Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Scientists Say They Have Come Up With a Potential Way To Make Oxygen On Mars (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a high-stakes mission that could take five years to complete, NASA wants to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s. Transporting enough oxygen and fuel on a spacecraft to sustain the mission for anywhere near that length of time, however, isn't currently viable. The way NASA plans to address this problem is by deploying MOXIE, or the Mars Oxygen in Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. This system is in the testing phase on the Mars Perseverance rover, which launched in July. The apparatus will convert the carbon dioxide that makes up 96% of the gas in the red planet's' atmosphere into oxygen.

On Mars, oxygen is only 0.13% of the atmosphere, compared to 21% of the Earth's atmosphere. The MOXIE system essentially produces oxygen like a tree — pulling in the Martian air with a pump and using an electrochemical process to separate two oxygen atoms from each molecule of carbon dioxide, or CO2. The experimental technique proposed by Vijay Ramani and his colleagues uses a completely different resource — salty water in lakes beneath the Martian surface. "The presence of the brine is fortuitous because it lowers freezing point of the water. You take the salty, brackish water and electrolyze that. Our process takes the water and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen," Ramani said. The method proposed in the new paper, however, assumes that these brines are readily available on Mars, said Michael Hecht, NASA's principal investigator for MOXIE and associate director for research management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory.

Submission + - Google: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model. (googleblog.com)

Submitted by RealNeoMorpheus
RealNeoMorpheus writes: From Google's site:

"Fuchsia is a long-term project to create a general-purpose, open source operating system, and today we are expanding Fuchsia’s open source model to welcome contributions from the public.

Fuchsia is designed to prioritize security, updatability, and performance, and is currently under active development by the Fuchsia team. We have been developing Fuchsia in the open, in our git repository for the last four years. "

Submission + - NextMind Ships Its Real-Time Brain Computer Interface Dev Kit For $399

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NextMind has started shipping its real-time brain computer interface Dev Kit for $399. The device translates brain signals into digital commands, allowing you to control computers, AR/VR headsets, and IoT devices (lights, TVs, music, games, and so on) with your visual attention.

When we spoke with NextMind CEO Sid Kouider last year, he promised the kits would begin shipping in Q2 2020. Then the pandemic hit. "We had about three, four months of delays due to COVID-19, but not more than that in terms of production," Kouider told VentureBeat. The company shipped "hundreds" of Dev Kits in November after producing its first thousand units. Another thousand units are set to be produced next month.

Submission + - CentOS 8 has new EOL it is now the end of 2021

Submitted by oldgraybeard
oldgraybeard writes: Redhat has just torpedoed CentOS 8 as an unbranded Redhat Enterprise stable. CentOS Stream: Building an innovative future for enterprise Linux and FAQ — CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

Not sure what others think I use CentOS because it is Redhat unbranded stable and has a path to Redhat. Now CentOS 8 Stream looks like cutting edge. And I do not use cutting edge or quick turn distros(fedora).

I am looking to move elsewhere maybe Debian/Ubuntu LTS(20.04 looks pretty good) My take could be wrong. What do others think?

Submission + - SPAM: Nasa to pay company $1 to collect rocks from moon

Submitted by Hmmmmmm
Hmmmmmm writes: NASA has selected four companies to collect space resources and transfer ownership to the agency: Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California; ispace Europe of Luxembourg; and ispace Japan of Tokyo. Overall, the new NASA contracts with these companies totals $25,001.

-Lunar Outpost proposed collection for $1 following arrival of a lander to the lunar South Pole in 2023.
-ispace Japan proposed collection for $5,000 following arrival in 2022 of a lander to Lacus Somniorum on the Moon’s northeastern near side.
-ispace Europe proposed collection for $5,000 following arrival in 2023 of a lander to the lunar South Pole.
-Masten Space Systems proposed collection for $15,000 following arrival in 2023 of a lander to the lunar South Pole.

Companies will collect a small amount of lunar regolith from any location on the Moon and provide imagery to NASA of the collection and the collected material, along with data that identifies the collection location. Subsequent to receiving such imagery and data, an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith to NASA will take place. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the sole property of NASA for the agency’s use under the Artemis program.

Companies will receive 10% of their total proposed price upon award, will receive 10% upon launch, and the remaining 80% upon successful completion. NASA’s payment is exclusively for the lunar regolith. The agency will determine retrieval methods for the transferred lunar regolith at a later date.

According to the BBC ([spam URL stripped])
[It's] not about the money

"The nominal amount of even a dollar is an important precedent that Nasa is setting," said Sinead O'Sullivan, a space expert.

"The innovation here is not of financial value but of creating business and legal norms of creating a market of buyers and sellers outside of Earth's constraints," she added.

The awards for the three companies will be paid in a three-step process. A total of 10% of the funds at the time of the award, 10% when the company launches its collection spacecraft, and 80% when Nasa verifies the company collected the material.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SpaceX Gets $886 Million From FCC To Subsidize Starlink In 35 States (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: SpaceX has been awarded $885.51 million by the Federal Communications Commission to provide Starlink broadband to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. The satellite provider was one of the biggest winners in the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, the results of which were released today. Funding is distributed over 10 years, so SpaceX's haul will amount to a little over $88.5 million per year. Charter Communications, the second-largest US cable company after Comcast, did even better. Charter is set to receive $1.22 billion over 10 years to bring service to 1.06 million homes and businesses in 24 states.

FCC funding can be used in different ways depending on the type of broadband service. Cable companies like Charter and other wireline providers generally use the money to expand their networks into new areas that don't already have broadband. But with Starlink, SpaceX could theoretically provide service to all of rural America once it has launched enough satellites, even without FCC funding. One possibility is that SpaceX could use the FCC money to lower prices in the 642,925 funded locations, but the FCC announcement didn't say whether that's what SpaceX will do. Starlink is in beta and costs $99 per month, plus a one-time fee of $499 for the user terminal, mounting tripod, and router. The 35 states where SpaceX won FCC funding are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Submission + - Two more firsts for SpaceX with CRS-21 (cnbc.com)

Submitted by bobcat7677
bobcat7677 writes: Not only does CRS-21 represent the first cargo mission to the ISS using SpaceX's upgraded Dragon 2 capsule (the previous missions were manned), but today marks the first time two Space-X modules have been docked to the ISS at the same time, the CRS-21 cargo ship and the Crew-1 Dragon 2 module that arrived with 4 astronauts on board last month. Meanwhile, it seems Boeing is even further embarrassed by the fact they have not even been able to demonstrate docking with the ISS using their Starliner capsule yet. To put it colloquially: SpaceX is now filling two holes in the ISS while Boeing still can't "get it up". Disclaimer: I have no connection to either company, I just think it's interesting.

Submission + - SPAM: Geeks: Give the Gift of Computer Security

Submitted by Larry Sanger
Larry Sanger writes: Grandma is never going to install a password manager. That's your job, geek. Besides, it's a great, unique, valuable Christmas present! Hop to it! Just be sure to teach her how to use it. Generally, there are valuable things you can do for friends and family that they'd never think to do for themselves. Come on, isn't that your job, geek?
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Drug Reverses Age-Related Mental Decline Within Days (ucsf.edu) 3

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Just a few doses of an experimental drug can reverse age-related declines in memory and mental flexibility in mice, according to a new study by UC San Francisco scientists. The drug, called ISRIB, has already been shown in laboratory studies to restore memory function months after traumatic brain injury (TBI), reverse cognitive impairments in Down Syndrome, prevent noise-related hearing loss, fight certain types of prostate cancer, and even enhance cognition in healthy animals.

In the new study, published Dec. 1, 2020, in the open-access journal eLife, researchers showed rapid restoration of youthful cognitive abilities in aged mice, accompanied by a rejuvenation of brain and immune cells that could help explain improvements in brain function.

“ISRIB’s extremely rapid effects show for the first time that a significant component of age-related cognitive losses may be caused by a kind of reversible physiological “blockage” rather than more permanent degradation,” said Susanna Rosi, PhD, Lewis and Ruth Cozen Chair II and professor in the departments of Neurological Surgery and of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science.

Submission + - Apple M1 and T2 Macs Requiring Internet to Activate is a Flaw: Researcher (iphoneincanada.ca)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: In a recently published blog post, hacker and security researcher Jeffrey Paul casts doubt over the sanctity and security of Apple’s Macs, stating that they can no longer be used safely and with confidence in completely offline environments.

Paul takes particular issue with Apple’s T2 chip — a security chip made by TSMC for Apple that comes pre-installed on all Intel-based Macs, and is part of the CPU on the latest generation of MacBooks powered by the Apple M1.

The T2 chip is primarily designed to enhance security on Macs, cross-checking a Mac’s signature with encrypted signatures for its hardware stored on Apple’s servers upon initial setup and disabling a MacBook’s mic when its lid is closed to prevent exploitation.

However, it is exactly the fact that basically every MacBook, be it Intel-powered or run on Apple’s own Silicon, needs to connect to the internet for setup following a complete wipe and OS restore that has the security researcher worried.

These practices endanger the privacy and personal freedoms of the private citizen — if you cannot even set your Mac up without letting it talk to Apple’s servers, is the Mac really yours? It’s not like infiltration or server outages are unheard of, and privacy concerns against Apple are certainly mounting.

Submission + - Kazakhstan government is intercepting HTTPS traffic in its capital (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Under the guise of a "cybersecurity exercise," the Kazakhstan government is forcing citizens in its capital of Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) to install a digital certificate on their devices if they want to access foreign internet services. Once installed, the certificate would allow the government to intercept all HTTPS traffic made from users' devices via a technique called MitM (Man-in-the-Middle).

Starting today, December 6, 2020, Kazakh internet service providers (ISPs) such as Beeline, Tele2, and Kcell are redirecting Nur-Sultan-based users to web pages showing instructions on how to install the government's certificate. Earlier this morning, Nur-Sultan residents also received SMS messages informing them of the new rules. Kazakhstan users have told ZDNet today that they are not able to access sites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix without installing the government's root certificate.

Submission + - More Geeky Advent Calendars

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: Advent of Code isn't the only geeky tradition that's continuing in 2020. "This is going to be the first full year with Raku being called Raku," notes the site raku-advent.blog. "However, it's going to be the 12th year (after this first article) in a row with a Perl 6 or Raku calendar, previously published in the Perl 6 Advent Calendar blog." The tradition continues, with a new article about the Raku programming language every day until Christmas.

And meanwhile over at perladvent.org, the Perl Advent Calendar is also continuing its own article-a-day tradition (starting with a holiday tale about how Perl's TidyAll library "makes it trivial for the elves to keep their code formatting consistent and clean.")

But they're not the only ones. "Pandemic or not, Christmas time is a time for wonder, joy and sharing," writes Kristofer Giltvedt Selbekk from Oslo-based Bekk Consulting (merging technology with user experience, product innovation and strategy). So this year they're "continuing our great tradition of sharing some of the stuff we know every December" with 11 different advent calendar sites sharing articles (or, on one site, podcast episodes), on topics including JavaScript, Kotlin, React, Elm, functional programming, and cloud computing.

And if you're more interested in outer space, this also marks the 13th year for the official Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. "Every day until Friday, December 25, this page will present one new incredible image of our universe from NASA's Hubble telescope," explains its page at the Atlantic.

Submission + - China turns on nuclear-powered 'artificial sun' (phys.org)

Submitted by John Trumpian
John Trumpian writes: China successfully powered up its "artificial sun" nuclear fusion reactor for the first time, state media reported Friday, marking a great advance in the country's nuclear power research capabilities.

The HL-2M Tokamak reactor is China's largest and most advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device, and scientists hope that the device can potentially unlock a powerful clean energy source.

It uses a powerful magnetic field to fuse hot plasma and can reach temperatures of over 150 million degrees Celsius, according to the People's Dailyâ"approximately ten times hotter than the core of the sun.

Slashdot Top Deals

"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds

Close