Month: October 2022

Enlarge / The James Webb Space Telescope captured a stunning new look at the iconic Pillars of Creation.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has been the gift that keeps on giving, releasing one jaw-dropping image after another since the summer. Today, NASA released a stunning near-infrared camera image of the iconic "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula, some 7,000 light-years away.

"I've been studying the Eagle Nebula since the mid-1990s, trying to see 'inside' the light-years long pillars that Hubble showed, searching for young stars inside them," Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency told BBC News. "I always knew that when James Webb took pictures of it, they would be stunning. And so they are."

The James Webb Space Telescope launched in December 2021 and promptly began capturing images. First, there was the deep field image of the universe released in July. This was followed by images of exoplanet atmospheres, the Southern Ring Nebula, a cluster of interacting galaxies called Stephan's Quintet, and the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region about 7,600 light-years away. These images reportedly brought astronomers to tears.

Enlarge / Researchers extracted DNA from the remains of people buried in the East Smithfield plague pits, which were used for mass burials in 1348 and 1349. (credit: Museum of London Archaeology)

When the Black Death massacred up to 50 percent of the European population in the mid-14th century, it appears to have etched an enduring mark on human genetics, altering the frequency of genes that shape our immune systems—which may or may not be a good thing for modern humans.

That's according to a study out Wednesday in Nature from an international team of researchers led by anthropologists and geneticists at McMaster University in Canada and the University of Chicago.

The team dug deep into genetic data from over 200 people who died prior to the Black Death, during the deadly pandemic, and afterward in London and Denmark. Their findings suggest that the pandemic was a selective evolutionary pressure on humans, shifting the diversity of gene variants for at least four immune system-related genes. Subsequent petri-dish experiments with immune cells suggested that variants of the four genes were protective against the plague bacteria—Yersinia pestis—as well as other pathogens. But the authors also note that some of the genes have been associated with an increased risk of autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.

Enlarge / The now-discontinued Apple TV HD. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

The Apple TV HD (also called the fourth-generation Apple TV) is no longer available in Apple's US store after the addition of an updated Apple TV 4K yesterday.

The Apple TV HD debuted in 2015, and it was the first Apple TV to run tvOS, with its own App Store. Up until its discontinuation this week, it included a now-aging A8 chip (the one from the iPhone 6). By contrast, the new Apple TV 4K has the A15 chip found in the iPhone 13; it's dramatically faster. The 2015 model was also the first to introduce Apple's controversial touch-based remote, which was radically redesigned in response to user feedback in recent years.

Apple introduced the first iteration of the Apple TV 4K in 2017, but the company continued to offer the Apple TV HD alongside it in its store as a cheaper option compared to the 4K model, which currently starts at $129—still much more expensive than the dongles and set-top boxes most people use to stream to their TVs.

Enlarge / An ABB industrial robot folding a shirt using AUTOLAB's new "SpeedFolding" method. (credit: UC Berkeley AUTOLAB)

While it's possible that someone out there enjoys folding clothes, it's probably not a beloved pastime. Accordingly, researchers at UC Berkeley's AUTOLAB have developed a new robotic method of folding garments at record speed (for a robot) called SpeedFolding.

Using machine vision, a neural network called BiManual Manipulation Network (BiMaMa-Net), and a pair of industrial robot arms, SpeedFolding can fold 30–40 randomly positioned garments per hour, usually finishing each within two minutes.

While that rate does not sound impressive compared to a human, previous robotic garment-folding methods reached only "3-6 FPH" (that's "folds per hour") according to the researchers in a paper submitted for presentation at IROS2022 next week in Kyoto. It's the work of Yahav Avigal, Tamim Asfour, Torsten Kröger, and Ken Goldberg of UC Berkeley and Lars Berscheid of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Enlarge / This isn't the first time Tesla has sold a charger for non-Tesla EVs. While it costs $150 more than the Tesla-compatible version, it's still very competitively priced. (credit: Tesla)

Tesla has added a new 240 V AC charger to its offerings, but surprisingly it can't charge a Tesla unless you use an adapter. Instead, and as the name suggests, the J1772 Wall Connector uses the J1772-spec plug, which is standard to all EVs in the US other than Tesla EVs.

Based on Tesla's website, the $550 J1772 wallbox appears to have identical capabilities to the $400 version it sells with a Tesla plug on the end. Its charging output will depend upon the circuit breaker to which it is attached. A 15 amp breaker will translate to a maximum output of 12 amp and 2.8 kW; at the other end of the scale a 60 amp breaker allows for 48 amp and 11.5 kW. For comparison, the highly rated Juicebox AC charger costs $689 for the 48 amp, 11.5 kW version.

In fact, this isn't the first time that Tesla has released a wallbox with a J1772 plug. According to Electric, it did exactly that just less than a year ago. It used Tesla's second-generation wallbox internals and so was only capable of a maximum of 40 amp and 9.6 kW and lacked Wi-Fi, but it also cost significantly less than this new version, at just $415.

Enlarge / The circuitry that's increasingly inside every modern appliance adds another layer of complexity to fixing the things you own. (credit: Getty Images)

The Federal Trade Commission is considering new rules that would require any appliances touting a familiar yellow EnergyGuide label to also include "information on how consumers can repair their products."

Citing its own "Nixing the Fix Report," the FTC states that repair information will "strengthen consumers' right to repair damaged products, without the need to go back to the manufacturer." That could save customers money, allow non-licensed dealers and repair techs to better compete, and protect the environment, the FTC claims.

Right-to-repair advocates are energized by the proposed rulemaking, the publication of which was unanimously approved. "This is a big deal," Kyle Wiens, CEO of repair advocate and store iFixit, wrote Monday. "It's hard to think of a more impactful, consumer-facing and repair policy move from the FTC, or a more surefire way to get repair instructions into the hands of more consumers who need them." Wiens noted that appliance manuals, whether provided by the company or written by iFixit members on the company's wiki-style site, are harder to come by than for small electronics. Most people don't want to take apart devices that weigh hundreds of pounds and draw heavy power or flammable gas to learn more about them.