163659380
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
[I'd like to know what kind of modeling software they use for determining this?]
A new study led by University of Arizona researchers may have solved two mysteries that have long puzzled paleo-climate experts: Where did the ice sheets that rang in the last ice age more than 100,000 years ago come from, and how could they grow so quickly?
Understanding what drives Earth's glacial–interglacial cycles—the periodic advance and retreat of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere—is no easy feat, and researchers have devoted substantial effort to explaining the expansion and shrinking of large ice masses over thousands of years. The new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, proposes an explanation for the rapid expansion of the ice sheets that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere during the most recent ice age, and the findings could also apply to other glacial periods throughout Earth's history.
About 100,000 years ago, when mammoths roamed the Earth, the Northern Hemisphere climate plummeted into a deep freeze that allowed massive ice sheets to form. Over a period of about 10,000 years, local mountain glaciers grew and formed large ice sheets covering much of today's Canada, Siberia and northern Europe.
While it has been widely accepted that periodic "wobbling" in the Earth's orbit around the sun triggered cooling in the Northern Hemisphere summer that caused the onset of widespread glaciation, scientists have struggled to explain the extensive ice sheets covering much of Scandinavia and northern Europe, where temperatures are much more mild. ...
"Using both climate model simulations and marine sediment analysis, we show that ice forming in northern Canada can obstruct ocean gateways and divert water transport from the Arctic into the North Atlantic," Lofverstrom said, "and that in turn leads to a weakened ocean circulation and cold conditions off the coast of Scandinavia, which is sufficient to start growing ice in that region."
160574462
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Buildings, bridges, and monuments aren’t the only cultural landmarks vulnerable to war. With the violence well into its second month, Ukraine’s digital history — its poems, archives, and pictures — are at risk of being erased as cyberattacks and bombs erode the nation’s servers.
Over the past month, a motley group of more than 1,300 librarians, historians, teachers and young children have banded together to save Ukraine’s Internet archives, using technology to back up everything from census data to children’s poems and Ukrainian basket weaving techniques.
The efforts, dubbed Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, have resulted in over 2,500 of the country’s museums, libraries, and archives being preserved on servers they’ve rented, eliminating the risk they’ll be lost forever. Now, an all-volunteer effort has become a lifeline for cultural officials in Ukraine, who are working with the group to digitize their collections in the event their facilities get destroyed in the war.
The endeavor, experts said, underscores how volunteers, armed with low-cost technology, training and organization can protect a country’s history from disasters such as war, hurricanes, earthquakes and fire.
Large parts of the Internet get periodically archived through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which partners with the organization, but the organizers also needed something more advanced, Dombrowski said. In many cases, the Wayback Machine can dig into the first or second layer of a website, she added, but many documents, like pictures and uploaded files, on Ukraine’s cultural websites could be seven or eight layers deep, inaccessible to traditional Web crawlers.
To do that, they turned to a suite of open source digital archiving tools called Webrecorder, which have been around since the mid-2010s, and used by institutions including the United Kingdom’s National Archive and the National Library of Australia. They also started a global Slack channel to communicate with volunteers.
159793473
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
"..According to a New York Times report on Friday, many on the right are suddenly calling for a boycott of DuckDuckGo, because its CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, said the site would lower the search ranking of sources of disinformation — most chiefly Russian state propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine.
"DuckDuckGo has little control over its search results because they are provided by Microsoft’s Bing, which announced that it would follow the European Union’s order to restrict access to the Russian state news agencies RT and Sputnik," reported Stuart Thompson. "But the criticism from the far right was directed at DuckDuckGo. The conservative website Breitbart said DuckDuckGo was 'adopting the censorship policies' of Big Tech. In social media channels devoted to conspiracy theories, users vowed to switch to alternatives like the Russian search engine Yandex. The hashtag #DuckDuckGone trended across Twitter in the United States by Friday. And on YouTube, users criticized the company for silencing voices."
DuckDuckGo communications VP Kamyl Bazbaz emphasized that websites found to be engaged in an "active disinformation campaign" would not actually be banned: “This isn’t censorship, it’s just search rankings.”
157895207
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
UNSW Sydney-led research paves the way for large silicon-based quantum processors for real-world manufacturing and application.
Australian researchers have proven that near error-free quantum computing is possible, paving the way to build silicon-based quantum devices compatible with current semiconductor manufacturing technology. ... [the researcher's] paper is one of three published today in Nature that independently confirm that robust, reliable quantum computing in silicon is now a reality. This breakthrough features on the front cover of the journal.
Morello et al achieved 1-qubit operation fidelities up to 99.95 percent, and 2-qubit fidelity of 99.37 percent with a three-qubit system comprising an electron and two phosphorous atoms, introduced in silicon via ion implantation.
A Delft team in the Netherlands led by Lieven Vandersypen achieved 99.87 percent 1-qubit and 99.65 percent 2-qubit fidelities using electron spins in quantum dots formed in a stack of silicon and silicon-germanium alloy (Si/SiGe).
A RIKEN team in Japan led by Seigo Tarucha similarly achieved 99.84 percent 1-qubit and 99.51 percent 2-qubit fidelities in a two-electron system using Si/SiGe quantum dots.
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Nature abstract: https://www.nature.com/article...
154969221
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Since the first observation of merging black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015, astronomers have been repeatedly surprised by their large masses. Though they emit no light, black hole mergers are observed through their emission of gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Physicists originally expected that black holes would have masses less than about 40 times that of the Sun, because merging black holes arise from massive stars, which can’t hold themselves together if they get too big.
The LIGO and Virgo observatories, however, have found many black holes with masses greater than that of 50 suns, with some as massive as 100 suns. Numerous formation scenarios have been proposed to produce such large black holes, but no single scenario has been able to explain the diversity of black hole mergers observed so far, and there is no agreement on which combination of formation scenarios is physically viable. This new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is the first to show that both large and small black hole masses can result from a single pathway, wherein the black holes gain mass from the expansion of the universe itself.
Astronomers typically model black holes inside a universe that cannot expand. “It’s an assumption that simplifies Einstein’s equations because a universe that doesn’t grow has much less to keep track of,” said Kevin Croker, a professor at the UH Mnoa Department of Physics and Astronomy. “There is a trade-off though: predictions may only be reasonable for a limited amount of time.”
Because the individual events detectable by LIGO—Virgo only last a few seconds, when analyzing any single event, this simplification is sensible. But these same mergers are potentially billions of years in the making. During the time between the formation of a pair of black holes and their eventual merger, the universe grows profoundly. If the more subtle aspects of Einstein’s theory are carefully considered, then a startling possibility emerges: the masses of black holes could grow in lockstep with the universe, a phenomenon that Croker and his team call cosmological coupling.
150401159
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Carriers remain perennially hungry to know as much about you as they can. Now, researchers are proposing a simple plan to limit how much bulk location data they can get from cell towers.
Much of the third-party location data industry is fueled by apps that gain permission to access your GPS information, but the location data that carriers can collect from cell towers has often provided an alternative pipeline. For years it's seemed like little could be done about this leakage, because cutting off access to this data would likely require the sort of systemic upgrades that carriers are loath to make.
At the Usenix security conference on Thursday, though, network security researchers Paul Schmitt of Princeton University and Barath Raghavan of the University of Southern California are presenting a scheme called Pretty Good Phone Privacy that can mask wireless users' locations from carriers with a simple software upgrade that any carrier can adopt—no tectonic infrastructure shifts required.
146246512
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
An EV motor has been developed that uses no magnets, thus lessening the US's reliance on Chinese magnets.
I wonder what the motor's performance is like on high grade roads?
144418862
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
The chorus of disapproval over Richard M Stallman, founder and former president of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), rejoining the organisation has intensified as Linux giant Red Hat confirmed it was pulling funding.
Stallman announced he had returned to the FSF's Board of Directors last weekend â" news that has not gone down well with all in the community and Red Hat is the latest to register its dismay.
CTO Chris Wright tweeted overnight: "I am really outraged by FSF's decision to reinstate RMS. At a moment in time where diversity and inclusion awareness is growing, this is a step backwards."
Describing itself as "appalled" at the return of Stallman to the FSF board of directors "considering the circumstances of Richard Stallman's original resignation in 2019," Red Hat said it decided to act.
"We are immediately suspending all Red Hat funding of the FSF and any FSF-hosted events. In addition, many Red Hat contributors have told us they no longer plan to participate in FSF-led or backed events, and we stand behind them," said Red Hat.
143696616
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Thereâ(TM)s nothing unusual looking about the 38-foot-long cargo plane thatâ(TM)s been flying around Northern California for the past month. But the insides of the Cessna 208 have undergone a sci-fi makeover, resulting in a plane thatâ(TM)s been taxiing, taking off, maneuvering in the air, and landing without a pilot.
The machinery and software that let it fly on its own come from a startup called Reliable Robotics Corp., which has spent four years working on autonomous flight. The company has a grand total of two planes, but its long-term plan is to fill the sky with pilotless aircraft transporting cargo and passengers.
Reliableâ(TM)s story begins with the self-doubt of its co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Robert Rose. His attempt to become a pilot in college ended for lack of money, but by 2016 heâ(TM)d earned enough to give the cockpit another shot. Rose, whoâ(TM)d spent his career building autonomous cars and spacecraft for Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, expected that planes would have modernized since he last hopped in a cockpit. But the one he took up had decades-old technology. The shock of how much the flight still relied on a human pilot hit Rose midair as he contemplated his rusty skills and mortality.
âoeMy first thought was, âWow, itâ(TM)s insane that a private person is allowed to do this,â(TM)âSâ he says. âoeYou have all this navigation that you need to manage and all the communications you have to do between other planes and taking instructions from air traffic control. Thereâ(TM)s layers and layers of stuff. All the while, you are one mistake away from a fatal accident. I kept thinking, âHow is this OK?â(TM)âSâ
Rose founded Reliable in 2017 with Juerg Frefel, an old buddy from SpaceX. The pair set up shop in Roseâ(TM)s garage in Los Altos, Calif., planning to make improved autopilot technology. They hoped to tap into the mechanical and positioning systems available on most planes, buy a couple of off-the-shelf sensors, and tie everything together with clever software that could make the types of decisions usually expected of pilots. Each step of the way, however, they discovered the existing gear for sale wasnâ(TM)t resilient enough for the job. âoeYou just could not have a serious conversation about removing the human from the plane with these parts,â Rose says. âoeThat meant we had to build.â
143642124
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Lou Ottens, who put music lovers around the world on a path toward playlists and mixtapes by leading the invention of the first cassette tape, has died at age 94, according to media reports in the Netherlands. Ottens was a talented and influential engineer at Philips, where he also helped develop consumer compact discs.
Ottens died last Saturday, according to the Dutch news outlet NRC Handelsblad, which lists his age as 94.
The cassette tape was Ottens' answer to the large reel-to-reel tapes that provided high-quality sound but were seen as too clunky and expensive. He took on the challenge of shrinking tape technology in the early 1960s, when he became the head of new product development in Hasselt, Belgium, for the Dutch-based Philips technology company.
"Lou wanted music to be portable and accessible," says documentary filmmaker Zack Taylor, who spent days with Ottens for his film Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape.
Ottens' goal was to make something simple and affordable for anyone to use. As Taylor says, "He advocated for Philips to license this new format to other manufacturers for free, paving the way for cassettes to become a worldwide standard."
143098860
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
In this link, maker Andreas Spiess talks about the Open Source that really goes into a RISC-V chip and the ESP32-C3.
The YouTube video starts out with a good general history of competition between large businesses over architectures and embracing the standards for tech which many of us have depended on throughout the years. The video then gets into the technical specifics of the ESP32-C3.
141968100
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
A malicious Home Depot advertising campaign is redirecting Google search visitors to tech support scams.
Malicious Google search ads are nothing new, with campaigns for Amazon Prime, PayPal, and eBay seen in the past. As these ads look like legitimate campaigns for the company, including showing their standard URL when you hover over them, it is common for people to be tricked into clicking on them.
Yesterday, BleepingComputer was notified by someone who fell for a malicious Home Depot advertisement currently displayed in the top spot of a Google search.
As a test, BleepingComputer searched for 'home depot' and was shown the malicious advertisement on our first try. Even worse, the ad is the top spot in the research result, making it more likely to be clicked.
[...]
In some cases after a series of steps in clicking links on the site, falling for a tech support scam, and calling a number thinking it is a legitimate alert the user is tricked into allowing remote access to their computer where the scammers install programs like Lock My PC. The scammers then state that the caller must purchase a support package to unlock Windows.
To avoid these types of ads, users are advised to pay more attention to Google search results and to not click on ads instead of the legitimate search page result for the company.
137482778
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Scientists have measured the shortest unit of time ever: the time it takes a light particle to cross a hydrogen molecule.
That time, for the record, is 247 zeptoseconds. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second, or a decimal point followed by 21 zeroes and a 1. Previously, researchers had dipped into the realm of zeptoseconds; in 2016, researchers reporting in the journal Nature Physics used lasers to measure time in increments down to 850 zeptoseconds. This accuracy is a huge leap from the 1999 Nobel Prize-winning work that first measured time in femtoseconds, which are millionths of a billionths of seconds.
It takes femtoseconds for chemical bonds to break and form, but it takes zeptoseconds for light to travel across a single hydrogen molecule (H2). To measure this very short trip, physicist Reinhard Dörner of Goethe University in Germany and his colleagues shot X-rays from the PETRA III at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator in Hamburg.
The researchers set the energy of the X-rays so that a single photon, or particle of light, knocked the two electrons out of the hydrogen molecule. (A hydrogen molecule consists of two protons and two electrons.) The photon bounced one electron out of the molecule, and then the other, a bit like a pebble skipping over the top of a pond. These interactions created a wave pattern called an interference pattern, which Dörner and his colleagues could measure with a tool called a Cold Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy (COLTRIMS) reaction microscope. This tool is essentially a very sensitive particle detector that can record extremely fast atomic and molecular reactions. The COLTRIMS microscope recorded both the interference pattern and the position of the hydrogen molecule throughout the interaction.
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[Contributor's side note: Does this even come close to cosmological time or the initial expansion of the Universe? That time was *really* *really* short, yet there are physics there that they still don't understand re: The Big Bang/initial cosmological expansion.]
137479228
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
In March, several cybercrime groups rushed to reassure people that they wouldn’t target hospitals and other health care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic. The operators of several prominent strains of ransomware all announced they would not target hospitals, and some of them even promised to decrypt the data of health care organizations for free if one was accidentally infected by their malware. But any cybersecurity strategy that relies on the moral compunctions of criminals is doomed to fail, particularly when it comes to protecting the notoriously vulnerable computer systems of hospitals.
So it’s no surprise that Universal Health Services was hit by ransomware late last month, affecting many of its more than 400 health care facilities across the United States and Britain. Or that clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine have been held up by a similar ransomware attack disclosed in early October. Or that loose-knit coalitions of volunteers all over the world are working around the clock to try to protect the computer systems of hospitals that are already straining under the demands of providing patient care during a global pandemic.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the potential consequences of these cyberattacks are terrifying. Hospitals that have lost access to their databases or had their networks infected by ransomware may not be able to admit patients in need of care or may take longer to provide those patients with the treatment they need, if they switch to relying on paper records [...]
136496430
submission
nickwinlund77 writes:
Looks like another case of ransomware at over 500 hospital locations. They've had to go back to pen & paper for handling forms.
