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May 24, 2020

Purified: Two sips into my Centurion Pilsner at a beer garden in Denver, I hiccupped

Posted by in categories: engineering, food, sustainability

Hoppy beers do that to me. This beer was different. The water used for the brew came not from a river, a reservoir, or even a well. Instead, the water was sourced from a wastewater treatment plant located along the South Platte River. This simple fact didn’t bother me at all.

To be clear, I’m not a risk taker. Never skydived. Never paddled down Class V rapids. Never swallowed goldfish on a dare. But from what I’ve learned about purification processes for reclaimed water, drinking this limited-edition beer was eminently safe. The pilsner, blonde and translucent, like a Coors, looked and tasted like any number of beers made from water freshly obtained from creeks and rivers tumbling from Colorado’s mountain peaks. As for the strawberry-kiwi wheat beer ordered by my companion, I would have nothing of it. “That’s not beer,” I harrumphed, “that’s a fruit bowl. Undrinkable.”

I was at Declaration Brewing Co., located in Denver’s Overland neighborhood. The brewery and also a winery, InVINtions, located in Greenwood Village, were part of a regional effort. Water for the one-time specialty beverages produced by both came from the PureWater Colorado Demonstration Project. In the demonstration that was conducted in spring of 2018, water providers, engineering companies and water reuse advocates collaborated to showcase direct potable reuse treatment technologies. The water was treated using five different processes until it met federal and state drinking water standards, suitable for human consumption.

May 24, 2020

Results from the remdesivir COVID-19 trial are out, and it’s good news

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Recovery time was shortened from 15 to 11 days.

May 24, 2020

How to Virtually Participate in ‘Launch America’ on This Week @NASA – May 22, 2020

Posted by in category: space travel

We’re counting down to the launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon with two NASA Astronauts on board. This week:

🏠 How to participate at home in #LaunchAmerica 🇺🇸 Vice President Pence on human spaceflight’s return to the US

🌌 Naming the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for our first chief astronomer.

May 24, 2020

New Bluetooth Vulnerability Exposes Billions of Devices to Hackers

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

A new Bluetooth impersonation vulnerability could hackers to spoof a remotely paired device.

May 24, 2020

Artificial intelligence can make personality judgments based on photographs

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI

Russian researchers from HSE University and Open University for the Humanities and Economics have demonstrated that artificial intelligence is able to infer people’s personality from ‘selfie’ photographs better than human raters do. Conscientiousness emerged to be more easily recognizable than the other four traits. Personality predictions based on female faces appeared to be more reliable than those for male faces. The technology can be used to find the ‘best matches’ in customer service, dating or online tutoring.

The article, “Assessing the Big Five using real-life static facial images,” will be published on May 22 in Scientific Reports.

Physiognomists from Ancient Greece to Cesare Lombroso have tried to link facial appearance to personality, but the majority of their ideas failed to withstand the scrutiny of modern science. The few established associations of specific facial features with personality traits, such as facial width-to-height ratio, are quite weak. Studies asking human raters to make personality judgments based on photographs have produced inconsistent results, suggesting that our judgments are too unreliable to be of any practical importance.

May 24, 2020

Astronauts get to work ahead of historic flight

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken have flown into the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for their historic mission next week.

The pair’s trip to the International Space Station (ISS) will be made in a rocket and capsule system provided by a commercial company, SpaceX.

NASA has traditionally always owned and operated its space vehicles.

May 24, 2020

We Haven’t Been Zapped Out Of Existence Yet, So Other Dimensions Are Probably Super Tiny

Posted by in category: cosmology

In theory, other dimensions aren’t big enough to form black holes and consume our universe or it would have happened already.

May 24, 2020

Hackers release a new jailbreak that unlocks every iPhone

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, mobile phones

A renowned iPhone hacking team has released a new “jailbreak” tool that unlocks every iPhone, even the most recent models running the latest iOS 13.5.

For as long as Apple has kept up its “walled garden” approach to iPhones by only allowing apps and customizations that it approves, hackers have tried to break free from what they call the “jail,” hence the name “jailbreak.” Hackers do this by finding a previously undisclosed vulnerability in iOS that break through some of the many restrictions that Apple puts in place to prevent access to the underlying software. Apple says it does this for security. But jailbreakers say breaking through those restrictions allows them to customize their iPhones more than they would otherwise, in a way that most Android users are already accustomed to.

The jailbreak, released by the unc0ver team, supports all iPhones that run iOS 11 and above, including up to iOS 13.5, which Apple released this week.

May 24, 2020

SpaceX’s 1st astronaut launch breaking new ground for style

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel, sustainability

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The first astronauts launched by SpaceX are breaking new ground for style with hip spacesuits, gull-wing Teslas and a sleek rocketship — all of it white with black trim.

The color coordinating is thanks to Elon Musk, the driving force behind both SpaceX and Tesla, and a big fan of flash and science fiction.

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken like the fresh new look. They’ll catch a ride to the launch pad in a Tesla Model X electric car.

May 24, 2020

Mike Kamdar, The Future Of DNA Writing, And The Business Of Biology

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

Using a new way to synthesize DNA, Mike Kamdar and his team at Molecular Assemblies are poised to disrupt just about any industry you can imagine.