Month: January 2023

New imaging finds trigger for massive global warming 56 million years ago

56 million years ago, hot magma scorched the sediments under the Atlantic seafloor.

Image of a hard-hatted individual guiding aa large orange device as it's lowered into the ocean.

Enlarge / Scientists about to sink an Ocean Bottom Seismometer to the Atlantic seabed in 2021.

Scientists have scanned a section of the North Atlantic and revealed the remnants of what had been a huge pulse of hot rock that initiated a rapid climate warming event 56 million years ago.

The climate event, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), warmed the already-hot climate of the time by about 5.6° C due to a jump in atmospheric CO2. Levels of that greenhouse gas rose from about 1,120 parts per million to about 2,020 ppm—much higher than today’s 417 ppm. Although it didn’t trigger a major extinction, it still exterminated some deep-sea creatures and tropical plants. Scientists want to understand the PETM better, because it’s an example of how the Earth reacted to a rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 a bit like we’re currently experiencing, albeit starting from a hot, ice-free climate.

Finding a cause

Although the cause of PETM has been debated since it was discovered in the 1990s, more and more evidence has accumulated that points to massive quantities of CO2 and methane emitted due to volcanic activity in the North Atlantic as the primary cause. This activity created what’s now known as the North Atlantic Igneous Province— the same kind of enormous volcanic phenomenon linked to climate disruption and extinctions at other times in Earth’s past, like the end-Triassic, the end-Permian, the early Jurassic, and others.

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Rocket Report: Starship may actually be near liftoff; China’s copycat booster designs

“This is not the outcome we were hoping for today.”

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is seen on the launch pad on January 9, 2023, ahead of its second OneWeb launch.

Enlarge / SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is seen on the launch pad on January 9, 2023, ahead of its second OneWeb launch. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

Welcome to Edition 5.23 of the Rocket Report! It has been a difficult week for rocket aficionados, with the back-to-back failure of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne, and ABL Space's RS1 vehicles, on Monday and Tuesday. I certainly hope both companies can find and fix the technical problems, and get into orbit soon.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin Orbit launch from UK fails to reach orbit. After the Cosmic Girl aircraft made a much-hyped takeoff from Cornwall, England, on Monday night, Virgin Orbit's mission ended in failure when the second stage did not properly put its nine payloads into orbit. In a statement published on Thursday morning, Virgin Orbit provided a little bit more information about the failure: "At an altitude of approximately 180 km, the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage."

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Four Genshin Impact Leakers Targeted in New Set of DMCA Subpoenas

After targeting Ubatcha, one of the most popular and prolific Genshin Impact leakers, publisher Cognosphere has several new targets on its radar. DMCA subpoena applications obtained by TorrentFreak reveal that users of the popular ‘House of Daena’ Discord channel are among the targets

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

genshin-smallWith tens of millions of fans playing every month, Genshin Impact is a huge free-to-play gaming success story.

While Genshin Impact publisher Cognosphere undoubtedly enjoys this global attention, some groups of fans are taking their enthusiasm a little too far.

As revealed by TorrentFreak last December, Cognosphere is targeting gamers who leak Genshin Impact content to the public in advance of the company’s schedule.

A notable target for Cognosphere was Ubatcha, a Genshin Impact leaker with an extremely high profile and broad fan base. Today we can reveal that Cognosphere has new alleged leakers on its radar.

DMCA Subpoena Applications Filed in U.S. Court

Filed yesterday at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco Division), four new DMCA subpoena applications were filed pursuant to 17 U.S. Code § 512(H).

This section of copyright law allows a rightsholder to obtain a subpoena to help identify an alleged infringer. All four DMCA subpoena applications target users alleged to have breached Cognosphere’s copyrights.

All were filed by Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, the same Los Angeles law firm that previously targeted Ubatcha.

DMCA Subpoena #1 – Genshin Impact Leakers’ Group

Before filing the applications for these DMCA subpoenas, Cognosphere’s attorneys sent copyright complaints to Discord requesting the removal of several pieces of content. The DMCA takedown notice in this case is dated January 11, 2023, and the subpoena application itself is dated January 12.

“It has come to our attention that numerous images and videos infringing Cognosphere’s copyrighted Game are being made available by user ‘Linxian#0001,’ via the Discord channel ‘原神内鬼爆料区’ (Genshin Impact Leakers’ Group),” the takedown notice reads.

linxian-0001

The example above is just one in a series of 11 screenshots, all depicting allegedly infringing content posted to Discord.

The DMCA subpoena application can be found here, DMCA takedown notice here (pdfs)

DMCA Subpoenas #2, #3, #4 Target ‘House of Daena’

The remaining three DMCA subpoena applications target users of the ‘House of Daena‘ Discord channel.

The general format of these applications is the same as the first targeting Genshin Impact Leakers’ Group. Similar copyright complaints were also filed with Discord to have the content taken down.

house of daena - genshin impact

Three Discord users are affected: ‘LJ.#8200’, ‘M9G#3656’ and ‘rice cooker#9289’

In addition to taking down the identified content, the DMCA notices suggest that removing or disabling the entire channel is also an option for Discord.

Common to All Four Subpoena Applications

While the targeted Discord channels, users, and the content they allegedly posted to those channels differ in each case, the overall aim is the same.

“Petitioner, Cognosphere Pte. Ltd. (‘Cognosphere’) through its undersigned counsel of
record, hereby requests that the Clerk of this Court issue a subpoena to Discord, Inc. (‘Discord’) to identify alleged infringers at issue, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’), 17 U.S.C. § 512(h),” each reads.

While they target different users, the proposed DMCA subpoenas to Discord are mostly the same in all four cases. They require Discord to produce information including, “name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), e-mail address(es), and IP address(es), or other information,” sufficient to identify the alleged infringers.

discord-subpoena

At the time of writing the clerk of the court has not yet signed off on the applications, meaning that Discord has not yet produced any documents. However, it’s more than likely that the applications will be approved today or in the coming days. At that point, Discord will need to comply.

Finally, the initial takedown notices to Discord note that the platform should take “appropriate measures to prevent further infringements” by the named users and “any other parties responsible for the infringement.”

Discord’s ‘repeat infringer’ policy is directly mentioned, meaning that account suspensions remain a possibility for the listed users.

The remaining three DMCA subpoena applications can be found here (1,2,3, pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.