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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 157 declined, 36 accepted (193 total, 18.65% accepted)

Submission + - Bacteria turns waste plastic into painkiller drug 1

davidwr writes: A paper in Nature describes how to use E. coli bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol (acetaminophen) and other useful small molecules.

[Lead author Stephen] Wallace and his research team at the University of Edinburgh managed to trigger a natural process within a living Escherichia coli bacterium — a chemical reaction that until now had only been observed in test tubes. Specifically, they achieved the transformation of acid-derived molecules into key compounds used in drug production — such as paracetamol — through a process known as the Lossen rearrangement. The team succeeded in reproducing this reaction inside bacteria using only the microbes themselves, without relying on complex laboratory catalysts. "The interesting thing is that we didn’t have to teach the bacteria how to do the reaction: the trick was realizing they already had the tools and just had to be guided," Wallace explains.

Don't get too excited just yet: As El Pais reports,

... although the scientists believe their work shows “exciting potential,” there is still a long way to go before this microbe-made paracetamol is ready for medical use.

Submission + - KM3NeT finds ultrahigh-energy neutrino

davidwr writes: Multiple (space.com) sources (nytimes, may be paywalled) announce that the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT) has found an "ultrahigh energy" neutrino. They are still working out where it originated from, but the main suspects are blazars. Another theory is that "an ultramassive cosmic ray particle slammed into particles of light ... left in the universe after some event that occurred just after the Big Bang."

The event itself, KM3-230213A, occurred on 13 February 2023.

Journal citation:

The KM3NeT Collaboration. Observation of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino with KM3NeT. Nature 638, 376–382 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08543-1

Submission + - NASA moon mission delayed

davidwr writes: On December 5, 2024, NASA announced the delay of the Artimes III moon landing until mid-2027, with the manned Artimes II lunar flyby delayed until April 2026. The reasons for the delays include problems with Orion's heat shield and issues with Orion's environmental and life support systems.

"The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "We have made significant progress on the Artemis campaign over the past four years, and I'm proud of the work our teams have done to prepare us for this next step forward in exploration as we look to learn more about Orion's life support systems to sustain crew operations during Artemis II. We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds."

Submission + - 40 monkeys on the loose in South Carolina

davidwr writes: Note for editor: File under "funny distraction, unless you are local":

'Do not approach' reads one headline, 43 monkeys escape ... police warn residents to secure doors and windows reads another. A Google search finds related stories about the Great American Monkey Escape of November 2024.

All kidding aside, these animals are small — under 10 pounds — and "too young to carry disease" (citation: "Do not approach" above) so they aren't particularly dangerous. But still, if you see one of them, do not approach, or put on your monkey-proof vest first. You've been warned.

Submission + - Watch as "Halloween Comet" dies an early death

davidwr writes: Most vampires can't survive sunlight, and neither could the would-be "Halloween Comet" C/2024 S1 (Atlas). You can watch the video of it burning up earlier today here (ESA/NASA SOHO via space.com).

Submission + - 34th First Annual Ig Nobel prizes awarded (improbable.com) 1

davidwr writes: Winners of the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes included studies on hair swirling (natural, not from grade-school bathroom torture), mammals that breath through their anal orifices, and a study on pigeon-guided missiles. There were also prizes for the study of the swimming abilities of a formerly-living trout.

"Honors" were also bestowed for research in coin-flipping (no, it's not 50/50), why cows spew milk, and drunken worms, among other topics.

Prizes included $10,000,000,000 (in now-worthless Zimbabwe dollars) and items related to Murphy's Law.

Media coverage includes AP, CNN, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, and by the time you read this, probably much more.

Submission + - Professor Frink: "Simpsons predicted Ancient Egypt"

davidwr writes: As usual, the professor got one detail wrong: It seems Ancient Egypt predicted The Simpsons, or at least Marge Simpson.

Multiple outlets are reporting a sarcophagus cover that has a striking resemblance to Marge Simpson. Was this Marge's great-great-BIGNUM-great-grandmother, or maybe Homer left a picture of his lovely wife somewhere in Egypt circa 12th-century-B.C.E. when he was futzing around with the time-travelling-toaster, but either way this is good for a laugh.

Sources: NME, Daily Mirror, Cracked, and an October 15, 2023 more-serious source that doesn't mention Marge but does have some decent pictures, The Egyptian Gazette: "In Photos: Egyptian mission uncovers New Kingdom cemetery, papyrus in Minya"

File under: Humor

Submission + - US Space Weather Prediction Center issues first G4 watch since 2005 (spaceweather.gov) 1

davidwr writes: SWPC Issues Its First G4 Watch Since 2005
published: Thursday, May 09, 2024 20:38 UTC

On Thursday, May 9, 2024, the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch. At least five earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were observed and expected to arrive as early as midday Friday, May 10, 2024, and persist through Sunday, May 12, 2024. Several strong flares have been observed over the past few days and were associated with a large and magnetically complex sunspot cluster (NOAA region 3664), which is 16 times the diameter of Earth.

--
Announcement:
* SPC Issues its First G4 Watch Since 2005
Related announcements:
* G4 Watch in Effect for May 11 updated 2024-05-09 1:30pm EDT
* Severe Geomagnetic Store Still Likely updated 2024-May-10 1130EDT

Submission + - Light-pole installation blamed for 3-state 911 outage (cnn.com)

davidwr writes: CNN reports:

The outage of 911 systems in [Nevada, South Dakota, and Nebraska] Wednesday [April 18] evening was caused by the installation of a light pole, according to Lumen, a company that supports some of those systems.

The article goes on to say:

Molzen declined to elaborate on exactly how the light pole installation resulted in the 911 outage, or where the pole was located. The 911 director in Douglas County, Nebraska, which encompasses Omaha, said in a statement Lumen informed the county the outage was related to a “fiber cut.”

My questions is: If a city/locality contracts out its 911 system, shouldn't it have a reliable backup in place?



The outage in Del Rio, Texas at about the same time is not related.

Submission + - NASA's InSight mission officially over

davidwr writes: As a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about InSight's final photo, the InSight Lander's mission is now officially over after 2 failed communications attempts.

“I watched the launch and landing of this mission, and while saying goodbye to a spacecraft is always sad, the fascinating science InSight conducted is cause for celebration,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The seismic data alone from this Discovery Program mission offers tremendous insights not just into Mars but other rocky bodies, including Earth.”

Read more about the InSight Mars Lander at NASA's web site, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/insight/main/index.html.

Submission + - Astronomer Tom Kress remembers the transit of Venus on its 10th anniversary

davidwr writes: Astronomer Tom Kress reminisces on Space.com about watching the June 5-6, 2012 transit of Venus from Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He writes "I couldn't help but feel closer to Venus than I really was, standing on a huge terrestrial volcano and looking out at the most volcanic planet in the solar system."

Slashdot, what are your memories of the 2012 or 2004 transits? What about other celestial events that you probably won't live long enough to see again?

Submission + - FBI website exploit leads to spam-blast "from fbi.gov" (krebsonsecurity.com) 1

davidwr writes: KrebsOnSecurity details an exploit in the FBI's Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal web site that would let anyone send an email to any arbitrary recipient, with the mail originating from eims@ic.fbi.gov and being sent from within the FBI's mail system. The affected hardware has been taken down.

Submission + - New form of aurora called "the dunes" documented 1

davidwr writes: Remember the aurora-that-wasn't called STEVE from last April? Well amateur skygazers in Finland are at it again. This time it's for a new kind of aurora dubbed "the dunes." These new aurora are thought to be an example of a mesosphereic bore in which oxygen is exited by the solar wind or possibly gravity waves. The original paper can be found at 10.1029/2019AV000133. News of it can be found at ScienceAlert, Live Science, and probably elsewhere.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How important is upgradable storage and memory?

davidwr writes: If you were going to buy a desktop or laptop computer, how important is it to be able to upgrade memory and storage after purchase?

Is not being able to upgrade an "automatic no-buy," assuming you can a computer that meets your needs that is upgradeable? If not, would you be willing to pay a little more for upgradeability? A lot more?

Personally, I like to keep computers 4-6 years, which means I prefer to buy an upgradeable machine then upgrade it after 2 or 3 years using then-much-cheaper or not-available-at-all-today parts.

What are your thoughts?

Submission + - Navy hopes WWII messaging system is unsnoopable

davidwr writes: In World War II, pilots would air-drop messages onto ships using bean-bags.

Just as with sextants a few years ago, the Navy is bringing back old tech, because it works. Just as during the Doolittle Raid of Tokyo, the purpose is to prevent eavesdropping. You can read more about the modern bean-bag-drop on Military.com or Popular Mechanics. There's a video about the Doolittle Raid hosted at archive.org with bean-bag-drops at 2:39 and 5:19 into the video. I wonder how many high-density SSD drives fit in a standard Navy bean-bag?

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