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upstart writes:

One hundred years after its discovery, the colossal squid has been filmed alive in its environment for the first time:

PALO ALTO, California–An international team of scientists and crew on board Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) was the first to film the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural environment. The 30-centimeter juvenile squid (nearly one foot long) was captured on video at a depth of 600 meters (1968 feet) by the Institute's remotely operated vehicle (ROV) SuBastian. The sighting occurred on March 9 on an expedition near the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. This year is the 100-year anniversary of the identification and formal naming of the colossal squid, a member of the glass squid family (Cranchiidae).

Additionally, on January 25 a team on the previous Falkor (too) expedition filmed the first confirmed footage of the glacial glass squid (Galiteuthis glacialis) in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. G. glacialis is another glass squid species that has never been seen alive in its natural environment before.

The 35-day expedition that captured the footage of the colossal squid was an Ocean Census flagship expedition searching for new marine life – a collaboration between Schmidt Ocean Institute, the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, and GoSouth, a joint project between the University of Plymouth (UK), GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (Germany), and the British Antarctic Survey."It's exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist," said Dr. Kat Bolstad of the Auckland University of Technology, one of the independent scientific experts the team consulted to verify the footage. "For 100 years, we have mainly encountered them as prey remains in whale and seabird stomachs and as predators of harvested toothfish."

Colossal squid are estimated to grow up to seven meters (23 feet) in length and can weigh as much as 500 kilograms (1100 lbs), making them the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. Little is known about the colossal squid's life cycle, but eventually, they lose the see-through appearance of the juveniles. Dying adults have previously been filmed by fishermen, but have never been seen alive at depth.

canopic jug writes:

SparkFun Electronics, known for open source designs and software libraries, has an article covering the history of time keeping, from the earliest archeological evidence like sundials and water clocks, through mechanical clocks, to the latest standards like Cesium-133 atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks function by measuring the precise frequency of microwaves needed to induce a particular energy state transition in atoms. The most common type of atomic clock today uses cesium atoms, specifically the transition between two energy states in the cesium-133 atom.

Cesium-133 is perfect for this application for a few reasons. It has one free electron in it's outermost energy level, which means it can be excited by a very specific and very regular frequency. It can also be vaporized at low temperatures, which is needed for the interior of the clock to work properly.

When cesium-133 atoms are exposed to microwaves of a very precise and consistent frequency, they undergo a predictable change in energy levels. The state of the atoms is detected inside the clock, and whether or not they are excited tells the clock if the microwave frequency is correct.

In simpler terms, atomic clocks do not actually count seconds, they create them. In the case of cesium atomic clocks, this frequency is exactly 9,192,631,770 cycles per second - a resonant frequency of cesium-133. This precise measurement is so reliable that in 1967, the International System of Units (SI) redefined the second based on this property of cesium-133.

Previously:
(2024) RIP: Inventor of NTP Protocol, That Keeps Time on Billions of Devices, Dies at Age 85
(2022) The New Yorker on NTP Software Maintenance
(2015) OpenNTPD 5.7p1 Released
(2014) What Time Is It? Time for Multiple NTP Vulnerabilities!

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Study provides explanation for one bacterium's link to mental health:

It's become increasingly clear that the gut microbiome can affect human health, including mental health. Which bacterial species influence the development of disease and how they do so, however, is only just starting to be unraveled.

For instance, some studies have found compelling links between one species of gut bacteria, Morganella morganii, and major depressive disorder. But until now no one could tell whether this bacterium somehow helps drive the disorder, the disorder alters the microbiome, or something else is at play.

Harvard Medical School researchers have now pinpointed a biologic mechanism that strengthens the evidence that M. morganii influences brain health and provides a plausible explanation for how it does so.

The findings, published Jan. 16 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, implicate an inflammation-stimulating molecule and offer a new target that could be useful for diagnosing or treating certain cases of the disorder. They also provide a roadmap for probing how other members of the gut microbiome influence human health and behavior.

"There is a story out there linking the gut microbiome with depression, and this study takes it one step further, toward a real understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind the link," said senior author Jon Clardy, the Christopher T. Walsh, PhD Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

The study reveals that an environmental contaminant known as diethanolamine, or DEA, sometimes takes the place of a sugar alcohol in a molecule that M. morganii makes in the gut.

This abnormal molecule then activates an immune response that the normal molecule does not, stimulating the release of inflammatory proteins called cytokines, particularly interleukin-6 (IL-6), the team found.

[...] DEA is used in industrial, agricultural, and consumer products.

"We knew that micropollutants can be incorporated into fatty molecules in the body, but we didn't know how this occurs or what happens next," Clardy said. "DEA's metabolism into an immune signal was completely unexpected."

The team proposes that DEA could be added to the growing list of biomarkers used to detect some cases of major depressive disorder.

The study also strengthens arguments that major depressive disorder, or a subset of cases, could be considered an autoinflammatory or autoimmune disease and be successfully treated with immune modulator drugs, Clardy said.

Journal Reference: DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c15158

Original Submission

aliks writes:

The story itself is interesting as quantum messaging over existing networks dramatically reduces costs, but I wanted to compare how different sources report the story.

The story caught my eye on phys.org where you get a short but reasonable summary with pictures. Maybe phys.org used AI to generate this summary?

scienmag.com has a longer summary with more detail and commentary on why the story is significant.

The original story is reported in Nature, with more detail and dense technical language.

First off we have phys.org: Quantum messages travel 254 km using existing infrastructure for the first time

Quantum messages sent across a 254-km telecom network in Germany represent the first known report of coherent quantum communications using existing commercial telecommunication infrastructure.

The demonstration, reported in Nature this week, suggests that quantum communications can be achieved in real-world conditions.

Quantum networks have the potential to enable secure communications, such as a quantum internet; quantum key distribution is one example of a theoretically secure communication technique.

Exploiting the coherence of light waves (their potential to interact predictably) can extend the range of quantum communications, but scalability has been limited by the need for specialized equipment, such as cryogenic coolers.

An approach that enables the distribution of quantum information through optical fiber cables, without the need for cryogenic cooling, is described by Mirko Pittaluga and colleagues.

Their system uses a coherence-based twin-field quantum key distribution, which facilitates the distribution of secure information over long distances.

The quantum communications network was deployed over three telecommunication data centers in Germany (Frankfurt, Kehl and Kirchfeld), connected by 254 km of commercial optical fiber—a new record distance for real-world and practical quantum key distribution, according to the authors.

This demonstration indicates that advanced quantum communications protocols that exploit the coherence of light can be made to work over existing telecom infrastructure."

A team of researchers has developed a new way to control light interactions using a specially engineered structure called a 3D photonic-crystal cavity that could enable transformative advancements in quantum computing, quantum communication and other quantum-based technologies.

"Imagine standing in a room surrounded by mirrors," said Fuyang Tay, an alumnus of Rice's Applied Physics Graduate Program and first author of the study. "If you shine a flashlight inside, the light will bounce back and forth, reflecting endlessly. This is similar to how an optical cavity works — a tailored structure that traps light between reflective surfaces, allowing it to bounce around in specific patterns."

These patterns with discrete frequencies are called cavity modes, and they can be used to enhance light-matter interactions, making them potentially useful in quantum information processing, developing high-precision lasers and sensors and building better photonic circuits and fiber-optic networks. Optical cavities can be difficult to build, so the most widely used ones have simpler, unidimensional structures.

[...] "It is well known that electrons strongly interact with each other, but photons do not," said Junichiro Kono, the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor in Engineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering and the study's corresponding author. "This cavity confines light, which strongly enhances the electromagnetic fields and leads to strong coupling between light and matter, creating quantum superposition states — so-called polaritons."

[...] If the interaction binding photons and electrons into polaritons is extremely intense — to the point where the exchange of energy between light and matter happens so fast it resists dissipation — a new regime comes into effect known as ultrastrong coupling.

"Ultrastrong coupling describes an unusual mode of interaction between light and matter where the two become deeply hybridized," said Tay, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University.

[...] "This matter-mediated photon-photon coupling can lead to new protocols and algorithms in quantum computation and quantum communications," Kono said.

[...] By providing a new approach to engineering light-matter interactions and ultrastrong photon-photon couplings, the research findings pave the way for the development of hyperefficient quantum processors, high-speed data transmission and next-generation sensors.

Journal Reference: Tay, F., Mojibpour, A., Sanders, S. et al. Multimode ultrastrong coupling in three-dimensional photonic-crystal cavities. Nat Commun 16, 3603 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58835-x

Read more: Rice scientists uncover quantum surprise: Matter mediates ultrastrong coupling between light particles

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Those are large numbers for an SD card:

Adata has unveiled what it claims is the industry's first SD Express 8.0 compliant card, boasting read and write speeds of 1.6 GB/s and 1.2 GB/s, respectively. These numbers are up to twelve times faster than existing UHS-1 solutions, four times the speed of UHS-II, and even beat out several entry-level NVMe SSDs. The Premier Extreme SD 8.0 Express memory card will debut with a single 512GB storage option, but we're likely to see higher-capacity offerings spring up as the technology and market matures.

The SD Express technology was introduced back in 2018, with the SD 7.0 standard. However, we're only seeing these superfast cards become a reality now, in 2025, largely due to the Nintendo Switch 2. SD Express cards function a lot like the SSDs in your PC/PS5/Xbox, utilizing PCIe lanes and the NVMe protocol. Even entry-level SD Express cards are rated for a theoretical maximum bus speed of 985 MB/s (PCIe 3.1 x1). This number gets progressively higher, with PCIe 4.0 x2-based cards capable of hitting 4 GB/s under the SD 8.0 standard.

Adata's Premier Extreme lineup is being expanded with an SD Express 8.0 option, featuring a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, advertised with read and write speeds of 1.6 GB/s and 1.2 GB/s. Despite the impressive claims, keep in mind that the card's U3 and V30 ratings only guarantee a minimum sustained write speed of just 30 MB/s. With its 512GB capacity, the Adata Premier Extreme SD Express offers built-in LPDC ECC technology and support for multi-device simultaneous access.

SD Express cards have their own speed rating indicated by an 'E' and a number. For example, E150 on an SD Express card means you're guaranteed a sustained write speed of 150 MB/s. The majority of SD Express cards currently available in the market have not been specified with these ratings, falling back to the traditional U3/V30 speed class.

Sadly, these cards won't find much use outside the Switch 2 and professional video gear, as almost all smartphone manufacturers have abandoned the concept of expandable storage. Implementing SD Express in phones would mean adding a unique connector and sacrificing a few PCIe lanes off the SoC. So, we'll probably be stuck with internal non-upgradeable UFS and NVMe (iPhones) storage for the time being.

Similarly, MicroSD Express cards are not cheap, costing up to 25 cents per GB, compared to retail SSDs, which can be had for 5-6 cents per GB. Given that both are based on the same NAND flash storage technology, the cost of SD Express based memory cards is likely to decrease over time. Adata has not specified a price or a release window for this memory card, but we expect to hear more at Computex next month.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Harvard University is pushing back via a lawsuit against micromanagement and censorship attempts emanating from the White House.

What is the rationale for the IRS revisiting Harvard's exemption status? A theory is needed, because section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code says that an organization "shall"—not "may"—be exempt from taxation if it meets criteria listed in the statute. One of those criteria is for an institution to be organized exclusively for "educational purposes."

— The Conservative Case for Leaving Harvard Alone.   The Atlantic.

The university's sudden decision to stand up, according to insiders, wasn't the plan a week earlier—and came about because the White House sent a list of demands so detailed, so humiliating, and so crudely anti-intellectual that Harvard was left with no option but to reject it. (There is growing suspicion here that Trump's demands were deliberately crafted to be rejected, setting the stage for more Trumpian melodrama and hysteria.)

— Harvard Stands Up.   The Nation.

The Harvard Crimson has started to cover this lawsuit:

"The tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution's ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions," Harvard's lawyers wrote in the Monday filing.

The 51-page complaint, filed in a United States district court, asks for the court to halt and declare unlawful the $2.2 billion freeze, as well as any freezes made in connection with "unconstitutional conditions" in the Trump administration's April 3 and April 11 letters outlining demands to Harvard.

— Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over $2.2 Billion Funding Freeze.   The Harvard Crimson.

upstart writes:

Out-of-balance bacteria is linked to multiple sclerosis − the ratio can predict severity of disease:

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that results when the immune system mistakenly attacks the brain and spinal cord. It affects nearly one million people in the U.S. and over 2.8 million worldwide. While genetics play a role in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis, environmental factors such as diet, infectious disease and gut health are major contributors.

The environment plays a key role in determining who develops multiple sclerosis, and this is evident from twin studies. Among identical twins who share 100% of their genes, one twin has a roughly 25% chance of developing MS if the other twin has the disease. For fraternal twins who share 50% of their genes, this rate drops to around 2%.

Scientists have long suspected that gut bacteria may influence a person's risk of developing multiple sclerosis. But studies so far have had inconsistent findings.

To address these inconsistencies, my colleagues and I used what researchers call a bedside-to-bench-to-bedside approach: starting with samples from patients with multiple sclerosis, conducting lab experiments on these samples, then confirming our findings in patients.

In our newly published research, we found that the ratio of two bacteria in the gut can predict multiple sclerosis severity in patients, highlighting the importance of the microbiome and gut health in this disease.

First, we analyzed the chemical and bacterial gut composition of patients with multiple sclerosis, confirming that they had gut inflammation and different types of gut bacteria compared with people without multiple sclerosis.

Specifically, we showed that a group of bacteria called Blautia was more common in multiple sclerosis patients, while Prevotella, a bacterial species consistently linked to a healthy gut, was found in lower amounts.

In a separate experiment in mice, we observed that the balance between two gut bacteria, Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia, was critical in distinguishing mice with or without multiple sclerosis-like disease. Mice with multiple sclerosis-like symptoms had increased levels of Akkermansia and decreased levels of Bifidobacterium in their stool or gut lining.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/04/4chan-may-be-dead-but-its-toxic-legacy-lives-on/

My earliest memory of 4chan was sitting up late at night, typing its URL into my browser, and scrolling through a thread of LOLcat memes, which were brand-new at the time.

Back then a photoshop of a cat saying "I can has cheezburger" or an image of an owl saying "ORLY?" was, without question, the funniest thing my 14-year-old brain had ever laid eyes on.
[...]
It's strange to look back at 4chan, apparently wiped off the Internet entirely last week by hackers from a rival message board, and think about how many different websites it was over its more than two decades online.
[...]
It is likely that there will never be a site like 4chan again—which is, likely, a very good thing. But it had also essentially already succeeded at its core project: chewing up the world and spitting it back out in its own image. Everything—from X to Facebook to YouTube—now sort of feels like 4chan.
[...]
"The novelty of a website devoted to shock and gore, and the rebelliousness inherent in it, dies when your opinions become the official policy of the world's five or so richest people and the government of the United States," the Onion CEO and former extremism reporter Ben Collins tells WIRED. "Like any ostensibly nihilist cultural phenomenon, it inherently dies if that phenomenon itself becomes The Man."
[...]
4chan was more complicated than it looked from the outside. The site was organized into dozens of smaller sections, everything from comics to cooking to video games to, of course, pornography. Holderness says she learned to make bread during the pandemic thanks to 4chan's cooking board. (Full disclosure: I introduced Holderness to 4chan way back in 2012.)
[...]
Holderness calls 4chan the Internet's "Wild West" and says its demise this month felt appropriate in a way. The chaos that defined 4chan, both the good and the very, very bad, has largely been paved over by corporate platforms and their algorithms now.
[...]
"The snippets that we have of what 4chan was—it's all skewed," Holderness says. "There is no record. There's no record that can ever encapsulate what 4chan was."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/19/us_crosswalk_button_hacking/

Some pranksters altered the voices on crosswalk buttons in some US cities. The hardware had a control app available on Google Play and Apple App Store along with a listed default PIN of 1234.

Video Crosswalk buttons in various US cities were hijacked over the past week or so to – rather than robotically tell people it's safe to walk or wait – instead emit the AI-spoofed voices of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.

And it's likely all thanks to a freely available service app and poorly secured equipment.

In Seattle this week, some crosswalks started playing AI-generated messages spoofing tech tycoon Jeff Bezos. In one video clip, a synthetic Bezos voice can be heard introducing himself from the push-button box, and claiming the crossing is sponsored by Amazon Prime.

Then it veered into parody-turned-social commentary: "You know, please don't tax the rich, otherwise all the other billionaires will move to Florida too. Wouldn't it be terrible if all the rich people left Seattle or got Luigi-ed and then the normal people could afford to live here again?"

Original Submission

coolgopher writes:

http://www.quiss.org/signal_carnival/

At Revision 2025, we released "Signal Carnival" (csdb, YouTube). This demo asks you to switch the audio and video cable of your C64:

Image

Technically, "misplugging" those cables is not a completely new idea. In the 90s, it was a common thing to connect audio to both speaker and video, to get screen flickering timed with the music beats.

However, "Signal Carnival" is the first production to switch both these cables, while still being able to play meaningful audio and video.

How to drive audio using a video signal

The C64's VIC chip operates at a frequency of 7.9Mhz, and new values can be written to it by the 6502 at a rate of up to 246kHz. Since even high quality audio rarely exceeds 44kHz, this is easily a high enough frequency to generate music.

Inspired by the music routine from freespin, we combined two timers to get an interesting waveform, which is adjusted once per frame. This is the code that drives audio:

lda $dc06
ora $dd06
eor $02
sta $d020

Here, $dc06 and $dd06 are the lower bytes of the B timers of CIA #1 and #2, respectively. They're in turn increased every time their A timers overflow. And those are set to a new value for every new note.

Eor-ing with the value at zeropage $02 allows to slightly tweak the waveform (and volume!), and then the result is written to $d020, which is the screen color. Only the brightness of said color matters (chrominance is encoded at the PAL color carrier frequency, which is outside of the human hearing range). There's no obvious relationship between the brightness of the C64 color and its number, but that's fine - it actually makes the waveforms more interesting.

Of course, the above uses up all four timers the C64 CIAs have, which means there are no timers left for e.g. video stabilization, which is instead done through the lightpen circuitry. (Finally! A use case for $d013. :))

Music is just one voice, but the song switches between voices (and waveforms) often enough to sound mildly polyphonic.

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

The Open Home Foundation fights for the fundamental principles of privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. And for every person who lives in one. It does this by supporting the development of open-source projects, and open connectivity and communication standards.

In the past year, Open Home has doubled its user base to 2 million households. Music Assistant has also made great strides recently. Music Assistant is a music library manager for your offline and online music sources which can easily stream your favourite music to a wide range of supported players and be combined with Home Assistant. They are also making great progress in voice controls which you can run 100% within your home, or via lighter weight devices and their cloud service.

For myself, I started constructing the tinfoil hat for my home (we already have a metal roof) about two weeks ago, replacing cloud controlled smart outlets with ZigBee devices controlled via Home Assistant. I'm getting close to putting ZigBee smart outlets in control of my Google Home speakers so I can just say "Hey Google, Wiretap off." and have them all powered down easily.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

The scam exploited a Google Sites vulnerability, tricking users with convincing fake emails:

Google, a company that regularly collects and stores vast amounts of personal data, has failed to safeguard its own users from a sophisticated phishing attack. The scam, first exposed by Ethereum developer Nick Johnson, exploited vulnerabilities in Google's infrastructure, duping even tech-savvy individuals into handing over their credentials.

Despite Google's massive resources and dominance in the tech industry, its delayed response and initial reluctance to address the flaw underscore a troubling pattern: Silicon Valley giants prioritize innovation over security, leaving everyday Americans vulnerable to digital threats.

The attack, targeting Gmail's 1.8 billion users, highlights the dangers of centralized digital control. If a company like Google (which constantly urges users to trust its platforms) cannot protect its own systems, how can individuals be expected to rely on Big Tech for security? The incident also raises serious questions about whether these corporations deserve the unprecedented level of trust placed in them.

The phishing email, which appeared to come from the address "no-reply@accounts.google.com", claimed the recipient had been subpoenaed for their Google account data. It cleverly bypassed standard security checks, displaying no warnings in Gmail and even threading itself among legitimate security alerts.

[...] The irony is staggering. Google aggressively harvests user information (tracking searches, emails, and location data), yet struggles to defend that same data from hackers. If centralized tech giants can't secure their systems, perhaps it's time to reconsider the dangers of placing so much personal control in their hands.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) boasts that it has designed the world’s first lightning triggering and guidance system that leverages flying drones (via machine translation). After successful trials earlier this year it is hoped that networks of these drones can be installed in cities and key infrastructure as a preventative protection measure.

Lightning damage isn’t as rare as many an old adage might suggest, according to the stats shared by NTT. Its PR bulletin says that every year in Japan there is 100B to 200B Yen (up to $1.4B) worth of damage caused by lightning – and then there is the human cost to consider. Meanwhile, conventional lightning rods don’t provide as wide coverage as desirable, or might be tricky to install (e.g. wind turbines).

With the above in mind NTT set up an experiment to see if drones can be used to prevent lightning damage. The firm used ground monitoring equipment to judge the danger of lightning in an area. And basically, when thunderclouds approached and electric field fluctuations observed, a drone was sent up to intercept.

These are not kamikaze drones - they are equipped with a lightning-resistant cage. In a test flight on Dec 13, 2024, a drone attached to a ground wire was flown to 300m altitude to approach a suspected thundercloud. NTT says it then observed a massive electrical pulse and claims that it achieved “the world's first successful lightning induction using a drone.”

When the lightning struck the drone, it could continue to fly thanks to the cage protection (though it part melted). It is key that the drone could remain airborne after being zapped, says NTT and before this live trial it had successfully tested them at up to bursts of 150,000 Amps.

NTT intends to continue refining its lightning triggering and guidance drones. To augment the above study and trials it is looking at improving lightning location prediction accuracy. Moreover, there are plans to research and development into storing the lightning energy that is safely diverted.

Original Submission

turgid writes:

At phys.org there is an article about a lone black hole discovered by astronomers at the University of St Andrews.

Lone black holes are very rare, and the discovery was challenged, since lone neutron stars are far more common but subsequent observations confirm the lone black hole moving through the constellation Sagittarius.

The research team made their initial observations using data from Hubble over the years 2011 to 2017. This time around, they looked at data from Hubble for the years 2021 and 2022, as well as from the Gaia space probe. They found that the object under review was approximately seven times as massive as the sun, showing that it could not be a neutron star, leaving only a black hole as the sole option.

This is the first time the existence of a lone black hole has been confirmed. All of the others previously discovered have had a companion star, either another black hole, a neutron star or an ordinary star.

Journal Reference: Kailash C. Sahu et al, OGLE-2011-BLG-0462: An Isolated Stellar-mass Black Hole Confirmed Using New HST Astrometry and Updated Photometry, The Astrophysical Journal (2025). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/adbe6e

Original Submission