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DannyB writes:

NASA May Have Inadvertently Killed Life on Mars, Scientist Says

from science alert ...

[....] decades ago in the 1970s, when the Viking landers became the first US mission to safely land on and explore the red planet, we may have been close.

One researcher raises the possibility that life existed in a sample of Martian soil. And then, in our quest to sniff it, we snuffed it out. Just like that.

[....] an experiment to detect the signs of microbial life on Mars could have been deadly.

[....] it's essential for us to consider thoroughly the ecology of Mars when designing future experiments.

[....] One of those experiments, the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GCMS), found chlorinated organics. At the time, that result was interpreted as contamination from human cleaning products, and thus a null detection for signs of biology.

We know now that chlorinated organics are native to Mars, although whether they are produced by biological or non-biological processes remains unknown.

There has been some speculation in recent years about the destructiveness of the Viking biological experiments. The GCMS needed to heat the samples to separate out the various materials therein. That, subsequent analysis revealed, could have incinerated the very organics it was hoping to find.

[....] what would happen if you poured water over these dry-adapted microbes. Might that overwhelm them? In technical terms, we would say that we were hyperhydrating them, but in simple terms, it would be more like drowning them," Schulze-Makuch explained in his column.

"It would be as if an alien spaceship were to find you wandering half-dead in the desert, and your would-be saviors decide, 'Humans need water. Let's put the human in the middle of the ocean to save it!'

Kidney stones weigh less on Mars.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute identified an intriguing new deep sea species off of California. It's see-through, can glow, and nabs prey with a large hood. At one point while filming, researchers watched it detach one of its finger-like appendages, likely as a decoy for a predator. The glowing appendage floated away.

[...] Below, you can view brilliant footage of the animal, which biologists have dubbed the "mystery mollusc." It now also has a scientific name, Bathydevius caudactylus, and after years of observation and genetic testing, scientists have concluded it's a species of nudibranch, more popularly known as sea slugs.

[...] It primarily lives between some 3,300 to 13,100 feet below the ocean surface, a vast region of the lightless sea called the midnight zone (this zone accounts for some 70 percent of seawater on Earth but is largely unexplored). To eat, it uses a hood to "trap crustaceans like a Venus fly trap plant," the institute explains. It's a hermaphrodite (like other sea slugs), and exploits its transparency to hide in plain sight. But as described above, when needed it can detach parts of its body as a decoy.

Bathydevius caudactylus is so unusual that it took 150 deep water sightings over 20 years before marine biologists could accurately identify the animal. The discovery has been published in the science journal Deep-Sea Research Part I.

[...] Ocean research organizations, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, are now vigilantly documenting and mapping the deep sea. Scientists want to shine a light — literally and figuratively — on what's down there. The implications of knowing are incalculable, particularly as deep sea mineral prospectors prepare to run tank-like industrial equipment across parts of the seafloor. For example, research expeditions have found that ocean life carries great potential for novel medicines. "Systematic searches for new drugs have shown that marine invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms," notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Instructional press video.

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2024.104414

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fliptop writes:

'We are deeply alarmed [the Department of Homeland Security] has not publicly disclosed when this investigation will begin,' the senators stated in a letter:

A bipartisan group of senators has urged a federal review board to immediately begin an investigation into a Chinese hacking group's attacks against the United States, according to a recent letter sent to Robert Silvers, undersecretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Led by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), the senators wrote in a letter dated Nov. 14 that the independent Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) had announced in late October that it would initiate a review "at the appropriate time," a DHS spokesman confirmed in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, following media reports that Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored threat group, had breached several U.S. telecommunications companies.

[...] The senators noted that the CSRB's announcement "is a good first step." The CSRB, established by the DHS in 2022, consists of federal officials and private-sector cybersecurity experts.

"We are deeply alarmed DHS has not publicly disclosed when this investigation will begin," the senators wrote. "While details of the attack are still being revealed, the scope of this attack is historic in nature and the hacking technique used by Salt Typhoon holds countless senior U.S. officials and millions of U.S. citizens at risk.

"With all due speed and urgency, the CSRB should begin investigating how this happened immediately."

Previously: U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack

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DannyB writes:

Jawboning In Plain Sight: The Unconstitutional Censorship Tolerated By The DMCA

For better or worse, jawboning has been a hot topic recently, and it's unlikely that interest will fade any time soon. Jawboning, in broad strokes, is when the government pressures a third party to make that third party chill the speech of another instead of going after the speech directly. Because the First Amendment says that the government cannot go after speech directly, this approach can at first seem to be the "one easy trick" for the government to try to affect the speech it wants to affect so that it could get away with it constitutionally. But as the Supreme Court reminded earlier this year in NRA v. Vullo, it's not actually constitutional to try this sort of end-run around the First Amendment.

[....] there should be concern about Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and how it operates to force intermediaries to act against users and their speech, whether they would want to or not, and whether the targeted speech is wrongful or not.

[....] "Why now?" After all, the DMCA has been working its unconstitutional way for a quarter of a century, and we've been tolerating it. But tolerating the intolerable does not make it tolerable.

Yep! Just pretend it's a copyright issue and fraudulently file a DMCA, under plenty of perjury, to silence what you don't like.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A US order to TSMC to cut AI chip supplies to China over Huawei sanctions won't cause problems for Apple. However, Taiwan's prohibition of TSMC producing 2-nanometer chips elsewhere could make an impact.

U.S. sanctions against Huawei has caused problems for TSMC over attempts by intermediaries to order certain AI-based chip designs on Huawei's behalf. From Monday, TSMC is suspending shipments of the AI-focused chips to China, on the orders of the United States.

[...] The blocked shipments by the Department of Commerce certainly impacts TSMC's sales with Huawei, but it could also cause other problems.

[...] Lower production means it has to shift around its production line to maximize the utility of its facilities. For its relatively new Arizona production plant, its relatively low amount of production could make it a viable facility to temporarily mothball.

While largely risking the Arizona investment temporarily, the order probably won't do much to harm Apple's supplies from the company.

Apple relies on assembly partners in China to produce its products, including the iPhone, and TSMC's chips therefore need to be imported. As chips that have AI benefits in the form of the Neural Engine, this is the sort of chip that the Commerce Department is wary about handing over to Huawei.

hubie writes:

It's memory-safe, with a few caveats:

Developers looking to continue working in the C and C++ programming languages amid the global push to promote memory-safe programming now have another option that doesn't involve learning Rust.

Filip Pizlo, senior director of language engineering at Epic Games, has created his own memory-safe flavor of C and – because why not? – named it after himself.

Pizlo got in touch after seeing our report on TrapC – a memory-safe C-fork due for release next year.

"I wanted to alert you to the existence of Fil-C, a personal project of mine, which exists today, does just about everything TrapC claims to do (including being totally memory-safe), and is freely available," Pizlo explained. "It aims for 100 percent compatibility with C and C++ – just compile your stuff with my compiler and you get memory safety."

The US government and other interested parties are rather keen to encourage memory safety – something not available out of the box for C and C++ code. C and C++ require manual memory management, which has been shown to be inadequate for preventing memory safety bugs like out of bounds reads and writes.

Since the majority of serious vulnerabilities in large codebases can be attributed to memory safety failings, the common refrain over the past few years has been to develop in a programming language like Rust that (optionally) produces memory-safe code. And more recently there have been efforts to rewrite legacy code in critical libraries and applications using Rust.

There are many other memory-safe languages – such as C#, Java, Python, Swift, Go, and JavaScript. But Rust, for better or worse, has become the most commonly cited option in memory safety evangelism because it's fast, suited for low-level code, and does a lot of things well (safe concurrency and a well-conceived package management system). What's more, the non-profit Rust Foundation has been run well enough to attract funding and support from the tech firms likely to be interested in Rust's qualities.

Also, Rust came out of Mozilla, which isn't seen by the major tech platforms – several of which have their own home-grown programming languages – as a competitor. Consider that Rust debuted in late 2013 and Apple's Swift arrived a year later – during that period, Rust has attracted a broad constituency, while Swift is mainly used by Apple-aligned developers.

But the thing about Rust is that it's not all that easy to learn. So calls to rewrite everything in Rust have elicited pushback from those with significant C or C++ experience – like Linux kernel maintainers, who would prefer to continue working in languages they've mastered.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Britain's mobile telcos will get to bid for mmWave spectrum to provide high-speed wireless services next year, according to Ofcom, which just published the final draft of the regulations governing the auction.

The UK telecoms regulator says it plans to release spectrum in the 25.1-27.5 GHz and 40.5-43.5 GHz bands in 2025, and make them available for operators to deliver faster services. These are set to be restricted to urban areas, since these high frequencies can typically only operate over a range of a few kilometers.

This will be a big shift for the country's telcos, which have until now only had access to frequencies below about 4 GHz to deliver a mobile service. Higher frequencies allow for higher transmission rates and lower latencies, and for this reason are already used in countries such as the US for 5G data services.

The spectrum planned for release amounts to 2.4 GHz of spectrum in the 26 GHz band, and another 3 GHz in the 40 GHz band. Because of the range factor, this will not replace the existing spectrum UK operators already use, but compliment it for higher-bandwidth services in high-density areas.

Ofcom published a notice of its plans back in May and invited views on the proposals. It says in its latest missive that having considered the responses, it decided to enact the regulations largely in the form it consulted on, but with some tweaks.

The proposals were to auction the available spectrum in three categories, with each lot comprising a block of 200 MHz. The categories consist of 26 GHz lower (25.1-26.5 GHz), 26 GHz upper (26.5-27.5 GHz), and 40 GHz (40.5-43.5 GHz).

That split of the 26 GHz band into two categories is because some incumbent users continue to operate in the 25.1-26.5 GHz part of the band, Ofcom says.

Reserve prices are expected to be £2 million ($2.55 million) for each lot of the 26 GHz band, and £1 million ($1.27 million) for each lot in the 40 GHz space.

However, the comms regulator has previously said the auction cannot proceed until the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has reached a decision on the proposed merger between Three and Vodafone, which might otherwise complicate matters.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Many migratory birds use Earth's magnetic field as a compass, but some can also use information from that field to determine more or less where they are on a mental map.

Eurasian reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) appear to calculate their geographical position by drawing data from different distances and angles between magnetic fields and the Earth's shape. The findings suggest that the birds use magnetic information as a sort of "GPS" that tells them not only where to go, but where they are initially, says Richard Holland at Bangor University in the UK.

“When we travel, we have a map – which tells us where we are – and we have a compass, which tells us which way to go to reach our destination,” he says. “We don’t think birds have quite this level of accuracy or degree of knowledge of the whole Earth. Even so, they see how magnetic cues change as they move along their normal path – or even if they’re far displaced from that path.”

Scientists have known for decades that migratory birds rely on cues from the sun, the stars and Earth’s magnetic field to determine which direction to head towards. But figuring out direction using a compass is markedly different from knowing where in the world they are, and scientists still debate about whether – and how – birds figure out their current map position.

[...] However, we still don’t fully understand the neurological mechanisms that enable birds to sense these aspects of Earth’s magnetic field.

[...] While the research confirms reed warblers rely on these magnetic fields for positioning, it doesn’t mean that all birds do so, he adds. “Not all birds work the same way.”

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.1363

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Writer and blogger Alex Ewerlöf has written a discussion of cargo cult programming, including a bit of background on the term itself.

Cargo culting refers to a phenomenon where people imitate the superficial aspects of a practice or process without understanding the underlying logic or reasons behind it.

Although the term originated from historical events, its usage expanded to other areas like software, systems, and organizations.

Here's the story of how cargo cults came to be, with some examples from software and corporate world. In Pro-Tips we discuss actionable insights to prevent, spot, and dismantle cargo culting in your organization.

🤖🚫 Note: No AI is used to generate this content or images.

It's apparently a problem which keeps coming up repeatedly. What examples of cargo cult programming, if any, have soylentils encountered (or caused) over the years?

Original Submission

hellcat writes:

From the article. https://thepenngazette.com/demographic-winter-is-coming/

Is the world's population destined to shrink? Penn economics professor JF-V puts it bluntly: "If you're 55 years or younger, you are likely to witness something no human has observed for around 60,000 years, not even during was or pandemics: a systematic decrease in the world population."

His analysis of trends in more than 180 countries suggests that in many places, UN estimates of fertility rates are probably too high. His calculations suggest that a crucial moment has arrived: the global fertility rate, may have already dipped below the replacement rate. He allows that the global population is still growing, but expects it to peak in roughly 30 years, with a steep decline unfolding in its wake. When the transition comes—when the world's population eventually tips into contraction—he believes the impacts will be disruptive and swift.

Dramatic declines in childbirths are evident in every region of the world, across rich, poor, and middle-income countries alike. Shifting social norms are partly responsible, as young people don't view parenthood fitting into their lives. "Raising children is no longer a priority for many young people," he says, "either in the more traditional societies of eastern Asia or the more progressive countries of northern Europe."

[my aside] Fun fact, his findings parallel those made by my own UPenn research group back in 1981. We used a different technique, and could only "narrow" the event window down to the latter half of this century. What kind of economy will it be where there is one worker for every 3 old farts like me?

Original Submission

Snotnose writes:

Eureka moments shared by Chemists.

Interviews were conducted with 18 chemists from several subdisciplines of chemistry and include a diversity of demographics on the topic of creativity as seen through the eyes of Eureka moments. The experiences fell within three categories, i.e., (1) analytical problem-solving which can be reconstructed into a series of logical steps that can be identified; (2) memory retrieval processes of previously acquired knowledge; and (3) insights characterized by a sudden and unexpected understanding. There were variations of detail within each category. Suggestions for enhancing the probability of experiencing Eureka moments are provided.

Derek Lowe shares his thoughts, always worth a read.

I've had 2 in my life. 11 y/o me was struggling with fractions when suddenly all became clear. Then a few years later while teaching myself Z-80 assembly I watched my debugger single step into a text string and suddenly how computers execute code crystallized. What Eureka moments have you had?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The UK's ambitious efforts to mimic the wild success of US research and security outfit DARPA has just a few months to prove its worth, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, was announced in 2021, but was not formally established until January 2023. A product of the Conservative Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit government, the agency is designed to fund transformational research, with a so-called high risk, high reward approach.

However, Lord Drayson, aka Paul Drayson, electric world land speed record holder and member of the Lords Science and Technology Committee pointed out this week that while Aria's initial £800 million ($1 billion) funding would see it through to the end of the 2025/26 financial year, the Labour government is set decide on any future spending next spring, when it announces the multi-year spending review, setting out plans for 2026–27 to at least 2028–29.

Drayson said the Committee was supportive of Aria and wanted it to succeed, but questioned how it would secure its further when the government is set to decide its future well before its Parliamentary review, due in 2033.

[...] But last month, UK finance minister Rachel Reeves was forced to raise taxes and consider spending cuts in her budget as she struggled to balance the government books, boost the economy, and minimize public debt.

In such a climate, political leaders must weigh up the public's appetite for funding high-risk research with no immediate returns.

Before the Lords' committee, Clifford said: "We recognize that Aria, over the long run, has to provide great value for money, just as any use of public funds needs to, but that that value for money will obviously be measured in a different way, with a different risk appetite, and over a different time frame from the way that many other uses of public funds would. That's why we're so keen to establish core ideas about what failure and success mean for ARIA, what proportion of our programs we expect to succeed, because what we don't want to do is end up in a situation a couple of years where people say, 'When [the] ARIA program failed, does this mean Aria is failing?'"

[...] Aria is often seen as the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Conservative "Vote Leave Brexit" campaign and, later, chief advisor to former prime minister Boris Johnson. Reports suggested his WhatsApp handle once said: "Get Brexit Done, then Arpa (Darpa's predecessor)."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba revealed the $65 billion plan this week. Reuters saw an early draft of the proposal, which is scheduled to be submitted during the country's next parliament session, and notes its support of domestic chipmaker Rapidus among others.

The homegrown semiconductor manufacturer was founded in 2022 with support from several major Japanese tech companies including Sony and Kioxia, and entered into a strategic partnership with IBM in December 2022. The outfit expects to start mass production of advanced chips built on a 2nm process by 2027. It is an ambitious goal, but one that could be helped along with a significant infusion of cash.

[...] As Tom's Hardware highlights, it took many years for established players like TSMC to get to where they are today. The publication questions whether or not Japan has enough workers with the skills necessary to achieve their goals. As we have seen both domestically and abroad, finding workers with the smarts to get the job done can be a real challenge. Even China, with its heavy investments and accusations of IP theft, hasn't been able to compete toe to toe with leading chipmakers.

It remains to be seen whether or not Japan's investment will pay off, but it is hard not to think that increased competition will benefit the masses via lower prices and a more robust supply chain.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In a step toward new types of particle physics experiments, scientists cooled and then accelerated a beam of muons. The subatomic particles, heavy cousins of electrons, could be accelerated and slammed together at future particle colliders in hopes of unlocking physics secrets. But first, scientists have to figure out how to give muons a speed boost.

Counterintuitively, that means first slowing muons down. Muons in particle beams initially go every which way. To make a beam suitable for experiments, the particles need to be first slowed and then reaccelerated, all in the same direction. This slowing, or cooling, was first demonstrated in 2020 (SN: 2/5/20). 

[...] The scientists first sent the muons into an aerogel, a lightweight material that slowed the muons and created muonium, an atomlike combination of a positively charged muon and a negatively charged electron. Next, a laser stripped away the electrons, leaving behind cooled muons that electromagnetic fields then accelerated.

Muon colliders could generate higher energy collisions than machines that smash protons, which are themselves made up of smaller particles called quarks. Each proton’s energy is divvied up among its quarks, meaning only part of the energy goes into the collision. Muons have no smaller bits inside. And they’re preferable to electrons, which lose energy as they circle an accelerator. Muons aren’t as affected by that issue thanks to their larger mass.

S. Aritome et al. Acceleration of positive muons by a radio-frequency cavity. arXiv:2410.11367. Submitted October 15, 2024.

Original Submission

Our Anonymous, Anonymous Coward has submitted the following story:

Motor Trend reports on shenanigans after Hertz employees at the Syracuse, NY airport left early one afternoon... https://www.motortrend.com/news/hertz-car-rental-new-york-empty-desk/

When travelers arrived after those employees left in order to pick up their reserved rentals, and no one was around to help them, some decided to help themselves. Approximately 20 customers simply grabbed keys for whatever car was available (or seeing which cars had the keys left in them) and went on their way. Note that this Hertz location isn't quite dealing in autonomous rentals yet, so pulling a grab 'n go with the keys was in no way an official option.

[...] When the airport realized what was going on, officials tried to contact Hertz but couldn't reach anyone that was on-duty.

[...] It's not clear if everyone who took a vehicle had to later swap it out or faced some sort of penalty.

Original Submission