Day: November 15, 2018

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There’s a giant crater the size of a city hiding under Greenland

https://www.popsci.com/greenland-crater-asteroid?dom=rss-default&src=syn


Thousands or maybe millions of years ago, a giant asteroid slammed into Greenland and created a crater stretching out to about 19 miles in width, according to new findings published in Science Advances on Wednesday. It’s one of the biggest asteroid craters to ever sear itself into Earth’s surface.

If it’s really an asteroid crater, that is. There’s definitely a giant circular cavity sitting underneath an ice sheet that we’ve never before observed, but exactly how it got there has created something of a debate among geologists. Did an asteroid really smash into the ground? Was the crater created by other, more Earthly means?

Here’s what we have so far: a research group from Denmark, studying a topographical map of the bedrock beneath northwest Greenland, realized there was a large, circular, closed depression intact under the massive Hiawatha Glacier. “It went unnoticed simply because it’s a very remote region of the planet that hasn’t been explored all that much,” says Joseph MacGregor, a project scientist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and a co-author of the new paper. Most scientists studying the region, he adds, are focused more on the effects of climate change in transforming the environment, and almost nobody was out looking for signs of craters.

Once the Danish team found the depression, however, they quickly went to work to figure out what exactly was going on at this site. Conscripting MacGregor and others from around the world for this investigation, the team collected data from both ground and aerial surveys, analyzed sediment samples in the lab, made radar measurements of the glacier and bedrock beneath, and assessed the extent of the depression’s footprint. The team also started paying much more attention to the area with their own eyes and began seeing more obvious signs of the crater’s presence.

“We’re very surprised that we could find it,” says MacGregor. “But once you start thinking there might be craters beneath the ice, the structure beneath the Hiawatha Glacier sticks out like a sore thumb.”

Eventually, the team settled on a narrative that goes like this: between 3 million and 12,000 years ago, an asteroid roughly 3,100 feet wide and rich in iron pummeled Greenland and left behind an enormous dent in the ground. Later on, the ice sheet would recover and mask the impact crater in a 3,200-foot layer of snow.

At least, that’s part of the story. Exactly what happened in the aftermath really depends on whether or not there was originally an ice sheet there as the asteroid hurtled to the ground. “If there was, then billions of tons of water would have either melted or vaporized instantly, most of which would have eventually made its way into the atmosphere or ocean,” says MacGregor. All of that melted water would have quickly streamed into the ocean. Combined with massive amounts of debris getting flung into the atmosphere, these effects would have likely caused a significant global cooling effect (similar to what is experienced during a volcanic winter). Even in the absence of an ice sheet, there would have still been noticeable environmental effects stemming from such an impact. If the impact really happened, scientists should presumably be able to link the event with perturbations in the atmospheric and climatic record of the planet and the region.

Those links remain an unknown thanks in part to the study’s biggest limitation: the fact that we don’t know when exactly the asteroid hit Earth. The research team has yet to acquire a direct rock sample to radiometrically date the impact crater and give them a narrow timeframe to work with.

It’s not just those few unknowns that are sapping some of the excitement. “I have strong reservations and doubts about the interpretations in this study,” says Christian Koeberl, an impact crater expert from the University of Vienna, who was not involved with the paper. “The authors report on some interesting phenomena, but the ‘definitive’ interpretation and conclusion that a large impact crater underneath the ice has been discovered is a severe over-interpretation of the existing data.”

Koeberl cites several inconsistencies regarding a few of the paper’s major findings. One is the discovery of shocked quartz grains—a sign of fast-melting rock from an asteroid impact—in one of the float samples (rocks not connected to an obvious source or basement). “Even if one would agree that there are some shocked quartz grains, one swallow does not make a summer, just like one rock from an unknown source with a few shocked quartz grains does not make an impact crater,” he says.

Another float sample reportedly contains possible enrichment of platinum group elements, which is presumably a sign of meteorite contaminations. Since the float sample can’t be definitively linked as originating from the crater, Koeberl thinks the authors have made a “leap of faith” judgment that their one rock sample, whose platinum group elements are unlike normal meteorite contaminations, comes from the crater, and that this is confirmation the site is an impact structure.

Then there are questions about the crater itself. The 19-mile diameter crater is missing a central uplift or central ring structure that’s ubiquitous in all terrestrial impact craters larger than 2.5 miles. According to Koeberl, one of the most damning problems for the study’s claims is that if the crater really is as young as the authors say it is (remember, 3 million years is a blink in geological terms), it should be surrounded by ejected impact debris hundreds of meters thick. “This is all missing,” he says. “Just a few float samples? There should be thick ejecta layers in all ice cores nearby. Yet there’s nothing.”

If the site turns out to really be an impact crater, the implications extend beyond just knowing there’s a pretty gigantic cavity sitting under the Hiawatha Glacier. “We now know that impact structures beneath ice can be found,” says MacGregor. “It’s now an open question as to how many exist beneath the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that we might actually be able to confidently detect.”

But those implications hinge on whether we can confirm an asteroid impact created the crater under the Hiawatha Glacier. The debate will stew on until we collect more data, but one thing is certain: the crater’s discovery just created a whole lot of research opportunities for scientists looking to saddle up and do some ice drilling.

via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://ift.tt/2k2uJQn

November 15, 2018 at 05:17PM

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All 141 ‘League of Legends’ Champions, Explained

https://www.wired.com/story/league-of-legends-champions-explained


Gone are the days of multiplayer videogames with a set roster of characters. Sure, people still play Team Fortress 2 more than a decade after its release, but its nine classes remain just as they were in 2007. Now, though, incessant updates and patches have turned the most popular titles into ever-evolving sagas, with ever-evolving choices. Blizzard’s Overwatch has 29 distinct playable heroes, each with their own backstory and skillset. Valve’s Dota 2 has 79.

And then there’s League of Legends.

Since its release in 2009—just two short years after Team Fortress 2—Riot Games’ battle arena title offers 141 champions players can choose. One hundred and forty-one. It’s almost impossible to keep track. Or, rather it would be, if two Riot employees hadn’t come to the rescue. In our newest installment of “Every X in Y,” LoL design director Andrei Van Roon and Riot head of creative development Greg Street run through all 141 of them.

From Aatrox to Zyra—though not in that order—they give their own thoughts on each champion, along with a little bit of lore (Rammus originally had much more recorded dialogue, but most of it was scuttled, which is why he’s known for his signature guttural “OKAY”) and a lot of sardonic humor (Street on Jarvan IV: “He has a spear, he jumps on people. That’s a … recurring motif in League of Legends.”).

So if you’ve ever had trouble distinguishing your Udyr from your Urgot, or your Fizz from your Gnar, consider this your crib sheet for all things LoL … at least until next week, when a new mage joins the game.

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November 15, 2018 at 03:36PM

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AI Can Now Fake Fingerprints That Fool Biometric ID Scanners

https://gizmodo.com/ai-can-now-fake-fingerprints-that-fool-biometric-id-sca-1830464777


Artificial Intelligence researchers used a neural network to create fake fingerprints that could be a hacker’s dream tool.

Five researchers, led by Philip Bontrager of the New York University engineering school, developed what they have called “DeepMasterPrints.” The Guardian reported that the research was presented at a biometrics conference in Los Angeles in October. As the Guardian points out, their report, published last month, explains how the fake prints they generated could replicate more than one in five real fingerprints in a biometric identification system.

The paper suggests this technique could be used to create replicated fingerprints that could be used in something akin to a “dictionary attack,” but instead of software that runs millions of popular passwords through a system, a DeepMasterPrints-inspired tool could run several fake fingerprints through a system to see if any prints match any accounts.

The key to their research is that many fingerprint scanners only read a portion of a print, and some different fingertip portions have more in common than others.

So when researchers created new prints by feeding a set of real fingerprints into a generative adversarial network, they only needed to create prints that matched certain portions of other fingerprints—the portions that tend to have commonalities.

It’s unlikely someone could use such a technique to break into your phone (as one report suggests). “A similar setup to ours could be used for nefarious purposes, but it would likely not have the success rate we reported unless they optimized it for a smartphone system,” Bontrager told Gizmodo. “This would take a lot of work to try and reverse engineer a system like that.”

But if a hacker accessed a system with many fingerprint-accessible accounts, they’d have a good shot at cracking into a few of them.

Bontrager and his team want their research to inspire companies to step up fingerprint-security efforts. “Without verifying that a biometric comes from a real person, a lot of these adversarial attacks become possible,” Bontrager said. “The real hope of work like this is to push toward liveness detection in biometric sensor.”

[The Guardian]

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

November 15, 2018 at 11:18AM

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Boom Supersonic Moves to Take off With a Demonstrator Plane

https://www.wired.com/story/boom-aerospace-baby-boom-demonstrator-supersonic


The airplane that could herald a new generation of supersonic passenger flight looks an awful lot like a fighter jet. It’s long and sleek, with a narrow wingspan, two tandem seats, and three engines blasting full afterburners to propel it to twice the speed of sound.

Look the part, be the part. “This thing will handle very much like a fighter jet,” Boom Supersonic test pilot Bill “Doc” Shoemaker says with a grin. “We have to actually limit its capabilities a bit so passengers stay comfortable.” The F/A-18s this former US Navy pilot used to fly would lose a top speed contest to Boom’s new airliner by a healthy 1,451 mph.

Shoemaker is actually talking about two aircraft: a 1/3-scale demonstrator the company is building now to prove out its supersonic technology, and the full-scale airliner that, come 2025, will carry 55 passengers to Mach 2.2 at 60,000 feet altitude. To avoid sonic boom-related speed restrictions, Boom will mimic the Concorde in sticking to transoceanic routes.

For that to happen, the company has to raise about $6 billion in funding, clear all the safety and reliability hurdles required of new commercial aircraft, and be economical enough for airlines to even want the thing. Despite the appeal of going supersonic, no airline will forget the famed Concorde’s famously monstrous financial record.

“To make this whole effort successful, you need to have technology that works, customer demand, the cooperation of great suppliers in the industry, and you need to have an approach that will ensure certification and regulatory approvals,” Boom CEO Blake Scholl says from his new headquarters outside Denver. “We’re now spiraling up through all those challenges, and one of the strategies for that is to build the XB-1, which we can do with the money we already have.”

The XB-1 is that demonstrator plane, 60 feet long and dubbed the “Baby Boom.” Developed with some of the $85 million the company has raised so far, it will go just as fast as the proposed airliner, and allow engineers to assess the aerodynamic performance of their design and the structural qualities of the carbon fiber airframe, as well as the general engine setup.

The scaled-down flier will use a trio of General Electric turbojets; the airliner will use new engines that are more efficient and powerful, and thus don’t require afterburners, but don’t quite exist yet. Boom is soliciting proposals from the major engine manufacturers. In the meantime, Boom’s engineers are using wind tunnels and test facilities to develop their propulsion strategies—what works for the demonstrator will, for the most part, also work for the bigger airliner.

The scaled-down flier will use a trio of General Electric turbojets; the airliner will use new engines that are more efficient and powerful, and thus don’t require afterburners, but don’t quite exist yet.

Boom Aerospace

Propulsion engineer Ben Murphy is leading much of that work, including using test facilities at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. “Our ultimate goal is safe and efficient engine operation from idle through Mach 2.2,” he says.

That mean designing inlets that can take air moving twice as fast as sound and slow it to the subsonic speeds at which its engines can operate. Boom will use an adjustable inlet that adjusts airflow based on the phase of flight—more open during takeoff and landing, more constricted during high-speed cruise. Murphy says that in one year of work, his team has exceeded the Concorde’s inlet performance, and at higher speeds than that airplane could fly. “Efficient inlets mean lower fuel consumption, and this lesson we’ve learned on XB-1 will help improve the operating economics of Boom’s airliner,” he adds.

Boom is also using the XB-1 to hone its carbon fiber manufacturing techniques, ensuring that the pieces that will make up its plane have the not just the right durability, strength, precision, and lightness, but thermal performance at high speeds. Structural elements expand when heated. “At Mach 2.2, the nose and leading edges of the wings will be 307 degrees Fahrenheit,” Scholl says. “That’s toasty.”

“You want thermal expansion to be matched, so that everything grows at the same rate,” explains Scholl, a private pilot who began his career in the technology world, in digital marketing with Amazon. The pieces being made in California are sent to Denver, where they’re tested for strength and rigidity. Eventually all will be assembled into the XB-1, which the CEO estimates will fly by the end of 2019.

Boom Supersonic isn’t without competition in this quest. Boston-based Spike Aerospace and Aerion Supersonic in San Francisco are building supersonic airplanes along similar timelines. Those two companies, though, are targeting the business jet market with smaller craft and and lower speeds of Mach 1 to 1.4.

Boom’s speedier flying will undoubtedly give it extra appeal to the airlines considering it, and so far it has drawn preorders and investments from Japan Airlines and Virgin Group. (No surprise on the latter—Richard Branson once tried to buy the Concorde fleet British Airways was retiring.) If the XB-1 proves out Scholl’s vision, it will presumably draw still more money from airliners and investors. And if for some reason it kills the argument for the 55-passenger airliner, Scholl says he could just start selling the demonstrator to wealthy aviators looking to rocket between meetings.

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November 15, 2018 at 07:06AM

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Couple and Homeless Man Said to Have Made Up Story Behind $400,000 GoFundMe Campaign

https://gizmodo.com/couple-and-homeless-man-said-to-have-made-up-story-behi-1830460690


The strange case of a couple in New Jersey who raised $400,000 on GoFundMe for a homeless good Samaritan appears to be skidding into a surprise ending.

Following earlier legal turmoil, the couple reportedly turned themselves in to authorities on Wednesday and will face charges for allegedly conspiring with the man to make up a heartwarming story in order to crowdfund the fortune, according to newly reported court documents.

NBC Philadelphia obtained a copy of a complaint by Burlington County prosecutors that accuses Mark D’Amico and Kate McClure of conspiring with Johnny Bobbitt Jr. to deceive GoFundMe users into making donations. A source familiar with the case told NBC that D’Amico and McClure had already turned themselves in but did not confirm if Bobbitt had done the same.

According to the report, the three made up the story that inspired 14,000 contributors to raise $400,000 for Bobbitt. In October of 2017, McClure started a GoFundMe campaign that claimed she’d run out of gas on the interstate when Bobbitt, who was allegedly homeless, approached her car. She said that he told her to sit tight and proceeded to use his last $20 to get her fuel. Inspired by his kindness, she and her boyfriend, D’Amico, set out to raise $10,000, allegedly to get him on his feet. A flood of donations ensued as the story went viral and the couple made television appearances. It’s unclear exactly what parts of the story was allegedly made up, but NBC claims that the charges will include conspiracy and theft by deception.

When contacted by Gizmodo, the couple’s attorney, Ernest E. Badway, declined to comment on the pending charges. Bobbitt’s attorney, Christopher Fallon Jr., did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Burlington County prosecutors told Fox they will hold a press conference at 2pm on Thursday and announce “a major development” in the case.

Investigators have been poring over the case since September. Almost a year after the money was raised, Bobbitt accused the couple of taking the money for themselves. He said that he’d received around $75,000 but the rest was being withheld. At first, D’Amico claimed that they’d given him closer to $200,000 and were simply afraid to give him the full amount at once because he has an admitted substance abuse problem. But after a judge ordered the couple to hand over the rest of the money, they claimed it was all gone.

In September, GoFundMe told Gizmodo that it had decided that it would give Bobbitt the full balance of the remaining funds he was owed but the case has been in legal limbo ever since. When contacted on Thursday, a GoFundMe spokesperson told us that the company “can’t confirm the reports” and will have a statement following the press conference this afternoon.

[NBC Philadelphia]

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

November 15, 2018 at 09:18AM

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NYT: Facebook’s crisis response included sneaky redirections

https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/14/facebook-definers-political-response/


Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., from left, Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook Inc. and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., walk the grounds after the morning session at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on Thursday, July 12, 2018.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

It’s no secret that the last couple of years have seen Facebook’s reputation take a series of hits — whether due to data breaches, alleged bias, rumors of intrusive spying or confusing policies — but a New York Times report tonight exposes more about how the company reacted. Arriving on the heels of a Wall Street Journal article describing declining employee morale, it doesn’t reflect well on Facebook’s efforts and raises even more questions about an operation already facing calls for increased regulation.

In addition to peering into previously identified problem areas like Facebook’s slow response to the spread of misinformation or questionable applications of policies meant to be unbiased, it specifically calls out a strategy where the company tried to distract from criticism. Since late last year, it expanded work with a consultant, Definers Public Affairs, that the Times said used political campaign tactics in public relations. This includes everything from Facebook’s public support for FOSTA to articles written on a conservative news site attacking Google and Apple.

While Facebook execs went on an apology tour earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook focused on his company’s reticence to collect and sell data from its customers — a point the report mentions in contrast to Mark Zuckerberg apparently telling his management team to use only Android because of its larger user base. It’s unclear if any actually switched.

Other details range from the bizarre — apparently Facebook needed pollsters to determine that Zuck’s testimony on Capitol Hill came off as robotic — to deeply unsettling. George Soros has been a target of anti-Semitic attacks for many years, and even though Facebook worked with one group to describe some of the criticism it received as anti-Semitic, the Definers agency pushed material suggesting a link between Soros and groups aligned against Facebook. Variety points out a writer for the Daily Caller who confirmed the contact.

As for specific executives like Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, they’re cast as either unaware of threats or, in the case of Sandberg, angry when she found out that then-security chief Alex Stamos had begun looking into Russian misinformation without getting approval first. Arguments against coming out strongly against Russian meddling or determining that a post by Donald Trump violated its TOS are attributed to former George W. Bush administration member, and current Facebook exec, Joel Kaplan.

While we’ve continuously heard from Facebook about its shifting response to issues like Russian-sourced pages and posts of misinformation, it has not yet responded to this report — which the NYT said it based on interviews with more than 50 people — to confirm or deny details.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

November 14, 2018 at 08:12PM

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Boeing’s solar-powered climate research drone takes flight in 2019

https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/14/aurora-flight-sciences-odysseus-solar-powered-aircraft/



Aurora Flight Sciences/YouTube

Aurora Flight Sciences, a subsidiary of Boeing that specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles, is gearing up to launch a solar-powered autonomous aircraft. The vehicle, called Odysseus, is designed for persistent flight at high-altitudes and will be used to perform climate and atmospheric research. Its first voyage is scheduled for the spring of 2019.