Month: October 2017

Enlarge / Droplets of a gallium/indium alloy. (credit: Collin Ladd, NC State University)

The discovery of graphene—a one-atom-thick sheet of covalently bonded carbon atoms—inspired the research community to generate a variety of 2D materials. Graphene, MoS₂, the silicon equivalent of graphene, and more all have distinct properties based on the chemical bonding among their component atoms. And it's possible to leverage these properties to create commonplace devices on an unprecedentedly small scale, like a three-atom-thick LED.

Obviously, the more materials we have to work with, the better we can fine-tune one of these devices to our needs. But producing 2D materials is a challenge, as there are a limited number of substances that lend themselves to the chemically bonded layers we know how to work with. Now, an Australian-US team (writing in Science) has devised a way to make a broad class of atomically thin metal oxides, including 2D versions of materials already in use by the electronics industry. Their secret? A room temperature liquid metal.

Selective

This is one of those cases where a series of simple observations led to a major development. In many cases, pure metals will react with oxygen in the air to form a thin oxide layer on their surface. This, it turns out, is true for one of the metals that is liquid near room temperature: gallium, which melts at 30 degrees Celsius. Leave some liquid gallium exposed to the air, and it'll form a thin film of gallium oxide on its surface.

The 2014 Mac Mini. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

More than 1,000 days have passed since Apple updated its Mac mini hardware. Since then, Apple has launched the Apple Watch, AirPods, the retina MacBook, and the Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Meanwhile, the Mac mini has existed in a state of arrested development. You'd be forgiven for considering the possibility that the product has been living its last days. But in an e-mail to an Apple customer today, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Mac mini isn't going anywhere.

The customer, who goes by the name Krar, e-mailed Cook to note that the Mac mini hasn't seen an update in three years. Krar wanted to know, "Are we are going to see anything in the pipeline any time soon?" Cook's response, which was shared on MacRumors, said:

I'm glad you love the Mac mini. We love it too. Our customers have found so many creative and interesting uses for the Mac mini. While it is not time to share any details, we do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward.

He's not saying much, but even confirmation that this product has a future is in some ways surprising. The entry-level Mac mini still runs on Haswell processors and Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics. It comes with only 4GB of RAM. It starts at $499, but other compact desktops offer much more current specs at that price point. The mini is clearly long overdue for an update, but because it's unclear which direction Apple might take the device with future iterations, it seemed like a safe bet that its time on the market was drawing to a close.

Enlarge / SANTA ROSA, CA -OCTOBER 14: The ruins of houses destroyed by the Tubbs Fire are seen near Fountaingrove Parkway on October 14, 2017 in Santa Rosa, California. At least 40 people are confirmed dead with hundreds still missing. Officials expect the death toll to rise and now estimate that 5,700 structures have been destroyed. (credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

A couple who lost its Santa Rosa home in the devastating October Tubbs Fire has sued the local utility for negligence, saying that untrimmed tree branches caught fire when they came into contact with power lines and other equipment.

The California Department of Forestry hasn’t officially ruled on what caused the October fires that consumed hundreds of thousands of acres in northern California and killed dozens of people, but officials have asked Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to preserve records for subsequent investigations into the causes of the fires.

Last week, the Bay Area paper Mercury News reported that the night the fires started, “emergency dispatchers in Sonoma County received multiple calls of power lines falling down and electrical transformers exploding.” The night had been a particularly windy one, and PG&E spokesperson Matt Nauman told the paper that “The historic wind event that swept across PG&E service area late Sunday and early Monday packed hurricane-strength winds in excess of 75mph in some cases.”

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list includes the usual slew of PC and laptop discounts, including savings on a Dell XPS Tower desktop, several Dell laptops, and even a Star Wars-themed Lenovo notebook, because shameless corporate branding is okay when it's for a franchise that you're protective of.

The rest of the roundup includes deals on wireless home cameras, 4K TVs, and networking equipment, among other things. You can take a peek below.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Enlarge / Frame from a short video of Blue Origin's hot fire engine test Wednesday. (credit: Blue Origin)

New space company Blue Origin has spent the better part of this decade developing a powerful rocket engine for use in its orbital rocket, New Glenn, and potentially other US-based launchers. This engine, the liquid natural gas-powered BE-4, has been closely watched both within the aerospace industry and in military space because it uses innovative new technology, has largely been developed with private funding, and is fully reusable.

However, while there was great promise with the new engine, it still had to perform. And so the aerospace community has been watching development of the engine to see if it could pass a key hurdle—a hot-fire test. After months of waiting, that's what finally happened on Wednesday at the company's facility in West Texas when the BE-4 engine fired at 50-percent power for three seconds.

First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/xuotdzfDjF

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 19, 2017

This demonstration sends a clear signal that there is a new player in the industry preparing to compete both for national security and commercial launches. Some have derided Blue Origin for its original focus on New Shepard, a suborbital vehicle that the company plans to use for space tourism trips in a year or two. However, the brawny BE-4 engine supports the idea that Blue Origin is gearing up for orbital and deep space missions, too.

Enlarge / Man posing for stock image is really surprised by the size of his bill. (credit: Getty Images | sturti)

Frontier Communications' purchase of FiOS and DSL networks from Verizon last year led to immediate problems for customers that took weeks to resolve.

More than a year later, some ex-Verizon customers in Florida say they are still having major problems with their new provider.

"Some say Frontier Communications has overcharged them hundreds of dollars and have struggled to get a satisfactory response from customer service," a report by ABC Action News in Tampa Bay said last week.

Enlarge (credit: Media for Medical)

Chronic intestinal disturbances may in part be handed down from above, according to a study published Thursday in Science.

Intestinal pathogens can lurk in the mouth and—at just the right moments—interlope in the gut to help trigger severe, recurring bouts of inflammation, researchers found. The study, based on human and mouse data, suggests that microbes lying low around our choppers may play a role in persistent gastrointestinal conditions such as Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis.

“Our findings suggest that the oral cavity may serve as a reservoir for potential intestinal pathobionts that can exacerbate intestinal disease,” the researchers, led by Koji Atarashi of Keio University School of Medicine, concluded.