Month: August 2019

Paramount Pictures marked the anniversary of the Terminator franchise's original fictional Judgement Day (August 29, 1997) with the release of a full-length trailer for its forthcoming film, Terminator: Dark Fate. It's technically the sixth film in the series, but it's actually been conceived as a direct sequel to the hugely successful first two films in the franchise: Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

So Terminator: Dark Fate pretty much ignores all the other Terminator movies as existing in alternate timelines—an attempt to go back to the glory days of the franchise, complete with the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, and Linda Hamilton, plus James Cameron on board as producer. Per the official synopsis, "27 years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a new, modified liquid metal Terminator (Gabriel Luna) is sent from the future by Skynet in order to terminate Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a hybrid cyborg human (Mackenzie Davis), and her friends. Sarah Connor comes to their aid, as well as the original Terminator, for a fight for the future."

The first teaser dropped in May, whereupon we learned that Dani has been on the run with her friends for a couple of years under the protection of soldier assassin Grace, the human/cyborg hybrid. And Luna's Rev-9 Terminator can actually split in two, the better to take out its target(s). An understandably suspicious Sarah nonetheless teams up with Grace to protect Dani and her friends, and we had a brief glimpse of Schwarzenegger's grizzled old Terminator, apparently hiding out in a remote cabin in the woods, ready to come to their aid as well.

Enlarge (credit: PhotoAlto / Frederic Cirou / Getty Images)

As investigations into a massive, coordinated ransomware attack against local governments in Texas continues, 13 new victims of ransomware attacks have been publicly identified. Most of them are school districts, thought the victims also include an Indiana county, a hospice in California, and a newspaper in Watertown, New York.

The ransomware involved in the Texas attacks, which hit 22 local-level government entities, has not yet been identified.  Multiple sources have suggested that the Texas attacker gained access through a managed service provider that the local governments all had in common, but that has not been confirmed by state officials.

In the case of this latest batch of attacks, Ryuk ransomware has been identified as the malware used on at least three occasions. The victims, based on data collected by the threat research group at cloud security firm Armor, include:

Enlarge / A man smokes an e-cigarette. (credit: Getty | Picture alliance)

State and federal investigations into the puzzling burst of severe lung illnesses linked to e-cigarette use—aka vaping—are focusing in on black-market and counterfeit products, according to a report by the Washington Post.

Unknown adulterants and dubious solvents—such as oils and diluting “cutting agents”—in vaping liquids are now the prime suspects behind the illnesses, which have struck at least 193 people in 22 states since June 28 of this year. One person in Illinois has died. Investigators say that in many of the cases people bought suspect products on the black market or in “pop-up” shops.

Solvents in counterfeit and black-market vaping liquids “can vary a lot,” an unnamed official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Post. The official added that solvents sold for mixing home-made vaping liquids may also be mislabeled.

Enlarge (credit: Garay Lab)

What makes a good construction material? There are many requirements, but one is the ability to efficiently connect different parts. Steel is almost the perfect example: you can join steel with fasteners (like nuts and bolts), by brazing, or by welding. The last of these is especially important. If we couldn’t weld metals, life would be quite different.

You don't see this with ceramics. Ceramic parts are the hard-wearing miracle of modern life, but unlike steel and aluminum, you won’t find ceramics everywhere. This is because ceramics, though very useful, are difficult to work with. Joining two ceramics, or even connecting a ceramic to a metal, is a difficult and energy-consuming process because ceramics cannot be welded. That has changed, thanks to a team of researchers who are developing a ceramic welding laser.

Welding is riveting

Welding is a really special process. At one level, it is very simple: heat two materials until they melt and flow together. However, the melting is only local, so that there is only minimal deformation to the rest of the part. The joint needs to be strong, which means that changes to the structure of the metal should not be too dramatic. Melting metals tend to oxidize vigorously, complicating the process.