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Aug 14, 2021

Cryptomining Botnet Alters CPU Settings to Boost Mining Performance

Posted by in categories: cryptocurrencies, cybercrime/malcode

Uptycs Threat Research Team has discovered malware that not only hijacks vulnerable *nix-based servers and uses them to mine cryptocurrency but actually modifies their CPU configurations in a bid to increase mining performance at the cost of performance in other applications.

Perpetrators use a Golang-based worm to exploit known vulnerabilities like CVE-2020–14882 (Oracle WebLogic) and CVE-2017–11610 (Supervisord) to gain access to Linux systems, reports The Record. Once they hijack a machine, they use model-specific registers (MSR) to disable the hardware prefetcher, a unit that fetches data and instructions from the memory into the L2 cache before they are needed.

Aug 14, 2021

Why AI ethics needs to address AI literacy, not just bias

Posted by in categories: ethics, robotics/AI

AI ethics is about more than just bias. That’s why Red Hat’s Noelle Silver is dedicated to spreading AI literacy.

Aug 14, 2021

AI startup Abacus.ai turns on real-time deep learning system for enterprises

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Real-time capabilities will allow a customer to plug an existing TensorFlow or Pytorch neural network into streaming data and have it continuously re-trained, for uses such as recommender systems.

Aug 14, 2021

Data breach alert: Info on millions of seniors leaked online

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

In another instance of a misconfigured data server, the personal details of over 3 million senior citizens have been exposed.

Aug 14, 2021

How a Specific Synapse Type Regulates Anxiety-Like Behavior

Posted by in categories: genetics, neuroscience

“Our research may help us understand how abnormalities in anxiety-like behavior occur and design circuit-based therapeutic approaches for correcting them,” remarks Professor Ji Won Um from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at DGIST, who led the study.


Summary: Study identifies the role a specific protein plays in regulating the development of inhibitory synapses in the hippocampus in the context of anxiety-related behaviors.

Source: DGIST

Continue reading “How a Specific Synapse Type Regulates Anxiety-Like Behavior” »

Aug 14, 2021

The ancient Persian way to keep cool

Posted by in category: futurism

As a wind catcher requires no electricity to power it, it is both a cost-efficient and green form of cooling. With conventional mechanical air conditioning already accounting for a fifth of total electricity consumption globally, ancient alternatives like the wind catcher are becoming an increasingly appealing option.


From ancient Egypt to the Persian Empire, an ingenious method of catching the breeze kept people cool for millennia. Now, it could come to our aid once again.

Aug 14, 2021

A poorer father-child relationship predicts increased math anxiety in children one year later

Posted by in categories: education, mathematics

According to findings published in Learning and Individual Differences, a secure bond between father and child is particularly important for children’s development of coping skills related to mathematics. The longitudinal study found that the father-child bond predicted children’s math anxiety one year later, while the mother-child bond did not.

The term “math anxiety” is used to describe fear and apprehension surrounding math and can occur in children and adults alike. Math anxiety can arise in response to any situation that requires mathematics — from solving a math problem at school to calculating the tip at a restaurant.

Previous studies have uncovered parental factors that play a role in the development of math anxiety among children — for example, parents’ use of math at home with their children. There is also evidence that that the quality of the parent-child relationship influences math anxiety among children, but until now, no study had teased apart the specific roles of the mother-child versus father-child bond.

Aug 13, 2021

Israeli scientists solve physics’ ‘three-body problem’

Posted by in categories: physics, space

The three-body problem, which has been a focus of scientific study for over 400 years, represented a stumbling block for famous astronomers such as Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler.

Aug 13, 2021

A $500 Million Spacesuit? Welcome to NASA Contracting

Posted by in category: space

Spiraling costs and repeated delays are imperiling the agency’s moon mission. Surely there’s a better way?

Aug 13, 2021

Formation of the Matryoshka Diamond from Siberia

Posted by in category: materials

A freely moving diamond trapped inside another diamond was discovered in Siberia by Alrosa in 2019. The unusual diamond, nicknamed the “Matryoshka” after the traditional Russian nesting dolls, attracted widespread interest in how this feature formed The 0.62 ct flat octahedral diamond, a twinned macle, was recently examined by the New York laboratory. Flat-bottom trigon etch pits were well developed on the face {111} (figure 1). The crystal showed a clear green bodycolor, with small dark green radiation stains in shallow fractures along the edges when viewed from the top of the crystal. Two etch channels on opposite sides of the edges had rectangular openings about 0.2 mm in width. The channels extended into the internal enclosed cavity. These features made this diamond unique. Trapped in the cavity was a small, flat diamond crystal with a hexagonal outline. The small diamond, covered with some green radiation stains on the surface, is entirely detached from its host crystal and can move freely inside. The surface of the small diamond was covered with groups of straight parallel striations following the diamond crystal symmetry. No etched trigons were observed on the surfaces of the small diamond (figure 2). Except for tiny foreign-material contaminations at the two entrances of the open channels, no other inclusions were observed in this crystal (figure 3).