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Hyperloop One

Here's a look at the sled Hyperloop One is testing in North Las Vegas today.

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The test of Hyperloop One's propulsion system is just one step of many on the path to achieve a dream put forth by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who first drew up a plan to transport people at 760mph in low-pressure tubes in 2013. Musk decided not to pursue this business venture, which he called Hyperloop, but his whitepaper spawned two rival Hyperloop companies and an international student engineer competition.

Hyperloop One, formerly known Hyperloop Technologies, announced its name change on Tuesday, hoping to differentiate itself from Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), which has also made considerable headway in research and development of such a transportation system. HTT announced on Monday that it had exclusively licensed passive magnetic levitation technology that would serve to keep Hyperloop pods off the track, minimizing friction as they speed through a tube.

Jonathan Schwartz in 2004 at the JavaOne conference. (Photo by Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (credit: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO—Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz took the stand today in the second Oracle v. Google trial, testifying about the Java language and APIs, including how they were used in the market.

After a brief overview of his career path, Schwartz launched into a discussion about Java, the software language that Sun created and popularized. It's critical testimony in the Oracle v. Google lawsuit, in which Oracle claims that Google's use of Java APIs, now owned by Oracle, violates copyright law. Oracle is seeking up to $9 billion in damages.

Was the Java language, created by Sun Microsystems in the 1990s, "free and open to use," Google lawyer Robert Van Nest asked?

This photo demonstrates the difference in size in Zika virus-infected vs. uninfected fetal mouse brains. (credit: Li, Xu, Ye, and Hong et al./Cell Stem Cell 2016)

Three separate studies released Wednesday present the first batch of mouse model data on what happens when Zika virus infects a pregnant mammal—and the data is as grisly as one might expect.

The three studies were led by research groups in Brazil, the US, and China and back up the grim epidemiological data in humans, which links the virus to miscarriages and birth defects, particularly microcephaly, a defect in which babies are born with small and malformed brains.

This fluorescent image shows the Zika virus (green) inside a placenta cell (nuclei labeled in red). (credit: Bin Cao)

Collectively, the new studies highlight that when Zika infects a pregnant mouse, the virus homes in on the developing fetuses, invading the placenta and fetal brains in large numbers. In one of the studies, viral numbers in the placenta were 1,000-fold higher than in maternal blood. Once in fetal brains, the virus specifically attacked developing and mature neurons, triggering cell death, haywire immune responses, and severe brain malformations. In another of the studies, researchers noted that the number of viruses in a fetal brain increased by about 300 percent within three days of invasion. Many of the pups in the studies died in utero, while others were quickly eaten by their mothers after birth—a common mouse response to birthing sickly pups.

(credit: Getty Images | Glowimages)

The Frontier Communications acquisition of Verizon's network in Florida has created tons of problems for customers, including weeks-long outages, painfully long customer service phone calls, and bigger early termination fees, state Attorney General Pam Bondi says. Bondi sent a letter Monday to Frontier CEO Daniel McCarthy asking for faster fixes to remaining problems and refunds for customers.

Frontier purchased Verizon's FiOS and DSL businesses in California, Florida, and Texas, taking over the fiber and copper networks on April 1. Florida government officials are not alone in expressing alarm about problems the transition has caused customers, as a California legislative committee is planning a hearing on the topic on Wednesday next week.

Bondi said her office has received 128 complaints from former Verizon customers in Florida. "Business and residential customers have complained of going days or weeks without any Internet or phone service," Bondi wrote. "We have also received several complaints from seniors who have lost essential 911 services as the result of disruptions in land line services. This is not acceptable."

Artist's conception of a hot Neptune orbiting close to its host star. Kepler-223 has four such planets, all with orbital periods of less than 20 days. By contrast, Mercury's orbit takes 88 days. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

How did our solar system reach its current configuration? One of the leading candidates to explain things like the sparseness of the Asteroid Belt and the small size of Mars is the grand tack, in which Jupiter originally migrated inward toward the Sun until its interactions with Saturn pulled them both back outward.

The idea that giant planets may go for a wander around their star's orbital neighborhood has picked up some support from many of the exosolar systems we've discovered. We've spotted tightly packed systems of large planets when there probably wasn't enough material in the region to form all of them, suggesting that they formed somewhere else and then migrated into place.

But this idea raises some questions. What stops the planets from their wanderings, keeps them from smashing into each other, and prevents them from falling into their host star? A phenomenon known as orbital resonance may be the answer, and researchers argue that it explains the presence of four exoplanets all with orbits of less than 20 days.

If you're in the Bay Area this fine evening, we'd love for you to join us for the filming of our second episode of Ars Technica Live, a monthly interview series with fascinating people who work at the intersection of tech, science, and culture. We're meeting tonight, May 18, in Oakland, California, from 7 to 9pm for a discussion with law professor Elizabeth Joh about technology, surveillance, and law enforcement.

Filmed before a live audience in Oakland tiki bar Longitude (347 14th St., Oakland, California), each episode of Ars Technica Live is a speculative, informal conversation between your fine hosts Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar and an invited guest. The audience—that would be you—is also invited to join the conversation and ask questions. These aren’t soundbyte setups; they are deep cuts from the frontiers of research and creativity.

This month's event is about the legal and ethical implications of how police use surveillance technology. Guest Elizabeth Joh is a UC Davis law professor who has done extensive research on how police use surveillance technology, including body cams. She's also interested in DNA databases.

Getty Images | ullstein bild

The proposed layout of the track is superimposed onto this aerial photograph of Castle Nürburg and its surroundings.

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The Nürburgring is a place with few equals. A ribbon of tarmac and concrete a little over 16 miles (just under 23km) long, it snakes its way around the hills surrounding the town (and medieval castle) of Nürburg in Germany's Eifel Mountains. Many people think it's the planet's most challenging race track, a combination of long straights (and therefore high speeds), plenty of blind corners, and an extremely unforgiving nature. And perhaps uniquely, it's a real-life place intimately familiar to tens of millions of people who have never set foot on it thanks to its inclusion in a number of best-selling video games.

It's hard to think of another real place that's featured in so many games and simulated with such depth. Between its inclusion in Gran Turismo (from GT4 onwards) and Forza Motorsport, more than 50 million digital Nürburgrings have been shipped for consoles since the mid-2000s.

It's unlike any track that would be built today—unlike any track that anyone has built for the last half-century, in fact. Opened in 1927, it was the brainchild of Dr Otto Creutz, a local administrator. Car races had been held on closed public roads in the area, but Creutz figured that a purpose-built track would do just as well at drawing in tourists without the annoying road closures and disruption.