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Meet the Press NOW — April 16
Bogus Botox poisoning outbreak spreads to 9 states, CDC says
A package of counterfeit Botox. (credit: FDA)
At least 19 women across nine US states appear to have been poisoned by bogus injections of Botox, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported late Monday.
Nine of the 19 cases—47 percent—were hospitalized and four—21 percent—were treated with botulinum anti-toxin. The CDC's alert and outbreak investigation follows reports in recent days of botulism-like illnesses linked to shady injections in Tennessee, where officials reported four cases, and Illinois, where there were two. The CDC now reports that the list of affected states also includes: Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.
In a separate alert Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said that "unsafe, counterfeit" versions of Botox had been found in several states, and the toxic fakes were administered by unlicensed or untrained people and/or in non-medical or unlicensed settings, such as homes or spas. The counterfeit products appeared to have come from an unlicensed source, generally raising the risks that they're "misbranded, adulterated, counterfeit, contaminated, improperly stored and transported, ineffective and/or unsafe," the FDA said.
Studies reveal new clues to how tardigrades can survive intense radiation
Enlarge / SEM Micrograph of a tardigrade, more commonly known as a "water bear" or "moss piglet." (credit: Cultura RM Exclusive/Gregory S. Paulson/Getty Images)
Since the 1960s, scientists have known that the tiny tardigrade can withstand very intense radiation blasts 1,000 times stronger than what most other animals could endure. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, it's not that such ionizing radiation doesn't damage tardigrades' DNA; rather, the tardigrades are able to rapidly repair any such damage. The findings complement those of a separate study published in January that also explored tardigrades' response to radiation.
“These animals are mounting an incredible response to radiation, and that seems to be a secret to their extreme survival abilities,” said co-author Courtney Clark-Hachtel, who was a postdoc in Bob Goldstein's lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has been conducting research into tardigrades for 25 years. “What we are learning about how tardigrades overcome radiation stress can lead to new ideas about how we might try to protect other animals and microorganisms from damaging radiation.”
As reported previously, tardigrades are micro-animals that can survive in the harshest conditions: extreme pressure, extreme temperature, radiation, dehydration, starvation—even exposure to the vacuum of outer space. The creatures were first described by German zoologist Johann Goeze in 1773. They were dubbed tardigrada ("slow steppers" or "slow walkers") four years later by Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian biologist. That's because tardigrades tend to lumber along like a bear. Since they can survive almost anywhere, they can be found in lots of places: deep-sea trenches, salt and freshwater sediments, tropical rain forests, the Antarctic, mud volcanoes, sand dunes, beaches, and lichen and moss. (Another name for them is "moss piglets.")
NASA confirms its space trash pierced Florida man’s roof
On March 8, a piece of space debris plunged through a roof in Naples, FL, ripped through two floors and (fortunately) missed the son of homeowner Alejandro Otero. On Tuesday, NASA confirmed the results of its analysis of the incident. As suspected, it’s a piece of equipment dumped from the International Space Station (ISS) three years ago.
NASA’s investigation of the object at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral confirmed it was a piece of the EP-9 support equipment used to mount batteries onto a cargo pallet, which the ISS’ robotic arm dropped on March 11, 2021. The haul, made up of discarded nickel-hydrogen batteries, was expected to orbit Earth between two to four years (it split the difference, lasting almost exactly three) “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere,” as NASA predicted at the time. Not quite.
The roof-piercing debris was described as a stanchion from NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries onto the cargo pallet. Made of the metal alloy Inconel, the object weighs 1.6 lbs and measures 4 inches tall and 1.6 inches in diameter.
Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples.
Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son.
Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV
Otero told Fort Meyers CBS affiliate WINK-TV that he was on vacation when his son told him that an object had pierced their roof. “I was shaking,” he said. “I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
NASA says it will investigate the equipment dump’s jettison and re-entry to try to figure out why the object slammed into Otero’s home instead of disintegrating into flames. “NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break apart during atmospheric re-entry,” the space agency explained in a news release. “These models require detailed input parameters and are regularly updated when debris is found to have survived atmospheric re-entry to the ground.”
Most space junk moves extremely fast, reaching up to 18,000 mph, according to NASA. It explains, “Due to the rate of speed and volume of debris in LEO, current and future space-based services, explorations, and operations pose a safety risk to people and property in space and on Earth.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-confirms-its-space-trash-pierced-florida-mans-roof-204056957.html?src=rssNASA confirms its space trash pierced Florida man’s roof
On March 8, a piece of space debris plunged through a roof in Naples, FL, ripped through two floors and (fortunately) missed the son of homeowner Alejandro Otero. On Tuesday, NASA confirmed the results of its analysis of the incident. As suspected, it’s a piece of equipment dumped from the International Space Station (ISS) three years ago.
NASA’s investigation of the object at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral confirmed it was a piece of the EP-9 support equipment used to mount batteries onto a cargo pallet, which the ISS’ robotic arm dropped on March 11, 2021. The haul, made up of discarded nickel-hydrogen batteries, was expected to orbit Earth between two to four years (it split the difference, lasting almost exactly three) “before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere,” as NASA predicted at the time. Not quite.
The roof-piercing debris was described as a stanchion from NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries onto the cargo pallet. Made of the metal alloy Inconel, the object weighs 1.6 lbs and measures 4 inches tall and 1.6 inches in diameter.
Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples.
Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son.
Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV
Otero told Fort Meyers CBS affiliate WINK-TV that he was on vacation when his son told him that an object had pierced their roof. “I was shaking,” he said. “I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
NASA says it will investigate the equipment dump’s jettison and re-entry to try to figure out why the object slammed into Otero’s home instead of disintegrating into flames. “NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break apart during atmospheric re-entry,” the space agency explained in a news release. “These models require detailed input parameters and are regularly updated when debris is found to have survived atmospheric re-entry to the ground.”
Most space junk moves extremely fast, reaching up to 18,000 mph, according to NASA. It explains, “Due to the rate of speed and volume of debris in LEO, current and future space-based services, explorations, and operations pose a safety risk to people and property in space and on Earth.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-confirms-its-space-trash-pierced-florida-mans-roof-204056957.html?src=rssISPs can charge extra for fast gaming under FCC’s Internet rules, critics say
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)
Some net neutrality proponents are worried that soon-to-be-approved Federal Communications Commission rules will allow harmful fast lanes because the plan doesn't explicitly ban "positive" discrimination.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposed rules for Internet service providers would prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. The rules mirror the ones imposed by the FCC during the Obama era and repealed during Trump's presidency. But some advocates are criticizing a decision to let Internet service providers speed up certain types of applications as long as application providers don't have to pay for special treatment.
Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick, who has consistently argued for stricter net neutrality rules, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that "harmful 5G fast lanes are coming."
So much for free speech on X; Musk confirms new users must soon pay to post
Enlarge (credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin / Contributor | FilmMagic)
Elon Musk confirmed Monday that X (formerly Twitter) plans to start charging new users to post on the platform, TechCrunch reported.
"Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots," Musk wrote on X.
In October, X confirmed that it was testing whether users would pay a small annual fee to access the platform by suddenly charging new users in New Zealand and the Philippines $1. Paying the fee enabled new users in those countries to post, reply, like, and bookmark X posts.
Kansas City 'Dad Doula Bootcamp' empowers fathers to advocate for their pregnant partners of color
Second-biggest black hole in the Milky Way found
Enlarge / The star's orbit, shown here in light, is influenced by the far more massive black hole, indicated by the red orbit. (credit: ESO/L. Calçada)
As far as black holes go, there are two categories: supermassive ones that live at the center of the galaxies (and we're unsure about how they got there) and stellar mass ones that formed through the supernovae that end the lives of massive stars.
Prior to the advent of gravitational wave detectors, the heaviest stellar-mass black hole we knew about was only a bit more than a dozen times the mass of the Sun. And this makes sense, given that the violence of the supernova explosions that form these black holes ensures that only a fraction of the dying star's mass gets transferred into its dark offspring. But then the gravitational wave data started flowing in, and we discovered there were lots of heavier black holes, with masses dozens of times that of the Sun. But we could only find them when they smacked into another black hole.
Now, thanks to the Gaia mission, we have observational evidence of the largest black hole in the Milky Way outside of the supermassive one, with a mass 33 times that of the Sun. And, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distant, meaning it will be relatively easy to learn more.
Boston Dynamics sends Atlas to the robot retirement home
Nearly 11 years after it first showed off its current humanoid robot, Boston Dynamics is retiring Atlas. The DARPA-funded robot was designed with search and rescue missions in mind, with the idea that it would be able to enter areas that were unsafe for humans to carry out a range of tasks. However, Atlas became a bit of a star thanks to videos showing off its slick dance moves and impressive feats of strength, agility and balance. Fittingly, Atlas is trotting off into the sunset with one final YouTube video.
"For almost a decade, Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired the next generations of roboticists, and leapt over technical barriers in the field," the YouTube description reads. "Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax."
Boston Dynamics' farewell to Atlas doesn't just show some of the cool things the robot can do. It's a bit of a blooper reel as well. Along with hurling a toolbag and leaping between platforms, Atlas slips, trips and falls a bunch of times in the clip — oddly enough, that makes it seem more human.
Boston Dynamics of course has more commercially successful robots in its lineup, including Spot. It's likely not the end of the line for the company's humanoid robots entirely, though. "Take a look back at everything we’ve accomplished with the Atlas platform to date," reads the description on the farewell video. Those last two words suggest Boston Dynamics isn't quite done with that side of robotics yet.
Engadget has contacted the company for details about its future humanoid robot development plans. For now, it seems Atlas could be looking for a Wednesday afternoon dance partner at a robot retirement home.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/boston-dynamics-sends-atlas-to-the-robot-retirement-home-184157729.html?src=rssBoston Dynamics sends Atlas to the robot retirement home
Nearly 11 years after it first showed off its current humanoid robot, Boston Dynamics is retiring Atlas. The DARPA-funded robot was designed with search and rescue missions in mind, with the idea that it would be able to enter areas that were unsafe for humans to carry out a range of tasks. However, Atlas became a bit of a star thanks to videos showing off its slick dance moves and impressive feats of strength, agility and balance. Fittingly, Atlas is trotting off into the sunset with one final YouTube video.
"For almost a decade, Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired the next generations of roboticists, and leapt over technical barriers in the field," the YouTube description reads. "Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax."
Boston Dynamics' farewell to Atlas doesn't just show some of the cool things the robot can do. It's a bit of a blooper reel as well. Along with hurling a toolbag and leaping between platforms, Atlas slips, trips and falls a bunch of times in the clip — oddly enough, that makes it seem more human.
Boston Dynamics of course has more commercially successful robots in its lineup, including Spot. It's likely not the end of the line for the company's humanoid robots entirely, though. "Take a look back at everything we’ve accomplished with the Atlas platform to date," reads the description on the farewell video. Those last two words suggest Boston Dynamics isn't quite done with that side of robotics yet.
Engadget has contacted the company for details about its future humanoid robot development plans. For now, it seems Atlas could be looking for a Wednesday afternoon dance partner at a robot retirement home.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/boston-dynamics-sends-atlas-to-the-robot-retirement-home-184157729.html?src=rssEV fast-charging comes to condos and apartments
Enlarge / The Marina Palms condo development in Miami recently added an ADS-TEC ChargeBox DC fast charger for its residents. (credit: ADS-TEC)
Right now, the electric vehicle ownership experience is optimized for the owner who lives in a single-family home. A level 2 home AC charger costs a few hundred dollars, and with a garage or carport, an EV that gets plugged in each night is an EV that starts each day with a 100 percent charged battery pack. Plenty of Ars readers have told us that a 120 V outlet even works for their needs, although perhaps better for Chevy Bolt-sized batteries rather than a Hummer EV.
However, about a third of Americans live in large multifamily developments, often in cities that stand to benefit the most from a switch to electrification. And electrifying the parking lots of existing developments is often easier said than done. Some developments will allow individuals to install their own dedicated charger, and newly built developments may even have planned ahead and put conduits in place already.
For many others, the parking spaces will be owned by the condo association or co-op, complicating the idea of giving each EV driver their own plug. Here, shared solutions make more sense, perhaps starting with one or two shared level 2 chargers as a pilot—often this won't even require extra work to the electrical panel. Costs are a little higher than for a home level 2 charger—between $7,500–$15,000 per charger, perhaps.
The lines between streaming and cable continue to blur
Enlarge / O.B., aka Ouroboros, in Marvel's Loki show, which streams on Disney+. (credit: Marvel)
Despite promises of new and improved TV and movie viewing experiences, streaming services remain focused on growing revenue and app usage. As a result of that focus, streaming companies are mimicking the industry they sought to replace—cable.
On Monday, The Information reported that Disney plans to add "a series" of channels to the Disney+ app. Those channels would still be streamed and require a Disney+ subscription to access. But they would work very much like traditional TV channels, featuring set programming that runs 24/7 with commercials. Disney hasn't commented on the report.
Disney is exploring adding channels to Disney+ with "programming in specific genres, including either Star Wars or Marvel-branded shows," The Information said, citing anonymous "people involved in the planning." It's unknown when the Disney+ channels are expected to launch.
.NET 9 Preview 3: 'I've Been Waiting 9 Years for This API!'
YouTube puts third-party clients on notice: Show ads or get blocked
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chris McGrath )
YouTube is putting third-party ad-blocking apps on notice. An ominous post on the official YouTube Community Help forum titled "Enforcement on Third Party Apps" says the company is "strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, specifically ad-blocking apps." Google would really like it if you all paid for YouTube Premium.
YouTube has been coming down on third-party apps, which often enable YouTube ad blocking. The company shut down one of the most popular third-party apps, "YouTube Vanced," in 2022. Vanced was open source, though, so new alternatives sprung up almost immediately. Vanced takes the official YouTube Android client and installs a duplicate, alternative version with a bunch of patches. It turns on all the YouTube Premium features like ad-blocking, background playback, and downloading without paying for the Premium sub. It also adds features the official app doesn't have, like additional themes and accessibility features, "repeat" and "dislike" buttons, and the ability to turn off addictive "suggestions" that appear all over the app.
Another popular option is "NewPipe," a from-scratch YouTube player that follows the open source ethos and is available on the FOSS-only store F-Droid. NewPipe wants a lightweight client without the proprietary code and million permissions that YouTube needs, but it also blocks ads.
Meta’s oversight board to probe subjective policy on AI sex image removals
Enlarge (credit: IAN HOOTON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY | Science Photo Library)
Meta continues to slowly adapt Facebook and Instagram policies to account for increasing AI harms, this week confronting how it handles explicit deepfakes spreading on its platforms.
On Tuesday, the Meta Oversight Board announced it will be reviewing two cases involving AI-generated sexualized images of female celebrities that Meta initially handled unevenly to "assess whether Meta’s policies and its enforcement practices are effective at addressing explicit AI-generated imagery."
The board is not naming the famous women whose deepfakes are being reviewed in hopes of mitigating "risks of furthering harassment," the board said.
New UK law targets “despicable individuals” who create AI sex deepfakes
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
On Tuesday, the UK government announced a new law targeting the creation of AI-generated sexually explicit deepfake images. Under the legislation, which has not yet been passed, offenders would face prosecution and an unlimited fine, even if they do not widely share the images but create them with the intent to distress the victim. The government positions the law as part of a broader effort to enhance legal protections for women.
Over the past decade, the rise of deep learning image synthesis technology has made it increasingly easy for people with a consumer PC to create misleading pornography by swapping out the faces of the performers with someone else who has not consented to the act. That practice spawned the term "deepfake" around 2017, named after a Reddit user named "deepfakes" that shared AI-faked porn on the service. Since then, the term has grown to encompass completely new images and video synthesized entirely from scratch, created from neural networks that have been trained on images of the victim.
The problem isn't unique to the UK. In March, deepfake nudes of female middle school classmates in Florida led to charges against two boys ages 13 and 14. The rise of open source image synthesis models like Stable Diffusion since 2022 has increased the urgency among regulators in the US to attempt to contain (or at least punish) the act of creating non-consensual deepfakes. The UK government is on a similar mission.
Russian space chief says new rocket will put Falcon 9 reuse to shame
Enlarge / Vladimir Putin meets with Roscosmos Director General Yuri Borisov on June 30, 2023. (credit: The Kremlin)
Russia's once-vaunted launch industry has been much in decline due to a combination of factors, including an aging fleet of rockets, a reduction in government investment, and the country's war in Ukraine driving away Western customers.
However, it is has been difficult for the country's leaders to explain these difficult facts to the Russian people. Russians are justifiably proud of their country's heritage of space firsts and dominant position in spaceflight. So typically, officials bluster.
This is what Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov did recently during a lecture at the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. Located south of Moscow, this is the world's first museum devoted solely to spaceflight. Borisov heads the country's main space corporation, and thus is the leader of the country's space activities.
Why the US government’s overreliance on Microsoft is a big problem
Enlarge (credit: Joan Cros via Getty)
When Microsoft revealed in January that foreign government hackers had once again breached its systems, the news prompted another round of recriminations about the security posture of the world’s largest tech company.
Despite the angst among policymakers, security experts, and competitors, Microsoft faced no consequences for its latest embarrassing failure. The United States government kept buying and using Microsoft products, and senior officials refused to publicly rebuke the tech giant. It was another reminder of how insulated Microsoft has become from virtually any government accountability, even as the Biden administration vows to make powerful tech firms take more responsibility for America’s cyber defense.
NASA says it needs better ideas on how to return samples from Mars
Enlarge / NASA's existing plan for Mars Sample Return involves a large lander the size of a two-car garage, two helicopters, a two-stage bespoke rocket, a European-built Earth return vehicle, and the Perseverance rover already operating on the red planet. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's $11 billion plan to robotically bring rock samples from Mars back to Earth is too expensive and will take too long, the agency's administrator said Monday, so officials are tasking government and private sector engineers to come up with a better plan.
The agency's decision on how to move forward with the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program follows an independent review last year that found ballooning costs and delays threatened the mission's viability. The effort would likely cost NASA between $8 billion and $11 billion, and the launch would be delayed at least two years until 2030, with samples getting back to Earth a few years later, the review board concluded.
But that's not the whole story. Like all federal agencies, NASA faces new spending restrictions imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a bipartisan budget deal struck last year between the White House and congressional Republicans. With these new budget headwinds, NASA officials determined the agency's plan for Mars Sample Return would not get specimens from the red planet back to Earth until 2040.
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