How Europe’s Night Trains Came Back From the Dead

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: [O]ver the past decade, much of Europe’s night train network has been cut. 2013 and 2014 saw the culling of lines from Paris to Madrid, Rome and Barcelona; Amsterdam to Prague and Warsaw; and Berlin to Paris and Kiev. For many, it seemed the end of the line was nigh. But recently there…

The predictions of DeepMind’s latest AI could revolutionise medicine

AlphaFold, DeepMind’s new artificial intelligence, could accelerate drug development through its ability to predict the shape of the proteins that make up our bodies Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261613-the-predictions-of-deepminds-latest-ai-could-revolutionise-medicine/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

China Rises as World’s Data Superpower as Internet Fractures

Back in 2001, the U.S. was the dominant country when it came to cross-border data flows. It was the early days of the internet boom, and America was where tech companies and tech-savvy consumers were. But the global data order is changing rapidly. From a report: China now accounts for 23% of cross-border data flows, nearly twice the share of the…

Why It’s a Big Deal If the First COVID-19 Vaccine Is ‘Genetic’

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from Wired: On Monday morning, when representatives from the drug company Pfizer said that its Covid-19 vaccine appears to be more than 90 percent effective, stocks soared, White House officials rushed to (falsely) claim credit, and sighs of relief went up all around the internet. […] The arrival of an effective vaccine to fight SARS-CoV-2…

Physicists propose using atomic clocks of GPS network to detect exotic ultralight fields

A team of physicists from the U.S., Poland and Germany proposes to use quantum sensor networks such as atomic clocks of the GPS network or sensors from the Gnome collaboration (a network of shielded atomic magnetometers made up of 13 stations placed strategically on four continents—each of which is equipped with a magnetometer that has sub-picotesla sensitivity) to detect exotic ultralight…

What is the Common Era?

If you encounter a date in the CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before Common Era) format, don’t fret. They mean exactly the same thing as AD (anno Domini) and BC (before Christ). Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/definition-common-era-bce-ce-bc-ad…

A Massive Spam Attack Is Ruining Public ‘Among Us’ Games

Just days after US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us to an audience of more than 435,000 viewers, InnerSloth, the developer of the popular multiplayer title, is struggling to contain a spam attack that is affecting most of the game’s community. Engadget reports: The hack started to spread through the game’s userbase on Thursday evening. It causes players to spam their…

Super-Earth exoplanets often have giant ‘Jupiter’ bodyguards

Planetary systems with both super-Earths and Jupiter-type planets may be common, according to a new study. As in our own solar system, the giant planets would act as “bodyguards” protecting the smaller planets from asteroid impacts. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/super-earth-exoplanet-giant-jupiter-bodyguard…

How One Piece of Hardware Took Down a $6 Trillion Stock Market

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg on how a data storage and distribution device brought down Tokyo’s $6 trillion stock market: At 7:04 a.m. on an autumn Thursday in Tokyo, the stewards of the world’s third-largest equity market realized they had a problem. A data device critical to the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading system had malfunctioned, and the automatic…

EarthSky’s top 10 tips for super stargazers

Here are 10 simple tips that can help you connect with the night sky, and have fun. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/getting-started-2…