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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: how about geo-thermal power? 1

Submitted by mrwireless
mrwireless writes: Youtube channel Real Engineering has posted a great video on the potential (and downsides) of geo-thermal power. I think it would be great to discuss this video on Slashdot, since in discussions about climate change geo-thermal rarely comes up as a viable alternative.

The video mentions things like:
- Could power our needs twice over.
- New technology makes it possible in more locations.
- Works night and day.
- According to an MIT study it could be cost competitive.
- Workers from the oil drilling industry could find new jobs in this sector.

So: why isn't geo-thermal energy getting as much attention as solar and wind?

Submission + - EPA Rolls Back Obama-Era Regulations On Clean Water (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: President Trump’s administration has rescinded an Obama-era policy that expanded federal oversight and the threat of steep fines for polluting the country’s smaller waterways, furthering his deregulatory efforts in the 14 months that remain before the next election. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Thursday signed a final rule that limits the scope of federal clean-water regulations in an effort to clear up confusion for landowners whose property sits near water sources that feed into the country’s network of major rivers. The Obama administration in 2015 had expanded federal oversight upstream, it said, to better protect wildlife and the country’s drinking-water supply from industrial runoff and pollution.

Mr. Wheeler called that expansion an overreach, saying it grew to cover dry land in some cases. Farmers, property developers, chemical manufacturers and oil-and-gas producers—some of whom are key voter groups for the 2020 election—have voiced opposition to it, with many saying it overreached by intruding on property owners’ rights. Court battles following the Obama-era rule have led to fractured rules across the country. Amid the legal challenges, the regulation is in place only in 22 states, though the Trump administration’s decision could spark its own series of court fights.

Submission + - CRISPR Gene-Editing May Offer Path To Cure For HIV, First Published Report Shows (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Chinese scientists have published the first report in a scientific journal of an attempt to use CRISPR-edited cells in a patient — a 27-year-old man who is HIV-positive. While the treatment did not rid the man of the AIDS virus, the researchers and others are calling the report promising. That's because it indicates that so far the gene-editing technique seems to safely and effectively make the precise DNA change intended. The case was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the new report, the researchers attempted to use CRISPR to recreate the experiences of two men known as the Berlin patient and the London patient. In those cases, HIV-positive men were declared effectively cured after they received stem cell transplants from people born with variations of a gene known as CCR5 that makes people naturally resistant to HIV. The variation disables a molecular gateway HIV uses to enter and destroy key immune system cells. In the new case, [Hongkui Deng, a professor of cell biology at the Peking University] and his colleagues used CRISPR to edit the CCR5 gene on stem cells to recreate the naturally occurring protection against HIV. They then used the edited cells to perform a stem cell transplant for the patient. The man also had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of blood cancer. The transplant appears to have put the patient's leukemia into remission, the researchers reported. He suffered no apparent adverse side effects from the gene-edited cells, which have persisted in his body for more than 19 months, according to the report.

Submission + - Impossible Burger & Beyond Meat aren't healthier. Meatless marvels are just (nbcnews.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The challenge here is that these offerings aren’t actually any healthier. The Impossible Whopper, for instance, not only has comparable caloric and fat levels as its meat-based counterpart, but it has more salt per serving; the Del Taco options are comparable. The Impossible Slider has more calories, more fat and more sodium than the meaty original (before you add cheese to either).

In fact, when you start to compare all of these offerings to their meat-based counterparts, you realize it’s the same story no matter what brands you’re talking about — you might possibly save a few calories or carbs, but you'll probably get way more salt.

Submission + - New Simjacker attack exploited in the wild to track users for at least two years (zdnet.com)

Submitted by campuscodi
campuscodi writes: Security researchers have disclosed today a major SMS-based attack method being abused in the real world by a surveillance vendor to track and monitor individuals. "We are quite confident that this exploit has been developed by a specific private company that works with governments to monitor individuals," security researchers from AdaptiveMobile Security said in a report released today. "We believe this vulnerability has been exploited for at least the last 2 years by a highly sophisticated threat actor in multiple countries, primarily for the purposes of surveillance."

The attack, named Simjacker, works by attackers sending SMS messages to victims' phones. The SMS messages contain STK instructions that are run by a victim's SIM card to gather location data and the IMEI code, which is then sent through an SMS message to a logging system. Researchers said they've seen Simjacker being abused to track hundreds of victims for two years, yet it is unclear if the victims are criminals tracked by law enforcement, or dissidents tracked by oppressive regimes. Over one billion smartphone users use SIM cards deemed vulnerable to this attack.

Submission + - Transgenic Mosquitoes Transfer Genes into a Natural Population (nature.com)

Submitted by cccc828
cccc828 writes: Nature has an article about genetically modified mosquitoes that were supposed to reduce the mosquito population. However, instead of dying, some survived, spreading the new genes. Here the abstract:

In an attempt to control the mosquito-borne diseases yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika fevers, a strain of transgenically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes containing a dominant lethal gene has been developed by a commercial company, Oxitec Ltd. If lethality is complete, releasing this strain should only reduce population size and not affect the genetics of the target populations. Approximately 450 thousand males of this strain were released each week for 27 months in Jacobina, Bahia, Brazil. We genotyped the release strain and the target Jacobina population before releases began for >21,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Genetic sampling from the target population six, 12, and 27–30 months after releases commenced provides clear evidence that portions of the transgenic strain genome have been incorporated into the target population. Evidently, rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature. The release strain was developed using a strain originally from Cuba, then outcrossed to a Mexican population. Thus, Jacobina Ae. aegypti are now a mix of three populations. It is unclear how this may affect disease transmission or affect other efforts to control these dangerous vectors. These results highlight the importance of having in place a genetic monitoring program during such releases to detect un-anticipated outcomes.

Submission + - McDonald's Is To Replace Human Workers With Voice-Based Tech In US Drive-Thrus (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice-based technology in its US drive-throughs. The fast-food chain hopes the AI technology will make the ordering process more efficient. McDonald's is implementing the technology with the help of start-up Apprente, which it acquired this week. The move comes amid concern about workers whose jobs may become obsolete as a result of automation and new technologies. McDonald's plans to expand its newly formed McD Tech team by hiring more engineers and data scientists.

Submission + - Australian House Committee To Look Into Age Verification For Porn (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Australia is once again deciding to follow in the tracks of the United Kingdom, with the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs to look into age verification for online pornography and online wagering. The matter was referred to the committee by the Minister for Families and Social Services, Senator Anne Ruston and Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety, and the Arts, Paul Fletcher. The terms of reference for the inquiry state that it will be looking into age verification under the auspices of protecting children online.

The committee will look into "the potential benefits of further online age verification requirements, including to protect children from potential harm, and business and non-government organizations from reputation, operational and legal risks," the terms state. Potential risks and unintended consequences for age verification will be looked into as well, the terms state, including privacy breaches, freedom of expression, false assurance, and whether adults are pushing into "unregulated/illegal environments or to other legal forms of these activities." The committee will also examine the economic impact of age verification, and the impact on "eSafety resourcing, education, and messaging."

Submission + - 2 Mathematicians Just Solved an Old Math Riddle and Possibly the Meaning of life (wnd.com)

Submitted by pgmrdlm
pgmrdlm writes: In Douglas Adams' sci-fi series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a pair of programmers task the galaxy's largest supercomputer with answering the ultimate question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything. After 7.5 million years of processing, the computer reaches an answer: 42. Only then do the programmers realize that nobody knew the question the program was meant to answer.

Now, in this week's most satisfying example of life reflecting art, a pair of mathematicians have used a global network of 500,000 computers to solve a centuries-old math puzzle that just happens to involve that most crucial number: 42.

The question, which goes back to at least 1955 and may have been pondered by Greek thinkers as early as the third century AD, asks, "How can you express every number between 1 and 100 as the sum of three cubes?" Or, put algebraically, how do you solve x^3 + y^3 + z^3 = k, where k equals any whole number from 1 to 100?

This deceptively simple stumper is known as a Diophantine equation, named for the ancient mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria, who proposed a similar set of problems about 1,800 years ago. Modern mathematicians who revisited the puzzle in the 1950s quickly found solutions when k equals many of the smaller numbers, but a few particularly stubborn integers soon emerged. The two trickiest numbers, which still had outstanding solutions by the beginning of 2019, were 33 and — you guessed it — 42.

Submission + - Linux developer loses GPL suit against VMware (itwire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linux kernel developer Christoph Hellwig has lost his case against virtualisation company VMware, which he had sued in March 2015 for violation of version 2 of the GNU General Public Licence.

Submission + - Huge Jupiter-Like Storm Rages On Cool 'Failed Star' (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: Jupiter’s Big Red Spot is the largest example of a long-lived storm in the solar system, but now it has some pretty stiff competition in another star system. However, this “exo-storm” hasn’t been spied on another gas giant, it’s been spotted in the uppermost layers of a cool, small "failed star" or brown dwarf. Using 3 NASA space telescopes, new research published in The Astrophysical Journal has found that this spot isn't a starspot, but a bona fide storm that has more in common with Jupiter's famous cyclone. So is this REALLY a failed star? Or is is an "overachieving planet"?

Submission + - Mauna Kea protests may end astronomy as we know it

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: If you want to explore the Universe, you need a telescope with good light gathering power, a high-quality camera to make the most out of each photon, and a superior observing location, complete with dark skies, clear nights, and still, high-altitude air. There are only a few places on Earth that have all of these qualities consistently, and perhaps the best one is atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii. Yet generations of wrongs have occurred to create the great telescope complex that's up there today, and astronomers continue to lease the land for far less than it's worth despite violating the original contract. That's astronomy as we know it so far, and perhaps the Mauna Kea protests signal a long awaited end to that.

Submission + - Carly Fiorina: I Supplied HP Servers for NSA Snooping

Submitted by Motherfucking Shit
Motherfucking Shit writes: According to an article at Motherboard, shortly after 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden requested extra computing power and Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, responded by re-routing truckloads of servers to the agency. Fiorina acknowledged providing the servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended warrantless surveillance (as well as waterboarding) and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms. Fiorina’s compliance with Hayden’s request for HP servers is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and US intelligence agencies.

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