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AnonTechie writes:

New JWST data strengthens earlier hints that K2-18b, a possible water world 120 light-years away, could host the chemical byproducts of life.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may have picked up signs of a potential biosignature on a steamy, ocean-covered exoplanet called K2-18b—a biosignature that, on Earth, is produced by marine life.

The main character here is dimethyl sulfide, a molecule produced by many ocean denizens, but especially plankton. If the molecule is really floating around in the atmosphere of K2-18b, it raises the tantalizing possibility that something on the world might be alive. Or at least emitting suspiciously life-like chemical signals.

K2-18b, located 120 light-years away, has been on scientists' radar since NASA's Kepler space telescope spotted it in 2015. It's about 8.6 times the mass of Earth and orbits within the habitable (or "Goldilocks") zone of a red dwarf star.

Earlier observations from Hubble hinted that K2-18b had water vapor in its atmosphere, a claim later shown to be in error. But JWST has taken matters several steps further, doubling down on an earlier finding of dimethyl sulfide in the planet's atmosphere. The team behind the discovery, led by Nikku Madhusudhan from the University of Cambridge, includes researchers from five institutions.

The finding suggests that K2-18b may indeed be a Hycean world, or a water-covered planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. But the team's observations—made using JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and earlier data from NIRISS and NIRSpec—revealed methane and carbon dioxide, but very little ammonia, on the planet.

[...] Further observations will help to validate the team's findings. But to be clear, if life does exist on K2-18b, it's likely microbial given the apparent evidence, and not a sign of alien intelligence. As an important aside, microbial life—like plankton—existed on Earth for a billion years, a long but crucial chapter that paved the way for more complex organisms to emerge. Regardless, life has never been found beyond Earth, so confirming even a single amoeba on a distant world would be nothing short of revelatory.

At minimum, K2-18b is shaping up to be one of the most promising places to search for life beyond Earth. And at maximum—if further studies validate the recent findings—we may be getting our first chemical whiffs of a living ocean on another world.

[Source]: Gizmodo

[Journal Ref]: The Astrophysical Journal Letters

[Also Covered By] BBC

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Taking a jolt of lightning also kills parasitic vines:

Getting hit by lightning is not usually a good thing. But one tropical tree species seems to harness heaven's wrath. Not only do the trees survive lightning strikes, but their height and voluminous crowns act as natural lightning rods, attracting strikes that damage foes and boost their competitive advantage in the dense jungle.

The finding, reported March 26 in New Phytologist, comes from a years-long effort at Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panama, where scientists studied lightning's overall impact on the forest. Using a camera array, drones and ground teams, researchers tracked lightning strikes and their effects. The team expected to find only detrimental effects on trees; however, it soon became clear that Dipteryx oleifera, also called "almendro," benefited from the shock therapy to fend off rival trees and get rid of parasitic vines.

A particularly powerful impact on a liana-covered D. oleifera in 2019 is what cemented the idea of a link between the tree and lightning's beneficial effects, says forest ecologist Evan Gora of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. "It looked like a bomb went off." The strike damaged 115 surrounding trees, half of which died within two years. Additionally, all the liana vines that covered the D. oleifera perished. The impacted tree, however, was practically unscathed, standing tall and healthy with its direct competitors removed.

To confirm the suspected tree-lightning relationship, Gora and his colleagues documented the fate of 93 trees struck by lightning, including nine D. oleifera specimens. After two years, all the D. oleifera trees were doing fine — thriving, Gora says — in stark contrast to a 56 percent mortality rate among the other species.

One reason for this resilience is that, apart from a few ruffled leaves, D. oleifera trees aren't damaged by lightning. The electric shock, however, eliminates most of the parasitic lianas that grow on them. These vines are ubiquitous in the jungle, stealing light and nutrients from large trees.

Connections between the vines and branches on neighboring trees spread electrical current to those trees, damaging them as well. This frees up space, light and nutrients for the almendro trees. On average, about nine nearby trees were killed per strike.

In fact, growing next to a D. oleifera tree seems to be hazardous for neighboring trees, as the findings suggest that almendro trees actively attract lightning. They tend to grow taller and possess wider crowns than their neighbors, making them 68 percent more susceptible to strikes. One D. oleifera tree was struck twice in five years, and the researchers estimate that the typical tree is struck an average of five times over its 300-year lifespan.

The competitive advantage gained from these strikes increases the D. oleifera's reproductive success by 14 times, the researchers found.

upstart writes:

The Israeli spyware maker, still on the US Commerce Department's "blacklist," has hired a new lobbying firm with direct ties to the Trump administration, a WIRED investigation has found:

Shortly after Donald Trump declared victory in November, NSO Group cofounder and majority owner Omri Lavie rushed to X to congratulate him, speaking of a "new chapter where the world goes back to common sense," while accusing the outgoing Biden administration of being "weak." In another tweet, he gushed in Hebrew that Republicans "won in every category: the presidency, Congress, Senate, and the popular vote."

Lavie's enthusiasm is understandable. His company—frequently associated with alleged human rights abuses, most recently in February when journalists in Serbia were targeted with its Pegasus spyware—had a significant stake in a Trump victory, with the hopes of regaining the ability to freely do business with US entities. In a comment to Amnesty International, NSO stated, in part, that its "commitment to maintain the highest standard of ethical conduct as well as confidentiality towards our customers is paramount and is consistent with industry norms and our legal obligations."

The Israeli spyware vendor has been on the US Commerce Department's "blacklist" for more than three years, meaning it cannot do business with US companies without specific government approval. NSO Group poured at least $1.8 million into an aggressive pre-election lobbying effort, focusing primarily on Republican senators and representatives, with some meetings occurring as often as eight times. Yet the company remains on the Entity List.

Now, with a new occupant in the White House, NSO Group appears to be shifting its political strategy.

The company seems to have either terminated or altered its engagement with several of its previous lobbying consultancies in Washington—some of which were closely aligned with the Democrats—and has started working with a key new lobbying partner: the Vogel Group.

Founded by Alex Vogel, who served as chief counsel to former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, the Vogel Group is providing NSO Group with "strategic advisory on cybersecurity policy matters," according to lobbying disclosure documents filed on March 10.

[...] NSO Group's recent lobbying efforts appear to have mainly focused on Republican lawmakers, more than executive branch power players, particularly as the Biden administration had been engaged in a crackdown on commercial spyware. The company previously worked with several lobbying contractors, with whom it appears to have either terminated or altered its registrations.

[...] As of early March—before Vogel Group's registration as a lobbyist for NSO Group—there had been no indication that the Trump administration intended to remove the company from the Entity List, according to a source familiar with the administration's moves regarding spyware, who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential matters. However, recent comments by NSO Group's Lavie soft-peddled the impact of the Entity List on the company's ability to operate in the US.

[...] ​​Lobbying efforts can target different parts of the US government. By lobbying the executive branch (the president and agencies), lobbyists can influence how laws are enforced rather than what the laws say. In contrast, when lobbying Congress, the focus is on passing, blocking, or amending laws by influencing legislators.

[...] Asked whether the Trump administration intends to uphold the EO, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to comment.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/heres-how-a-satellite-ended-up-as-a-ghostly-apparition-on-google-earth/

Dig deep on Google Earth and you'll inevitably find a surprise or two. Maybe you're looking at far-flung islands in the middle of an ocean or checking in on something closer to home.

A few years ago, online sleuths found an image of a B-2 stealth bomber in flight over Missouri. The aircraft is smeared in the image because it was in motion, while the farm fields below appear as crisp as any other view on Google Earth.

There's something else that now appears on Google Earth. Zoom in over rural North Texas, and you'll find a satellite. It appears five times in different colors, each projected over wooded bottomlands in a remote wildlife refuge about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Dallas.
[...]
Someone first shared Google Earth's satellite capture last week on Reddit.
[...]
Google Earth data indicates that the image was taken on November 30, 2024, by a high-resolution Pleiades observation satellite owned by Airbus.
[...]
While the B-2's motion caused it to appear a little smeared in the Google Earth image a few years ago, the satellite's velocity created a different artifact. The satellite appears five times in different colors, which tells us something about how the image was made. Airbus' Pleiades satellites take pictures in multiple spectral bands: blue, green, red, panchromatic, and near-infrared.

Google Earth link to location of Satellite Image: https://maps.app.goo.gl/McDez7gsWz151Qb76

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The new general AI agent from China had some system crashes and server overload—but it's highly intuitive and shows real promise for the future of AI helpers:

Since the general AI agent Manus was launched last week, it has spread online like wildfire. And not just in China, where it was developed by the Wuhan-based startup Butterfly Effect. It's made its way into the global conversation, with influential voices in tech, including Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and Hugging Face product lead Victor Mustar, praising its performance. Some have even dubbed it "the second DeepSeek," comparing it to the earlier AI model that took the industry by surprise for its unexpected capabilities as well as its origin.

Manus claims to be the world's first general AI agent, using multiple AI models (such as Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and fine-tuned versions of Alibaba's open-source Qwen) and various independently operating agents to act autonomously on a wide range of tasks. (This makes it different from AI chatbots, including DeepSeek, which are based on a single large language model family and are primarily designed for conversational interactions.)

Despite all the hype, very few people have had a chance to use it. Currently, under 1% of the users on the wait list have received an invite code. (It's unclear how many people are on this list, but for a sense of how much interest there is, Manus's Discord channel has more than 186,000 members.)

MIT Technology Review was able to obtain access to Manus, and when I gave it a test-drive, I found that using it feels like collaborating with a highly intelligent and efficient intern: While it occasionally lacks understanding of what it's being asked to do, makes incorrect assumptions, or cuts corners to expedite tasks, it explains its reasoning clearly, is remarkably adaptable, and can improve substantially when provided with detailed instructions or feedback. Ultimately, it's promising but not perfect.

[...] Like other reasoning-based agentic AI tools, such as ChatGPT DeepResearch, Manus is capable of breaking tasks down into steps and autonomously navigating the web to get the information it needs to complete them. What sets it apart is the "Manus's Computer" window, which allows users not only to observe what the agent is doing but also to intervene at any point.

To put it to the test, I gave Manus three assignments: (1) compile a list of notable reporters covering China tech, (2) search for two-bedroom property listings in New York City, and (3) nominate potential candidates for Innovators Under 35, a list created by MIT Technology Review every year.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Analysis aims to solidify agreement on cannabis's potential as a cancer treatment, lead author of research says:

Hannah Harris Green - Fri 18 Apr 2025 13.00 BST

The largest ever study investigating medical cannabis as a treatment for cancer, published this week in Frontiers in Oncology, found overwhelming scientific support for cannabis's potential to treat cancer symptoms and potentially fight the course of the disease itself.

The intention of the analysis was to solidify agreement on cannabis's potential as a cancer treatment, said Ryan Castle, research director at the Whole Health Oncology Institute and lead author of the study. Castle noted that it has been historically difficult to do so because marijuana is still federally considered an illegal Schedule I narcotic.

"Our goal was to determine the scientific consensus on the topic of medical cannabis, a field that has long been dominated by a war between cherrypicked studies," Castle said.

[...] Castle's study looked at more than 10,000 studies on cannabis and cancer, which he said is "10 times the sample size of the next largest study, which we believe helps make it a more conclusive review of the scientific consensus".

To analyze the massive quantity of studies, Castle and his team used AI – specifically, the natural language processing technique known as "sentiment analysis". This technique allowed the researchers to see how many studies had positive, neutral or negative views on cannabis's ability to treat cancer and its symptoms by, for example, increasing appetite, decreasing inflammation or accelerating "apoptosis", or the death of cancer cells.

Castle says his team hoped to find "a moderate consensus" about cannabis's potential as a cancer treatment, and expected the "best case scenario" to be something like 55% of studies showing that medical cannabis improved cancer outcomes.

"It wasn't 55-45, it was 75-25," he said.

The study overwhelmingly supported cannabis as a treatment for cancer-related inflammation, appetite loss and nausea. Perhaps more surprisingly, it also showed that cannabis has the potential to fight cancer cells themselves, by killing them and stopping their spread.

AnonTechie writes:

The Armatron robotic arm:

Described as a "robot-like arm to aid young masterminds in scientific and laboratory experiments," it was the rare toy that lived up to the hype printed on the front of the box. This was a legit robotic arm. You could rotate the arm to spin around its base, tilt it up and down, bend it at the "elbow" joint, rotate the "wrist," and open and close the bright-­orange articulated hand in elegant chords of movement, all using only the twistable twin joysticks.

Anyone who played with this toy will also remember the sound it made. Once you slid the power button to the On position, you heard a constant whirring sound of plastic gears turning and twisting. And if you tried to push it past its boundaries, it twitched and protested with a jarring "CLICK ... CLICK ... CLICK."

It wasn't just kids who found the Armatron so special. It was featured on the cover of the November/December 1982 issue of Robotics Age magazine, which noted that the $31.95 toy (about $96 today) had "capabilities usually found only in much more expensive experimental arms."

[...] The Armatron encouraged kids to explore these analog mechanics, a reminder that not all breakthroughs happen on a computer screen. And that hands-on curiosity hasn't faded. Today, a new generation of fans are rediscovering the Armatron through online communities and DIY modifications. Dozens of Armatron videos are on YouTube, including one where the arm has been modified to run on steam power.

[Source]: MIT Technology Review

How many of you remember this toy and, did it inspire you to study robotics ?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Modern science wouldn't exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can't let it go.:

Nearly 35 years ago, Ginsparg created arXiv, a digital repository where researchers could share their latest findings—before those findings had been systematically reviewed or verified. Visit arXiv.org today (it's pronounced like "archive") and you'll still see its old-school Web 1.0 design, featuring a red banner and the seal of Cornell University, the platform's institutional home. But arXiv's unassuming facade belies the tectonic reconfiguration it set off in the scientific community. If arXiv were to stop functioning, scientists from every corner of the planet would suffer an immediate and profound disruption. "Everybody in math and physics uses it," Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, told me. "I scan it every night."

[...] In 2021, the journal Nature declared arXiv one of the "10 computer codes that transformed science," praising its role in fostering scientific collaboration. (The article is behind a paywall—unlock it for $199 a year.) By a recent count, arXiv hosts more than 2.6 million papers, receives 20,000 new submissions each month, and has 5 million monthly active users. Many of the most significant discoveries of the 21st century have first appeared on the platform. The "transformers" paper that launched the modern AI boom? Uploaded to arXiv. Same with the solution to the Poincaré conjecture, one of the seven Millennium Prize problems, famous for their difficulty and $1 million rewards. Just because a paper is posted on arXiv doesn't mean it won't appear in a prestigious journal someday, but it's often where research makes its debut and stays openly available. The transformers paper is still routinely accessed via arXiv.

For scientists, imagining a world without arXiv is like the rest of us imagining one without public libraries or GPS. But a look at its inner workings reveals that it isn't a frictionless utopia of open-access knowledge. Over the years, arXiv's permanence has been threatened by everything from bureaucratic strife to outdated code to even, once, a spy scandal. In the words of Ginsparg, who usually redirects interview requests to an FAQ document—on arXiv, no less—and tried to talk me out of visiting him in person, arXiv is "a child I sent off to college but who keeps coming back to camp out in my living room, behaving badly."

[...] Long before arXiv became critical infrastructure for scientific research, it was a collection of shell scripts running on Ginsparg's NeXT machine. In June 1991, Ginsparg, then a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, attended a conference in Colorado, where a fateful encounter took place.

[...] When arXiv started, it wasn't a website but an automated email server (and within a few months also an FTP server). Then Ginsparg heard about something called the "World Wide Web." Initially skeptical—"I can't really pay attention to every single fad"—he became intrigued when the Mosaic browser was released in 1993. Soon after, Ginsparg built a web interface for arXiv, which over time became its primary mode of access. He also occasionally consulted with a programmer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) named Tim Berners-Lee—now Sir Tim "Inventor of the World Wide Web" Berners-Lee—whom Ginsparg fondly credits with grilling excellent swordfish at his home in the French countryside.

Tech Review has a short article that attempts to describe "vibe coding" and discuss some of the ramifications, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/16/1115135/what-is-vibe-coding-exactly/
Archive version, https://archive.is/5PGPK

When OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy excitedly took to X back in February to post about his new hobby, he probably had no idea he was about to coin a phrase that encapsulated an entire movement steadily gaining momentum across the world.
"There's a new kind of coding I call 'vibe coding', where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists," he said. "I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding—I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works."

This certainly would not work in our industry, where software is often used in human-life-critical applications. Seems to me this will speed up the race to the bottom of software quality, but maybe it has a place?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

UK founders grow frustrated over dearth of funding: 'the problem is getting worse':

According to Dealroom data cited by the Financial Times, British start-ups raised just £16.2 billion last year, far less than the more than £65 billion raised by their counterparts in Silicon Valley during the same period. In fact, the U.S. appears to be pulling further ahead each year. In 2024, 57% of global venture capital funding went to U.S. startups — the first time that share has exceeded 50% in over a decade, per Dealroom.

This widening gap is part of a years-long trend that U.K. founders have taken note of, the FT reports, and it's prompting many to consider relocating abroad.

"Recognizing that most venture funding comes from the U.S., we set up as a Delaware corporation, the preferred and familiar structure for American investors," said Mati Staniszewski, co-founder of the London-based AI company ElevenLabs, in an interview with the FT.

Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder and CEO of the AI start-up Cleo, told the FT that he already spends four months a year in San Francisco and is seriously considering a permanent move. "You get to a certain size where there is no capital in the U.K. And the problem is getting worse," he said. "Honestly, the U.K. is kinda f***d if it doesn't address [the problem]."

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://nurpax.github.io/posts/2019-08-18-dirty-tricks-6502-programmers-use.html

This post recaps some of the C64 coding tricks used in my little Commodore 64 coding competition. The competition rules were simple: make a C64 executable (PRG) that draws two lines to form the below image (https://nurpax.github.io/images/c64/lines/lines-2x.png). The objective was to do this in as few bytes as possible.

[ Obviously this was intended for assembly language, but using any language you choose, how small a runtime can you produce that achieves the same function? The rules are very loose - have fun. --JR ]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

States Are Banning Forever Chemicals. Industry Is Fighting Back:

Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they'd like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico's Environment Department, asked to see the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see forever chemicals listed as ingredients in the protectant.

"I think about your normal, everyday New Mexican who is trying to get by, make their furniture last a little longer, and they think, 'Oh, it's safe, great!' It's not safe," he says. "It just so happens that they tried to sell it to the environment secretary."

Last week, the New Mexico legislature passed a pair of bills that Kenney hopes will help protect consumers in his state. If signed by the governor, the legislation would eventually ban consumer products that have added PFAS—per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, known colloquially as "forever chemicals" because of their persistence in the environment—from being sold in New Mexico.

As health and environmental concerns about forever chemicals mount nationally, New Mexico joins a small but growing number of states that are moving to limit—and, in some cases, ban—PFAS in consumer products. New Mexico is now the third state to pass a PFAS ban through the legislature. Ten other states have bans or limits on added PFAS in certain consumer products, including cookware, carpet, apparel, and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states—a record number—have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures, according to an analysis of bills by Safer States, a network of state-based advocacy organizations working on issues around potentially unsafe chemicals.

The chemical and consumer products industries have taken notice of this new wave of regulations and are mounting a counterattack, lobbying state legislatures to advocate for the safety of their products—and, in one case, suing to prevent the laws from taking effect. Some of the key exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big fights that industries are hoping they'll win in statehouses across the country: fights they are already taking to a newly industry-friendly US Environmental Protection Agency.

PFAS is not just one chemical but a class of thousands. The first PFAS were developed in the 1930s; thanks to their nonstick properties and unique durability, their popularity grew in industrial and consumer uses in the postwar era. The chemicals were soon omnipresent in American lives, coating cookware, preventing furniture and carpets from staining, and acting as a surfactant in firefighting foam.

In 1999, a man in West Virginia filed a lawsuit against US chemical giant DuPont alleging that pollution from its factory was killing his cattle. The lawsuit revealed that DuPont had concealed evidence of PFAS's negative health effects on workers from the government for decades. In the years since, the chemical industry has paid out billions in settlement fees around PFAS lawsuits: in 2024, the American multinational 3M agreed to pay between $10 billion and $12.5 billion to US public water systems that had detected PFAS in their water supplies to pay for remediation and future testing, though the company did not admit liability. (DuPont and its separate chemical company Chemours continue to deny any wrongdoing in lawsuits involving them, including the original West Virginia suit.)

As the moniker "forever chemicals" suggests, mounting research has shown that PFAS accumulate in the environment and in our bodies and can be responsible for a number of health problems, from high cholesterol to reproductive issues and cancer. EPA figures released earlier this year show that almost half of the US population is currently exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Nearly all Americans, meanwhile, have at least one type of PFAS in their blood.

For a class of chemicals with such terrifying properties, there's been surprisingly little regulation of PFAS at the federal level. One of the most-studied PFAS chemicals, PFOA, began to be phased out in the US in the early 2000s, with major companies eliminating the chemical and related compounds under EPA guidance by 2015. The chemical industry and manufacturers say that the replacements they have found for the most dangerous chemicals are safe. But the federal government, as a whole, has lagged behind the science when it comes to regulations: The EPA only set official drinking water limits for six types of PFAS in 2024.

In lieu of federal guidance, states have started taking action. In 2021, Maine, which identified an epidemic of PFAS pollution on its farms in 2016, passed the first-ever law banning the sale of consumer products with PFAS. Minnesota followed suit in 2023.

AnonTechie writes:

An interesting article about the decline in friendships.

The so-called "Friendship Recession" is making its way into the vernacular—a profound shift in how Americans experience and sustain friendships. The data paints a stark picture. According to the American Perspectives Survey, the percentage of U.S. adults who report having no close friends has quadrupled to 12% since 1990, while the percentage of those with ten or more close friends has fallen by nearly threefold. The foundations of the crisis were laid long before lockdowns. For decades, Americans consistently spent about 6.5 hours a week with friends. Then, between 2014 and 2019, that number plummeted to just four hours per week.

To be sure, systemic forces underlie this shift. Suburban sprawl has physically distanced us from one another. The government slowed down its investment in and construction of third spaces—such as community centers, parks, and coffee shops—which has left fewer places for organic social interactions. The rise of the gig economy and economic pressures have made free time a luxury. These factors have made friendship more difficult, and policymakers, urban planners, and venture capitalists are searching for solutions.

However, these structural forces alone can't fully account for the larger shift. If inaccessibility were the primary driver, we wouldn't see relatively stable connection rates among older adults over the last several decades. If wealthier individuals have more access to communal spaces, why has solo dining increased by 29% in the past two years? If this were purely circumstantial, why would Stanford now offer Design for Healthy Friendships—a class dedicated to helping students structure their social lives with intention?

[...] While these prescriptions might sound easy, the reality is that culture change is hard, and its effects aren't seen overnight. It would be easier to scapegoat external forces, build yet another friend-finding app, and call it a day. While broader policy changes and social infrastructure certainly are needed and will help, we also must recognize that change starts with us. The small, daily choices we make—to reach out, to show up, to invest in relationships—add up to and actively shape the culture we live in. Imagine what could happen if we're better, together.

[Source]: Harvard Kennedy School

What has been your experience in this regard ?

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://marylandmatters.org/2025/04/14/end-of-an-era-the-last-radioshack-in-maryland-is-closing-its-doors/

Before the 2000s, RadioShack was the place to go if you needed a cable or help with anything tech related. Now, the last brick-and-mortar store in Maryland is closing its doors.

"I'm not one to sit at home, so I'm going to find something to do," said Cindy Henning, the store's manager and sole employee.

After more than 40 years, the RadioShack in Prince Frederick is shutting down.

Henning told WTOP she's going to miss it dearly. She's worked there for three decades.

"We would have a lot of fun. That was half of our day was to have fun with people and show them how electronics work," Henning said.

It was owned and operated by longtime local resident Michael King, who passed away at the end of January at the age of 79. His son Edward has taken over as owner. It's the end of an era," he said.

King said his grandfather owned a TV repair shop in the '50s and then his dad worked with him. They started carrying RadioShack products and grew to franchise three stores in Maryland. The RadioShack franchise first declared bankruptcy in 2015. King said they used the RadioShack name, but they don't have a warehouse in the U.S., so they were buying product from other wholesalers and selling it. "It was fun while it lasted, but it's not the same anymore," King said. "I know my dad realized that." The store's last day is Saturday, April 26.

[There are no hardware shops near to where I live now. I have to do all of my shopping online. I do use Amazon but where I can I prefer to use the original supplier, particular if one can build a good relationship with them. I have received small but welcome discounts on some of the items that I have purchased. What do you do now for hardware and components?--JR]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Oxygen discovered in most distant known galaxy:

Two different teams of astronomers have detected oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. The discovery, reported in two separate studies, was made possible thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner. This record-breaking detection is making astronomers rethink how quickly galaxies formed in the early Universe.

Discovered last year, JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found: it is so far away, its light took 13.4 billion years to reach us, meaning we see it as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old, about 2% of its present age. The new oxygen detection with ALMA, a telescope array in Chile's Atacama Desert, suggests the galaxy is much more chemically mature than expected.

"It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," says Sander Schouws, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands, and first author of the Dutch-led study, now accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected."

Galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements like hydrogen and helium. As stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which get dispersed through their host galaxy after they die. Researchers had thought that, at 300 million years old, the Universe was still too young to have galaxies ripe with heavy elements. However, the two ALMA studies indicate JADES-GS-z14-0 has about 10 times more heavy elements than expected.

"I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," says Stefano Carniani, of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and lead author on the paper now accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed."

The oxygen detection has also allowed astronomers to make their distance measurements to JADES-GS-z14-0 much more accurate. "The ALMA detection offers an extraordinarily precise measurement of the galaxy's distance down to an uncertainty of just 0.005 percent. This level of precision — analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 1 km — helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties," adds Eleonora Parlanti, a PhD student at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and author on the Astronomy & Astrophysicsstudy [1].

"While the galaxy was originally discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope, it took ALMA to confirm and precisely determine its enormous distance," [2] says Associate Professor Rychard Bouwens, a member of the team at Leiden Observatory. "This shows the amazing synergy between ALMA and JWST to reveal the formation and evolution of the first galaxies."

Gergö Popping, an ESO astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Centre who did not take part in the studies, says: "I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our Universe formed."

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Original Submission