Month: May 2019

Rare earth oxides. Clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium. (credit: Peggy Greb, US Department of Agriculture)

On Wednesday, Chinese newspapers ran commentaries warning the United States that escalating trade tensions would result in China cutting off its rare-earth-minerals trade with the US.

China is the dominant supplier of rare-earth minerals around the world. The minerals are used in all sorts of advanced materials and play a prominent role in the operation of electric motors, wind turbines, and military-related material.

According to Reuters, China's official People's Daily ran an article saying: "Undoubtedly, the US side wants to use the products made by China's exported rare-earths to counter and suppress China's development. The Chinese people will never accept this!"

Enlarge / Male Angiostrongylus cantonensis (credit: Punlop Anusonpornperm)

Hawaii’s health department has released fresh warnings about a parasitic worm that can infest human brains after officials confirmed that three more visitors to the state picked up the infection.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed three new cases in unrelated adults visiting Hawaii Island from the US mainland, the health department announced. The latest known victims—who became infected at different times—bring the state’s 2018 case total to 10 and the 2019 total to five.

While there were 17 confirmed cases in 2017, the state counted only two cases total in the prior decade. The new case counts indicate a sustained boom in the parasite’s population and spread.

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  Gareth Jones (L) and Paul Ireson, aka Zog (R), at the start of their adventure in Lands End at the tip of Cornwall. [credit: Gareth Jones ]

It's not often you get to inspire an electric car speed record attempt, but it seems I've inadvertently done just that.

It began on Twitter, when I saw that there was an electric charging station in the parking lot at John O' Groats in Scotland, (almost) the most northern point of the Scottish mainland. The village is about as far from the most south-westerly point in the UK, Lands End in England, as it's possible to get without leaving the mainland: 874 miles (1.407km) to be precise. So, I idly wondered what the fastest journey time was for an electric vehicle. The idea then caught the eye of a TV presenter named Gareth Jones, host of the eponymous podcast Gareth Jones on Speed.

"Absolutely, it's all your fault," he told me when we spoke last week. "When you tweeted—I think it was March 7—a picture of the recharging point in John O' Groats, which has an Ecotricity charger, you said, 'I wonder what the record is from Lands End to John O' Groats?' I thought, that sounds like a plan. So I fairly casually, without much forethought, retweeted it, mentioning anyone who sells EVs in the UK asking if any of them wanted to give us a car."

Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Brooks / Flickr)

Researchers say they’ve discovered an advanced piece of Linux malware that has escaped detection by antivirus products and appears to be actively used in targeted attacks.

HiddenWasp, as the malware has been dubbed, is a fully developed suite of malware that includes a trojan, rootkit, and initial deployment script, researchers at security firm Intezer reported on Wednesday. At the time Intezer’s post went live, the VirusTotal malware service indicated Hidden Wasp wasn’t detected by any of the 59 antivirus engines it tracks, although some have now begun to flag it. Time stamps in one of the 10 files Intezer analyzed indicated it was created last month. The command and control server that infected computers report to remained operational at the time this article was being prepared.

Some of the evidence analyzed—including code showing that the computers it infects are already compromised by the same attackers—indicated that HiddenWasp is likely a later stage of malware that gets served to targets of interest who have already been infected by an earlier stage. It’s not clear how many computers have been infected or how any earlier related stages get installed. With the ability to download and execute code, upload files, and perform a variety of other commands, the purpose of the malware appears to be to remotely control the computers it infects. That's different from most Linux malware, which exists to perform denial of service attacks or mine cryptocurrencies.

Enlarge (credit: Getty / Aurich Lawson)

In 2005, Apple contacted Qualcomm as a potential supplier for modem chips in the first iPhone. Qualcomm's response was unusual: a letter demanding that Apple sign a patent licensing agreement before Qualcomm would even consider supplying chips.

"I'd spent 20 years in the industry, I had never seen a letter like this," said Tony Blevins, Apple's vice president of procurement.

Most suppliers are eager to talk to new customers—especially customers as big and prestigious as Apple. But Qualcomm wasn't like other suppliers; it enjoyed a dominant position in the market for cellular chips. That gave Qualcomm a lot of leverage, and the company wasn't afraid to use it.