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chucky writes:

Elon should watch where he leaves his car. https://www.astronomy.com/science/astronomers-just-deleted-an-asteroid-because-it-turned-out-to-be-elon-musks-tesla-roadster/

Original Submission

pTamok writes:

The Executive Order ("a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government") dated January 20, 2025 with the title DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT contains the following text:

Policy and Definitions. It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.

(d) "Female" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.

(e) "Male" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

However, this 10-year old Scientific American article appears to describe a more nuanced definition of biological sex (and I mean sex, not gender). I recommend reading the whole article, which says it was first published February 18th, 2015. It describes intersex, or Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs) and provides evidence to support the argument that biological sex is closer to being describable as spectrum than a binary attribute:

Scientific American: October 22, 2018 - Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic; Biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male

Although some governments are moving in this direction, Greenberg is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing this dream—in the United States, at least. "I think to get rid of gender markers altogether or to allow a third, indeterminate marker, is going to be difficult."

So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? "My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter," says Vilain. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask.

Some people (such as people with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS)) can have an outward appearance of one 'traditional' sex, but genetically, be another; some people lack the ability to produce reproductive cells, so their status at conception would be unclear. About 50% of people with with Klinefelter syndrome are infertile. (Klinefelter syndrom is a result of someone having three sex chromosomes: XXY).

As far as I am concerned, administrative recording (where necessary) of biological sex should acknowledge the unusual/edge cases, but other people will likely have other views. What do you think?

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/wine-10-0-released-adding-linux-compatibility-for-arm-windows-apps/

The open source Wine project—sometimes stylized WINE, for Wine Is Not an Emulator—has become an important tool for companies and individuals who want to make Windows apps and games run on operating systems like Linux or even macOS.
[...]
Yesterday, the Wine project announced the stable release of version 10.0, the next major version of the compatibility layer that is not an emulator. The headliner for this release is support for ARM64EC, the application binary interface (ABI) used for Arm apps in Windows 11, but the release notes say that the release contains "over 6,000 individual changes" produced over "a year of development effort."
[...]
Wine's ARM64EC support does have one limitation that will keep it from working on some prominent Arm Linux distributions, at least by default: the release notes say it "requires the system page size to be 4K
[...]
Asahi Linux, the Fedora-based distribution that's working to bring Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, uses 16K pages because that's all Apple's processors support. Some versions of the Raspberry Pi OS also default to a 16K page size, though it's possible to switch to 4K for compatibility's sake. Given that the Raspberry Pi and Asahi Linux are two of the biggest Linux-on-Arm projects going right now, that does at least somewhat limit the appeal of ARM64EC support in Wine. But as we've seen with Proton and other successful Wine-based compatibility layers, laying the groundwork now can deliver big benefits down the road.

Other new additions to Wine 10.0 include improved support for high-DPI displays, which should be better at automatically scaling app windows that aren't DPI-aware.
[...]
Though various version of Windows have been running on Arm processors for over a decade now, last year was when the project became a credible mainstream computing platform.
[...]
Microsoft also released the Windows 11 24H2 update, which looks like another routine yearly update on the surface but included large under-the-hood overhauls of Windows' compiler, kernel, and scheduler that improved performance for Arm chips as well as some x86 chips. Microsoft also updated and branded its x86-to-Arm code translation feature, now called "Prism."
[...]
Finally—and most relevantly, for people using Wine—the company convinced a critical mass of major app developers to release versions of their apps that ran natively on the Arm versions of Windows. That included major browsers like Google Chrome, creative apps like Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo, and productivity apps like Dropbox and Google Drive.

Related stories on SolyentNews: winehq search

Original Submission

Frosty Piss writes:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/01/22/Trump-pardons-Ross-Ulbricht/5181737526042/

President Trump has issued a full and unconditional pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the dark web Silk Road marketplace of illicit drugs, murders, and other illegal activities. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in May 2015 for his operation of Silk Road, which was active between January 2011 and October 2013. "I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright [sic] to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son," Trump said in a statement published on his Truth Social social media platform.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

If we don't act soon, our online world will continue to be run at the whim of capricious billionaires:

At the core of Bluesky's philosophy is the idea that instead of being centralized in the hands of one person or institution, social media governance should obey the principle of subsidiarity. Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom found, through studying grassroots solutions to local environmental problems around the world, that some problems are best solved locally, while others are best solved at a higher level.

In terms of content moderation, posts related to CSAM or terrorism are best handled by professionals keeping millions or billions safe. But a lot of decisions about speech can be solved in each community, or even user by user by assembling a Bluesky blocklist.

So all the right elements are currently in place at Bluesky to usher in this new architecture for social media: independent ownership, newfound popularity, a stark contrast with other dominant platforms, and right-minded leadership. But challenges remain, and we can't count on Bluesky doing this right without support.

Critics have pointed out that Bluesky has yet to turn a profit and is currently running on venture capital, the same corporate structure that brought us Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies. As of now, there's no option to exit Bluesky and take your data and network with you, because there are no other servers that run the AT Protocol. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber deserves credit for her stewardship so far, and for attempting to avoid the dangers of advertising incentives. But the process of capitalism degrading tech products is so predictable that Cory Doctorow coined a now-popular term for it: enshittification.

That's why we need to act now to secure the foundation of this digital future and make it enshittification-proof.Last week, prominent technologists started a new project, which we at New_ Public are supporting, called Free Our Feeds. There are three parts: First, Free Our Feeds wants to create a nonprofit foundation to govern and protect the AT Protocol, outside of Bluesky the company. We also need to build redundant servers so anyone can leave with their data or build anything they want—regardless of policies set by Bluesky. Finally, we need to spur the development of a whole ecosystem built on this tech with seed money and expertise.

[...] We can shift the balance of power and reclaim our social lives from these companies and their billionaires. This an opportunity to bring much more independence, innovation, and local control to our online conversations. We can finally build the "Wikipedia of social media," or whatever we want. But we need to act, because the future of the internet can't depend on whether one of the richest men on earth wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

There of course is also ActivityPub, which the Fediverse uses.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/huge-ssds

At the SC24 supercomputing conference held in November in Atlanta, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (the actor who played The Mountain in Game of Thrones), deadlifted a custom barbell weighed down by 453 kilograms (1000 pounds) of solid state drives. The data stored in those drives totaled just over 280 petabytes.

"Without question, this is the most data lifted by a human in history," says Andy Higginbotham, senior director of business development at Phison Electronics. High-performance data platform VDURA orchestrated the record-breaking lift in collaboration with Phison.

Behind this publicity stunt is a real trend—to feed AI's insatiable data appetite, memory drives are getting larger, with no end in sight. Phison recently announced the largest SSD memory drive to date, storing 128 terabytes of data, and piled hundreds of them into Björnsson's barbell. Within a few weeks, Solidigm announced its own 123 Tb drive. Samsung and Western Digital also recently started carrying similar products.

The shift towards more AI workloads in data centers has led to very power-hungry chips, mostly GPUs. Since the overall power use in a data center is going up, people are looking for ways to use less power wherever possible. At the same time, large language models and other AI models require ever increasing amounts of memory.

"You can see where storage requirements are going," says Roger Corell, senior director of AI and leadership marketing at Solidigm. "You look at a large language model just a couple years ago, you had a half a petabyte per rack or lower. And now there's large language models that pair with between three and three and a half petabytes per rack. Storage efficiency to enable continued scaling of AI infrastructure is really, really important."

Crucially, this new crop of solid-state drives takes up the same area in a computing rackand power budget as their roughly 32 Tb and 64 Tb predecessors—although they are slightly taller—meaning they can be swapped into data centers for an easy win.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical-tech/oyster-hemolymph-protein-antibacterial/

Researchers have discovered that proteins found in oyster blood have bacteria-killing properties and can boost the effectiveness of some common antibiotics whose use has been negatively affected by the global rise in drug resistance.

Oysters are divisive, culinarily speaking. People generally fall into two camps: those who enjoy the taste and 'mouthfeel' and those who view eating them as akin to swallowing a large glob of phlegm. Luckily, science doesn't care how the mollusks taste; it's more concerned with the health benefits they can convey.

A new study led by researchers from Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia, has discovered that proteins in the mollusk's blood not only have bacteria-killing properties, raising the possibility of a new antibiotic, but also increase the effectiveness of some existing antibiotics.

"Most organisms have natural defense mechanisms to protect themselves against infection," said study co-author Professor Kirsten Benkendorff from the University's Faculty of Science and Engineering. "Oysters are constantly filtering bacteria from the water, so they are a good place to look for potential antibiotics."

The present study built on the researchers' previous work, in which they identified proteins in the hemolymph of the Sydney Rock Oyster that inhibited Streptococcus pneumoniae, bacteria that cause respiratory infections like pneumonia. In some invertebrates, including oysters, hemolymph is the equivalent of human blood.

Bacteria can be hard to kill. They can form biofilms, a community of microorganisms that merge into a sticky protective 'case' that enables the bacteria to attach to biological surfaces and protects them from antibiotics and the human immune system. Bacterial biofilms have contributed to a global rise in antibiotic resistance, which has created a serious healthcare risk by limiting treatment options.

The researchers found that the hemolymph proteins they tested demonstrated an antibacterial effect, especially on the Streptococcus species S. pneumoniae, mentioned above, and S. pyogenes, which causes throat infection and tonsillitis. The proteins also interfered with the bacteria's biofilm-forming abilities.

"The oyster hemolymph proteins were found to prevent biofilm formation and disrupt biofilms, so the bacteria remain available to antibiotics exposure at lower doses," Benkendorff said. "The hemolymph contains a mixture of proteins with known antimicrobial properties. These may act to directly kill the bacteria, as well as preventing them from attaching to the cell surface."

Journal Reference: Kate Summer et al., Antimicrobial proteins from oyster hemolymph improve the efficacy of conventional antibiotics, PLOS One, Published: January 21, 2025 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312305

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

With the help of tipsters, the cybersecurity agency was able to 'connect the dots' to crack what has been called one of the worst telecom hacks in US history:

Chinese state-backed cyber espionage group Salt Typhoon, which has been in the news for its breach of U.S. telecom firms, was first discovered on the federal network using a different name, according to Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

"We saw it as a separate campaign called another goofy cyber name. And we were able to—based on the visibility that we had within the federal networks—to be able to connect some dots," she said during a discussion at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Jan. 15.

[...] The earlier identification under a different name enabled officials to connect the dots with the help of tipsters from the private sector, which Easterly said ultimately "led to kind of cracking open the larger Salt Typhoon piece."

[...] On Jan. 17, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was sanctioning Chinese cybersecurity company Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co. for "direct involvement in the Salt Typhoon cyber group."

"Chinese state-backed cyber actors continue to present some of the greatest and most persistent threats to U.S. national security," the Treasury Department said.

The Treasury Department also sanctioned Shanghai-based hacker Yin Kecheng, who was allegedly behind a major breach of the department's network in early December. The cyber actor is affiliated with China's Ministry of State Security, the department said.

Previously:

• U.S. Treasury Confirms It Was Breached by China-Backed Hackers
• A 9th Telecoms Firm Has Been Hit by a Massive Chinese Espionage Campaign, the White House Says
• Wyden Law Would Give FCC Greater Power Over Telecom's Lax Cybersecurity In Wake Of Ugly Salt Typhoon
• Salt Typhoon's Cyberstorm Reaches Beyond US Telcos
• Senators Ask Cyber Review Board to Conduct Investigation on Chinese Hack Group

Original Submission

Frosty Piss writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/under-new-law-cops-bust-famous-cartoonist-for-ai-generated-child-sex-abuse-images/

Late last year, California passed a law against the possession or distribution of child sex abuse material that has been generated by AI. The law went into effect on January 1, and Sacramento police announced yesterday that they have arrested their first suspect, 49-year-old Pulitzer-prize-winning cartoonist Darrin Bell. The new law, which you can read here, declares that AI-generated CSAM is harmful, even without an actual victim. "The creation of CSAM using AI is inherently harmful to children because the machine-learning models utilized by AI have been trained on datasets containing thousands of depictions of known CSAM victims, revictimizing these real children by using their likeness to generate AI CSAM images into perpetuity."

Original Submission

Traditionally truck and bus drivers are known to use a small hammer or billy club to tap their tires, as a quick way to check for low air pressure. If you are driving an 18-wheeler, it takes a long time to put a pressure gauge on all those tires. Here's a thread discussing this technique, https://heartlandowners.org/threads/tapping-the-tires-with-a-hammer.31971/

Now trade magazine TTI https://www.tiretechnologyinternational.com/news/intelligent-tire-technology/yokohama-begins-testing-of-ai-technology-to-gauge-air-pressure.html reports on the latest wrinkle on this old technique,

Yokohama has begun testing a novel technology that uses AI to gauge air pressure from the sound made by tapping truck and bus tires. This technology aims to help logistics companies to reduce costs and improve fuel efficiency.

Daily air pressure checks with pressure gauges can lead to valve failure and air leakage. In addition, real-time monitoring can be time-consuming and costly. Therefore, tapping the tire with a hammer remains a commonly used technique for air pressure monitoring. However, this method cannot be used to determine whether a tire has appropriate air pressure.

To solve this problem, Yokohama is working with Metrika to develop an AI algorithm that can distinguish between the sounds created by tapping the tire and a variety of environmental sounds, determine when and how long the sound occurred (the sound interval), and estimate the tire's air pressure based on the sound. The companies have developed a prototype that is undergoing practical testing at a transportation-related company.

It's a smart phone app that uses the microphone as sensor...and more than likely it then reports the results back to the trucking fleet owner.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Long ago, another company tried to control global connectivity—it had an unhappy ending

Can you imagine a company so powerful that it controls half of the world's trade?

It actually happened. But only one time in history. It's a remarkable story filled with lessons for those willing to learn them.

No business ever matched the power of the East India Company. It dominated global trade routes, and used that power to control entire nations. Yet it eventually collapsed—ruined by the consequences of its own extreme ambitions.

Anybody who wants to understand how big businesses destroy themselves through greed and overreaching needs to know this case study. And that's especially true right now—because huge web platforms are trying to do the exact same thing in the digital economy that the East India Company did in the real world.

Google is the closest thing I've ever seen to the East India Company. And it will encounter the exact same problems, and perhaps meet the same fate.

[...] When you consider all the brutal, terrible things this company did, you 're dumbfounded that they dared adopt that slogan—much like the "Don't Be Evil" that once served as Google's motto.

But their real god was profit maximization. Of course it was—when your return on investment is so high, you try to grow as fast as possible.

[...] Just like a shipping company that controls the port, Google's search engine is the port of departure for digital voyages today. And like the East India Company, Google decided that it can exploit anybody who uses its port—and destroy them if they want.

So Google destroyed the journalism business. That's why your neighborhood newspaper went broke—the folks in Palo Alto siphoned off all the advertising revenues. And they have killed off thousands of other businesses and jobs.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Microsoft has begun distributing Windows 11 24H2 to user devices as the company enters the next stage of the operating system's rollout.

[...] Windows 11 24H2 has not gone entirely to plan for Microsoft. While most users have had no problems with the update, there have been issues for some. The company has an ever-lengthening list of known issues, many of which remain unmitigated or unresolved since the operating system was launched in the second half of 2024.

Recently resolved issues include problems with Ubisoft games, and USB devices that support the eSCL scanner protocol – although the latter might not have been entirely fixed, according to disgruntled users in hardware support forums.

[...] Forcing Windows 11 24H2 onto users won't affect machines subject to a safeguard hold where Microsoft has decided to block the installation (likely due to one of the documented known issues.) Nor does it affect users sticking with Windows 10 – devices that don't meet Microsoft's hardware requirements for its flagship operating system won't suddenly be able to pass muster for Windows 11 24H2. There is also little in Windows 11 24H2 to attract users who have chosen to skip previous versions.

Instead, IT professionals around the world should gird their loins for the inevitable friends and family support calls when Windows 11 24H2 makes a surprise appearance, and uncle Fester is surprised that things have suddenly started working a little differently. ®

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Full Article

We live at a time when technology is increasing at a faster pace than we have ever seen before in all of human history. But is humanity equipped to handle the extremely bizarre technology that we are now developing? Earlier this month, I discussed some of the frightening ways that AI is changing our society. Today, I want to focus on nanotechnology. This is a field where extraordinary advances are https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=24/09/26/1353235 being made on a regular basis, and we are being told that nanotechnology is already "revolutionizing myriad industries"...

A "nanoparticle" is a particle of matter that is less than 100 nanometers in diameter. Highly specialized equipment is necessary to work with nanoparticles, because they are way too small to be seen with the naked eye...

One of the hallmarks of nanotechnology is the utilization of nanoparticles, minute entities often ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers. These particles, when engineered with precision, bring forth distinctive characteristics that can redefine the functionality of materials. In medicine, for instance, nanoparticles serve as drug carriers, enabling targeted delivery and enhancing therapeutic efficacy while minimizing side effects. Nano-engineered materials have found their niche in the realm of electronics.

[...] Many are concerned that the healthcare industry is one area where nanoparticles are already being used on a widespread basis...

The healthcare sector is witnessing a transformative impact through nanotechnology. Nanomedicine, an interdisciplinary field, employs nanoscale tools for the diagnosis, imaging, and treatment of diseases. Nanoparticles, with their ability to navigate biological barriers, offer a novel approach to targeted drug delivery, ensuring precise and efficient treatment with reduced side effects.

[...] But there have been other developments in this field that are rather ominous.

For example, a team of researchers in South Korea has discovered a way to use nanoparticles to "control the minds of mice"...

Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have developed a new way to control the minds of mice by manipulating nanoparticle-activated "switches" inside their brains with an external magnetic field.

The system, dubbed Nano-MIND (Magnetogenetic Interface for NeuroDynamics), works by controlling targeted regions of the brain by activating neural circuits.

Using an external magnetic field, these scientists were able to make mice eat more or eat less. And in another experiment, they were able to manipulate the maternal behavior of female mice...

Related:

• Better Than Blood Tests? Nanoparticle Potential Found For Assessing Kidneys
• Team Develops Nanoparticles to Deliver Brain Cancer Treatment
• Fighting Cancer With Light, and a Drug That Self-assembles Into Nanoparticles
• High Hopes for Nanoparticle Treatment for Melanoma

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Taiwan has experienced an earthquake so significant that chipmaking champ TSMC has shuttered plants.

According to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration Seismological Center, a 6.4-magnitude tremblor shook things up at seventeen minutes past midnight on January 21st (4:17PM UTC). A quake of that strength can cause significant local damage in built-up areas.

This one was centered in a mountainous region of Taiwan and reportedly caused 27 injuries and minor damage such as glass bottles breaking after being shaken off supermarket shelves.

But it was still felt around 40km away in the city of Tainan, and 200km away in the city of Taichung. The Register mentions them as both house TSMC fabrication plants and, according to local media reports, the chipmaker was sufficiently worried about worker safety that staff were told to cease work and leave the building.

TSMC is now apparently checking for any damage. Chipmaking equipment is extremely precise, so it’s possible an earthquake created small changes that could introduce errors that reduce the yield of usable chips. Recalibration could therefore be required before full-scale production can resume.

The chipmaker has not made a public statement about the situation at the time of writing but sources familiar with the situation told Japan’s Nikkei it could be several days before production resumes at full capacity.

If correct, that will irk some TSMC customers as the company’s fabs are often booked well into the future.

Taiwanese media reports that TSMC suppliers have mobilized to ensure any pause in production is brief. Geological incidents are a near-daily occurrence in Taiwan, as are geopolitical rumblings. The latter this week came in the form of uncertainty about US President Trump’s policy position regarding the republic, which the Biden Administration regarded as a vital friend that America would defend should China attempt a forcible re-unification. Taiwanese contract laptop makers Compal and Inventec are reportedly considering moving manufacturing facilities to the USA if threatened with import tariffs by the new administration. ®

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

Almost all leading AI chatbots show signs of cognitive decline

Almost all leading large language models or "chatbots" show signs of mild cognitive impairment in tests widely used to spot early signs of dementia, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.

The results also show that "older" versions of chatbots, like older patients, tend to perform worse on the tests. The authors say these findings "challenge the assumption that artificial intelligence will soon replace human doctors."

Huge advances in the field of artificial intelligence have led to a flurry of excited and fearful speculation as to whether chatbots can surpass human physicians.

Several studies have shown large language models (LLMs) to be remarkably adept at a range of medical diagnostic tasks, but their susceptibility to human impairments such as cognitive decline have not yet been examined.

To fill this knowledge gap, researchers assessed the cognitive abilities of the leading, publicly available LLMs – ChatGPT versions 4 and 4o (developed by OpenAI), Claude 3.5 "Sonnet" (developed by Anthropic), and Gemini versions 1 and 1.5 (developed by Alphabet) – using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test.

The MoCA test is widely used to detect cognitive impairment and early signs of dementia, usually in older adults. Through a number of short tasks and questions, it assesses abilities including attention, memory, language, visuospatial skills, and executive functions. The maximum score is 30 points, with a score of 26 or above generally considered normal

The instructions given to the LLMs for each task were the same as those given to human patients. Scoring followed official guidelines and was evaluated by a practising neurologist.

ChatGPT 4o achieved the highest score on the MoCA test (26 out of 30), followed by ChatGPT 4 and Claude (25 out of 30), with Gemini 1.0 scoring lowest (16 out of 30).