Lifeboat Foundation

An international team of researchers led by the ETH Zurich and the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS has more accurately recreated the early history of several asteroids than ever before. Their findings suggest that the early solar system was more chaotic than previously assumed.

Before the Earth and other planets formed, the young sun was surrounded by cosmic gas and dust. Slowly, rock shards of varying sizes formed from the dust over the millennia. Many of these became building blocks for subsequent planets. Others did not become planets and continue to circle the sun today, such as asteroids in the asteroid belt.

Iron samples from the cores of asteroids that had fallen on Earth as meteorites were analyzed by researchers from ETH Zurich and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS in conjunction with an international team. In doing so, they revealed a portion of their early past during the formation of planets. Their results were recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

In Latin, nova means “new.” In astronomy, that refers to a temporary bright “star” in the night sky. But the causes of these brief but brilliant stars are varied.

Classical novae occur in a binary star system with a white dwarf and a star close enough together that the white dwarf pulls, or accretes, material from its companion. The material — mostly hydrogen — sits on the surface of the white dwarf until enough has been gathered to kick-start a nuclear fusion reaction, the same process that powers the Sun. As the hydrogen is converted into heavier elements, the temperature increases, which in turn increases the rate of hydrogen burning. At this point, the white dwarf experiences a runaway thermonuclear reaction, ejecting the unburnt hydrogen, which releases 10,000 to 100,000 times the energy our Sun emits in a year. Because the white dwarf remains intact after blowing away this excess, a stellar system can experience multiple classical novae.

Kilonovae occur when two compact objects, like binary neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole, collide. These mergers, as their name suggest, are about 1,000 times brighter than a classical nova, but not as bright as a supernova, which is 10 to 100 times brighter than a kilonova.

Ranjan KC shared a link to the group: Ray Kurzweil.

With the Linpack exaflops milestone achieved by the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the United States is turning its attention to the next crop of exascale machines, some 5-10x more performant than Frontier. At least one such system is being planned for the 2025–2030 timeline, and the DOE is soliciting input from the vendor community to inform the design and procurement process.

A request for information (RFI) was issued today by the Department of Energy, seeking feedback from computing hardware and software vendors, system integrators, and other entities to assist the DOE National Laboratories in planning for next-gen exascale systems. The RFI says responses will “inform one or more DOE system acquisition RFPs, which will describe requirements for system deliveries in the 2025–2030 timeframe.” This could include the successor to Frontier (aka OLCF-6), the successor to Aurora (aka ALCF-5), the successor to Crossroads (aka ATS-5), the successor to El Capitan (aka ATS-6) as well as a future NERSC system (possibly NERSC-11). Note that of the “predecessor systems,” only Frontier has been installed so far.

Continue reading “US Pursues Next-gen Exascale Systems with 5-10x the Performance of Frontier” »

Two researchers show that for neural networks to be able to remember better, they need far more parameters than previously thought.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has blocked dozens of malicious domains and websites used by hack-for-hire groups in attacks targeting high-risk targets worldwide.

Unlike commercial surveillance vendors whose tools are deployed in attacks by clients, hack-for-hire operators are directly involved in attacks and are usually employed by a firm offering such services. In some cases, they can also be “freelance” threat actors.

They’re hired for their hacking skills by clients who lack them or who want to conceal their identity if the attacks are detected and investigated.

Microsoft is warning that toll fraud malware is one of the most prevalent threats on Android and that it is evolving with features that allow automatic subscription to premium services.

Toll fraud is a subset of billing fraud, where the threat actor tricks victims into calling or sending an SMS to a premium number.

The difference is that toll fraud does not work over WiFi and forces the devices to connect to the mobile operator’s network.

CISA has re-added a security bug affecting Windows devices to its list of bugs exploited in the wild after removing it in May due to Active Directory (AD) certificate authentication issues caused by Microsoft’s May 2022 updates.

The flaw is an actively exploited Windows LSA (Local Security Authority) spoofing vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022–26925 and confirmed to be a new PetitPotam Windows NTLM Relay attack vector.

Unauthenticated attackers can exploit this bug to force domain controllers to authenticate them remotely via the Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) security protocol and, likely, take over the entire Windows domain.

The Federal Communications Commission authorized SpaceX to provide Starlink satellite internet to vehicles in motion, a key step for Elon Musk’s company to further expand the service.

“Authorizing a new class of [customer] terminals for SpaceX’s satellite system will expand the range of broadband capabilities to meet the growing user demands that now require connectivity while on the move, whether driving an RV across the country, moving a freighter from Europe to a U.S. port, or while on a domestic or international flight,” FCC international bureau chief Tom Sullivan wrote in the authorization posted Thursday.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the FCC decision.

One of the events hosted by the GRC this year was the conference called ‘Systemic Processes, Omics Approaches, and Biomarkers in Aging.” It was the inaugural Systems Aging Gordon Research Conference. Held in Newry, Maine, this event is not easy to get to. Many of the scientists on the East Coast of the US needed to spend half a day or more just to get there. There is a reason for this. Often, conferences that are organized in large metropolitan areas with easy access do not have the same level of “pressure cooking” and interactive networking just because many senior scientists tend to be distracted and often leave prematurely. But when they are put together in a remote location, it is not easy to leave and they have no choice but to interact with each other, share knowledge, and come up with new ideas and collaborations.

The level and impact of scientific conferences is often evaluated by the number and quality of the sponsors. And the GRC conference on Aging sported a number of high-profile sponsors including GRC itself, Carl Storm International Diversity Fellowship Program, National Institute on Aging, IOMICS Intelligent Analytics, Zymo Research, Kinexum, Insilico Medicine, Illumina, Aging journal, Impetus Grants, Infinita Life Science and VitaDAO.

With Vadim Gladyshev serving as chairman and Steve Horvath as vice-chairman, the conference set the stage for the field, paving the way for the development of interventions to delay and reverse aging. Vadim is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of Redox Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, while Steve is a professor of human genetics and biostatistics at the University of California — Los Angeles, and a senior scientist at Altos Labs. Both are world-renowned researchers, and spoke and led the discussions at the conference.