"A candy engineer explains the scrince behind the Snickers Bar."

Views expressed in this science and technology update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 30 October 2024, 1413 UTC.

Content and Source:  https://arstechnica.com.

Please check link or scroll down to read your selections.  Thanks for joining us today.

Russ Roberts (https://hawaiisciencejournal.blogspot.com).

 

ARS Technica

30

Most popular

A candy engineer explains the science behind the Snickers bar

92Ars Technica - All content / 22h

It’s Halloween. You’ve just finished trick-or-treating and it’s time to assess the haul. You likely have a favorite, whether it’s chocolate bars, peanut butter cups, those gummy clusters with Nerds on them, or something else. For some people, including me, one piece stands out—the Snickers bar, especially if it’s full-size. The combination of nougat, caramel, and peanuts coated in milk chocolate

The sad, bizarre tale of hype fanning fears modern cryptography was slain

Ars Technica - All content / 2h

There’s little doubt that some of the most important pillars of modern cryptography will tumble spectacularly once quantum computing, now in its infancy, matures sufficiently. Some experts say that could be in the next couple decades. Others say it could take longer. No one knows. The uncertainty leaves a giant vacuum that can be filled with alarmist pronouncements that the world is close to seei

New Glenn rolls to the launch pad as end-of-year deadline approaches

Ars Technica - All content / 51min

Blue Origin took another significant step toward the launch of its large New Glenn rocket on Tuesday night by rolling the first stage of the vehicle to a launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Although the company's rocket factory in Florida is only a few miles from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, because of the rocket and transporter's size the procession had to follow

Yesterday

These hornets break down alcohol so fast that they can’t get drunk

Hornets have unmatched alcohol tolerance

•

Ars Technica - All content / 15h

Many animals, including humans, have developed a taste for alcohol in some form, but excessive consumption often leads to adverse health effects. One exception is the Oriental hornet. According to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these hornets can guzzle seemingly unlimited amounts of ethanol regularly and at very high concentrations with no ill effect

GitHub Copilot moves beyond OpenAI models to support Claude 3.5, Gemini

Crowdbotics enhances GitHub Copilot integration

•

Ars Technica - All content / 15h

The large language model-based coding assistant GitHub Copilot will switch from exclusively using OpenAI's GPT models to a multi-model approach over the coming weeks, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke announced in a post on GitHub's blog . First, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet will roll out to Copilot Chat's web and VS Code interfaces over the next few weeks. Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro will come a bit later.

The Ars redesign 9.0.2 brings the text options you’ve requested

Ars Technica - All content / 15h

Readers of those other sites may not care much about font size and column widths. "40-character line lengths? In 18-point Comic Sans? I love it!" they say. But not you, because you are an Ars reader. And Ars readers are discerning. They have feelings about concepts like "information density." And we want those feelings to be soft and cuddly ones. That's why we're today rolling out version 9.0.2 o

“Impact printing” is a cement-free alternative to 3D-printed structures

20Ars Technica - All content / 17h

Recently, construction company ICON announced that it is close to completing the world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood in Georgetown, Texas. This isn’t the only 3D-printed housing project. Hundreds of 3D-printed homes are under construction in the US and Europe, and more such housing projects are in the pipeline. There are many factors fueling the growth of 3D printing in the construction indus

TSA silent on CrowdStrike’s claim Delta skipped required security update

Delta sues CrowdStrike for outage

•

Ars Technica - All content / 17h

Delta and CrowdStrike have locked legal horns, threatening to drag out the aftermath of the worst IT outage in history for months or possibly years. Each refuses to be blamed for Delta's substantial losses following a global IT outage caused by CrowdStrike suddenly pushing a flawed security update despite Delta and many other customers turning off auto-updates. CrowdStrike has since given custome

How The New York Times is using generative AI as a reporting tool

Ars Technica - All content / 18h

The rise of powerful generative AI models in the last few years has led to plenty of stories of corporations trying to use AI to replace human jobs . But a recent New York Times story highlights the other side of that coin, where AI models simply become a powerful tool aiding in work that still requires humanity's unique skillset. The NYT piece in question isn't directly about AI at all. As the h

Ban on Chinese tech so broad, US-made cars would be blocked, Polestar says

53Ars Technica - All content / 21h

Today, Polestar electric vehicles gained access to the Tesla Supercharger network. That means US Polestar drivers have access to 17,800 more DC fast chargers than they did yesterday—once they get a NACS adapter, which can also be ordered today from their local Polestar service point. But right now, Polestar has bigger worries than expanding its charging options. Should proposed new rules banning

Apple’s first Mac mini redesign in 14 years looks like a big aluminum Apple TV

47Ars Technica - All content / 22h

Apple's week of Mac announcements continues today , and as expected, we're getting a substantial new update to the Mac mini. Apple's least-expensive Mac, the mini, is being updated with new M4 processors, plus a smaller design that looks like a cross between an Apple TV box and a Mac Studio—this is the mini's first major design change since the original aluminum version was released in 2010. The

How can you write data to DNA without changing the base sequence?

Maynooth University secures 4M€ grant

•

Ars Technica - All content / 22h

Zettabytes—that’s 10 21 bytes—of data are currently generated every year. All of those cat videos have to be stored somewhere, and DNA is a great storage medium ; it has amazing data density and is stable over millennia. To date, people have encoded information into DNA the same way nature has, by linking the four nucleotide bases comprising DNA—A, T, C, and G—into a particular genetic sequence.

Oct 28, 2024

For some reason, NASA is treating Orion’s heat shield problems as a secret

27Ars Technica - All content / 1d

For those who follow NASA's human spaceflight program, when the Orion spacecraft's heat shield cracked and chipped away during atmospheric reentry on the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in late 2022, what caused it became a burning question. Multiple NASA officials said Monday they now know the answer, but they're not telling. Instead, agency officials want to wait until more reviews are done to

Lidar mapping reveals mountainous medieval cities along the Silk Road

Ancient Silk Road cities discovered

•

46Ars Technica - All content / 1d

The history of the Silk Road, a vast network of ancient and medieval trade routes connecting Beijing and Hangzhou with Constantinople and Cairo, has mostly been focused on its endpoints: China and the West. Less was known about the people and cultures the traders encountered along the way. Given the length of the route, there must have been a lot of encounters. Traders passed through large cities

Apple is turning The Oregon Trail into a movie

Oregon Trail movie in development

•

70Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Apple will adapt the classic educational game The Oregon Trail into a big-budget movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR). The film is in early development, having just been pitched to Apple and approved. Will Speck and Josh Gordon ( Blades of Glory , Office Christmas Party ) will direct and produce. Given that pedigree (zany comedies), it's clear this film won't be a serious historical d

Google accused of shadow campaigns redirecting antitrust scrutiny to Microsoft

Microsoft accuses Google of antitrust tactics

•

23Ars Technica - All content / 1d

On Monday, Microsoft came out guns blazing, posting a blog accusing Google of "dishonestly" funding groups conducting allegedly biased studies to discredit Microsoft and mislead antitrust enforcers and the public. In the blog, Microsoft lawyer Rima Alaily alleged that an astroturf group called the Open Cloud Coalition will launch this week and will appear to be led by "a handful of European cloud

NASA’s oldest active astronaut is also one of the most curious humans

83Ars Technica - All content / 1d

For his most recent trip to the International Space Station, in lieu of bringing coffee or some other beverage in his "personal drink bag" allotment for the stay, NASA astronaut Don Pettit asked instead for a couple of bags of unflavored gelatin. This was not for cooking purposes but rather to perform scientific experiments. How many of us would give up coffee for science? Well, Donald Roy Pettit

Pizza place accidentally spiked dough with THC, sickening dozens

THC contamination alert for pizza

•

89Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Dozens of people in Wisconsin have been sickened and at least five needed emergency medical services after inadvertently eating pizza tainted with Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive compound in cannabis, officials of Public Health Madison & Dane County reported late Friday . The contamination, which health officials called "unintentional," occurred at Famous Yeti’s Piz

Some of Apple’s last holdout accessories have switched from Lightning to USB-C

Apple accessories switch to USB-C

•

Ars Technica - All content / 1d

One of the last major holdouts against USB-C has majorly loosened its grasp. All the accessories that come with Apple's newest iMac —the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad—ship with USB-C charging and connection ports rather than the Lightning ports they have featured for nearly a decade. "These accessories now come with USB-C ports, so users can charge all of their favorite devices

Graphene-enhanced ceramic tiles make striking art

Ars Technica - All content / 1d

In recent years, materials scientists experimenting with ceramics have started adding an oxidized form of graphene to the mix to produce ceramics that are tougher, more durable, and more resistant to fracture, among other desirable properties. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a new method that uses ultrasound to more evenly distribute graphene oxide (GO) in

Apple releases iOS 18.1, macOS 15.1 with Apple Intelligence

27Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Today, Apple released iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1, tvOS 18.1, visionOS 2.1, and watchOS 11.1. The iPhone, iPad, and Mac updates are focused on bringing the first AI features the company has marketed as "Apple Intelligence" to users. Once they update, users with supported devices in supported regions can enter a waitlist to begin using the first wave of Apple Intelligence features, i

Hospitals adopt error-prone AI transcription tools despite warnings

OpenAI's Whisper tool invents text

•

63Ars Technica - All content / 1d

On Saturday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool creates fabricated text in medical and business settings despite warnings against such use. The AP interviewed more than 12 software engineers, developers, and researchers who found the model regularly invents text that speakers never said, a phenomenon often called a " confabulation " or "hallucinati

Don’t fall for AI scams cloning cops’ voices, police warn

AI scam impersonates police chief

•

Ars Technica - All content / 1d

AI is giving scammers a more convincing way to impersonate police, reports show. Just last week, the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) warned of an email scam using AI to convincingly clone the voice of Police Chief Mike Brown. A citizen tipped off cops after receiving a suspicious email that included a video showing the police chief claiming that they "owed the federal government nearly $

Kremlin-backed hackers have new Windows and Android malware to foist on Ukrainian foes

IoC > 1 domain

•

Ars Technica - All content / 1d

•

Russian group targets Ukrainian recruits

Google researchers said they uncovered a Kremlin-backed operation targeting recruits for the Ukrainian military with information-stealing malware for Windows and Android devices. The malware, spread primarily through posts on Telegram, came from a persona on that platform known as "Civil Defense." Posts on the ​​@civildefense_com_ua telegram channel and the accompanying civildefense[.]com.ua webs

Apple’s $1,299 M4 iMac at long last bumps the base model to 16GB of RAM

Apple launches new iMac M4

•

72Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Apple's week of Mac announcements kicks off today with a new lineup of 24-inch iMacs , Apple's first Macs to launch with the M4 processor from this spring's iPad Pros. The new models still start at $1,299 can be preordered starting today and will begin arriving on November 8. Processor aside, the biggest functional upgrade to the base model may be the bump from 8GB to 16GB of RAM, the first time

Are we on the verge of a self-improving AI explosion?

100+Ars Technica - All content / 1d

If you read enough science fiction, you've probably stumbled on the concept of an emergent artificial intelligence that breaks free of its constraints by modifying its own code . Given that fictional grounding, it's not surprising that AI researchers and companies have also invested significant attention to the idea of AI systems that can improve themselves—or at least design their own improved s

Raspberry Pi OS’s yearslong switch from X Window to Wayland is now official

Raspberry Pi OS updates and issues

•

Ars Technica - All content / 1d

There have been times when it seemed like X Window System would be with us forever, even though it's more than 40 years old , and the last true version was issued in 2012 . But with great effort, some organizations and operating systems have moved on. Raspberry Pi has now joined the forward momentum, with its latest release of Raspberry Pi OS swapping in Wayland—and it's hoping the change is hard

Ford adds EV routing to Google Maps for Android Auto users

Ford EVs gain Google Maps routing

•

60Ars Technica - All content / 1d

Owners of Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning electric vehicles are getting an over-the-air software update that will finally give Android Auto users a bit of an upgrade. Once the update is installed, Ford's EVs will report their battery state of charge to Google Maps when the app is running on an Android phone and being cast to the Ford's infotainment system via Android Auto. That means Goog

18-year prison sentence for man who used AI to create child abuse images

Hugh Nelson jailed for AI child abuse

•

Ars Technica - All content / 2d

A man who used artificial intelligence technology to create child sexual abuse imagery was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Monday, in a landmark prosecution over deepfakes in the UK. Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, pleaded guilty to a total of 16 child sexual abuse offenses, including transforming everyday photographs of real children into sexual abuse material using AI tools from US software pr

SpaceX has caught a massive rocket. So what’s next?

SpaceX prepares Super Heavy for Flight 6

•

300+Ars Technica - All content / 2d

The stupefying and stupendous capture of a Starship rocket earlier this month by two mechanical arms marked a significant step forward in SpaceX’s efforts to forever alter humanity’s relationship with the heavens. Yet as remarkable as the rocket catch was, it represents but a single step on a long path. SpaceX seeks to make launch cheap, frequent, and reliable with Starship, and the company is wo

End of feed