Tech News

Eating From Plastic Takeout Containers Can Increase Heart Failure Risk, Study Finds

science - Posted On:2025-02-15 05:15:00 Source: slashdot

A new study suggests that frequent consumption of food from plastic takeout containers significantly increases the risk of congestive heart failure due to gut biome changes that trigger inflammation and circulatory damage. The Guardian reports: The authors used a two-part approach, first looking into the frequency with which over 3,000 people in China ate from plastic takeout containers, and whether they had heart disease. They then exposed rats to plastic chemicals in water that was boiled and poured in carryout containers to extract chemicals. "The data revealed that high-frequency exposure to plastics is significantly associated with an increased risk of congestive heart failure," the authors wrote. [...] They put boiling water in the containers for one, five or 15 minutes because plastic chemicals leach at much higher rates when hot contents are placed in containers -- the study cited previous research that found as many as 4.2m microplastic particles per sq cm can leach from plastic containers that are microwaved. The authors then gave rats the water contaminated with leachate to drink for several months, then analyzed the gut biome and metabolites in the feces. It found notable changes. "It indicated that ingestion of these leachates altered the intestinal microenvironment, affected gut microbiota composition, and modified gut microbiota metabolites, particularly those linked to inflammation and oxidative stress," the authors wrote. They then checked the rats' heart muscle tissue and found it had been damaged. The study did not find a statistical difference in the changes and damage among rats that were exposed to water that had been in contact with plastic for one minute versus five or fifteen. The study has been published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AI Used To Design a Multi-Step Enzyme That Can Digest Some Plastics

science - Posted On:2025-02-15 02:15:00 Source: slashdot

Leveraging AI tools like RFDiffusion and PLACER, researchers were able to design a novel enzyme capable of breaking down plastic by targeting ester bonds, a key component in polyester. Ars Technica reports: The researchers started out by using the standard tools they developed to handle protein design, including an AI tool named RFDiffusion, which uses a random seed to generate a variety of protein backgrounds. In this case, the researchers asked RFDiffusion to match the average positions of the amino acids in a family of ester-breaking enzymes. The results were fed to another neural network, which chose the amino acids such that they'd form a pocket that would hold an ester that breaks down into a fluorescent molecule so they could follow the enzyme's activity using its glow. Of the 129 proteins designed by this software, only two of them resulted in any fluorescence. So the team decided they needed yet another AI. Called PLACER, the software was trained by taking all the known structures of proteins latched on to small molecules and randomizing some of their structure, forcing the AI to learn how to shift things back into a functional state (making it a generative AI). The hope was that PLACER would be trained to capture some of the structural details that allow enzymes to adopt more than one specific configuration over the course of the reaction they were catalyzing. And it worked. Repeating the same process with an added PLACER screening step boosted the number of enzymes with catalytic activity by over three-fold. Unfortunately, all of these enzymes stalled after a single reaction. It turns out they were much better at cleaving the ester, but they left one part of it chemically bonded to the enzyme. In other words, the enzymes acted like part of the reaction, not a catalyst. So the researchers started using PLACER to screen for structures that could adopt a key intermediate state of the reaction. This produced a much higher rate of reactive enzymes (18 percent of them cleaved the ester bond), and two -- named "super" and "win" -- could actually cycle through multiple rounds of reactions. The team had finally made an enzyme. By adding additional rounds alternating between structure suggestions using RFDiffusion and screening using PLACER, the team saw the frequency of functional enzymes increase and eventually designed one that had an activity similar to some produced by actual living things. They also showed they could use the same process to design an esterase capable of digesting the bonds in PET, a common plastic. The research has been published in the journal Science. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China To Develop Gene-Editing Tools, New Crop Varieties

science - Posted On:2025-02-14 13:15:00 Source: slashdot

China issued guidelines on Friday to promote biotech cultivation, focusing on gene-editing tools and developing new wheat, corn, and soybean varieties, as part of efforts to ensure food security and boost agriculture technology. From a report: The 2024-2028 plan aims to achieve "independent and controllable" seed sources for key crops, with a focus to cultivate high-yield, multi-resistant wheat, corn and high-oil, high-yield soybean and rapeseed varieties. The move comes as China intensifies efforts to boost domestic yields of key crops like soybeans to reduce reliance on imports from countries such as the United States amid a looming trade war. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Brain Implant That Could Boost Mood By Using Ultrasound To Go Under NHS Trial

science - Posted On:2025-02-13 22:45:00 Source: slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A groundbreaking NHS trial will attempt to boost patients' mood using a brain-computer-interface that directly alters brain activity using ultrasound. The device, which is designed to be implanted beneath the skull but outside the brain, maps activity and delivers targeted pulses of ultrasound to "switch on" clusters of neurons. Its safety and tolerability will be tested on about 30 patient in the 6.5 million-pound trial, funded by the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria). [...] The latest trial will test a device developed by the US-based non-profit Forest Neurotech. In contrast to invasive implants, in which electrodes are inserted into a specific location in the brain, Forest 1 uses ultrasound to read-out and modify activity. Aria describes the device as "the most advanced BCI in the world" due to its ability to modify activity across multiple regions simultaneously. This widens potential future applications to a huge patient population affected by conditions such as depression, anxiety and epilepsy, which are all "circuit level" conditions rather than being localized in a specific brain region. The NHS trial will recruit patients who, due to brain injury, have had part of their skull temporarily removed to relieve a critical buildup of pressure in the brain. This means the device can be tested without having to perform surgery. When placed beneath the skull, or in individuals with a skull defect, ultrasound can detect tiny changes in blood flow to produce 3D maps of brain activity with a spatial resolution of about 100 times that of a typical fMRI scan. The same implant can deliver focused ultrasound to mechanically nudge neurons towards firing, providing a way to remotely dial activity up at precise locations. Participants will wear the device on their scalp at the site of the skull defect for two hours. Their brain activity will be measured and researchers will test whether patients' mood and feelings of motivation can be reliably altered. There are safety considerations, as ultrasound can cause tissue to heat up. Prof Elsa Fouragnan, a neuroscientist at the University of Plymouth, which is collaborating on the project, said: "What we're trying to minimize is heat. There's a safety and efficacy trade-off." She added that it would also be important to ensure that personality or decision-making were not altered in unintended ways -- for instance, making someone more impulsive. The study will run for three and a half years starting from March, with the first eight months focused on securing regulatory approval. If successful, Forest hopes to move into a full clinical trial for a condition such as depression. Aimun Jamjoom, a consultant neurosurgeon at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge university hospitals NHS trust, who is leading the project, said: "[T]he ability to offer a safer form of surgery is very exciting. If you look at conditions like depression or epilepsy, [up to] a third of these patients just don't get better. It's those groups where a technology like this could be a life-changing solution." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bezos-Backed Blue Origin To Cut 10% of Its Workforce

science - Posted On:2025-02-13 15:30:00 Source: slashdot

Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin is cutting about 10% of its workforce, a significant pullback aimed at slashing costs and refocusing resources after years of development work. From a report: The rocket and engine maker laid out the personnel shakeup during an all-hands employee meeting with Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp Thursday morning, confirming a workforce reduction first reported by Bloomberg. In a memo sent to employees, Limp said the company's growth led to "more bureaucracy and less focus" than needed after a hiring spree over the past few years. After years of expansion bankrolled by Bezos, who started Amazon and is the world's third-richest person, Blue Origin is looking to trim manager ranks as it works to clear some $10 billion worth of launch contracts. With a staff of more than 10,000, the layoffs stand to impact over 1,000 roles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Astronomers Amazed By Perfect 'Einstein Ring' Gleaming In Space

science - Posted On:2025-02-13 02:15:00 Source: slashdot

Astronomers have discovered a perfect ring of light in a galaxy 590 million light-years away. "The phenomenon is known as an Einstein ring, and it was discovered circumscribing the galaxy NGC 6505 in data collected by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope," reports SpaceAlert. From the report: [...] In the case of the newly discovered Einstein ring, the light that encircles the near galaxy is from a more distant galaxy, sitting some 4.42 billion light-years away, whose light has been warped by the curvature of space-time around NGC 6505. It's a very lucky arrangement of objects: they are aligned in such a way that the distant galaxy's light is stretched into a perfect ring, with brighter blobs representing replicated images of the galaxy at four points around the ring. And the closeness of NGC 6505 makes it even more astonishing. Only five other lenses have been discovered so close; simulations suggest this new lens only had a 0.05 percent chance of existing, never mind being discovered. The more distant galaxy had never been seen before; now, scientists have the perfect tool to study it in greater detail than would be possible without the lens. The research has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First Ultra-High-Energy Neutrino Detected

science - Posted On:2025-02-12 20:15:00 Source: slashdot

Longtime Slashdot reader JoeRobe writes: Scientists associated with the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, have reported detection of an ultra-high energy neutrino deep in the Mediterranean sea. The neutrino reportedly had an energy of 120 million billion electron volts (1.2x10^17 eV, or 120 PeV). This is similar to the energy of ping-pong ball traveling ~5 m/s, but all that energy was packed into a single subatomic particle. According to the New York Times, "Here, squeezed into one of the tiniest flecks of matter in our universe, that energy amounted to tens of thousands of times more than what can be achieved by the world's premier particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN." According to the authors of the Nature paper, the direction of the neutrino "is compatible with the extension of the galactic interstellar medium," but they did not find any catalogued source that would produce such a high energy neutrino, within the Milky Way or from about 40 other galaxies that could be candidates. Phys.org describes the impressive scale of the KM3NeT detector array: "It is located at 3,450 m depth, about 80 km from the coast of Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily. Its 700 m high detection units (DUs) are anchored to the seabed and positioned about 100 m apart. Every DU is equipped with 18 Digital Optical Modules (DOM) each containing 31 photomultipliers (PMTs). In its final configuration, ARCA will comprise 230 DUs. The data collected are transmitted via a submarine cable to the shore station at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud. The KM3NeT/ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) detector is optimized to study the fundamental properties of the neutrino itself. It is located at a depth of 2,450 m, about 40 km from the coast of Toulon, France. It will comprise 115 DUs, each 200 m high and spaced by 20 m. The data collected by ORCA are sent to the shore station at La Seyne Sur Mer." "This ultra-high energy neutrino may originate directly from a powerful cosmic accelerator," surmises Phys.org. "Alternatively, it could be the first detection of a cosmogenic neutrino. However, based on this single neutrino it is difficult to conclude its origin." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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From 900 miles away, the US government recorded audio of the Titan sub implosion

Science - Posted On:2025-02-12 17:30:00 Source: arstechnica

Thanks to being an incompressible medium, water transmits vibrations both farther and faster than the air. (Here's a good video explainer on the subject.) This fact helps to explain how a US government-owned "moored passive acoustic recorder" was able to hear and record the 2023 implosion of the doomed Titan submersible—even though the recorder was 900 miles away from the dive site.

That implosion, during an attempted dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, killed five people, including Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company that built and operated the Titan.

The implosion audio was just released publicly by the US Coast Guard's Titan Marine Board of Investigation, which has been investigating the disaster in enormous detail. As part of that investigation, the Coast Guard obtained the audio from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the US Department of Commerce.

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Seafloor detector picks up record neutrino while under construction

Science - Posted On:2025-02-12 14:30:01 Source: arstechnica

On Wednesday, a team of researchers announced that they got extremely lucky. The team is building a detector on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea that can identify those rare occasions when a neutrino happens to interact with the seawater nearby. And while the detector was only 10 percent of the size it will be on completion, it managed to pick up the most energetic neutrino ever detected.

For context, the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider, accelerates protons to an energy of 7 Tera-electronVolts (TeV). The neutrino that was detected had an energy of at least 60 Peta-electronVolts, possibly hitting 230 PeV. That also blew away the previous records, which were in the neighborhood of 10 PeV.

Attempts to trace back the neutrino to a source make it clear that it originated outside our galaxy, although there are a number of candidate sources in the more distant Universe.

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Most energetic neutrino yet seen smashes through seafloor detector

Science - Posted On:2025-02-12 12:45:00 Source: arstechnica

On Wednesday, a team of researchers announced that they got extremely lucky. The team is building a detector on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea that can identify those rare occasions when a neutrino happens to interact with the seawater nearby. And while the detector was only 10 percent of the size it will be on completion, it managed to pick up the most energetic neutrino ever detected.

For context, the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider, accelerates protons to an energy of 7 Tera-electronVolts (TeV). The neutrino that was detected had an energy of at least 60 Peta-electronVolts, possibly hitting 230 PeV. That also blew away the previous records, which were in the neighborhood of 10 PeV.

Attempts to trace back the neutrino to a source make it clear that it originated outside our galaxy, although there are a number of candidate sources in the more distant Universe.

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Children's Arithmetic Skills Do Not Transfer Between Applied and Academic Mathematics

science - Posted On:2025-02-12 11:15:00 Source: slashdot

Children working in India's fruit and vegetable markets can perform complex mental calculations with ease, yet struggle with basic written math tests that determine their academic future, according to new research that raises troubling questions about mathematics education worldwide. The study, published in Nature, reveals how traditional education systems are failing to tap into the mathematical talents of students who develop practical skills outside the classroom, particularly those from lower-income families. MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee, who grew up watching young market vendors deftly handle complicated transactions, led the research. His team found that while these children could rapidly perform mental arithmetic, they performed poorly on standard written assessments like long division problems. The findings come at a critical moment when mathematics education must evolve to meet modern demands, incorporating data literacy and computational skills alongside traditional mathematics. The research points to systemic issues, including a global shortage of trained mathematics teachers and assessment systems that reward memorization over reasoning. Without addressing these challenges, researchers warn, naturally talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds may never reach their potential in fields like research, entrepreneurship, or teaching. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientific breakthroughs are hard without money for research infrastructure

Science - Posted On:2025-02-12 10:00:01 Source: arstechnica

Biomedical research in the US is world class in part because of a longstanding partnership between universities and the federal government.

On Feb. 7, 2025, the US National Institutes of Health issued a policy that could weaken the position of the United States as a global leader in scientific innovation by slashing funds to the infrastructure that allows universities and other institutions to conduct research in the first place.

Universities across the nation carry out research on behalf of the federal government. Central to this partnership is federal grant funding, which is awarded through a rigorous review process. These grants are the lifeblood of biomedical research in the US.

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If it moves, it’s probably alive: Searching for life on other planets

Science - Posted On:2025-02-12 08:00:00 Source: arstechnica

The search for extraterrestrial life has always been a key motivator of space exploration. But if we were to search Mars, Titan, or the subsurface oceans of Europa or Enceladus, it seems like all we can reasonably hope to find is extremophile microbes. And microbes, just a few microns long and wide, will be difficult to identify if we’re relying on robots working with limited human supervision and without all the fancy life-detecting gear we have here on Earth.

To solve that problem, a team of German researchers at the Technical University in Berlin figured that, instead of having a robot looking for microbes, it would be easier and cheaper to make the microbes come to the robot. The only ingredient they were lacking was the right bait.

Most ideas we have for life detection on space mission rely on looking for chemical traces of life, such as various metabolites. Most recent missions, the Perseverance rover included, weren’t equipped with any specialized life-detecting instruments. “On Mars, the focus was on looking for signs of possible ancient life—fossils or other traces of microbes,” says Max Riekeles, an astrobiologist at the Technical University Berlin. “The last real in-situ life detection missions were performed by Viking landers, which is quite a while back already,”

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ULA’s Vulcan rocket still doesn’t have the Space Force’s seal of approval

Science - Posted On:2025-02-11 11:00:00 Source: arstechnica

Last October, United Launch Alliance started stacking its third Vulcan rocket on a mobile launch platform in Florida in preparation for a mission for the US Space Force by the end of the year.

That didn't happen, and ULA is still awaiting the Space Force's formal certification of its new rocket, further pushing out delivery schedules for numerous military satellites booked to fly to orbit on the Vulcan launcher.

Now, several months after stacking the next Vulcan rocket, ULA has started taking it apart. First reported by Spaceflight Now, the "de-stacking" will clear ULA's vertical hangar for assembly of an Atlas V rocket—the Vulcan's predecessor—to launch the first batch of operational satellites for Amazon's Kuiper Internet constellation.

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Microplastics Can Block Blood Vessels in Mice Brains, Researchers Find

science - Posted On:2025-02-11 09:45:00 Source: slashdot

Microplastics can move through mice brains and block blood vessels, essentially mimicking blood clots that could potentially be fatal or otherwise disrupt brain function. From a report: The findings are detailed in a peer-reviewed paper for which researchers for the first time used real-time imaging to track bits of plastic as they moved through and accumulated in brain blood vessels. When one piece of plastic got stuck, others accumulated behind it, like a "car crash," the authors reported. The authors then found decreased motor function in those mice exposed to microplastics, suggesting impacts on the brain. While mounting evidence has linked microplastics to neurotoxicity, the research is the first to suggest how -- it probably reduces blood flow. "This revelation offers a lens through which to comprehend the toxicological implications of microplastics that invade the bloodstream," the Peking University authors wrote. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Euclid Telescope Captures Einstein Ring Revealing Warping of Space

science - Posted On:2025-02-10 10:30:00 Source: slashdot

Europe's Euclid space telescope has captured a rare "Einstein ring," showing light from a distant galaxy bent into a perfect circle by the gravity of another galaxy sitting between Earth and the source, the European Space Agency said. The phenomenon, spotted around galaxy NGC 6505 some 590 million light-years from Earth, reveals the warping of space predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. The background galaxy, located 4.42 billion light-years away, appears as a complete ring of light around NGC 6505. "An Einstein ring as perfect as this is extremely rare," said Open University astronomer Stephen Serjeant. Analysis shows NGC 6505 contains about 11% dark matter, a key focus of Euclid's mission to map the universe. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Boeing's 'Starliner' Also Experienced an Issue on Its Return to Earth

science - Posted On:2025-02-09 04:00:01 Source: slashdot

Friday the Orlando Sentinel covered NASA's 2024 mission-safety report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (formed in 1968). The report "commended the agency's handling of last year's beleaguered Boeing's Starliner mission [prioritizing astronaut safety], but revealed yet another issue found during the flight and questioned the agency's needs for the spacecraft in the future..." [The report] stated that it was unclear how a decision was made to waive a failure tolerance requirement on some of the thrusters without flight or qualification data to justify the decision. "These examples illustrate the panel's concern that, absent role clarity, risk management choices could unintentionally devolve to contractors, whose interests may not fully align with NASA's," the report warned... It also revealed that in addition to the thruster and leak issues on the propulsion module driving the decision to fly home without astronauts, Starliner had a new issue as it made its way back to Earth. "Overall, Starliner performed well across all major systems in the undock, deorbit, and landing sequences; however, an additional mono propellant thruster failure was discovered in the crew module — distinct from the failures in the service module experienced during orbit," the report stated. "Had the crew been aboard, this would have significantly increased the risk during reentry, confirming the wisdom of the decision." As far as Starliner's path to certification, the ASAP report said it would continue to monitor several unresolved issues with thrusters and seek information on how NASA and Boeing plan to get the spacecraft certified. "While the thruster issues have received considerable attention, the panel has previously noted other Starliner issues that require resolution prior to certification," it stated. That includes a battery redesign and work to strengthen the landing airbag apparatus. "Beyond these technical matters, schedule and budget pose substantial challenges to Starliner certification," the report added... "Until the Starliner certification plan is well understood, it remains unclear as to whether a second provider will be available prior to the end of the ISS's operational life [in 2030]," the report stated. The report "also suggested that NASA immediately adapt next-generation extravehicular mobility units, or EVUs," reports ExecutiveGov, "as current space suits astronauts use for operations outside the ISS are now beyond their design life." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Twisted Graphene Sheets Reveal 'Unconventional' Superconductivity Governed by Quantum Geometry

science - Posted On:2025-02-08 17:15:00 Source: slashdot

Twisting two atomically thin sheets of graphene enables "a host of exceptional properties," writes MIT News, "including unconventional superconductivity." (Which makes this graphene "a promising building block for future quantum-computing devices.") And now "We find the superfluid stiffness to be much larger than expected..." a team of researchers reported this week in Nature. Hackaday explains that "Part of the problem has been that it is hard to make large pieces of multi-layer graphene. By creating two-ply pieces and using special techniques, an international team is finding that quantum geometry explains how graphene superconductors resist changes in current flow more readily than conventional superconductors." Or, as Science Alert puts it, "Forced to run a labyrinth of carbon atoms uniquely arranged in twisted stacks, electrons do some rather peculiar things." Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada, the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University in the US, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan recently discovered a strange new state of matter in the dynamics of currents flowing through layers of graphene. The findings confirm predictions on how electrons ought to behave when squeezed into crystalline arrangements, and may contribute fresh ideas on how to achieve reliable approaches to quantum computing or reveal ways to develop room-temperature superconduction... Graphene has been increasingly seen as something of a wonder material over recent decades, its lattice of carbon atoms connected in a way that leaves spare electrons to leap about like tokens in a game of quantum checkers. Physicists have consistently bent the rules of this game, finding new and unusual ways to alter properties of resistance or coordinate into exotic states. For these reasons, graphene has become a perfect playground to search for clues on low-resistance conductivity or test the boundaries of various quantum effects. This week MIT research scientist Joel Wang (a co-lead on the study) said "There's a whole family of 2D superconductors that is waiting to be probed, and we are really just scratching the surface." New Scientist explores where their research could lead: Why do cold thin sheets of carbon offer no resistance to electric currents? Two experiments are bringing us closer to an answer — and maybe even to practical room-temperature superconductors... Past experiments have shown that very cold stacks of two or three layers of graphene can superconduct, or perfectly conduct electricity without resistance and energy loss, if some of the sheets are rotated by a special angle. But why this happens remained mysterious... [B]oth teams had to innovate a setup where the tiny graphene flakes were exposed to microwaves while the researchers slowly varied properties like temperature, which must be kept very low for superconductivity to occur at all... "We are finding interesting laws which seem to emerge in both these material systems. Maybe what we are uncovering is something deeper," says [Harvard postdoctoral researcher Abhishek Banerjee]. Both teams are planning on performing similar experiments with other very thin superconductors. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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National Institutes of Health radically cuts support to universities

Science - Posted On:2025-02-07 20:15:00 Source: arstechnica

Grants paid by the federal government have two components. One covers the direct costs of performing the research, paying for salaries, equipment, and consumables like chemicals or enzymes. But the government also pays what are called indirect costs. These go to the universities and research institutes, covering the costs of providing and maintaining the lab space, heat and electricity, administrative and HR functions, and more.

These indirect costs are negotiated with each research institution and average close to 30 percent of the amount awarded for the research. Some institutions see indirect rates as high as half the value of the grant.

On Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that negotiated rates were ending. Every existing grant, and all those funded in the future, will see the indirect cost rate set to just 15 percent. With no warning and no time to adjust to the change in policy, this will prove catastrophic for the budget of nearly every biomedical research institution.

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US Health System Notifies 882,000 Patients of August 2023 Breach

science - Posted On:2025-02-07 19:15:00 Source: slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Hospital Sisters Health System notified over 882,000 patients that an August 2023 cyberattack led to a data breach that exposed their personal and health information. Established in 1875, HSHS works with over 2,200 physicians and has around 12,000 employees. It also operates a network of physician practices and 15 local hospitals across Illinois and Wisconsin, including two children's hospitals. The non-profit healthcare system said in data breach notifications sent to those impacted that the incident was discovered on August 27, 2023, after detecting that the attacker had gained access to HSHS' network. After the security breach, its systems were also impacted by a widespread outage that took down "virtually all operating systems" and phone systems across Illinois and Wisconsin hospitals. HSHS also hired external security experts to investigate the attack, assess its impact, and help its IT team restore affected systems. [...] While the incident and the resulting outage have all the signs of a ransomware attack, no ransomware operation has claimed the breach. Following the forensic investigation, HSHS found that the attackers had accessed files on compromised systems between August 16 and August 27, 2023. The information accessed by the threat actors while inside HSHS' systems varies for each impacted individual, and it includes a combination of name, address, date of birth, medical record number, limited treatment information, health insurance information, Social Security number, and/or driver's license number. While HSHS added that there is no evidence that the victims' information has been used in fraud or identity theft attempts, it warned affected individuals to monitor their account statements and credit reports for suspicious activity. The health system also offers those affected by the breach one year of free Equifax credit monitoring. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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