation ring from a rocket launch. These components are typically designed to burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere or fall into remote areas. Occasionally, however, they veer slightly off course.

The Kenya Space Agency (KSA) was quickly alerted and sprang into action. Collaborating with local authorities, they secured the area and took the hefty ring into custody for further investigation. Preliminary assessments suggested the debris was from a launch vehicle re-entering Earth's atmosphere. The KSA also issued a statement assuring the public that this was an "isolated case" and that the metal object posed no threat to public safety.

[...] While rare, incidents like this are becoming more frequent as Earth's orbital paths become increasingly congested. As of last year, over 170 million pieces of space debris larger than a millimeter were orbiting our planet – remnants of rockets, defunct satellites, and other space operations. Most of this debris burns up safely upon re-entry, but some make it uncomfortably close to the ground.

In February of last year, the European Space Agency issued an alert about a satellite, heavier than a large car, making an uncontrolled re-entry to Earth. Additionally, in March, a piece of the International Space Station crashed through a family's house in Florida. At times, even the station itself has had to perform maneuvers to avoid incoming debris.

For now, Kenyan authorities are still investigating the exact origin of the fallen ring.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-pollution-widespread-iq-declines-ancient.html

Lead exposure is responsible for a range of human health impacts, with even relatively low levels impacting the cognitive development of children. DRI scientists have previously used atmospheric pollution records preserved in Arctic ice cores to identify periods of lead pollution throughout the Roman Empire, and now new research expands on this finding to identify how this pollution may have affected the European population.

The study, published Jan. 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined three ice core records to identify lead pollution levels in the Arctic between 500 BCE through 600 CE. This era spans the rise of the Roman Republic through the fall of the Roman Empire, with the study focusing on the approximately 200-year height of the Empire called the Pax Romana.

Lead isotopes allowed the research team to identify mining and smelting operations throughout Europe as the likely source of pollution during this period. Advanced computer modeling of atmospheric movement then produced maps of atmospheric lead pollution levels across Europe. Combined with research linking lead exposure to cognitive decline, the research team also identified likely reductions in IQ levels of at least 2 to 3 points among the European population.

"This is the first study to take a pollution record from an ice core and invert it to get atmospheric concentrations of pollution and then assess human impacts," says Joe McConnell, research professor of hydrology at DRI and lead author of the study. "The idea that we can do this for 2,000 years ago is pretty novel and exciting."

Journal Reference: McConnell, Joseph R., Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting, PNAS (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2419630121

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Federal Communications Commission's long-standing effort to establish stronger oversight of the internet was dealt a decisive blow this week when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to regulate wireless and home broadband services under the same set of rules that have traditionally governed telephone service.

The court's decision hinged on the recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Chevron deference, a precedent that had previously granted federal agencies significant leeway in interpreting ambiguous statutory language. This ruling significantly curtailed the FCC's ability to implement and enforce net neutrality regulations.

Net neutrality, a principle that advocates for equal treatment of all internet traffic, has been a contentious issue in American politics for over a decade. The concept aims to prevent internet service providers from favoring certain websites or services over others – a practice that could potentially stifle competition and innovation.

The Obama administration introduced robust net neutrality rules in 2015, which were subsequently repealed in 2017 under the Trump administration. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling for the reinstatement of these regulations. The FCC, under the leadership of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, voted to restore net neutrality rules in 2024.

The Sixth Circuit Court's decision effectively nullifies the FCC's Safeguarding Order, which would have reinstated net neutrality regulations. The court declared that broadband internet service providers offer only an "information service" as defined under current US law, and therefore, the FCC lacks the statutory authority to impose net neutrality policies through the "telecommunications service" provision of the Communications Act.

Furthermore, the court ruled that the FCC cannot classify mobile broadband as a "commercial mobile service," which would have allowed the agency to impose net neutrality regulations on those services. The Sixth Circuit explicitly cited the absence of Chevron deference in its ruling, stating that they no longer afford deference to the FCC's interpretation of the statute.

In response to the court's decision, Rosenworcel called on Congress to enshrine net neutrality principles in federal law – an acknowledgment that the FCC's regulatory efforts have reached an impasse.

On the other hand, Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who is set to become the agency's chair later this month, praised the court's ruling. Carr criticized the Biden administration's approach, stating that their plan relied on "persuading Americans that the internet would break in the absence of these so-called 'net neutrality' regulations."

As for the future of net neutrality, the ball is now in Congress's court. However, given the current political landscape and the other pressing issues facing the government, it remains uncertain whether Congress will take up this challenge. With Carr poised to take the helm, it also seems unlikely that the agency will pursue further regulatory action on net neutrality.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Hackers were reportedly able to modify several Chrome extensions with malicious code this month after gaining access to admin accounts through a phishing campaign. The cybersecurity company Cyberhaven shared in a blog post this weekend that its Chrome extension was compromised on December 24 in an attack that appeared to be “targeting logins to specific social media advertising and AI platforms.” A few other extensions were hit as well, going back to mid-December, Reuters reported. According to Nudge Security’s Jaime Blasco, that includes ParrotTalks, Uvoice and VPNCity.

Cyberhaven notified its customers on December 26 in an email seen by TechCrunch, which advised them to revoke and rotate their passwords and other credentials. The company’s initial investigation of the incident found that the malicious extension targeted Facebook Ads users, with a goal of stealing data such as access tokens, user IDs and other account information, along with cookies. The code also added a mouse click listener. “After successfully sending all the data to the [Command & Control] server, the Facebook user ID is saved to browser storage,” Cyberhaven said in its analysis. “That user ID is then used in mouse click events to help attackers with 2FA on their side if that was needed.”

Cyberhaven said it first detected the breach on December 25 and was able to remove the malicious version of the extension within an hour. It’s since pushed out a clean version.

From https://www.techspot.com/news/106205-widespread-cyberattack-targets-google-chrome-extensions-compromises-26.html

Cyberhaven breach reported. Employee phished and pushed malicious chrome extension.
 
  Command and Control:
  149.28.124.84
  cyberhavenext[.]pro
 
  File Hashes:
  content.js AC5CC8BCC05AC27A8F189134C2E3300863B317FB
 
  worker.js 0B871BDEE9D8302A48D6D6511228CAF67A08EC60

– Christopher Stanley (@cstanley)

[...] Here's a compilation of known extensions to have been compromised (thanks Ars Technica), with further updates available here. If you used any of these, you should update passwords and other login credentials:

Further investigation revealed an even more alarming trend. One of the compromised extensions, Reader Mode, had been part of a separate campaign dating back to at least April 2023. This earlier compromise was linked to a monetization code library that collected detailed data on every web visit a browser makes. Tuckner identified 13 Chrome extensions, with a combined 1.14 million installations, that had used this library to collect potentially sensitive data.

---

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-12-22/hybrid-work-a-cause-of-techno-stress-you-have-to-be-there-all-the-time.html#?rel=mas

"It's that pressure to respond, like when I get an email and feel I have to reply quickly, or someone will think, 'What are you doing at home?'"

"The truth is that I leave my phone in the car at night, so I'm not tempted to look at it."

These are just two of the responses featured in a recent study exploring the challenges of hybrid work — the combination of in-person and remote work that has become more prevalent since the pandemic.

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) has only just accepted "teleworking" as a new word, but society has been ahead of the curve for years, already grappling with the challenges of blending office and remote work. This hybrid format — particularly common in computer-based jobs — has attracted a lot of attention from academia. A recent qualitative study, based on 14 in-depth interviews conducted in 2022 with individuals ranging in age from 27 to 60 and from various work backgrounds, delves into the complexities of this new work dynamic.

"The article provides concrete insights into how the work experience is lived in a digital environment with high demands and intense use of technology," says Elizabeth Marsh, co-author and professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. "It analyzes how employees perceive being hyperconnected and feeling overwhelmed by their digital work, and the consequences for their mental and physical health."

Five common themes emerged from the responses, highlighting the "dark side" of hybrid work: hyperconnectivity, digital fatigue, system feature overload, informational fear of missing out, and techno-stress. Drawing from previous research, the article mentions that hybrid workers, driven in part by "productivity paranoia" from distrustful bosses, "can spend up to 67 extra minutes a day to avoid appearing to be faltering."

Several of the phrases cited in the study reflect common complaints about hybrid work: "You feel like you have to be there all the time, as if you had to be that little green light that's always on," "I'm constantly on Slack on my phone, and sometimes it affects other things I should be doing," and "I could be working, but I get distracted and think, 'I'm going to check my emails,' and before I know it, I've spent half an hour just looking at emails without doing anything in particular."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy — enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies.

Since the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of FRBs, whose locations range from within our own galaxy to as far as 8 billion light-years away. Exactly how these cosmic radio flares are launched is a highly contested unknown.

Now, astronomers at MIT have pinned down the origins of at least one fast radio burst using a novel technique that could do the same for other FRBs. In their new study, appearing today in the journal Nature, the team focused on FRB 20221022A — a previously discovered fast radio burst that was detected from a galaxy about 200 million light-years away.

The team zeroed in further to determine the precise location of the radio signal by analyzing its “scintillation,” similar to how stars twinkle in the night sky. The scientists studied changes in the FRB’s brightness and determined that the burst must have originated from the immediate vicinity of its source, rather than much further out, as some models have predicted.

The team estimates that FRB 20221022A exploded from a region that is extremely close to a rotating neutron star, 10,000 kilometers away at most. That’s less than the distance between New York and Singapore. At such close range, the burst likely emerged from the neutron star’s magnetosphere — a highly magnetic region immediately surrounding the ultracompact star.

The team’s findings provide the first conclusive evidence that a fast radio burst can originate from the magnetosphere, the highly magnetic environment immediately surrounding an extremely compact object.

“In these environments of neutron stars, the magnetic fields are really at the limits of what the universe can produce,” says lead author Kenzie Nimmo, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “There’s been a lot of debate about whether this bright radio emission could even escape from that extreme plasma.”

“Around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars, atoms can’t exist — they would just get torn apart by the magnetic fields,” says Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics at MIT. “The exciting thing here is, we find that the energy stored in those magnetic fields, close to the source, is twisting and reconfiguring such that it can be released as radio waves that we can see halfway across the universe.”

Detections of fast radio bursts have ramped up in recent years, due to the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The radio telescope array comprises four large, stationary receivers, each shaped like a half-pipe, that are tuned to detect radio emissions within a range that is highly sensitive to fast radio bursts.

Automobile Sales, Including EVs and Hybrids, Surge in 2024

hubie writes:

EV Sales, Including Hybrids, Surge for Auto Giants Not Named Tesla:

General Motors and Ford Motor on Friday reported robust U.S. auto sales and electric-vehicle sales for the final quarter of 2024. GM more than doubled EV sales for the full year, while Tesla suffered a sales decline. GM stock edged higher on Friday, while Ford stock popped and Tesla jumped.

Toyota Motor posted declining U.S. new vehicle sales, but marked an EV sales milestone, including hybrid vehicles. Hyundai, which trades over the counter, and Honda Motor saw robust hybrid and EV sales, spearheading their overall sales growth.

GM, Ford report best annual U.S. sales since 2019 as auto recovery continues:

Sales of new vehicles in the U.S. continued to rise last year, rebounding from historical lows caused by the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain shortages during the past four years.

American legacy automakers General Motors and Ford Motor on Friday both reported their best annual U.S. new vehicle sales since 2019, led by growth of electrified vehicles such as all-electric and hybrid models.

Those results are in line with industrywide expectations for automakers. Market research firms expected U.S. automakers to report total sales of nearly 16 million vehicles in 2024, which would mark the industry's best year since selling roughly 17 million units in 2019.

[...] GM said sales were driven by increases in all four of its U.S. brands as well as a roughly 50% rise in sales of electric vehicles to more than 114,400 units.

Despite the notable jump in EV sales, the vehicles only made up 4.2% of the automaker's overall sales. GM estimated it achieved a 12% EV market share in the U.S. during the fourth quarter.

It was a similar trend at Ford, which reported a notable increase in sales of its "electrified" vehicles, including EVs and hybrids.

Mazda is Selling More Cars Than Ever—All Without an EV in Sight

fliptop writes:

However, EVs are not the focus of some auto manufacturers.

Mazda is defying industry trends with surging sales of its gas-powered SUVs. Can it keep the momentum going without a fully electric vehicle in its lineup?

While many automakers are racing toward electrification, Mazda is proving that there's still room for gas-powered success. The Japanese automaker is set to break its U.S. sales record from 1986, with over 420,000 vehicles expected to be sold in 2024—a 16% increase from the previous year.

Mazda's president of North American operations, Tom Donnelly, credited the popularity of its compact crossovers and mid-size SUVs for this growth, with a target of 450,000 vehicles for 2025. "We're growing our business in what has largely been a stable industry," Donnelly said, talking about the consistent sales volume that Mazda has seen from its compacts and mid-size SUVs.

[...] What's driving Mazda's success? Mazda's lineup relies heavily on a few key models. The CX-5, a compact crossover manufactured in Japan, remains its best seller, despite being one of the oldest vehicles in its lineup. A redesign is expected within the next two years. The CX-30 subcompact hatchback and the Alabama-made CX-50 have also contributed significantly to the brand's recent surge.

[...] With overall US auto sales projected by Kelley Blue Book to rise just 2.3% in 2024, Mazda's performance is a standout. However, challenges remain. While Mazda charts new territory for its U.S. sales, it still lags behind competitors like Subaru, Kia and even Nissan, which has struggled with a host of its own problems in 2024.

Previously: Mazda: Americans Want Cheap Gas Cars

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

owl writes:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/03/science/mystery-volcano-1831-eruption-simushir/index.html

An unknown volcano erupted so explosively in 1831 that it cooled Earth's climate. Now, nearly 200 years later, scientists have identified the "mystery volcano."

The eruption was one of the most powerful of the 19th century, spewing so much sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that annual average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped by about one 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). The event took place during the last gasp of the Little Ice Age, one of the coldest periods on Earth in the past 10,000 years.

While the year of this historic eruption was known, the volcano's location was not. Researchers recently solved that puzzle by sampling ice cores in Greenland, peering back in time through the cores' layers to examine sulfur isotopes, grains of ash and tiny volcanic glass shards deposited between 1831 and 1834.

[...] According to the analysis, the mystery volcano was Zavaritskii (also spelled Zavaritsky) on Simushir Island, part of the Kuril Islands archipelago, an area disputed by Russia and Japan. Before the scientists' findings, Zavaritskii's last known eruption was in 800 BC.

Using geochemistry, radioactive dating and computer modeling to map particles' trajectories, the scientists linked the 1831 eruption to an island volcano in the northwest Pacific Ocean, they reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the analysis, the mystery volcano was Zavaritskii (also spelled Zavaritsky) on Simushir Island, part of the Kuril Islands archipelago, an area disputed by Russia and Japan. Before the scientists' findings, Zavaritskii's last known eruption was in 800 BC.

"For many of Earth's volcanoes, particularly those in remote areas, we have a very poor understanding of their eruptive history," said lead study author Dr. William Hutchison, a principal research fellow in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom.

"Zavaritskii is located on an extremely remote island between Japan and Russia. No one lives there and historical records are limited to a handful of diaries from ships that passed these islands every few years," Hutchison told CNN in an email.

Original Submission