Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005
We are catching up with some new Canadian sightings thanks to friend site
Cybertron.ca. Read on for details.
Studio Series Wave 24 Deluxe – SS-111 Bumblebee Movie Sunstreaker and GE+07 Gamer Edition Sideswipe, plus SS 86-08 Gnaw (re-release) have showed up at several Gamestop and Walmart stores.
Studio Series Wave 24 Voyager – SS-110 Bumblebee Movie Shockwave has been found at several Gamestop stores in multiple provinces.
Studio Series 86 Blaster – The new SS 86-25 Blaster & Eject has been spotted at several ToysRus stores. Seems exclusive to this store in Canada.
Legacy United Origin Wheeljack –
» Continue Reading. The post
Studio Series Wave 24 Deluxe & Voyager, SS 86 Blaster, And Origin Wheeljack Found In Canada appeared first on
Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the lab-work department: Science Alert reports that a team of researchers found "that changes in glucose metabolism could help cancer grow by temporarily disabling a gene that protects us from tumors called BRCA2."
The team first examined people who inherited one faulty copy of BRCA2. They found that cells from these people were more sensitive to methylglyoxal (MGO), which is produced when cells break down glucose for energy in the process of glycolysis. Glycolysis generates over 90 percent of the MGO in cells, which a pair of enzymes typically keep to minimal levels. In the event they can't keep up, high MGO levels can lead to the formation of harmful compounds that damage DNA and proteins. In conditions like diabetes, where MGO levels are elevated due to high blood sugar, these harmful compounds contribute to disease complications.
The researchers discovered that MGO can temporarily disable the tumor-suppressing functions of the BRCA2 protein, resulting in mutations linked to cancer development...
As the BRCA2 allele isn't permanently inactivated, functional forms of the protein it produces can later return to normal levels. But cells repeatedly exposed to MGO may continue to accumulate cancer-causing mutations whenever existing BRCA2 protein production fails. Overall, this suggests that changes in glucose metabolism can disrupt BRCA2 function via MGO, contributing to the development and progression of cancer...
This new information may lead to strategies for cancer prevention or early detection. "Methylglyoxal can be easily detected by a blood test for HbA1C, which could potentially be used as a marker," Venkitaraman says. "Furthermore, high methylglyoxal levels can usually be controlled with medicines and a good diet, creating avenues for proactive measures against the initiation of cancer."
Their research has been published in Cell.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the device-drivers department: An anonymous reader shared this report from the Wall Street Journal:
Drunken-driving deaths in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen in nearly two decades, federal data show, a major setback to long-running road-safety efforts. At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring woes and heightened concern around traffic stops... About 13,500 people died in alcohol impairment-related crashes in 2022, according to data released in April by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That is 33% above 2019's toll and on par with 2021's. The last time so many people died as a result of accidents involving intoxicated drivers was in 2006.
That's still down from the early 1980s, when America was seeing over 20,000 drunk-driving deaths a year, according to the article. "By 2010, that number had fallen to around 10,000 thanks to high-profile public-education campaigns by groups like MADD, tougher laws, and aggressive enforcement that included sobriety checkpoints and typically yielded well over a million DUI arrests annually."
But some hope to solve the problem using technology:
Many activists and policymakers are banking on the promise of built-in devices to prevent a car from starting if the driver is intoxicated, either by analyzing a driver's exhaled breath or using skin sensors to gauge the blood-alcohol level. NHTSA issued a notice in December that it said lays the groundwork for potential alcohol-impairment detection technology standards in all new cars "when the technology is mature."
And Glenn Davis, who manages Colorado's highway-safety office, "pointed to Colorado's extensive use of ignition interlock systems that require people convicted of DUI to blow into a tube to verify they are sober in order for their car to start. He said the office promotes nondriving options such as Lyft and Uber."
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the federal-case department: A "string of legal victories" by America's market-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission "has jolted some of crypto's biggest players," reports Politico — even as they're seeking more credibility with U.S. lawmakers:
Judges have recently rebuked claims that the SEC lacks authority to police the market. Coinbase, the largest U.S. exchange, lost a bid to throw out charges that it is violating investor-protection rules. And a New York jury found one-time billionaire entrepreneur Do Kwon and his firm liable for fraud. Now, the crackdown is about to expand, with the SEC preparing for a new round of lawsuits. "The SEC just keeps winning," said John Reed Stark, a former agency attorney and prominent crypto critic. "The law is catching up...."
[I]t's the SEC crackdown that is raising foundational questions about crypto's future. [SEC Chairman Gary] Gensler has been among the industry's most implacable foes, saying most crypto tokens are unregistered securities that are being sold illegally and blasting the industry as "rife with fraud, scams, bankruptcies and money laundering." His opposition has been so unwavering that many in the industry are holding out hope that he leaves the agency after the November elections...
[T]he SEC's enforcement sweep appears to be on the brink of spreading across the crypto world. Consensys is facing potential charges from the agency, according to the company's lawsuit. And the SEC recently warned Uniswap Labs, a decentralized finance company that created one of the world's largest DeFi exchanges, that staff was preparing to sue.
Uniswap executives have vowed to fight the agency in court.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the sleep-mode department: An anonymous reader shared this report from SFGate:
Late last year, tales of tech workers paying $700 a month for tiny "bed pods" in downtown San Francisco went viral. The story provided a perfect distillation of SF's wild (and wildly expensive) housing market — and inspired schadenfreude when the city deemed the situation illegal. But the provocative living situation wasn't an anomaly, according to a city official.
"We've definitely seen an uptick of these 'pod'-type complaints," Kelly Wong, a planner with San Francisco's code enforcement and zoning and compliance team, told SFGATE... Wong stressed that it's not that San Francisco is inherently against bed pod-type arrangements, but that the city is responsible for making sure these spaces are safe and legally zoned.
So Brownstone Shared Housing is still renting one bed pod location — but not accepting new tenants — after citations for failing to get proper permits and having a lock on the front door that required a key to exit.
And SFGate also spoke to Alex Akel, general manager of Olive Rooms, which opened up a co-living and co-working space in SoMa earlier this year (and also faced "a flurry of complaints.")
"Unfortunately, we had complaints from neighbors because of foot traffic and noise, and since then we cut the number of people to fit the ordinance by the city," Akel wrote. Olive Rooms describes its space as targeted at "tech founders from Central Asia, giving them opportunities to get involved in the current AI boom." Akel added that its residents are "bringing new energy to SF," but that the program "will not accept new residents before we clarify the status with the city."
In April, the city also received a complaint about a group called Let's Be Buds, which rents out 14 pods in a loft on Divisadero Street that start at $575 per month for an upper bunk.
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the feel-the-need-for-speed department: The Associated Press reports that an F-16 performing aerial combat tests at 550 miles per hour was "controlled by artificial intelligence, not a human pilot."
And riding in the front seat was the U.S. Secretary of the Air Force...
AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.
It was fitting that the dogfight took place at [California's] Edwards Air Force Base, a vast desert facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound and the military has incubated its most secret aerospace advances. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of shielding against surveillance, a new test-pilot generation is training AI agents to fly in war. [U.S. Secretary of the Air Force] Frank Kendall traveled here to see AI fly in real time and make a public statement of confidence in its future role in air combat.
"It's a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it," Kendall said in an interview with The Associated Press after he landed... At the end of the hourlong flight, Kendall climbed out of the cockpit grinning. He said he'd seen enough during his flight that he'd trust this still-learning AI with the ability to decide whether or not to launch weapons in war... [T]he software first learns on millions of data points in a simulator, then tests its conclusions during actual flights. That real-world performance data is then put back into the simulator where the AI then processes it to learn more.
"Kendall said there will always be human oversight in the system when weapons are used," the article notes.
But he also said looked for to the cost-savings of smaller and cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets.
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the sanction-snafu department: Last month Reuters reported that Venezuela's state-run oil company "plans to increase digital currency usage in its crude and fuel exports as the U.S. reimposes oil sanctions on the country, three people familiar with the plan said."
[The oil company] since last year had been slowly moving oil sales to USDT, a digital currency also known as Tether whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar and designed to maintain a stable value. The return of oil sanctions is speeding up the shift, a move to reduce the risk of sale proceeds getting frozen in foreign bank accounts due to the measures, the people said...
Tether said in an email it respects the U.S. Treasury's list of sanctioned entities and "is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly."
This week Reuters reported that now experts are saying the situation "will require greater scrutiny by regulators and law enforcement." They spoke to Kristofer Doucett, national security leader at U.S. blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, who said "Structures must be set up to combat this type of money laundering." Reuters writes:
Technology for digital transactions is changing fast and transactions are rapidly growing in developing regions including Latin America and Africa benefiting people without access to the banking system. But some corrupt governments are moving faster, making it difficult to prevent fraud, the experts said. Doucette and Sigal Mandelker, a lawyer who previously worked at the U.S. Treasury Department, said during a conference organized by the Wilson Center in Washington that the U.S. administration is making efforts to increase regulation and encourage other countries to improve supervision.
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the network-effects department: The blog Its FOSS has 15,000 followers for its Mastodon account — which they think is causing problems:
When you share a link on Mastodon, a link preview is generated for it, right? With Mastodon being a federated platform (a part of the Fediverse), the request to generate a link preview is not generated by just one Mastodon instance. There are many instances connected to it who also initiate requests for the content almost immediately. And, this "fediverse effect" increases the load on the website's server in a big way.
Sure, some websites may not get overwhelmed with the requests, but Mastodon does generate numerous hits, increasing the load on the server. Especially, if the link reaches a profile with more followers (and a broader network of instances)... We tried it on our Mastodon profile, and every time we shared a link, we were able to successfully make our website unresponsive or slow to load.
Slashdot reader nunojsilva is skeptical that "blurbs with a thumbnail and description" could create the issue (rather than, say, poorly-optimized web content). But the It's Foss blog says they found three GitHub issues about the same problem — one from 2017, and two more from 2023. And other blogs also reported the same issue over a year ago — including software developer Michael Nordmeyer and legendary Netscape programmer Jamie Zawinski.
And back in 2022, security engineer Chris Partridge wrote:
[A] single roughly ~3KB POST to Mastodon caused servers to pull a bit of HTML and... an image. In total, 114.7 MB of data was requested from my site in just under five minutes — making for a traffic amplification of 36704:1. [Not counting the image.]
Its Foss reports Mastodon's official position that the issue has been "moved as a milestone for a future 4.4.0 release. As things stand now, the 4.4.0 release could take a year or more (who knows?)."
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the very-old-news department: An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy. In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl. Despite battling a fever and being on the brink of death, Plato — who was known as a disciple of Socrates and a mentor to Aristotle, and who died in Athens around 348BC — retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm, the account suggests....
In a presentation of the research findings at the National Library of Naples, Prof Graziano Ranocchia, of the University of Pisa, who spearheaded the team responsible for unearthing the carbonised scroll, described the discovery as an "extraordinary outcome that enriches our understanding of ancient history". He said: "Thanks to the most advanced imaging diagnostic techniques, we are finally able to read and decipher new sections of texts that previously seemed inaccessible... For the first time, we have been able to read sequences of hidden letters from the papyri that were enfolded within multiple layers, stuck to each other over the centuries, through an unrolling process using a mechanical technique that disrupted whole fragments of text."
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the having-good-chemistry department: "A leap in our ability to see the chemistry of matter in three-dimensions at the nanoscale was achieved, allowing scientists to understand how nanomaterials are chemically arranged," writes Slashdot reader Hovden:
Traditionally, seeing matter at the smallest sizes requires too many high-energy electrons for 3D chemical imaging. The high beam exposure destroys the specimen before an experiment is completed. Even larger doses are required to achieve high resolution.
Thus, chemical mapping in 3D has been unachievable except at lower resolution with the most radiation-hard materials.
High-resolution 3D chemical imaging is now achievable near or below one-nanometer resolution. A team from Dow Chemical and the University of Michigan used a newly introduced method, called multi-modal data fusion, high-resolution chemical tomography, that provides 99% less dose by linking information encoded within both elastic and inelastic scattered signals. The researchers showed sub-nanometer 3D resolution of chemistry is measurable for a broad class of geometrically and compositionally complex materials.
"Here are the pretty pictures," adds long-time Slashdot reader thoper.
Phys.org also has this quote from Robert Hovden, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan and corresponding author on the study published in Nature Communications. "Seeing invisible worlds, far smaller than the wavelengths of light, is absolutely critical to understanding the matter we are engineering at the nanoscale, not just in 2D but in 3D as well."
This week, we’ll help you sharpen your stellar blade, harvest XP in Final Fantasy 16, find great gear and adaptations in Another Crab’s Treasure, and more. Read on! 
