Month: February 2023

Enlarge (credit: GIUSEPPE CACACE / Contributor | AFP)

Last fall, the US Department of Justice pushed the e-book pirate site Z-Library onto the dark web after charging its alleged operators with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering. Back then, Z-Library users—including many college students who relied on the site as a source for free textbooks—weren’t sure if Z-Library would be able to keep operating. That’s why this weekend, thousands of Z-Library fans rejoiced when Z-Library officially staged its comeback on public-access Internet—by launching a universal login page and setting up secret personal domains for users.

A Z-Library blog post from Saturday viewed by 21,000 users announced the “great news” and prompted users to access Z-Library using their regular login credentials at a new link. Once users log in, they’re redirected to a personal domain they can use to access close to 12 million free e-books on Z-Library without using encrypted networks like Tor. A second domain is also sent by email. At the time of login, users are prompted to check a box promising, “I will keep my domains in secret.”

TorrentFreak reported that Z-Library’s tactic of assigning unique domains creates “a technical setup that anticipates future enforcement action” and will help the site mitigate disruptions by deploying backup domains as needed to avert domain seizures. In November, US officials seized 200 domain names connected to Z-Library, TorrentFreak reported, and to prevent officials from succeeding with future enforcement actions, Z-Library is now depending on users to keep their personal domains private.

Enlarge / A slice through a crystal of Feldspar (gray, center of view), a key mineral in the weathering process. (credit: Chmee2/Wikimedia CC-by-SA)

Scientists have understood for years that silicate minerals react with CO₂ and water to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, acting as a thermostat that kept Earth’s climate broadly stable over billions of years. But how sensitive is that thermostat? To find out, scientists need to scale up lab measurements to fit the real world, but it has been impossible to reconcile the lab work with the real-world measurements made in soils and rivers.

This gap in our understanding has hampered efforts to model Earth’s long-term carbon cycle and climate, making it hard to predict exactly how effective silicate weathering, both natural and artificial, would be at removing CO₂ from our atmosphere.

In a paper in the journal Science, professor Susan Brantley and her team from Penn State University have found a way to quantify silicate weathering’s response to temperature consistently at all scales, from lab measurements and real-world measurements in landscapes to the whole world. In doing so, they have identified the kind of landscape that has the most influence on Earth’s thermostat.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Despite car enthusiasts' best efforts, the manual transmission’s days are numbered. Blame it on electrification, future autonomous technologies, or the fact that kids these days just don’t care about driving. Whatever helps you cope with this inevitability, the demise of the stick shift is not an "if," it’s a "when."

That’s not to say the manual’s death will be quick; plenty of companies continue to offer three-pedal setups. But who will be the final holdout, the last bastion of the DIY gearbox? Will it be a sports car or an out-of-left-field contender? Put on your speculation cap as we explore some potential scenarios.

Option 1: Porsche

Arguably no car company is as committed to stick shifts as Porsche. The German automaker offers six- and seven-speed gearboxes in multiple models across its 718 and 911 car lines and continues to do so despite competitors discontinuing their manual options.