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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Half a million fewer children? The coming COVID baby bust:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:High-energy X-rays reveal the secrets of ancient Egyptian inks:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus_:Boeing's upgraded 737 MAX completes first flight with media onboard:

MostCynical writes:Australian Federal police and organised crime investigators will be able to take over the online accounts of international paedophile rings, terrorists and drug-traffickers operating on the "dark web", under new laws to be introduced in Federal Parliament.The Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission will also be able to hack into people's computer networks and modify or delete harmful content such as child exploitation material.As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the new powers were needed to "shine a light into the darkest recesses of the online world and hold those hiding there to account".

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Salesforce strikes deal to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Aftermarket truck mods pollute as much as 9 million extra pickups:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time:

MrPlow writes:Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Guam's most endangered tree species reveals universal biological concept:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Storing carbon through tree planting, preservation costs more than thought:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Microsoft Revamps 'Invasive' M365 Feature After Privacy Backlash:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:SpaceX's 1st crewed Mars mission could launch as early as 2024, Elon Musk says:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:Synergism of TNF-α and IFN-γ triggers inflammatory cell death, tissue damage, and mortality in SARS-CoV-2 infection and cytokine shock syndromes:(From the abstract):

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Teckla:iPhone zero-click Wi-Fi exploit is one of the most breathtaking hacks ever:

NPC-131072 writes:A medium article

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Neanderthals Didn't Use Their Thumbs Like We Do, New Research Suggests:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Scientists might know why astronauts develop health problems in space:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:SpaceX will launch remote controlled racecars to lunar surface:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:We've mapped a million previously undiscovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way. Take the virtual tour here.:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:AstraZeneca's dosage error casts a cloud of doubt around the entire COVID-19 clinical trial:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:Discovery of mechanism that switches off fat production after eating:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:China's Chang'e-5 successfully lands on moon to collect samples:

takyon writes:Leaked documents show China mishandled early COVID-19 pandemic: report

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for requerdanos:Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico Collapses Weeks After Suffering Major Damage:

Snotnose writes:As reported by ZDNet:

takyon writes:Mars' underground brine could be a good source of oxygen

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:New mechanism of pain control revealed:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:'Love hormone' oxytocin could be used to treat cognitive disorders like Alzheimer's:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Alligators can regrow their tails, surprising scientists:

MrPlow writes:Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956Chemical Compounds in Foods Can Inhibit a Key SARS-CoV-2 Enzyme:

DeepMind's AI is Claimed to Make Gigantic Leap in Solving Protein StructuresHartree writes:DeepMind's program, called AlphaFold, outperformed around 100 other teams in a biennial protein-structure prediction challenge called CASP, short for Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction. The results were announced on 30 November, at the start of the conference — held virtually this year — that takes stock of the exercise.John Moult of the University of Maryland in College Park (founder of this conference) says: "In some sense the problem is solved."https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03348-4Many Caveats: This seems unusually breathless for Nature and this is a very hard problem that's been worked on for decades. Having worked in a group studying the protein folding problem back in the 80s, I've learned to be pretty skeptical of miracles in this over the years. That said if it is accurate that this works well enough to provide clues to x-ray diffraction determination of structure in hard cases, that alone makes it very worthwhile. If it works well in truly de novo cases without other information like x-ray diffraction or nuclear magnetic resonance then it would be just as revolutionary as the article says.Folding @ AlphaJoeMerchant writes:Google's Deepmind claims to have created an artificially intelligent program called "AlphaFold" that is able to solve protein folding problems in a matter of days.If it works, the solution has come "decades" before it was expected, according to experts, and could have transformative effects in the way diseases are treated.There are 200 million known proteins at present but only a fraction have actually been unfolded to fully understand what they do and how they work. Even those that have been successfully understood often rely on expensive and time-intensive techniques, with scientists spending years unfolding each structure and relying on equipment that can cost many millions of dollars.DeepMind worked on the AI project with the 14th Community Wide Experiment on the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP14), a group of scientists who have been looking into the matter since 1994.Go, Chess, COVID...Also at Science Magazine and TechCrunch.Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/amid-pandemic-poopy-salads-still-pose-health-threat/

DeathMonkey writes:FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will step down on January 20

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Seemingly Ordinary Fossils May Be Hiding Some Major Clues to the Past:

takyon writes:OneWeb exits bankruptcy and is ready to launch more broadband satellites

takyon writes:Microsoft Pluton is a new processor with Xbox-like security for Windows PCs

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:She could have stopped at saving her husband. Instead they joined a 5-way kidney swap.:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:SLS: Nasa 'megarocket' assembly begins in Florida:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus_:6,000 years of arrows emerge from melting Norwegian ice patch:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RunawayXXXX:Laser fusion reactor approaches 'burning plasma' milestone:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Pesticide deadly to bees now easily detected in honey:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Tesla Model X gets hacked through new relay attack, Tesla says it is pushing a patch - Electrek:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:U.S. Army looks to use silent technology for next-generation aircraft:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:Linus Torvalds doubts Linux will get ported to Apple M1 hardware:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:Dave Prowse, actor who played Darth Vader, dies at 85:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:Mystery Of London's 1952 Killer Fog Is Solved:

[Ed. note: I was tempted to pass over this article because it beggared believe and I was unfamiliar with the author. Come to find out, Sabine Hossenfelderupstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:Warp Drive News. Seriously!:

hubie writes:Noninteger dimensions are fairly well known in mathematics, but they are also used in various branches of physics and engineering to explain the emergence of scale invariant phenomena, such as atmospheric turbulence, or for measuring coastlines. Subhash Kak of Oklahoma State University in the United States published a paper that shows that if you look at physical space through the lens of information theory, the optimal number of dimensions turns out to be not an integer.Kak shows the optimal dimension associated with the representation of information is e = 2.71828... and he argues that physical space is e-dimensional instead of 3-dimensional if one accepts optimality as a fundamental physical principle. He argues the discrepancy between 3 and e can be seen in existing data, and the example used has to do with the large scale structure of the universe.One of the "crises" in physics is reconciling the two different values of the Hubble constant, H. The two values are 67 km s Mpc if you use early universe data, and 74 km s Mpc if you use late universe data. If physical reality is e-dimensional and we insist on viewing it as being 3-dimensional then there is a discrepancy equal to e/3=0.9060. This number is very close to the divergence of 67/74=0.9054 from the experimental data.Journal Reference:

takyon writes:Hawaii's Fresh Water Leaks to the Ocean Through Underground Rivers (archive)

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:The ISS Is About to Receive a New Doorway to Space: