Month: July 2017

Enlarge / It's now possible to precisely fabricate very small pillars. (credit: Stanford University)

In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in coupling sound and light together. Admittedly, we've been doing this for a long time, but we've always been limited in terms of what we can do by the ways that nature puts materials together. Now, with our ability to construct structures that are the right size, we can make devices that really dance to the tune that we give them.

This control has been demonstrated in a very cute way recently. Researchers have put together micro pillars that convert light into long-lasting, very high-frequency sound waves.

Nature leads the way

Nature, of course, allows sound and light to play together in different ways. For instance, if a gas absorbs light, it will heat up and expand, so flashing a light into a gas will generate a sound wave at the frequency of the flashing. One of the most sensitive techniques for measuring how materials absorb light makes use of this.

Claude Doumet-Serhal

The Canaanites are famous as the bad guys of the Book of Joshua in the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible. First, God orders the Hebrews to destroy the Canaanites along with several other groups, and later we hear that the Canaanites have actually been wiped out. Among archaeologists, however, the Canaanites are a cultural group whose rise and fall has remained a mystery. Now, a group of archaeologists and geneticists have discovered strong evidence that the Canaanites were not wiped out. They are, in fact, the ancestors of modern Lebanese people.

The Canaanites were a people who lived three to four thousand years ago off the coast of the Mediterranean, and their cities were spread across an area known today as Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Syria. Though they were one of the first civilizations in the area to use writing, they wrote most of their documents on papyrus leaves that didn't survive. As a result, our only information about these people has come from their rivals and enemies, like the Hebrews, whose accounts were likely biased.

Enlarge (credit: https://aviva.herb-pharm.com/)

A doctor who appeared to vouch for and defend Gwyneth Paltrow’s high-profile lifestyle and e-commerce site, Goop, now says that she does not see herself as a Goop doctor and would not endorse the site, according to an interview with Stat.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Aviva Romm provided a signed letter included in a Goop post titled “Uncensored: A Word from Our Doctors.” The post, written in part by the Goop team, including Romm and another doctor (Steven Gundry), collectively defended Goop’s questionable health products and penchant for unproven and often nonsensical medical theories. Those theories include Moon-powered vaginal eggs and energy-healing space-suit stickers.

The post was written in response to a wave of online criticism from journalists, medical professionals, and patient advocates, particularly blogger Dr. Jen Gunter, an Ob/Gyn who has written often about Goop.

Enlarge / Traders at the New York Stock Exchange beneath a monitor displaying Twitter's stock symbol in 2016. (credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Several years ago, Twitter seemed like it would be the social media darling of the decade. Founders had dreams of being the first Internet company to reach one billion users, making it "the pulse of the planet."

That's not going to happen, and investors are cluing in. Twitter had 328 million average monthly active users, or MAU, in the three months ending in June, which is unchanged from the previous quarter. The company's shares were down more than 10 percent this morning on the news.

The news comes despite Twitter's role in the daily news cycle perhaps being more prominent than ever, given the platform often serves as President Donald Trump's favored medium of expression.

Enlarge (credit: portal gda)

Google has expelled 20 Android apps from its Play marketplace after finding they contained code for monitoring and extracting users' e-mail, text messages, locations, voice calls, and other sensitive data.

The apps, which made their way onto about 100 phones, exploited known vulnerabilities to "root" devices running older versions of Android. Root status allowed the apps to bypass security protections built into the mobile operating system. As a result, the apps were capable of surreptitiously accessing sensitive data stored, sent, or received by at least a dozen other apps, including Gmail, Hangouts, LinkedIn, and Messenger. The now-ejected apps also collected messages sent and received by Whatsapp, Telegram, and Viber, which all encrypt data in an attempt to make it harder for attackers to intercept messages while in transit.

The apps also contained functions allowing for:

Enlarge / John Urschel #64 of the Baltimore Ravens retired from football. (credit: Getty | Matt Hazlett)

John Urschel, a Baltimore Ravens’ offensive lineman and PhD candidate in applied mathematics at MIT, has announced his retirement from football at the age of 26. The announcement comes just days after publication of a case study that found widespread signs of a degenerative brain disease among football players who donated their brains to research.

"This morning John Urschel informed me of his decision to retire from football," Ravens’ coach John Harbaugh said in a statement. "We respect John and respect his decision. We appreciate his efforts over the past three years and wish him all the best in his future endeavors."

Urschel played with the Ravens for three seasons and was competing for the starting center job. Thus far, he has not publicly discussed his reasoning for the early and abrupt retirement, which was announced just before the first full-team practice. However, a team source told ESPN that his decision was linked to the new study on the new brain study.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Media for Medical )

A team of researchers in Oregon have become the first in the US to attempt genetically altering human embryos, according to reporting by MIT Technology Review. The attempt is said to represent an advance in the safety and efficacy of methods used to correct genetic defects that spur disease.

Until now, the only three published reports of human embryo gene editing were from researchers in China. But their experiments—using a gene-editing method called CRISPR—caused “off-target” genetic changes, basically slopping edits in the DNA that were not intended. Also, not all the cells in the embryos were successfully edited, causing an effect called “mosaicism.” Together, the problems suggested that the technique was not advanced enough to safely alter human embryos without unintended or incomplete genetic consequences.

Scientists familiar with the new US work told MIT Technology Review that the Oregon team has improved these issues. They’re said to have shown in experiments with “many tens” of human embryos that they can correct genetic mutations that cause disease while avoiding mosaicism and off-target effects. Their improved method allows for earlier delivery of CRISPR into cells at the same time sperm fertilize an egg.

One of the more visible aspects of Windows as a Service is that Microsoft has been learning as it goes along, and didn't come straight out the gate with a clear vision of precisely how Windows updates would be delivered, or when. Initially the plan was to push each release out to consumers as the "Current Build" (CB),  and a few months later bless it as good for businesses, as the "Current Build for Business" (CBB).

A clearer plan has been crystalizing over the last few months, first with the announcement in April that Windows and Office would have synchronized, twice-annual releases, and then June's announcement that Windows Server would also be on the semi-annual release train.

Today, Microsoft has put all the pieces together and delivered what should be the long-term plan for Windows, Windows Server, and Office updates. It's not a huge shake-up from the cobbled together plan before, but the naming is new and consistent.