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Submission + - AI Use Damages Professional Reputation, Study Suggests (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Using AI can be a double-edged sword, according to new research from Duke University. While generative AI tools may boost productivity for some, they might also secretly damage your professional reputation. On Thursday, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study showing that employees who use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini at work face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from colleagues and managers. "Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs," write researchers Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, and Jack B. Soll of Duke's Fuqua School of Business.

The Duke team conducted four experiments with over 4,400 participants to examine both anticipated and actual evaluations of AI tool users. Their findings, presented in a paper titled "Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI," reveal a consistent pattern of bias against those who receive help from AI. What made this penalty particularly concerning for the researchers was its consistency across demographics. They found that the social stigma against AI use wasn't limited to specific groups.

Submission + - A simple question tripped up a North Korean spy (yahoo.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: Over the past year there have been stories about North Korean spies unknowningly, or knowingly, being hired to work in western companies. During an interview by Kraken, a crypto exchange, the interviewers became suspicious about the candidate. Instead of cutting off the interview, Kraken decided to continue the candidate through the hiring process to gain more information. One simple question confirmed the user wasn't who they said they were and even worse, was a North Korean spy. From the article:

The interview was scheduled for Halloween, a classic American holiday—especially for college students in New York—that Smith seemed to know nothing about.

“Watch out tonight because some people might be ringing your doorbell, kids with chain saws,” Percoco said, referring to the tradition of trick or treating. “What do you do when those people show up?”

Smith shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing special,” he said.

Smith was also unable to answer simple questions about Houston, the town he had supposedly been living in for two years. Despite having listed "food" as an interest on his résumé, Smith was unable to come up with a straight answer when asked about his favorite restaurant in the Houston area. He looked around for a few seconds before mumbling, “Nothing special here.”

Submission + - Lithium deposit valued at $1.5T discover in Oregon (earth.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: McDermitt Caldera in Oregon is attracting attention for what could be one of the largest lithium deposits ever identified in the United States. Many view it as a potential boost for domestic battery production, while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites.

The excitement stems from estimates that value the deposit at about $1.5 trillion. Some geologists say these ancient volcanic sediments could contain between 20 and 40 million metric tons of lithium.

Submission + - Dangerous fungal spores may travel the globe on 'stratospheric superhighway' (science.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Scientists have captured fungal spores cruising in the inhospitable environment of the stratosphere, much higher than commercial aircraft fly. When brought back to the lab, the researchers found that some of the spores—including pathogens of plants and people—had survived intercontinental trips and could be cultured in the lab.

Made possible via a cheap, homespun sampling device dangled from weather balloons, the project could help researchers figure out what traits and conditions allow spores to survive a swing through the stratosphere and how they get up there in the first place. The work could also be a first step towards an atmospheric monitoring system that could nip emerging fungal pathogens in the bud, the study’s authors reported at a conference of the European Geophysical Union.

After five preliminary flights, the team has already learned a lot. Based on DNA sequencing analysis, they identified spores from 235 genera, including fungi that infect blackberries and carrots in the United States and Japan, and one species, Naganishia albida, that can make immunocompromised people sick. In the lab, they were able to revive and culture spores from 15 different fungal species, among them several plant pathogens.

Mostly the results show that their sampler works. Now, the researchers want to set up regular flights to track airborne fungal biodiversity and seasonal variations. They also want to identify how events such as wildfires or volcanic eruptions inject spores into the stratosphere.

Submission + - Dying satellites can drive climate change and ozone depletion, study finds (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Right now there are more than 9,000 satellites circumnavigating overhead, keeping track of weather, facilitating communications, aiding navigation and monitoring the Earth. By 2040, there could be more than 60,000. A new study shows that the emissions from expired satellites, as they fall to Earth and burn up, will be significant in future years, with implications for ozone hole recovery and climate.

Satellites need to be replaced after about five years. Most old satellites are disposed of by reducing their altitude and letting them burn up as they fall, releasing pollution into Earth’s atmosphere such as aerosolised aluminium. To understand the impact of these growing emissions from expired satellites, researchers simulated the effects associated with an annual release of 10,000 tonnes of aluminium oxide by 2040 (the amount estimated to be released from disposal of 3,000 satellites a year, assuming a fleet of 60,000 satellites).

The results, which are published in Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, show that the re-entry material will accumulate at high latitudes and could result in temperature anomalies of up to 1.5C in the middle to upper atmosphere, reduction of wind speeds and ozone depletion, which could jeopardise ozone hole recovery. Other metals including titanium, lithium, iron and copper will also be released and their impact is yet to be modelled.

Submission + - Astronomers spot a gold mine in massive cosmic flares (science.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Before the silver or gold in your favorite piece of jewelry made its way to Earth, it first had to spawn during one of the universe’s most energetic explosions. At first, astronomers knew of only one cosmic scenario that fit the bill for this violent formation of “jewelry shop” elements: the collision of two ultra-dense stellar corpses called neutron stars. Now, a second has stepped onto the scene.

As they report this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have discovered signatures of this heavy element formation — called the r-process — in a giant flare first detected from a highly magnetic neutron star in 2004.

The flare, which released more energy than our Sun does in a million years as it spewed electrically charged material, has remained shrouded in mystery since its discovery 20 years ago. Researchers quickly traced the outburst to a nearby magnetar, a special breed of neutron star whose magnetic fields are trillions times stronger than Earth’s. But ten minutes after the massive flare, a second, fainter signal inexplicably came from the same star.

More r-process sources may still be looming in the dark. The new study accounts for about 10% of the Milky Way’s heavy elements, suggesting that astronomers will have to scour the cosmos for even more places where the r-process is hiding. One potential spot is a rare type of supernova that births rapidly rotating neutron stars, says says Anirudh Patel, the new study’s lead author and an astronomer at Columbia University. He

hopes that with more observations, astronomers will be able to sharpen that picture. But for now, he says it’s exciting enough to find a new birthplace for what makes up so much of our world: “These heavy elements pervade our lives — we make use of them every day. It’s humbling to realize that these were made in such extreme astrophysical environments.”

Comment Re:But does it run Linux? (Score 1) 52

by SST-206 (#64928467) Attached to: 'A New Gaming CPU King': AMD's New Ryzen 7 9800X3D Reviewed

Very good:

Like with the other AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors and the AMD EPYC 9005 server parts, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D was working without issue on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Any modern Linux distribution should basically be in good shape for the AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors. The one recent caveat is needing Linux 6.12+ for the AMD Zen 5 CPU power reporting if that is important to you otherwise it's an easy one-liner patch to backport.

Comment World Service interview with David Shoebridge (Score 1) 260

by SST-206 (#64575575) Attached to: Julian Assange Reaches Plea Deal With US, Allowing Him To Go Free

Good interview addressing this 1m23s into this BBC World Service radio programme with New South Wales Senator David Shoebridge:

Newsday - Julian Assange leaves the UK after being freed in US plea deal

Julian Assange has reached a plea agreement to end the United States' long-running legal case against him. He has left prison in the United Kingdom and is currently on a plane. We'll talk to one Australian politician who has supported him.

Submission + - UK Considers Banning Smartphone Sales To Children Under 16 (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ministers are considering banning the sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16 after a number of polls have shown significant public support for such a curb. The government issued guidance on the use of mobile phones in English schools two months ago, but other curbs are said to have been considered to better protect children after a number of campaigns. [...] A March survey by Parentkind, of 2,496 parents of school-age children in England, found 58% of parents believe the government should ban smartphones for under-16s. It also found more than four in five parents said they felt smartphones were “harmful” to children and young people.

Another survey by More in Common revealed 64% of people thought that a ban on selling smartphones to under-16s would be a good idea, compared with 20% who said it was a bad idea. The curb was even popular among 2019 Tory voters, according to the thinktank, which found 72% backed a ban, as did 61% of Labour voters. But the thought of another ban has left some Conservatives uneasy. One Tory government source described the idea as "out of touch," noting: “It’s not the government’s role to step in and microparent; we’re meant to make parents more aware of the powers they have like restrictions on websites, apps and even the use of parental control apps." They said only in extreme cases could the government “parent better than actual parents and guardians."

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