Tag: Abu

How the NSA’s Hubris Left America Vulnerable

A new book promises “the untold story of the cyberweapons market — the most secretive, invisible, government-backed market on earth — and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare.” Its author — a New York Times cybersecurity reporter — shares the book’s story about David Evenden, a former National Security Agency analyst who later worked in Abu…

Twitter Bots Are a Major Source of Climate Disinformation

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Twitter accounts run by machines are a major source of climate change disinformation that might drain support from policies to address rising temperatures. In the weeks surrounding former President Trump’s announcement about withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, accounts suspected of being bots accounted for roughly a quarter of all tweets about climate…

Scientists Find a New Way To Search for Habitable Exoplanets

An anonymous reader shares a report: Earthlings are lucky to live near a relatively stable Sun, which has enabled life on our planet to emerge and thrive over the past four billion years. While many worlds in our galaxy might contain the right ingredients to support life, though, a lot of them could be stuck with a more volatile star that…

Study finds stellar flares can lead to the diminishment of a planet’s habitability

In a new study, a team led by research scientist Dimitra Atri of the Center for Space Science at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) identified which stars are most likely to host habitable exoplanets based on the calculated erosion rates of the planetary atmospheres. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-stellar-flares-diminishment-planet-habitability.html…

Spectacular red palm weevil scoops top award in bug photography prize

This red palm weevil looks like it is ready for a boxing match. The close-up shot won Mofeed Abu Shalwa Luminar Bug Photographer of the Year 2020 Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833073-500-spectacular-red-palm-weevil-scoops-top-award-in-bug-photography-prize/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

The Terrorist Group is Defeated and Routed. But Its Backup Plan Survives

The terrorist group is defeated and routed. But its backup plan survives. From a report: It all began on October 27, 2019. Rumour was, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, was dead. Nothing was confirmed, but already the jihadist world online was thrumming with excitement and trepidation. “I was walking through an airport,” Moustafa Ayad tells me. “Jet-lagged out…

Is there life below the Martian surface?

Galactic cosmic rays are high energy particles from explosive events like supernovae, zinging through our solar system, constantly bombarding both Earth and Mars. A researcher suggests they supply enough energy to make subsurface life on Mars possible. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/is-there-life-below-the-martian-surface…

Astrophysicists investigate the possibility of life below the surface of Mars

Although no life has been detected on the Martian surface, a new study from astrophysicist and research scientist Dimitra Atri at the Center for Space Science at NYU Abu Dhabi finds that conditions below the surface could potentially support it. The subsurface—which is less harsh and has traces of water—has never been explored. According to Atri, the steady bombardment of penetrating…

JPEG Committee is Banking on AI To Build Its Next Image Codec

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), a committee that maintains various JPEG image-related standards, has started exploring a way to involve AI to build a new compression standard. From a report: In a recent meeting held in Sydney, the group released a call for evidence to explore AI-based methods to find a new image compression codec. The program, aptly named JPEG AI,…