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looorg writes:

"A leader of what was once the world's most harmful cyber crime group has been unmasked and sanctioned by the UK, US and Australia, following a National Crime Agency-led international disruption campaign."

https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/lockbit-leader-unmasked-and-sanctioned

[...] The sanctions against Russian national Dmitry Khoroshev, the administrator and developer of the LockBit ransomware group, are being announced today by the FCDO alongside the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs.

Khoroshev, AKA LockBitSupp, who thrived on anonymity and offered a $10 million reward to anyone who could reveal his identity, will now be subject to a series of asset freezes and travel bans.

US partners have also unsealed an indictment against him and are offering a reward of up to $10m for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction.

The actions targeting Khoroshev form part of an extensive and ongoing investigation into the LockBit group by the NCA, FBI, and international partners who form the Operation Cronos taskforce.

LockBit provided ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) to a global network of hackers or 'affiliates', supplying them with the tools and infrastructure to carry out attacks.

In February the NCA announced that it had infiltrated the group's network and taken control of its services, including its leak site on the dark web, which compromised the entire criminal enterprise.

The true impact of LockBit's criminality was previously unknown, but data obtained from their systems showed that between June 2022 and February 2024, more than 7,000 attacks were built using their services. The top five countries hit were the US, UK, France, Germany and China.

See also:

• https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/u-s-charges-russian-man-as-boss-of-lockbit-ransomware-group/
• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/07/dmitry-khoroshev-named-as-alleged-leader-of-ransomware-gang-lockbit
• https://thehackernews.com/2024/05/russian-hacker-dmitry-khoroshev.html

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward has submitted the following story:

https://www.motortrend.com/features/gm-golden-1955-chevy-bel-air-found-mecum-auctions-indy-2024

70 years ago, General Motors worked out that they were coming up on 50 million cars, made over the corporate history. At the time GM was head and shoulders the biggest car company anywhere, making more than their USA competitors combined. Here's the story of the three gold plated commemorative '55 Bel Air Chevrolets that were built in late 1954, one being #50,000,000 and the other two for publicity use.

All three have been lost or ruined in one way or another, but recently a replica has been built, using period correct parts, some even NOS (new old stock).

Two of the cars (the second and third) simply vanished, and nobody knows where they went. It's possible they could have been crushed after they served their purposes, or maybe they are lurking in a barn someplace. The first car, which was used for the Motorama and other events, was burned in a garage fire and the parts strewn across a property in North Carolina!

[...] The '55 uses a 162-hp 265 V-8 engine dated September 1954, a cast-iron 1955 two-speed Powerglide transmission, a radiator dated September 1954, a voltage regulator dated November 1954, Delco front spiral shocks dated October 1954, and a fuel filler neck, one-piece door striker plates, steering wheel, horn ring, heater control, trunkfloor wiring tabs, 12-volt headlights, and the two-piece battery tray that are all specific to October and November 1954 production cars. Even small pieces such as the distributor cap, rotor, and points are NOS.

No detail was too small to address. For example, the early V-8s had a different oil system, and the golden '55 would have run this. "Early 265s had a swing-arm oil pump. Instead of the pickup arm being fixed, it floated up and down," Blades recalled. "They changed it because they were too expensive. I had one, so we put that in the engine. Even the oil pickup is correct to the date of that car."

The article ends with a pointer to an upcoming auction where this replica will go on the block.

Soundtrack (from Sweden!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSiaXtk1ZAY
And USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSNb1qarA_0

Original Submission

First Living Patient to Receive Genetically Modified Pig Kidney Dead at 62

upstart writes:

First living patient to receive genetically modified pig kidney dead at 62, weeks after historic transplant:

The first living patient to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking transplant, his family and doctors announced Saturday.

Richard "Rick" Slayman, 62, was sent home in March, two weeks after undergoing the transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"Their enormous efforts leading the xenotransplant gave our family seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts," his family said in a statement of the practice of healing human patients with animal cells, tissues or organs.

Slayman, of Boston suburb Weymouth, said he underwent the daring procedure after suffering ongoing dialysis complications, which saw him hospitalized every two weeks.

"I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive," he said in a statement at the time.

"Rick accomplished that goal, and his hope and optimism will endure forever," his family said Saturday.

The transplant team at Mass General said it had "no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant."

[...] Before Slayman, pig kidneys had only been tested on brain-dead donors, while two men who received pig hearts both died within months.

The efforts often fail because the human immune system would destroy the foreign animal tissue, and recent procedures like Slayman's use organs from pigs that have been altered to be more human-like.

See: First Time Doctors Transplant Gene-edited Pig Kidney Into Living Human

upstart writes:

Researchers reveal complex communication patterns in sperm whales:

The allure of whales has stoked human consciousness for millennia, casting these ocean giants as enigmatic residents of the deep seas. From the biblical Leviathan to Herman Melville's formidable Moby Dick, whales have been central to mythologies and folklore. And while cetology, or whale science, has improved our knowledge of these marine mammals in the past century in particular, studying whales has remained a formidable a challenge.

Now, thanks to machine learning, we're a little closer to understanding these gentle giants. Researchers from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) recently used algorithms to decode the "sperm whale phonetic alphabet," revealing sophisticated structures in sperm whale communication akin to human phonetics and communication systems in other animal species.

In a new open-access study published in Nature Communications, the research shows that sperm whales codas, or short bursts of clicks that they use to communicate, vary significantly in structure depending on the conversational context, revealing a communication system far more intricate than previously understood.

[...] The researchers identified something of a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet," where various elements that researchers call "rhythm," "tempo," "rubato," and "ornamentation" interplay to form a vast array of distinguishable codas. For example, the whales would systematically modulate certain aspects of their codas based on the conversational context, such as smoothly varying the duration of the calls — rubato — or adding extra ornamental clicks. But even more remarkably, they found that the basic building blocks of these codas could be combined in a combinatorial fashion, allowing the whales to construct a vast repertoire of distinct vocalizations.

upstart writes:

Nokia 3210 phone relaunched for 25th anniversary – and yes, there's Snake:

One of the most popular early mobile phones – the Nokia 3210 – has been relaunched to mark the device's 25th anniversary.

Human Mobile Devices (HMD), the maker of Nokia phones, said it had relaunched the "cultural icon" as demand for simpler devices as part of a digital detox was rising.

The revamped 3210 includes a two-megapixel camera, supports 4G calling and will still include classic mobile game Snake, HMD confirmed, with the device priced at £74.99 (US$94).

"The Nokia 3210, a cultural icon, is back at the pinnacle of the global dumbphone boom as consumers look to balance their screen time usage with a digital detox," Lars Silberbauer, HMD's chief marketing officer, said.

[...] Mobile phone expert Ben Wood, founder of the virtual Mobile Phone Museum, said the original Nokia 3210 has a "special place in many consumers' hearts" as one of the bestselling mobile phones of all time.

See also:

• Nokia 3210 - Wikipedia
• Redesigned Nokia 3210 (2024) launched with YouTube Shorts support, iconic Snake game: price, specs

Original Submission

Boeing faces new US investigation into 'missed' 787 inspections

DannyB writes:

Boeing faces new US investigation into 'missed' 787 inspections

FAA examining whether employees may have falsified records after firm said it might not have properly carried out checks

Boeing faces a new investigation after the planemaker told US regulators it might have failed to properly carry out some quality inspections on its 787 Dreamliner planes.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was "investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records".

[....] The Boeing executive overseeing the 787 programme, Scott Stocker, wrote in an internal memo, seen by the Guardian, that the problem was reported by an employee and was an instance of "misconduct," but not "an immediate safety of flight issue".

The memo said the company concluded that "several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed".

[....] Stocker said the company would "celebrate" the employee who spoke up.

Can it ever be a management failure that a thing like this can happen?

Another Boeing Mechanical Mishap

anubi writes:

Seems that Boeing is having no end of woe on its aircraft.

A FedEx cargo aircraft made a heart-stopping emergency landing at Istanbul Airport Wednesday after its front landing gear malfunctioned.

The Boeing 767 cargo plane was on its way from Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport to Istanbul when pilots realized the front landing gear failed, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

A screenshot from Turkish TV shows the cargo plane landing at Istanbul Airport on Wednesday. No casualties were reported.

https://www.newsweek.com/fedex-boeing-plane-emergency-landing-malfunction-1898330

Well, the President of the USA flies Boeing...

https://www.popsci.com/air-force-one-history-next-generation/

Methinks they need their old engineers and maintenance mechanics back. This kind of stuff is hard to cover over with creative writing.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

DannyB writes:

Why do most mammals have 5 fingers?

The simple question of "why five" has puzzled scientists from multiple fields, and the answer still isn't entirely clear.

If you look at the paws of a cat, a dog or even a kangaroo, you'll notice they have something in common with our hands. Even if some might be shrunken or differently positioned, all of these mammals have five digits, or fingers.

[....] To answer the question of why mammals have five fingers, we must first understand why tetrapod (Greek for "four-footed") vertebrates have five fingers. Mammals belong to the superclass Tetrapoda, which also includes reptiles, amphibians and birds. Even members of this group without traditional limbs have five fingers in their skeleton — whales, seals and sea lions have five fingers in their flippers — even if they have four or fewer toes.

There is some variation: Horses have just one toe, and birds have one fused finger bone at the end of their wing. However, scientists have discovered that these animals start out with as many as five fingers as embryos, but they shrink away before they are born.

[....] Nobody is sure when this five-finger plan first evolved. The first known animals to develop fingers evolved from fish around 360 million years ago and had as many as eight fingers, Stewart said. However, the existence of the five-finger plan in most living tetrapods indicates that the trait is likely a "homology" — a gene or structure that is shared between organisms because they have a common ancestor. The common ancestor of all living tetrapods must have somehow evolved to have five fingers and passed that pattern down to its descendants.

A common ancestor explains how mammals got five fingers, but it doesn't tell us why. One theory is canalization — the idea that over time, a gene or trait becomes more stable and less likely to mutate. [....] If the number has worked for millions of years, there's no reason to change it, according to this theory.

[....] Some speculate it might be down to gene linkage: As genes evolve over millions of years, some become linked, meaning changing one gene (the amount of fingers) could lead to other more serious health issues. But as of yet, nobody has offered concrete proof, Stewart told Live Science.

"We can ask a very simple question of why don't we see more than five fingers, and it seems like we should arrive at a simple answer," he said. "But it's a really deep problem. That makes [this field] really exciting."

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-here

If you've ever tried to "future-proof" a purchase by paying for everything you might eventually need up front, you know it can be a sucker's game. The problem? We can't actually see the future.

But today we got our hands on LPCAMM2 for the first time, and this looks like the future to us. LPCAMM2 is a totally modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops, using the latest LPDDR chips for maximum speed and efficiency. So instead of overpaying (or under-speccing) based on guesswork about your future memory needs, you'll hopefully be able to buy your next laptop and then install more RAM as needed. Imagine that!

Previously: Compression Attached Memory Modules May Make Upgradable Laptops a Thing Again

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Fall into a black hole in mind-bending NASA animation (video)

"If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole."

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you were unlucky enough to fall into a black hole, NASA has your answer.

A visualization created on a NASA supercomputer to celebrate the beginning of black hole week on Monday (May 6) takes the viewer on a one-way plunge beyond the event horizon of a black hole.

This outer boundary of a black hole marks the point at which not even light moves fast enough to escape the black hole's intense gravitational pull. That means the event horizon, marked by a golden ring outside of the heart of the black hole, is the point of no return past which no distant observer can ever recover information.

[....] What is interesting is that if you have the choice of what black hole to tumble into, bigger is better.

"If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole," Schnittman said. "Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon."

[....] The more mass a black hole has, the further from its singularity its event horizon is located. That means with a supermassive black hole, an infalling astronaut would have the chance to pass the event horizon before meeting their grisly fate.

[....] After a real-time duration of around 3 hours and 30-minute during two orbits of the black hole, we reach its event horizon. This marks the last point at which any distant observer watching our descent would be able to see us. They would forever see our image at the very edge of the event horizon, frozen.

[... rest omitted...]

No information was harmed in the posting of this article.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/05/pokemon-go-players-are-altering-public-map-data-to-catch-rare-pokemon/

Ah, Pokémon Go. The hottest mobile game of 2016 remains a potent force to this day, pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from tens of millions of monthly active players.

Part of what keeps the game fresh is a continuous trickle of new Pokémon. The game began with just the original 151 monsters back in 2016 and has gradually caught up to the current generation of Switch games in bits and pieces over the last eight years. The game is currently in the process of adding monsters from Scarlet and Violet, and that's where this story begins.
[...]
According to a report from 404 Media, some of those players have been adding fake beaches to OpenStreetMap so they could have easier access to the beach biome in Pokémon Go (though the game Go initially used Google Maps data, it apparently switched to OpenStreetMap at some point in 2017). OpenStreetMap contributors have discovered "beaches" that were actually located in residential backyards, golf courses, and sports fields.
[...]
Entire blog posts, wiki entries, and presentations from OSM mappers exist to bridge the knowledge gap, explaining the purpose of OpenStreetMap data to Pokémon Go users and breaking down Pokémon Go game mechanics for frustrated OSM contributors.
[...]
Though many users are "truth-stretching" vandals who create nonexistent parks, beaches, and footways to encourage specific Pokémon to spawn, others become "very careful, trustworthy" OSM users who "make many worthy additions to the map" by accurately mapping out places where OSM's data is patchy or outdated.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

U.S. National Science Foundation suspends UTEP's aerospace grant - KVIA:

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- On April 25, The U.S. National Science Foundation instructed the University of Texas, El Paso [UTEP] to suspend work on the Regional Innovation Engine and Aerospace Center pending further review.

In a statement released by the university, "On or about April 6, UTEP became aware of potentially incorrect statements in its proposal to the National Science Foundation for the Regional Innovation Engine Program. UTEP conducted a review and found that the statements in question committed resources to the NSF grant that UTEP does not have. We have sent a letter today (May 6) informing the NSF of these erroneous claims."

In January, UTEP won the inaugural NSF Regional Innovation Engines award for up to $15 million dollars over the next two years, according to the university's website.

They say, they could have received up to $160 million dollars in over 10-years and would have supported the Paso del Norte Defense and Aerospace Innovation Engine, greatly impacting the borderland community.

According to El Paso Matters, The award was granted on the proposal from Dr. Ahsan Choudhuri, Ph.D., UTEP's associate vice president, who lead the Aerospace Center.

anubi writes:

[Editor's Comment: I am not sure of the credibility, neutrality or origin of the source material.]

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64444

Report: Major Media Outlets Partnered With AI Company Are Filling Google With AI-Generated Trash

[...] Major media outlets have reportedly partnered with an AI company called AdVon Commerce to publish tens of thousands of fake product reviews and fill up Google Search results with piles of AI-generated trash.

While sites like InformationLiberation are manually blacklisted by Google's "trusted flaggers" for telling the truth, major media outlets which are manually whitelisted by Google for pushing regime propaganda are given top results for any garbage they publish.

Regime media have been taking advantage of this setup for years with low-quality clickbait but now they're taking spamming/SEO manipulation to a whole new level with AI.

I've suspected for quite some time those diversional "news article" clickbait sites ( like "She thought it was a dog. When the vet saw it, he called the Police! " ) are written by AI, designed to make you fish through myriads of buttons to get the next snippet of story.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/robot-dogs-armed-with-ai-targeting-rifles-undergo-us-marines-special-ops-evaluation/

The United States Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) is currently evaluating a new generation of robotic "dogs" developed by Ghost Robotics, with the potential to be equipped with gun systems from defense tech company Onyx Industries, reports The War Zone.

[...] MARSOC is currently in possession of two armed Q-UGVs undergoing testing, as confirmed by Onyx Industries staff, and their gun systems are based on Onyx's SENTRY remote weapon system (RWS), which features an AI-enabled digital imaging system and can automatically detect and track people, drones, or vehicles, reporting potential targets to a remote human operator that could be located anywhere in the world. The system maintains a human-in-the-loop control for fire decisions, and it cannot decide to fire autonomously.

On LinkedIn, Onyx Industries shared a video of a similar system in action.

[...] The prospect of deploying armed robotic dogs, even with human oversight, raises significant questions about the future of warfare and the potential risks and ethical implications of increasingly autonomous weapons systems. There's also the potential for backlash if similar remote weapons systems eventually end up used domestically by police. Such a concern would not be unfounded: In November 2022, we covered a decision by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to allow the San Francisco Police Department to use lethal robots against suspects.

Previously on SoylentNews:
    You Can Now Buy a Flame-Throwing Robot Dog for Under $10,000 - 20240426
    San Francisco Decides Killer Police Robots Aren't Such a Great Idea - 20221208

Original Submission

liar writes:

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-pulsed-plasma-rocket-advanced-concept-mars-1851463831

"The future of space travel depends on our ability to reach celestial pit stops faster and more efficiently. As such, NASA is working with a technology development company on a new propulsion system that could drop off humans on Mars in a relatively speedy two months' time rather than the current nine month journey required to reach the Red Planet

[...] The potentially groundbreaking propulsion system is being developed by Arizona-based Howe Industries. To reach high velocities within a shorter period of time, the pulsed plasma rocket would use nuclear fission—the release of energy from atoms splitting apart—to generate packets of plasma for thrust.

[...] It would essentially produce a controlled jet of plasma to help propel the rocket through space. Using the new propulsion system, and in terms of thrust, the rocket could potentially generate up to 22,481 pounds of force (100,000 Newtons) with a specific impulse (Isp) of 5,000 seconds, for remarkably high fuel efficiency"

[...] "The space agency claims that the propulsion system's high efficiency could allow for crewed missions to Mars to be completed within two months. As it stands today with commonly used propulsion systems, a trip to Mars takes around nine months."...

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Someone purchased the eight year old Cheyenne supercomputer for $480k. Failing hardware. Leaking water system. What would it be good for? Selling for parts would flood the market. Testing the parts would take forever. They also have to pay for transport from it's current location. Originally built by SGI.

https://gsaauctions.gov/auctions/preview/282996
https://www.popsci.com/technology/for-sale-government-supercomputer-heavily-used/
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/supercomputers/multi-million-dollar-cheyenne-supercomputer-auction-ends-with-480085-bid

Cheyenne Supercomputer - Water Cooling System

Components of the Cheyenne Supercomputer

Installed Configuration: SGI ICE™ XA.

E-Cells: 14 units weighing 1500 lbs. each.

E-Racks: 28 units, all water-cooled

Nodes: 4,032 dual socket units configured as quad-node blades

Processors: 8,064 units of E5-2697v4 (18-core, 2.3 GHz base frequency, Turbo up to 3.6GHz, 145W TDP)

Total Cores: 145,152

Memory: DDR4-2400 ECC single-rank, 64 GB per node, with 3 High Memory E-Cells having 128GB per node, totaling 313,344 GB

Topology: EDR Enhanced Hypercube

IB Switches: 224 units

Moving this system necessitates the engagement of a professional moving company. Please note the four (4) attached documents detailing the facility requirements and specifications will be provided. Due to their considerable weight, the racks require experienced movers equipped with proper Professional Protection Equipment (PPE) to ensure safe handling. The purchaser assumes responsibility for transferring the racks from the facility onto trucks using their equipment.

Please note that fiber optic and CAT5/6 cabling are excluded from the resale package.

The internal DAC cables within each cell, although removed, will be meticulously labeled, and packaged in boxes, facilitating potential future reinstallation.

Any ideas (serious or otherwise) of suitable uses for this hardware?

Original Submission