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Comment Work makes it so. (Score 1) 87

by Drgan (#62728634) Attached to: I consider myself to be...
I spend a decent amount of time in the gym every day. When I'm talking to my co-workers, they all think its crazy that I get up so early just to spend 2 hours in the gym before work. Hey, sometimes you've just got force yourself to get your workout in or you'll quickly find that you don't have time to do it. Besides, need time after work to hang out and game. Been working out like this for 3 years now.
Medicine

Potential Fabrication In Research Images Threatens a Key Theory of Alzheimer's Disease (science.org) 99

Posted by EditorDavid from the mind-games dept.
A 37-year-old junior professor in Tennessee "identified apparently altered or duplicated images in dozens of journal articles," reports Science magazine.

But that was just the beginning for Matthew Schrag, whose sleuthing then "drew him into a different episode of possible misconduct, leading to findings that threaten one of the most cited Alzheimer's studies of this century and numerous related experiments." The first author of that influential study, published in Nature in 2006, was an ascending neuroscientist: Sylvain Lesné of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His work underpins a key element of the dominant yet controversial amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's, which holds that A clumps, known as plaques, in brain tissue are a primary cause of the devastating illness, which afflicts tens of millions globally. In what looked like a smoking gun for the theory and a lead to possible therapies, Lesné and his colleagues discovered an A subtype and seemed to prove it caused dementia in rats.

If Schrag's doubts are correct, Lesné's findings were an elaborate mirage....

A 6-month investigation by Science provided strong support for Schrag's suspicions and raised questions about Lesné's research. A leading independent image analyst and several top Alzheimer's researchers — including George Perry of the University of Texas, San Antonio, and John Forsayeth of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) — reviewed most of Schrag's findings at Science's request. They concurred with his overall conclusions, which cast doubt on hundreds of images, including more than 70 in Lesné's papers. Some look like "shockingly blatant" examples of image tampering, says Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer's expert at the University of Kentucky. The authors "appeared to have composed figures by piecing together parts of photos from different experiments," says Elisabeth Bik, a molecular biologist and well-known forensic image consultant. "The obtained experimental results might not have been the desired results, and that data might have been changed to ... better fit a hypothesis...."

Schrag's work, done independently of Vanderbilt and its medical center, implies millions of federal dollars may have been misspent on the research — and much more on related efforts. Some Alzheimer's experts now suspect Lesné's studies have misdirected Alzheimer's research for 16 years. "The immediate, obvious damage is wasted NIH funding and wasted thinking in the field because people are using these results as a starting point for their own experiments," says Stanford University neuroscientist Thomas Südhof, a Nobel laureate and expert on Alzheimer's and related conditions.

Lesné did not respond to requests for comment....

Some Alzheimer's experts see a failure of skepticism, including by journals that published the work.
Schrag has warned America's National Institutes of Health that the suspect work "not only represents a substantial investment in [NIH] research support, but has been cited ... thousands of times and thus has the potential to mislead an entire field of research."

And Harvard neurologic disease professor Dennis Selkoe told Science "There are certainly at least 12 or 15 images where I would agree that there is no other explanation" than manipulation. Selkoe's bigger worry, he says, is that the Lesné episode might further undercut public trust in science during a time of increasing skepticism and attacks. But scientists must show they can find and correct rare cases of apparent misconduct, he says. "We need to declare these examples and warn the world."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Crypto Fireside for sharing the story!
China

Chinese-Made Huawei Equipment Could Disrupt US Nuclear Arsenal Communications, FBI Determines (cnn.com) 84

Posted by EditorDavid from the sneaky-cell-towers dept.
There's been "a dramatic escalation of Chinese espionage on US soil over the past decade," sources in the U.S. counterintelligence community have told CNN this weekend.

But some dramatic new examples have been revealed. For example, in 2017 China's government offered to build a $100 million pavilion in Washington D.C. with an ornate 70-foot pagoda. U.S. counterintelligence officials realized its location — two miles from the U.S. Capitol — appeared "strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington DC...a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection." Also alarming was that Chinese officials wanted to build the pagoda with materials shipped to the US in diplomatic pouches, which US Customs officials are barred from examining, the sources said. Federal officials quietly killed the project before construction was underway...

Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.

Among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country's nuclear weapons.... It's unclear if the intelligence community determined whether any data was actually intercepted and sent back to Beijing from these towers. Sources familiar with the issue say that from a technical standpoint, it's incredibly difficult to prove a given package of data was stolen and sent overseas.

The Chinese government strongly denies any efforts to spy on the US.... But multiple sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN that there's no question the Huawei equipment has the ability to intercept not only commercial cell traffic but also the highly restricted airwaves used by the military and disrupt critical US Strategic Command communications, giving the Chinese government a potential window into America's nuclear arsenal.... As Huawei equipment began to proliferate near US military bases, federal investigators started taking notice, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Of particular concern was that Huawei was routinely selling cheap equipment to rural providers in cases that appeared to be unprofitable for Huawei — but which placed its equipment near military assets.

Comment Mixed study results (Score 1) 73

by Drgan (#61088496) Attached to: Could Drinking Coffee Lower Your Risk of Heart Failure?
While I do find myself as being on the side that drinks coffee on an almost daily basis, I do so for the flavor rather than health benefits. Its almost a constant back and forth about the benefits of coffee and tea. Many times these studies discuss caffeine and antioxidants. Is it that caffeine is negative or that we just needs to moderate our intake? Does the caffeine actually cause individuals to urinate more or does the act of expelling fluids get offset by the amount of fluids taken in when consuming the caffeine itself? The more interesting part I find here is that machine learning is suddenly a thing as though a buzz-word these days. Isn't this the sort of thing that was already being done by researchers or data analysts? In my opinion, the results of studies like these should be used to guide additional research directions rather than being a statistic gathering mechanism.

Submission + - Chemists create and capture einsteinium, the elusive 99th element (livescience.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Scientists have successfully studied einsteinium — one of the most elusive and heaviest elements on the periodic table — for the first time in decades. The achievement brings chemists closer to discovering the so-called "island of stability," where some of the heftiest and shortest-lived elements are thought to reside.

The U.S. Department of Energy first discovered einsteinium in 1952 in the fall-out of the first hydrogen bomb test. The element does not occur naturally on Earth and can only be produced in microscopic quantities using specialized nuclear reactors. It is also hard to separate from other elements, is highly radioactive and rapidly decays, making it extremely difficult to study.

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) at the University of California, recently created a 233-nanogram sample of pure einsteinium and carried out the first experiments on the element since the 1970s. In doing so they were able to uncover some of the element's fundamental chemical properties for the first time.

Submission + - ISP almost demonstrates exactly why the FCC needs to fix net neutrality (newsweek.com) 1

Submitted by jasonbuechler
jasonbuechler writes: A North Idaho internet provider, Your T1 WIFI, emailed customers to say customers would need to opt-in to access Facebook and Twitter from its service. They wisely seem to have changed their mind on that after it started garnering attention on social media.
(email screenshots here: https://twitter.com/Breaking91...)

Submission + - Why haven't we moved to PKI based voting yet? 17

Submitted by t0qer
t0qer writes: Hello Slashdot, Given the current state of affairs with elections, why haven't we gone to an open source, PKI based voting system? SSL.com has a pretty interesting piece on using PKI in voting. There's also a github project that leverages PKI and IBM blockchain technology.
Looking all the way back to the 2000 election with Gore, it just seems like paper at this point has outlived its secureness. A closed sourced voting system doesn't really seem like the kind of thing slashdot would really get behind. (As a side note, my very introduction to the world of OSS came from this site) I'm fairly well versed in PKI technology, and quoting this site, it would take traditional computers 300 Trillion years to break RSA-2048 for a single vote. I just don't understand why the US can demand countries it "Democratizes" into using these types of voting systems, but we do not.

Submission + - The Intel 4004 microprocessor, turning 49 today, still inspires (4004.com) 1

Submitted by mcpublic
mcpublic writes: Even though Intel debuted its groundbreaking 4004 on November 15th, 1971, 49 years ago today, in the pages of Electronics News, there is something about Intel's very first microprocessor that keeps inspiring engineers to pay tribute to this historic chip.

Turkish iPhone engineer, Erturk Kocalar, (now at Google) and the force behind 8bitforce.com, just added this 4-bit granddaddy to his open-source lineup of 8-bit "Retroshields." These elegant little adapters let you score your favorite, vintage microprocessor on eBay and actually play around with it without having to wire up a multi-chip memory and the peripherals needed to make your little “engine” jolly fun. An Arduino emulates the rest of the system for you in software and lets you program and poke at your relic via USB from the comfort of a modern laptop.

Before FPGAs and yes, even before electronic CAD, there was a tradition of emulating hardware using software. In fact, it is central to the 4004 Genesis story. Busicom, a Japanese maker of mechanical adding machines, had designed its own electronic calculator chip-set and eagerly approached the now-famous Silicon Valley chip-maker to manufacture it. Back in 1969 Intel was just a tiny startup hoping to obsolete core memory with commodity semiconductors, and they didn’t have extra logic designers on-staff. But Intel did have a prescient counter-proposal: we’ll build you a general purpose computer-on-a-chip and emulate your custom calculator architecture using a ROM-conserving byte-code interpreter. Busicom agreed, and Intel managed to hire Italian superstar Federico Faggin away from Fairchild to craft a novel, customer-programmable microprocessor, which later, in 1975, German mechanical taxi meter maker Argo Kienzle would go on to launch the world's first electronic taxi meter. Starting to see a pattern of progress in everyday automation?

For photos, schematics, mask artwork, code, graphical simulators, more history, and the findings of a dedicated team of "digital archeologists," visit 4004.com

Comment Re:I answered Other, but... (Score 1) 326

In other words, if the CoC is written by or has any input form SJW grievance experts, then the answer is a solid "NO".

I can agree with this, partially There is a large enough community involved in these areas that some consensus needs be made as to how things are done both in communications and general interactions. However, caution is indeed important as it can be abused in order to put some voices under thumb as it were. Thing is though, your response in regards to "SJWs" is similar to the abuse you're seeking to avoid. Sort of a conundrum, huh?

Submission + - Linux pioneer SUSE marks 25 years in the field (itwire.com)

Submitted by troublemaker_23
troublemaker_23 writes: The Germany-based SUSE Linux marked a milestone over the last few days: on Friday, 2 September, the company turned 25, a remarkable achievement in an industry where the remains of software companies litter the landscape around the world. There have been ups and downs over those years, but the company has been on an up ever since it was re-established as an independent business unit in Nuremberg where it began its existence.

Comment Again? (Score 1) 228

by Drgan (#53108179) Attached to: DNA Testing For Jobs May Be On Its Way, Warns Gartner

So, we bring up this topic about the potential benefits of using Genetic testing to better our lives only to be reminded of the pitfalls that also come with it. As The Grim Reaper pointed out, Gattaca dealt with this topic rather extensively. However, I'm not sure that this will even be a choice to not put ourselves forward for this sort of testing.

Genetic testing is being fairly "hip" these days with companies like 23 and Me offering their services. Even Ancestry.com will offer the use for help with your genealogy tree. There are major dangers with freely giving over DNA to these companies though. They build up genetic databases and under current US law, our DNA does not technically belong to the individual but to the research team that "borrowed" it for "research" purposes.

We can get scared about it or we can work to come up with intelligent legislation to afford some protections to ourselves in our respective countries.

On the plus side, we can get away with Eugenics under some-what less than ethical apology.

Comment Perhaps correct the issue? (Score 1) 158

by Drgan (#53108099) Attached to: Should Samsung retire the Note brand?

They could just fix problems for the next-model when it comes time to release it. I've seen the Note 7. Even got a chance to play around with it. The phone itself was good, fast, responsive, and extremely lightweight. Hell, I was expecting a bigger phone than what it was. A friend of mine got the Note 7 along with a replacement because she broke it. Neither one exploded or got heated while charging. Note: We live in an area where it is routinely scorching outside.

Sure this this is a major hit for the brand but then again we don't ask for Apple to rebrand every time an update to their devices screws up.

Comment Bombs in the U.S.? (Score 1) 288

by Drgan (#48684085) Attached to: The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea

I highly doubt that the movie is being heralded as unfunny or even a failed movie in the US. The movie was also released online which means that people did not need to go to the limited number of theaters it was released in to go see it. Just about everyone I know, myself included, have watched the movie and found it to be hilarious. We all watched it online.

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