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Submission + - Chinese PhD student arrested smuggling biological materials, deleting evidence (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Federal authorities expose Chinese national's attempt to bring concealed worm specimens to American laboratory

"The alleged smuggling of biological materials by this alien from a science and technology university in Wuhan, China—to be used at a University of Michigan laboratory—is part of an alarming pattern that threatens our security," U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr. said. "The American taxpayer should not be underwriting a PRC-based smuggling operation at one of our crucial public institutions."

This is less than a week after two Chinese nationals were arrested on federal charges for bringing 'head blight' fungus into US.

Submission + - Caffeine Has a Weird Effect on Your Brain While You're Asleep (sciencealert.com) 1

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Caffeine was shown to increase brain signal complexity, and shift the brain closer to a state of 'criticality', in tests run by researchers from the University of Montreal in Canada. This criticality refers to the brain being balanced between structure and flexibility, thought to be the most efficient state for processing information, learning, and making decisions.

Submission + - China's EV sales set to overtake traditional cars years ahead of west (ft.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Electric vehicles are expected to outsell cars with internal combustion engines in China for the first time next year, in a historic inflection point that puts the world’s biggest car market years ahead of western rivals.

China is set to smash international forecasts and Beijing’s official targets with domestic EV sales — including pure battery and plug-in hybrids — growing about 20 per cent year on year to more than 12mn cars in 2025, according to the latest estimates supplied to the Financial Times by four investment banks and research groups. The figure would be more than double the 5.9mn sold in 2022.

At the same time, sales of traditionally powered cars are expected to fall by more than 10 per cent next year to less than 11mn, reflecting a near 30 per cent plunge from 14.8mn in 2022.

Submission + - China Tested Novel Stealth Jets, Launched New Class Amphibious Assault Ship (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Blurry images [and videos] of two seemingly new Chinese military aircraft with stealthy characteristics appeared online, with defense experts saying they were clearly advanced designs, but there was not enough detail for definitive conclusions. The larger of the two [tail-less] designs is roughly diamond-shaped, with three air intakes for its engines — two alongside the fuselage and one on top — an extremely unusual configuration. The smaller one has a more conventional layout. Both have the lack of 90-degree angles typical of stealth shaping, which is designed to reduce radar detection. Reuters confirmed a video showing the larger of the two new Chinese aircraft flying over Chengdu by matching nearby buildings, signage, logos and trees to satellite imagery and file images. The date could not be verified independently. Neither Chinese jet has an official designation that has been made public. Although the designs are novel relative to the rest of China's fleet, it is not possible to tell how stealthy they are, how maneuverable or fast they are, or what sort of "under the hood" avionics they carry — the sorts of detail needed to determine whether they are truly "next-generation" designs, five defense experts said. Separately, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported the People's Liberation Army Navy had launched its newest amphibious assault ship which has a full load displacement of more than 40,000 tons, features a double island superstructure, a full-length flight deck, and an electromagnetic catapult system allowing it to launch fixed-wing aircraft,

Submission + - US Treasury Says Chinese Hackers Stole Documents In 'Major Incident' (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month and stole documents from its workstations, according to a letter to lawmakers that was provided to Reuters on Monday. The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said, calling it a "major incident."

According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users." After being alerted by cybersecurity provider BeyondTrust, the Treasury Department said it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI to assess the hack's impact.

Submission + - Billionaires and tech barons vying to build a private space station (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Axiom Space, a US business aiming to build its own station, has raised more than $500m (£400m). Vast, a space business backed by crypto billionaire Jed McCaleb, is plotting two stations before the end of the decade. Gravitics, meanwhile, has raised tens of millions of dollars for its modular space “real estate”. Nasa itself, along with other space agencies, is planning a further station, Lunar Gateway, which will orbit the Moon.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has also announced plans to build a space station by 2027, called Orbital Reef, which it has described as an orbital “mixed-use business park”.

Submission + - H-1B DATA MEGA-THREAD (threadreaderapp.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: I downloaded five years of H-1B data from the US DOL website (4M+ records) and spent the day crunching data.

I went into this with an open mind, but, to be honest, I'm now *extremely* skeptical of how this program works.

Here's what I found

Lots to dig through, most of it damning.

Exit quote: “You can see where I’m going with this. A casual perusal of the data shows that this isn’t a program for the top 0.1% of talent, as it’s been described. This is simply a way to recruit hundreds of thousands of relatively lower-wage IT and financial services professionals.”

Submission + - Two Boeing 737-800s suffer hydraulic failure (alarabiya.net) 1

Submitted by jd
jd writes: Two South Korean 737s suffered near-identical hydraulic failure, with at least one also suffering a near-total loss of electrical power as well. The first jet attempted a belly landing, ending up smashing into a concrete post and exploding. All 737s in South Korea are now grounded for an emergency investigation.

But this raises several important questions. Firstly, why are no other 737s being checked? Until the crash investigation is complete, assuming it's a problem affecting one country only seems perplexing, especially given Boeing's current profile.

Secondly, why would a plane suffer multiple failures? If systems are isolated and independent, that sounds perplexing. Either they're not independent, or the reporting is problematic.

From the linked article:

The Boeing 737-800 involved in the latest incident was the same model as the Jeju Air plane that crashed on Sunday killing 179 people after coming down without its landing gear engaged.

Seoul said on Monday it would conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes in operation in the country, with US investigators, possibly including from plane manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.

The BBC adds the following information:

Indication of electrical fault in 'perplexing crash', aviation expert suggests
published at 12:39
12:39
"This is one of the most perplexing crashes I have ever seen. Nothing about it makes any sense," aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas tells the BBC.

Speaking from Perth, he notes that while a bird strike may have played a role, once the pilot issued a mayday call the air traffic control data cut out.

The sudden loss of data — which allows the flights to be tracked — "indicates an electrical fault of some kind", Thomas suggests.

Following the call, the plane was also allowed to land in the opposite direction to usual.

But the wheels were up, the flaps not set correctly and it landed halfway down the runway before careering into the localiser and exploding, he says.

Thomas says there are workarounds if an electrical or hydraulic problem arises, but these were not used.

"It just doesn’t make any sense. We're going to have to wait for voice recorder details before we can get a handle on what on earth went on."

Comment Re: "it was just one off freak accident" didn't wo (Score 1) 78

the subcontractorâ(TM)s labor rates are going to be lower than the in-house labor rates so it looks better in some managerâ(TM)s spreadsheet. it doesnâ(TM)t matter if using a subcontractor results in the project or product costing more or taking longer. it only matters that at the time the decision is made to outsource, the projected cost based on the subcontractor labor rates is less. And the person making the decision has to move on to their next role before the consequences have time to materialize.

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