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Submission + - US science advisors desperately want to probe Uranus Again (msn.com) 2

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Is it time we gave Uranus a closer look again?:

"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have released their newest decadal survey. Apparently, at the top of the list of priorities is a goal to probe Uranus. The report, which was published this year, calls for a spacecraft to orbit Uranus. That spacecraft would then map its gravitational and magnetic fields. It would circle the planet for multiple years. During that time, it could deliver an atmospheric probe to the planet to study it."

Scientists would also like to learn more about the various moons and the ring system surrounding the planet. Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab wrote a white paper outlining their goals. Another target would include Enceladus, Saturn's icy moon that could be a candidate for being the host of microbial life.

Time is of the essence for inserting the Probe into Uranus's orbit, however, as a mission would need to be launched by 2031 to take advantage of a gravity assist from Jupiter.

Submission + - Pupil response to imagined subjects reveals aphantasia (unsw.edu.au)

Submitted by drinkypoo
drinkypoo writes: Researchers at UNSW Sydney have discovered that aphantasia, or lack of visual imagination, can be detected by lack of pupillary response. Pupillary response to both real and imagined objects was measured and compared, and the response to imagined objects was larger in those reporting greater vividness of imagery.

Comment Re:There's also pclinuxos (Score 1) 140

by menkhaura (#61922253) Attached to: Systemd-Free Devuan 4.0 'Chimaera' Officially Released

Modern systems are powerful enough nowadays that Gentoo's build times are not as painful as they used to be. So, rolling-release, systemd optional (mine run OpenRC), source-based (thus, configurable ad-nauseam). A little brittle when installing for the first time, and on the first few days of messing with it, but when you get the hang of it, I believe there is nothing else better (again, if you have reasonably modern hardware). A tinkerer's dream.

Arch Linux is also rolling release, and I believe systemd is optional (even though it is the default init system), but has nowhere near the customizability Gentoo has.

Submission + - YouTube Censored Videos Uncovering China's Persecution Of Uighur Muslims (reuters.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes: A human rights group that attracted millions of views on YouTube to testimonies from people who say their families have disappeared in China's Xinjiang region is moving its videos to little-known service Odysee after some were taken down by the Google-owned streaming giant, two sources told Reuters.

Comment Re:money (Score 1) 180

by menkhaura (#61457662) Attached to: Bing Censors Image Search for 'Tank Man' Even in US

Well, all kinds of government have a "smart", that is, "engineered" or "designed" side to them; however, some kinds of social organization let the economy go unchecked, freely, without trying to nudge, or herd their agents one way or another. This would be a "dumb" economy, or natural, as natural as social relations can be. On the other hand, other kinds of government try to plan everything from top to bottom, from the kind, size, and quantity of screws, nuts and bolts to how many nuclear weapons or space exploration their country should produce; in this sense, the economy is "smart", that is, the product of deliberate planning. Socialism as we know it is the best example of this; however, cooperativist countries (I believe you are thinking about Israeli kibutzim) also share this "designed" quality on a microcosmos level, while the economy at large is still "dumb", or as dumb as it can be within the bounds of government regulations. That would be a nice thesis for an economics nerd to work on!

Submission + - US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Wuhan research that created Covid (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by aberglas
aberglas writes: In https://thebulletin.org/2021/0... Nicholas Wade soberly reviews the research that was conducted by the Wuhan virology institute prior to the outbreak of Covid-19. Much of this is public as it was funded by a US NIH grant and the Wuhan Institute proudly described their research in academic publications. An open attempt to create super viruses so that they could be studied in the lab and so prepare for any possible natural outbreak.

Wade takes care not to draw conclusions, but the conclusion is obvious. They were exactly trying to enhance the spike protein on a SARS virus. They were working at Biosecurity level 2 instead of the much more painful level 4. And if it was natural then there would be animal precursors, yet none have been found.

Wade speculates that the international virologist community does not want their research to be brought into disrepute, and so actively tried to play down any talk of an accident. The NIH and Chinese governments certainly did not want it publicized. And the Trump buffoonery meant that many left leaning publications discounted the theory.

This is important, because it raises the question as to whether such research should be conducted in the first place.

Submission + - Anatomy of a Linux Ransomware Attack (linuxsecurity.com)

Submitted by b-dayyy
b-dayyy writes: Ransomware has dominated cybersecurity news headlines for the past decade, and for good reason. Through a combination of advanced encryption and effective extortion mechanisms, a ransomware attack can have devastating consequences for any victim including data loss, reputation harm, recovery costs and significant downtime.

While 85% of ransomware attacks target Windows systems, Linux is becoming an increasingly popular target due to the high value of the devices it powers — namely, servers that administer enterprise and government networks, web services and massive databases owned by organizations that can afford to pay to have operations and critical data restored after an attack. Although ransomware variants that target Linux devices are still in the minority, Linux ransomware has proven to be diverse and sophisticated in its distribution techniques and extortion methods. In this article, we’ll examine the anatomy of a Linux ransomware attack, explore the magnitude of the ransomware risk Linux users face compared to Windows users and offer some tips and advice for protecting against Linux ransomware.

Submission + - School Lockdowns: The Data Doesn't Fit the Science (city-journal.org) 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A new — and impressively huge — study of a natural experiment in Sweden shows that closing schools does practically nothing to save lives or stop the spread of Covid. Swedish economists compared Covid infection rates and medical records for all the parents (hundreds of thousands) at senior high schools, which went online during the spring pandemic, against the parents at junior high schools, which stayed open and did not encourage students or teachers wear face masks.

The parents whose children kept going to school were no more likely to be treated or hospitalized for Covid than were the parents of the online students. And the teachers who remained in the classroom had lower rates of infection and hospitalization than did the parents.

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