ReHacked #151: Finland's NATO membership, EU total surveillance in the name of child protection, NASA's InSight Records Monster Quake on Mars and more
Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay. --Sauli Niinistö/Sanna Marin
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Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay.
In its draft law to combat child sexual abuse, the EU Commission describes one of the most sophisticated mass surveillance apparatuses ever deployed outside China. Even if an AI scans your private messages, it remains warrantless mass surveillance of everyone. Once again, the EU Commission is using child protection as a pretext to introduce mass surveillance without any reason.
NASA's InSight Records Monster Quake on Mars – NASA's InSight Mars Lander #space
NASA’s InSight Mars lander has detected the largest quake ever observed on another planet: an estimated magnitude 5 temblor that occurred on May 4, 2022, the 1,222nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This adds to the catalog of more than 1,313 quakes InSight has detected since landing on Mars in November 2018. The largest previously recorded quake was an estimated magnitude 4.2 detected Aug. 25, 2021.
Sol 3466: Mast Camera (Mastcam) – NASA Mars Exploration #space
Astronomers Reveal First Image of the Black Hole at the Heart of Our Galaxy - National Radio Astronomy Observatory #nature #science
At simultaneous press conferences around the world, including at a National Science Foundation-sponsored press conference at the US National Press Club in Washington, D.C., astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the center of most galaxies. The image was produced by a global research team called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, using observations from a worldwide network of radio telescopes.
The image is a long-anticipated look at the massive object that sits at the very center of our galaxy. Scientists had previously seen stars orbiting around something invisible, compact, and very massive at the center of the Milky Way. This strongly suggested that this object — known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced “sadge-ay-star”) — is a black hole, and today’s image provides the first direct visual evidence of it.
I Stopped To Watch Kids Playing at Recess. Security Was Called. #society #dystopia
It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood—that neighborhood being Queens in New York City. I was walking by one of the local elementary schools and slowed down to watch the girls doing cartwheels at recess. They practice it over and over again, which is proof that kids learn frustration-tolerance and focus during unstructured free play. That's why I'm such a fan of it.
I stopped to watch another gaggle of kids playing hopscotch like I used to do. The teacher or teacher's aide looked over at me through a 20-foot-high chainlink fence and said: "Ma'am, you cannot stand there. You have to move."
A simple Israeli invention could help 2.5 billion people – and NASA - Israel News - Haaretz.com #technology #engineering
Science usually advances in small steps. Each new experiment adds a small scrap of information. It’s rare for a simple idea that arises in a scientist’s brain, without the use of any technology, to lead to a significant breakthrough. But that’s what happened to two Israeli engineers who developed a new way to make optical lenses.
The system is simple, cheap and precise, and could have a dramatic impact on up to a third of the world’s population. It could also change the face of space research. And to devise it, all the researchers needed was a whiteboard, a marker, an eraser and a bit of luck.
Transfusion of brain fluid from young mice improves memory in old mice #health #science
For a human, one of the first signs someone is getting old is the inability to remember little things; maybe they misplace their keys, or get lost on an oft-taken route. For a laboratory mouse, it’s forgetting that when bright lights and a high-pitched buzz flood your cage, an electric zap to the foot quickly follows.
But researchers at Stanford University discovered that if you transfuse cerebrospinal fluid from a young mouse into an old one, it will recover its former powers of recall and freeze in anticipation. They also identified a protein in that cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, that penetrates into the hippocampus, where it drives improvements in memory.
Pirate Site Blocking is Making its Way Into Free Trade Agreements * TorrentFreak #copyrights
The new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK includes a site blocking paragraph. The text requires the countries to provide injunctive relief to require ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirate sites. While this doesn't change much for the two countries, rightsholders are already eying similar requirements for trade deals with other nations.
Over the years, copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb online piracy, with varying levels of success.
Site blocking has emerged as one of the preferred solutions. While blocking measures are not bulletproof, the general idea is that they pose a large enough hurdle for casual pirates to choose legal options instead.
Classic Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy - Nikkei Asia #economy
Japanese audio equipment maker Onkyo Home Entertainment filed for bankruptcy at Osaka District Court on Friday, with total liabilities of around 3.1 billion yen ($24 million).
The Osaka-based company was delisted in August. It was unable to keep pace with changes in how people listen to music, as users shift from audio equipment like compact stereo systems -- once Onkyo's core business -- to devices like smartphones for streaming services.
Two Onkyo subsidiaries that handled original equipment manufacturing -- such as assembling speakers for other brands -- and sales representation of audio equipment filed for voluntary bankruptcy in March.
Total Eclipse of the Moon: 2022 May 16 #nature
How sleep helps to process emotions #health
Researchers at the Department of Neurology of the University of Bern and University Hospital Bern identified how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep to consolidate the storage of positive emotions while dampening the consolidation of negative ones. The work expands the importance of sleep in mental health and opens new ways of therapeutic strategies.
Rapid eye movement (REM or paradoxical) sleep is a unique and mysterious sleep state during which most of the dreams occur together with intense emotional contents. How and why these emotions are reactivated is unclear. The prefrontal cortex integrates many of these emotions during wakefulness but appears paradoxically quiescent during REM sleep. "Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanism and the functions of such a surprising phenomenon", says Prof. Antoine Adamantidis from the Department of Biomedical Research (DBMR) at the University of Bern and the Department of Neurology at the Inselspital, University Hospital of Bern.
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