Thursday 27 June 2019

EU okays IBM's $34 bn buyout of Red Hat

The EU's powerful anti-trust authority on Thursday cleared the buyout by IBM of open source software company Red Hat, one of the biggest tech mergers in history which the computing giant said would enhance its cloud offerings.

* This article was originally published here

A snapshot in time: Study captures fleeting cell differences that can alter disease risk

In cinema and science fiction, one small change in the past can have major, sometimes life-changing effects in the future. Using a series of snapshots, researchers recently captured such so-called "butterfly effects" in heart muscle cell development, and say this new view into the sequence of gene expression activity may lead to better understanding disease risk.

* This article was originally published here

New unprinting method can help recycle paper and curb environmental costs

Imagine if your printer had an "unprint" button that used pulses of light to remove toner—and thereby quintupled the lifespan of recycled paper.

* This article was originally published here

It's easier to trust automated vehicles when we know what they plan to do ahead of time

When it comes to automated vehicles, humans continue to have difficulty trusting that the cars will make the right driving decisions to get them where they want to go and do it safely.

* This article was originally published here

Terra satellite eyes tropical storm Alvin

Visible imagery from NASA's Terra satellite showed Tropical Storm Alvin had organized and strengthened into a strong tropical storm, just over 500 miles from Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

* This article was originally published here

Menstrual symptoms linked to nearly nine days of lost productivity through presenteeism every year

Menstrual period symptoms may be linked to nearly nine days of lost productivity every year through presenteeism, suggests the largest study of its kind, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

* This article was originally published here

Teaching robots what humans want

Told to optimize for speed while racing down a track in a computer game, a car pushes the pedal to the metal … and proceeds to spin in a tight little circle. Nothing in the instructions told the car to drive straight, and so it improvised.

* This article was originally published here

Five dead endangered right whales found in Canadian waters

Five critically endangered North Atlantic right whales have been found dead in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence this month, Canadian officials said Thursday.

* This article was originally published here

Mark Zuckerberg to regulators: We need your help to protect elections

As public trust in Facebook's ability to wield its power responsibly has fractured in the face of a series of privacy breaches and other scandals, the company has been facing fresh calls for regulation from numerous quarters of the federal government.

* This article was originally published here

Hacker used Raspberry Pi computer to steal restricted NASA data

A hacker used a tiny Raspberry Pi computer to infiltrate NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory network, stealing sensitive data and forcing the temporary disconnection of space-flight systems, the agency has revealed.

* This article was originally published here

Study: Tesla Autopilot misleading, overestimated more than similar technology

More than any other driver-assist system out there today, people overestimate what Tesla's Autopilot can do, according to a new study.

* This article was originally published here

Malaria hijacks your genes to invade your liver

In the search for new weapons against malaria, most drug development has focused on the parasites that cause the disease. But Duke University researchers are trying a different tack. Instead of targeting the malaria parasite directly, the idea is to discover drugs aimed at the human cell machinery conscripted to do malaria's dirty work.

* This article was originally published here

Men ask most of the questions at scientific conferences; we can choose to change that

Even in a majority-women audience at an academic conference, men ask questions most of the time, researchers report on June 27th in The American Journal of Human Genetics. After analyzing participation in Q&As at the American Society of Human Genetics and Biology of Genomes conferences over four years, the study authors found that public discussion and policy change focused on gender equity can make a significant difference.

* This article was originally published here

Team successfully locates incoming asteroid

For the first time, astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi have demonstrated that their ATLAS and Pan-STARRS survey telescopes can provide sufficient warning to move people away from the impact site of an incoming asteroid. They detected a small asteroid prior to its entering the Earth's atmosphere near Puerto Rico on the morning of June 22, 2019.

* This article was originally published here

The RoboBee flies solo—Cutting the power cord for the first untethered flight

The RoboBee—the insect-inspired microrobot developed by researchers at Harvard University—has become the lightest vehicle ever to achieve sustained flight without the assistance of a power cord. After decades of work, the researchers achieved untethered flight by making several important changes to the RoboBee, including the addition of a second pair of wings. That change, along with less visible changes to the actuators and transmission ratio, gave the RoboBee enough lift for the researchers to attach solar cells and an electronics panel.

* This article was originally published here

New, noninvasive test for bowel diseases

Gut diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are increasingly prevalent worldwide, especially in industrialised countries. In 2015 alone, 250,000 people in the UK were diagnosed with IBD, and 3 million in the United States (1, 2). Symptoms can include pain and swelling of the stomach, bloody diarrhoea, weight loss and extreme tiredness.

* This article was originally published here

Huawei warns US patent curbs would hurt global tech

Chinese tech giant Huawei warned Thursday a U.S. senator's proposal to block the company from pursuing damages in patent courts would be a "catastrophe for global innovation."

* This article was originally published here

Reining in the ecological effects of free-roaming horses

Free-roaming horses are an icon of the American West, frequently appearing in art and media as exemplars of the spirited freedom that underlies the region's folklore. Viewed through an ecological lens, however, these animals may present a different picture—one of degraded landscapes and shrinking biodiversity.

* This article was originally published here

Camera joins Apple band in patent for smartwatch

Camera at the end of a smartwatch strap, anyone? It is being suggested as a way to overcome some hurdles in smartwatch picture-taking.

* This article was originally published here

Robot circulatory system powers possibilities

Untethered robots suffer from a stamina problem. A possible solution: a circulating liquid—"robot blood"—to store energy and power its applications for sophisticated, long-duration tasks.

* This article was originally published here