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Submission + - Revolutionary Dual Action Antibiotic Makes Bacterial Resistance Nearly Impossibl (scitechdaily.com) 3

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A newly discovered antibiotic, which targets two different cellular mechanisms, could make it 100 million times harder for bacteria to develop resistance, according to recent research from the University of Illinois Chicago.

For a new paper in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers probed how a class of synthetic drugs called macrolones disrupt bacterial cell function to fight infectious diseases. Their experiments demonstrate that macrolones can work two different ways – either by interfering with protein production or corrupting DNA structure.

Because bacteria would need to implement defenses to both attacks simultaneously, the researchers calculated that drug resistance is nearly impossible.

Submission + - Why Are There So Many Programming Languages?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Recalling a past Computer History Museum look at the evolution of programming languages, Doug Meil ponders the age-old question of Why Are There So Many Programming Languages? in a new Communications of the ACM blog post.

"It's worth noting and admiring the audacity of PL/I (1964)," Meil writes (and expands upon in Lessons from PL/I: A Most Ambitious Programming Language), "which was aiming to be that 'one good programming language.' The name says it all: Programming Language 1. There should be no need for 2, 3, or 4. Though PL/I's plans of becoming the Highlander of computer programming didn't play out like the designers intended, they were still pulling on a key thread in software: why so many languages? That question was already being asked as far back as the early 1960's."

One of PL/I's biggest fans was Digital Research Inc. (DRI) founder Gary Kildall, who crafted the PL/I-inspired PL/M (Programming Language for Microcomputers) in 1973 for Intel. Ironically, along the lines of how IBM's deal with Microsoft gave rise to a price disparity that was the undoing of Kildall's CP/M OS (bundled with every PC in a 'non-royalty' deal, Windows was priced at $40 while CP/M was offered 'a la carte' at $240), IBM priced PL/I higher than the languages it sought to replace, contributing to PL/I's failure to gain traction. As a comp.lang.pl1 poster explained in 2006, "The truth of the matter is that Gresham's Law: 'Bad money drives out good' or Ruskin's principle: 'The hoi polloi always prefer an inferior, cheap product over a superior, more expensive one' are what govern here."

Submission + - SpaceX to make record-breaking 16th flight with a Falcon 9 booster (spaceflightnow.com)

Submitted by Amiga Trombone
Amiga Trombone writes: SpaceX will test the limits of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday evening when it launches a booster on a record-breaking 16th flight.

The booster, tail number 1058, made its historic debut on May 20, 2020, carrying the first astronauts to ride atop a Falcon 9 aboard the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour. The first stage is distinctive in the SpaceX fleet as it is the only one to display a red NASA ‘worm’ logo on its fuselage. It went on to fly 14 more times, including the launches of South Korea’s Anasis 2 military communications satellite, a space station cargo delivery run, two Transporter ride-share missions and ten batches of Starlink satellites. With 15 flights already accomplished, it is the joint fleet leader with booster 1060.

Originally, the company hoped to reuse each Falcon 9 first stage 10 times.

“We got to 10 [flights] and the vehicles were still looking really good, so we started the effort to qualify for 15,” Jon Edwards, SpaceX vice president of Falcon launch vehicles and Falcon engineering, told the trade publication Aviation Week & Space Technology in an interview last year.

Submission + - Fire breaks out at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, mayor says (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: Yow! From CNN...

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is on fire, according to Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of the nearby town of Energodar.... "As a result of relentless shelling by the enemy of the buildings and blocks of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is on fire!!!” Orlov posted to Facebook.

Firefighters were unable to reach the fire at the nuclear power plant, according to Orlov.

And earlier today, the Associated Press reported that the staff "who have been kept at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant since Russian troops took control of the site a week ago are facing 'psychological pressure and moral exhaustion.'

Ukraine has lost regulatory control over all the facilities in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to the Russians and asked the IAEA to undertake measures “in order to reestablish legal regulation of safety of nuclear facilities and installations” within the site, the statement added.

Comment Re:Typo or intential flame-bait? (Score 1) 179

by Tetch (#62209317) Attached to: Major Linux PolicyKit Security Vulnerability Uncovered: Pwnkit
Just to be super-clear: this bug is in code which is in Polkit and is NOT part of Systemd. In some systems the two packages are both present, and work together (and I've read that in those systems Systemd has code - not related to this bug - which performs some functions that would otherwise be performed by Polkit), but that's the only connection. If Polkit is installed then the bug is present - Systemd is irrelevant.

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