Google will invest $1 billion in a new campus in New York City, the company said Monday. From a report: The new 1.7 million square foot "Google Hudson Square" campus will include two buildings located at 315 and 345 Hudson Street and an office space situated at nearby 550, Washington Street in Manhattan, Google said in a blog post on Monday. The move will expand Google's presence near the Hudson River in New York City. Earlier this year, the search giant announced it had purchased shopping and office complex Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion. Google said the Hudson Square campus will be the main location for its New York-based global business organization. It said the investments in Chelsea and Hudson Square will create capacity to more than double headcount in New York over the next decade. Google currently houses more than 7,000 employees in New York City in a range of teams including Search, Ads, Maps, YouTube and Cloud. "Our investment in New York is a huge part of our commitment to grow and invest in U.S. facilities, offices and jobs," Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said in the blog post. Unlike Amazon, Google did not pursue tax breaks or other incentives from New York.

IF YOU STILL haven't bought yourself an NES or SNES Classic console then time is running out, according to Nintendo. In a Grinch-like interview with Hollywood Reporter, Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime made it clear that there would be no more of the retro consoles once they're gone, there won't be more games for them, and there aren't any plans for an N64, GameCube, Wii or Wii U Classic. "There's no ability for add-on content with our classic consoles, so when you purchase the console it's coming with that set roster of content," he began, smashing dream number one in just 36 syllables. Dream number two followed quickly: "We've said that the current systems are the extent of our classic program." To be entirely fair, this isn't the first time this hope has been summarily taken out the back and shot. Just last month, Fils-Aime explained that the two Classic systems were space fillers between the Wii U dying and the Switch replacing it. In that interview, he said: "I would not ever rule something out, but what I can tell you is certainly that's not in our planning horizon." For someone who "would not ever rule something out," today's quote sounds an awful lot like ruling something out, but there we are. All that leaves in this joy-a-thon of an interview is to highlight the imminent death of the retro consoles that do exist. "We've also been clear that, at least from an America's perspective, these products are going to be available through the holiday season and once they sell out, they're gone. And that's it." He went on to explain that going forward, fans can still get hold of retro games through Nintendo Switch Online. That's true, but every second spent putting more NES classics onto the Switch is a second where developers aren't porting Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. Bah, humbug. µ

A LAWSUIT alleges that Apple has been fibbing about the screen size and screen resolution of its latest iPhones models. As uncovered by CNET, two plaintiffs filed the suit in the US District Court of Northern California on Friday, alleging that Apple falsely advertised the screen sizes and resolutions of the displays on its iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices. According to the plaintiffs, which are seeking class-action status, Apple's fibbing stems from the fact that, in advertising the smartphones' screen sizes, the firm included non-screen areas such as corners and the controversial notch. This means the iPhones aren't "all screen" as marketed, according to the 55-page complaint; the screen on the iPhone X is advertised as being 5.8in, but the plaintiffs claim that the screen is actually "only about 5.6875in." The lawsuit also accuses Apple of falsely advertising the pixel count of its notch-equipped handsets. The iPhone X is touted as having a resolution of 2436x1125 pixels, but thanks to Apple's use of Samsung's OLED display tech, it doesn't contain true pixels with red, green and blue subpixels in each pixel. "The iPhone X Product is advertised as having 2436×1125 pixels, but in fact does not use true pixels with red, green, and blue subpixels in each pixel," the complaint states. Instead, the suit argues that the iPhone X allegedly only has two subpixels per pixel, which is less than advertised, alleging the iPhone 8 Plus has a higher-quality screen than Apple's first notch-ridden flagship. "One of the most important factors in the value and price of a phone is its screen quality, the most important factor of which is screen resolution. For this reason, Defendant's phones, including the Products, are advertised and marketed based on their screen resolution," the lawsuit claims. The plaintiffs go on to argue that Apple uses screen size on their website to advertise their phones and to offer comparisons between different phone models, noting: "These comparisons are misleading because the Products have false screen pixel counts that dramatically overrepresent the number of subpixels in the phones." Apple hasn't yet commented on the lawsuit. µ

A LAWSUIT alleges that Apple has been fibbing about the screen size and screen resolution of its latest iPhones models. As uncovered by CNET, two plaintiffs filed the suit in the US District Court of Northern California on Friday, alleging that Apple falsely advertised the screen sizes and resolutions of the displays on its iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices. According to the plaintiffs, which are seeking class-action status, Apple's fibbing stems from the fact that, in advertising the smartphones' screen sizes, the firm included non-screen areas such as corners and the controversial notch. This means the iPhones aren't "all screen" as marketed, according to the 55-page complaint; the screen on the iPhone X is advertised as being 5.8in, but the plaintiffs claim that the screen is actually "only about 5.6875in." The lawsuit also accuses Apple of falsely advertising the pixel count of its notch-equipped handsets. The iPhone X is touted as having a resolution of 2436x1125 pixels, but thanks to Apple's use of Samsung's OLED display tech, it doesn't contain true pixels with red, green and blue subpixels in each pixel. "The iPhone X Product is advertised as having 2436×1125 pixels, but in fact does not use true pixels with red, green, and blue subpixels in each pixel," the complaint states. Instead, the suit argues that the iPhone X allegedly only has two subpixels per pixel, which is less than advertised, alleging the iPhone 8 Plus has a higher-quality screen than Apple's first notch-ridden flagship. "One of the most important factors in the value and price of a phone is its screen quality, the most important factor of which is screen resolution. For this reason, Defendant's phones, including the Products, are advertised and marketed based on their screen resolution," the lawsuit claims. The plaintiffs go on to argue that Apple uses screen size on their website to advertise their phones and to offer comparisons between different phone models, noting: "These comparisons are misleading because the Products have false screen pixel counts that dramatically overrepresent the number of subpixels in the phones." Apple hasn't yet commented on the lawsuit. µ

REGULAR READERS of these hallowed pages will already know that we're a sucker for a bit of AI-generated silliness. Whilst we usually look to the wonderful Janelle Shane, there are plenty of other companies doing the same. In this case, jewellery company Made By AI, which creates unique pendants using neural networks, has turned its equipment to making Christmassy music. Here's an extract from the rather nerdy-wordy blog: "We already knew that working with raw audio input would be difficult in all mentioned limitations. Therefore we realized that a path forward was to train on musical notes. "We limited ourselves to network architecture types of RNNs (Recurrent Neural Networks) or a LSTM (Long-short Term Memory). There is a lot of well written articles and examples of using these types of neural network. To be able to generate good results of longer sequences of text we choose the LSTM model." LSTMs, as mentioned above, are a special type of neural network that can remember context even if there are a few steps in between, so instead of being a random progression, there's some level of consistency. In other words, a tune. It's the same technique that allows your Google Home or Amazon Echo to answer follow up questions like "What's the weather today"….. "What about tomorrow?" without having to learn the context as it goes. The LSTM was loaded with 100 Christmas songs as MIDI files. Chords, rhythms and progressions were all loaded in, and the whole thing configured to create Christmas tunes of its own, with an instrument of choice and a custom length. There are some generic examples on the website, but the real charm is that you can specify your needs, and a short time later, receive your own, unique AI-generated Christmas tune. Naturally, we couldn't resist, so here's our official Made By AI Christmas tune: Yeah, we're not going to be challenging Noddy Holder with it, but it's fun. Oh yeah - and if you fancy a funky AI necklace - go here. μ

MICROSOFT HAS WAVED its little white flag and started issuing replacements after firmware issues borked some Surface Pro 4s. After weeks of mixed messages, with some users given a warranty replacement straight away while others have had to argue and fight for it, Microsoft has confirmed that there is an issue and that it will honour warranties. If you have been gritting your teeth over the October 2018 Update to Windows 10 which has been dogged by a cavalcade of issues, then spare a thought for those with the affected Surface Pro 4, which has been suffering since a software drop in July. The issue is caused by two drivers - the embedded controller and the UEFI storage manager which caused both to show up with a Code 10 error. If this is you, then get on the phone to Surface Support. If you've got a borked device but you're not sure if it's because of this, then open Device Manager. If you're one of the affected, you'll see some yellow warning triangles by the devices we mentioned. If you're very unlucky, this is the second time that the Surface Pro 4 has failed. Screen flickering issues at the start of the year were already causing grinding of teeth amongst users and in some cases, warranty replacements, so it could be that you'll be on your third device by the end of 2018. The problem drivers don't seem to affect the devices from working altogether, but they will suffer from a significant performance impairment. It's also reported that there are further screen issues as a result, too. After a shaky start (Windows RT anyone?) the Surface range has settled into a position of being a genuine flagship range to rival iPad Pro and Mac devices. The Surface Pro 4 is actually two iterations old now, with the Surface Pro 6 announced earlier in the year, along with the entry-level teeny-tiny Surface Go. μ

CHIPMAKER Intel's much-hyped 28-core processor might be cheaper than initially thought at, er, £4,000. Intel first announced the 9th-gen Xeon W-3175X back in October, at the time promising that the 28-core CPU would be available to buy in December. Although that still hasn't happened, WCCFTech has spotted a premature listing at retailer Kikatek which lists the CPU for an eye-watering £4,045, discounted from its alleged RRP of £5,999. While this will likely have AMD rubbing its hands together, this latest leak suggests that the Xeon W-3175X will actually be more attainable than previously thought; earlier leaks had suggested that the chip could fetch as much as £10,000. The 14nm Intel Xeon W-3175X processor features 56 threads to go alongside its 28 cores, and can hit clockspeeds of 4.3GHz; hardly impressive given the when the Core i9-9900K can hit 5GHz. However, the CPU, which takes aim at ultra high-end workstations, ships unlocked, so so overclockers can roll up their sleeves squeeze more performance out of the pricey processor. The Xeon W-3175X also provides support for up to 512GB of 6-channel DDR4 RAM running at 2666MHz, with a 38.5MB of Intel Smart Cache, so expect it to help handle hefty video files with relative ease, providing its setup in an appropriate workstation. Leaked benchmarks put the Xeon W-3175X in the same performance arena at AMD's Threadripper 2990X processor, which comes with a price tag of some £1,600 yet offers 32 cores and 64 threads. AMD's cheaper CPUs are seemingly wooing buyers from Intel, too; according to German e-tailer Mindfactory.de, AMD processors outsold Intel two-to-one throughout November. The retailer's stats show that the former sold more than 16,000 chips last month, marking the largest volume of processors ever sold at the e-tailer during any given month. µ

According to a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, air pollution not only affects air quality, but it also changes the pathways along which new particles are formed in the atmosphere. The formation of new aerosol particles is a complicated process. Researchers have only recently started to understand this process on a molecular level after instruments able to detect nanometer-scale particles became available. The human population has altered the composition of atmospheric gas in several ways. Sulfur dioxide from industrial emissions, nitrogen oxides from traffic, and ammonia from agriculture can all affect particle formation after chemical reactions in the atmosphere. These gases can also interact with organic vapors, which originate mainly from forests and vegetation. The atmosphere contains thousands of different organic compounds, but only a small fraction of them can form and grow particles. Earlier it was thought that new particle formation always requires sulfuric acid, which forms from the oxidation of sulfur dioxide. Later, it was found that certain organic vapors can also form particles. In this study, the researchers found that in continental moderately polluted atmospheres, e.g. in the Finnish boreal forest, particles are formed most efficiently when sulfuric acid, ammonia and organic vapors are all present simultaneously. Nitrogen oxides, on the other hand, decreased the amount of newly formed particles. The results help to understand how new particle formation and the associated climate impact will change if air pollution levels decrease in the future due to stricter emission control. Aerosol particles can affect the climate by scattering solar radiation and by acting as seed particles for cloud droplets. The aerosol-cloud-climate interactions are still associated with large uncertainties in current climate models. The laboratory experiments leading to these results were conducted at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, in Geneva, which has one of the best laboratory facilities for detailed particle formation studies. The study was led by Associate Professor Katrianne Lehtipalo from the University of Helsinki. "We wanted to create the boreal forest atmosphere in our chamber," she says. Long-term field measurements at the Hyytiala SMEAR II station in southern Finland helped the researchers to identify the right conditions for particle formation. "Particle formation is a delicate process, and it took us a while to find the correct gas mixture, but in the end we were able to replicate atmospheric observations almost perfectly," Lehtipalo says. The study was conducted in collaboration between 25 different institutes in 9 different countries.

To stop climate change, saving energy matters less than switching to renewable energy. Indeed, says Anthony Patt, it isn't clear whether saving energy makes much of a difference at all. During the summer heat wave of 2018, the Swiss media reported that the elderly in particular were suffering. In order to achieve climate policy goals, it was impossible to turn on air conditioning in Zürich homes for the elderly. Reducing energy consumption is good. But does climate protection demand that people suffer, especially the elderly, when temperatures rise? The standard answer seems to be yes. The logic is simple: most of the energy people use comes from fossil fuels, which are the main cause of climate change. So it would seem logical that people need to use less energy. But there is an important omission in this logic. It stems from the fact that to stop climate change, we need not just to reduce our CO2 emissions, but rather to eliminate them entirely. Once none of our energy comes from fossil fuels, then energy use will be irrelevant. Of course this isn't the entire story either. It will take time before we can switch to entirely renewable energy, across all sectors of the economy. So there are two more important questions worth investigating: First, does the energy we save during this period of transition to purely renewable energy make much of a difference? Second, will efforts to conserve energy also accelerate the shift to renewable energy, or could they even slow this shift down? A drop in the ocean We recently examined the first of these questions. The short answer: saving energy makes almost no difference. To meet the targets that scientists and policy-makers have set – limiting climate change to less than 2°C total warming – we need to eliminate emissions in the next 20 to 30 years. The exact deadline for going fossil-free depends on a number of uncertain factors, most importantly whether we believe it will be possible to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere in the second half of the century. The climate turns out to be remarkably insensitive, however, to changes in energy efficiency. Under one set of assumptions, which includes current trends in improving energy efficiency, the deadline to go fossil-free is 25 years from now, 2043. With a great deal of effort, we could double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, from the current trend of 1.5% improvement per year to 3%. How much would that shift the deadline? Only one year, it turns out, moving it from 2043 to 2044. Saving energy buys us almost no time. Unclear effect on transition What about the second question: will saving energy make it easier or harder to go fossil-free in such a short amount of time? The short answer is that we don't really know. There are arguments going in both directions, but little in the way of any hard evidence. There is more than enough wind and sunshine available to completely replace the fossil fuels we currently use. One argument supporting energy efficiency is that the less energy we use, the less renewable energy infrastructure we will have to build, and that will make the transition go faster. In some cases there are clear synergies. Electric cars, for example, are far more energy efficient than gasoline or diesel models; at the same time, they make it possible to drive with power generated from the sun, wind, and falling water. Similar synergies can be found comparing electric heat pumps to oil and gas heaters. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that the investment climate will be more conducive both to innovation, and to building the needed infrastructure, if overall energy demand is growing, or at least not shrinking too fast. Indeed, there are some cases where using more energy could be helpful. In one study, for example, we found the future costs of integrating large amounts of solar into the energy system to be far less if we assume that future electricity demand is highest in the summer, rather than in the winter. That happens when people use air conditioning. Of course, there are a lot of reasons to save energy. But we don't stop climate change by using less energy—we stop climate change by using different energy.

Google's parent company Alphabet said Monday it was investing over $1 billion in capital improvements to establish a new campus in New York City. In a blog post, Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat wrote that it is leasing large office buildings in Manhattan's West Village neighborhood, the centerpiece of a campus more than 1.7 million square-feet large. The expansion would make the company one of the city's largest commercial tenants and add thousands of jobs in the next years, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new campus, which should be operational starting in 2020, will be known as Google Hudson Square and "will be the primary location for our New York-based Global Business Organization," Porat wrote. "New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent—that's what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that's what keeps us here," she said. The company currently employs some 7,000 people in New York. Earlier in the year Alphabet said it was buying the Manhattan Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion, and planned to lease space at Pier 57.

Graphene monolayers can be epitaxially grown on many single-crystal metal surfaces under ultra-high vacuum. On one side, these monolayers protect highly reactive metallic surfaces from contaminants, but on the other side, the piling of the layers as graphitic carbon blocks the activity of transition metal catalysts. The inertness of the graphite and the physical blockage of the active sites prevents chemical reactions occurring on the metal surface. Researchers led by Fernando Martín, Emilio Pérez and Amadeo Vázquez de Parga (IMDEA Nanociencia and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) have demonstrated that nanostructured graphene monolayers on a metal surface promote a chemical reaction that would be unlikely to take place under noncatalyzed conditions. A crystal of ruthenium, Ru(0001), has been covered with an epitaxially grown continuous graphene layer. Because of the difference in lattice parameters, a new superperiodicity appears on the graphene layer and modulates its electronic properties. Taking advantage of the modulation, the surface has been functionalized with cyanomethylene groups (-CH2CN), covalently bonded to the center of the hexagonal close-packed areas in the Moiré unit cell, and doped with TCNQ (7,7,8,8-tetracyano-p-quinodimethane). TCNQ is an electron acceptor molecule used to p-dope graphene films. When deposited on the graphene surface, this molecule is absorbed on a bridge position between two ripples. Here, it is worth noticing the important role of the surface and of the graphene layer in catalyzing the reaction of TCNQ and -CH2CN. The reaction of TCNQ with CH3CN (the pristine reactants are in gas phase) plus the loss of a hydrogen atom is very unlikely because of the high energy barrier (about 5 eV). The presence of the graphene layer reduces this energy barrier by a factor of 5, thus favoring the formation of the products. The nanostructured graphene promotes the reaction in a threefold way: first, it holds the -CH2CN in place; second, it allows for an efficient charge transfer from the ruthenium; and third, it prevents the absorption of TCNQ by ruthenium allowing the molecule to diffuse on the surface. " A similar clean reaction on pristine ruthenium is not possible, because the reactive character of ruthenium leads to the absorption of CH3CN and hinders the mobility of TCNQ molecules once absorbed on the surface" Amadeo says. The results confirm the catalytic character of graphene in this reaction. "Such a selectivity would be difficult to obtain by using other forms of carbon," Emilio confirms. Further, the TCNQ molecules have been injected with electrons using the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). This individual manipulation of the molecules induces a C-C bond breaking, thus leading to the recovery of the initial reactants: CH2CN-graphene and TCNQ. The process is reversible and reproducible at a single-molecule level. As the researchers have observed a Kondo resonance, the reversibility of the process can be thought of as a reversible magnetic switch controlled by a chemical reaction.

Climate change threatens plants as the risks of flooding increase. A new study from Stockholm University shows that special genes are key to keeping plants from withering, remaining healthy and resistant to a lack of oxygen when they are underwater for a period of long time. Developing tolerant plant varieties that have this gene will increase harvests and will be increasingly important as the changing climate leads to more rainfall. Plants, like humans, are deprived of oxygen when underwater. Sylvia Lindberg, professor at Stockholm University, investigates how plants become more resistant to surviving this oxygen deficiency. When plants lack oxygen, special genes signal danger and that the plant must activate other genes to help defend itself. One of these genes is PLD, which forms the enzyme phospholipase D. Until now, the key role it plays in the plants' oxygen deficiency signal systems was unknown. "We suspected that this gene was involved, as it is in other types of stress that plants are exposed to, for example, high salinity, cold, drought and fungal infection," says Lindberg. When plants are deprived of oxygen, they grow less, and their leaves turn yellow. Lindberg and her research team used mutant plants that lacked the potentially protective gene to see if it was worse off during a simulated flood. The study showed that the leaves of the mutant plants turned yellow and died—meaning that the gene plays a role in keeping the plant in good health. "We are studying the plant rockcress—Arabidospis—which is a common model plant because all genes are identified for it," says Lindberg. Some of the plant mutants produced less calcium compared to the wild plant, when exposed to a lack of oxygen. It is therefore possible that the amount of calcium also protects the plant. Calcium is an important signal substance that increases within the cells for all types of stress that were examined. "For example, rice is very tolerant to oxygen deficiency and increases its cellular calcium levels much more than wheat does, which is highly sensitive to oxygen deficiency and does not increase its calcium levels to the same extent. So, crops vary in how vulnerable they are to oxygen deficiency," Lindberg says. The plant mutants also produced less phosphatidic acid, which is also an important second messenger during times of stress in plants. The next step is to investigate how the plants would react to oxygen deficiency if you instead increase the amount of the modified gene PLD. "Then maybe more protective calcium and phosphatidic acid will be formed to counteract the effect of oxygen deficiency. I hope more research will be done in this area. It is real detective work, but important for developing new tolerant crops", says Professor Lindberg.

Research shows that waste can double during the Christmas period, and most of it is plastic from gift wrapping and packaging. The British, for example, go through more than 40 million rolls of (mostly plastic) sticky tape every year, and use enough wrapping paper to go around the Equator nine times. We love plastic. It is an amazing material, so ubiquitous in our lives we barely notice it. Unfortunately, plastic waste has become a serious worldwide environmental and health issue. If we don't love the idea of a planet covered in plastic waste, we urgently need to reduce our plastic consumption. Yet old habits die hard, especially over the holiday season, when we tend to let go and indulge ourselves. Typically, people hold off until the new year to make positive changes. But you don't have to wait – it's easier than you might think to make small changes now that will reduce your holiday plastic waste, and maybe even start some enjoyable new traditions in your family or household. Here is our list of suggestions to help you transform this indulgent time into a great opportunity to kickstart your plastic-free new year. Gifts The best option is to avoid or minimise gifts, or at least reduce them to a manageable level by suggesting a secret Santa, or a "kids-only" gift arrangement. Of course it's hard to justify giving no gifts at all, so if you must give… Make a list of presents assigned to each person before you hit the shops. This will help you avoid impulse buys, and instead make thoughtful choices. Look for gifts that will help the recipient eliminate plastic waste: keep-cups, stainless steel water bottles, worm-farm kits, and so on. Gift an experience, event tickets, massage, or a donation to a charity the recipient believes in. Consider making gifts for the natural environment: bee hotels, possum and bird boxes, and native plants are all enjoyable ways to encourage nature. Where possible, avoid buying online so as to avoid wasteful packaging. Consider whether the recipient will treasure their gift or end up throwing it away. Here's a handy flowchart, which you can also use for your own (non-Christmas) purchases. Gift wrapping Not only do we buy gifts, we wrap them in paper and decorate them with ribbons often made of synthetic materials. It might look fantastic, but it generates a fantastically tall mound of waste afterwards. Here's how to wrap plastic-free in style. Ditch the sticky tape and synthetic ribbons. Instead, use recycled or repurposed paper and tie up with fabric ribbons, cotton, or hemp twine. Try Japanese fabric wrapping (Furoshiki). The big advantage: two gifts in one! Choose gifts that do not need wrapping at all, such as the experiences, event tickets or charity donations mentioned above. Tableware Disposable tableware is convenient – perhaps too convenient. Plastic plates, cutlery and cups are handy if you're hosting dozens of friends and relatives, but they are used for a minimal amount of time and are often non-recyclable. So, when setting up your table: Use "real" tableware. You can easily find funky second-hand options. Mixed tableware is a trend! If your dishwasher (human or mechanical) can't handle the strain, consider a washing-up game instead. Line up the guests, time their washing, and give them a prize at the end. If disposables are essential, opt for biodegradable tableware such as paper-based uncoated plates and cups, or wooden or bamboo plates and cutlery. Beware of plastic options labelled as "biodegradable". Often they are only degradable in industrial composting facilities, which are not available across most of Australia. Check your local recycling options. Toys Last year, tonnes of plastic waste were found on Henderson Island, one of the most remote places in the world. Among the items were Monopoly houses and squeaky ducks. Toy items are usually non-recyclable, and eventually end up in landfill or scattered throughout the environment. Choose wooden or fabric-based toys. Alternatively, look for toys or games that teach children about the environment. Many board games have dozens of plastic accessories, but not all. Look at the list of contents, and choose ones with less plastic. It might be hard to stay away from Lego or other iconic plastic toy brands. In this case, consider buying second-hand or joining a toy library. Packaging This is by far the hardest item to avoid. Lots of non-plastic items come packed in plastic, including most of our food. So, simply… Refuse it: find alternatives that don't come wrapped in plastic. This might mean changing how and where you buy your food. If there are no other options, choose plastic that can be recycled locally and avoid styrofoam, also called expanded polystyrene, which is not recyclable at most facilities. If you are buying online, you can often ask for your items to be packed with no plastic. For party food leftovers, use beeswax wraps or glass containers, or ask guests to bring their own reusable containers. There's a lot going on at Christmas, and it can be easier simply to follow the path of least resistance, and resolve to clean up your act in the new year. But you can avoid getting caught in consumption rituals created by the retail industry. Make some changes now, and you can have a reduced-plastic Christmas with the same amount of (or even more) style and fun!

September's deadly Indonesian tsunami, which killed almost 2000 people, was probably caused by a huge submarine landslide off Sulawesi Island's west coast, a new study shows. Until now, scientists have been left puzzled by how an earthquake of just 7.5 magnitude – not significant enough to trigger Indonesia's tsunami early-warning system – was able to wreck such devastation. But a new analysis of wave data by researchers at Brunel University London has pinpointed an area in Palu Bay, on Sulawesi Island's west coast, as the probable location of a massive under water landslide caused by the earthquake. "This event is puzzling for two reasons," said Dr. Mohammad Heidarzadeh, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Brunel, who led the study. "Firstly, the earthquake's magnitude was moderate. Usually an earthquake would require a magnitude of at least 8.4 or 8.5 to trigger such a large tsunami – at peak the wave reached 11 metres. Secondly, the mechanism of the earthquake's rupture was a strike-slip – the ground ruptured horizontally, rather than vertically. "This is confusing as we'd have therefore expected a wave of only 1 or 2 metres from a Sulawesi-style earthquake." However, the new study – published in the journal of Pure and Applied Geophysics – now shows the earthquake likely did trigger a landslide large enough to unleash the devasting tsunami. New sea-level analysis shows that the Sulawesi tsunami had very short-period waves, in-line with those caused by a landslide. Where tsunamis caused by landslides typically have a wave period of 3 to 4 minutes, tsunamis unleashed by an earthquake will have a wave period of 15 to 60 minutes. Field studies also revealed that the largest waves were concentrated on just a small segment of coast, which is consistent with the tsunami being caused by a landslide. "Our analyses are based on sea-level data of real waves generated by the Sulawesi tsunami, analysis of the seafloor rupture and deformation generated by the earthquake, and computer simulations of the real tsunami propagation," said Dr. Heidarzadeh. The study also ruled out another proposed theory for the cause of the tsunami – the funnelling of water up the bay, or bay oscillations. "Our analysis completely ruled out those speculations," said Dr. Heidarzadeh. "We proved that bay oscillations cannot make 11 metre high waves." null

Early this year, the Eduard Toll set a record: laden with liquefied natural gas, the tanker was the first commercial vessel to cross the Arctic in winter without an icebreaker. This milestone in shipping may be a sign of things to come, with maritime activity expected to climb as global warming melts the region's sea ice – declining at about 13% each decade, according to NASA. However, there are fears among environmental groups and scientists that this could harm an already fragile environment through factors such as marine pollution and noise from ships. Increased maritime traffic raises the risks of oil spills, something a project called GRACE is addressing by looking at how to better measure, monitor and clean up oil in the Arctic. The methods include using sensors, investigating the effects of burning and chemical dispersal, and studying how to use living organisms as pollution indicators – with the information wrapped together into a web-based decision-making tool. The goal is to have a range of strategies tailored to different threat responses and disaster situations, said Dr. Kirsten Jørgensen, GRACE project coordinator and a researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute. "Fortunately, we have not had many big accidents in Arctic areas, but in case there is a spill, you should have the best clean-up preparedness," she said, adding that for the world not to put in place a well-developed oil spill response strategy would be irresponsible. Sensors Data collection has been aided by improvements in sensors, Dr. Jørgensen. In October, a smart navigation buoy set up by GRACE began for the first time to provide real-time monitoring of oil discharge and water quality in the Baltic Sea via satellite. In addition, the team is developing a biosensor using hatched zebrafish embryos to detect pollution through effects on organisms. The researchers are also collecting biological data on organisms including invertebrates, mussels and fish to have background information for comparison in the event of a spill, and carrying out tests on how some react to oil. They are also developing methods for mechanical clean-up, such as an under-ice vehicle. There are, however, challenges. While the relative scarcity of Arctic accidents is clearly good news, paradoxically, the effects of a large oil spill are hard to assess without one happening first. How to protect the Arctic as melting ice opens new shipping routes Increased maritime traffic raises the risks of oil spills in the Arctic. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Dr. Jørgensen also points out that it is difficult to draw conclusions from incidents elsewhere. For example, she says that chemical dispersants were used on oil from the Gulf of Mexico's Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, but the way these would spread in the Arctic's cold water and their impact on its distinct ecosystems would be very different. Complicating the matter is that much of the work also has to take place in labs to avoid marine pollution. Prevention But ultimately, Dr. Jørgensen says that the safest course of action would be to prevent spills from happening in the first place. "I still think the most important thing is to prevent any accidents by using ships that have a double hull, good navigation aids and things like that." This is something that could be aided by SEDNA, a project led by international engineering and science consultancy BMT that aims to develop ways to improve the safety of Arctic maritime traffic. Although its specific focus is on better ship design to prevent human casualties rather than ecological aims, fewer accidents will have the knock-on effect of reducing environmental impact, said BMT senior research scientist Dr. Philipp Lohrmann. Dr. Lohrmann says he believes it is inevitable that shipping will increase in the region, but that the exact outlook is hard to predict because of competing economic and environmental interests and resulting uncertainties about future regulation. The main thing, he said, is to be prepared. One of SEDNA's key focuses is on creating a so-called safe Arctic bridge for ice-going ships. Dr. Lohrmann said this is because the command centre, or bridge, on current ships is often not specifically designed to deal with the ice and harsh climate of the Arctic in terms of the navigation equipment and technologies they contain. As part of this, the team is developing augmented-reality technology that could provide the ship's navigators with relevant information in more intuitive and novel ways. Examples include overlaying the real world with information on ice, or providing virtual X-ray vision to allow the crew to see through obstacles. At the same time, he said, there is a need to avoid information overload that could lead to distraction. For instance, there is less need in the Arctic for instruments that provide information on other vessels than in traffic-heavy shipping areas. The project is also looking at other approaches such as anti-icing coatings for ships, some inspired by Arctic-dwelling species such as the ice-proofing abilities of penguin feathers. "The way ice-removal is often done at the moment is that you send out a few guys with hammers," said Dr. Lohrmann. "It's very much a Stone Age technology." Some of SEDNA's initiatives also have the potential to help cut carbon emissions. Among these, the team is building an Arctic voyage planning tool that takes account of information such as weather, sea state and bathymetry, the measurements of water depths. "A reduction in carbon emissions may be achieved by avoiding unnecessary delays and detours," explained Dr. Lohrmann.

The exocyst is a protein complex essential for life, that is comprised of eight subunits and is a crucial component in vesicle trafficking. The mechanisms by which exocysts assemble and deliver vesicles containing important biological materials to the cell surface has been unclear, especially in mammalian cells. Much of this is because previous studies using gene overexpression can produce artifacts. Now, using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing, high-speed single molecule sensitive imaging and fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy, Mukhtar Ahmed, Ph.D., and colleagues have found that the mammalian exocyst functions as a remarkably dynamic two-part complex, thus providing a new mechanism of how the exocyst functions. The researchers also discovered that the exocyst subcomplexes, each composed of four subunits, assemble and localize to the plasma membrane independently of each other. The study was published last week in the journal Nature Communications. The authors said that the methods they employed are applicable to any protein complexes in the cell and have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of cell dynamics.

AmiMoJo shares a report: Taylor Swift used facial recognition technology at her live performances so that technicians running the system could then check those face scans against a private database of her stalkers. There is now big demand for serious security at live events the size of a Taylor Swift concert. There have been so many bombings and mass shootings at music concerts over the past year to even remember without Googling. Fear of being killed at a music concert is something people factor in to the decision to buy tickets and go to live events. The demand for security is real.

dmoberhaus writes: An investigation into the decline of America's peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus that is critically important to the rituals of the Native American Church, the largest pan-tribal religious organization in the U.S. Motherboard spoke with Dawn Davis, a researcher using satellite data to track the destruction of peyote's habitat, as well as Salvador Johnson, one of only four people who is licensed to harvest and sell peyote in the U.S. by the DEA. "In 2011, Davis traveled to the peyote gardens for the first time and met with Johnson," reports Motherboard. "Davis said that Johnson was following many conservation best practices, such as cycling through the areas where peyote is harvested, but this hadn't slowed the steady decrease in the size and quantity of peyote buttons in his harvests. Today, the biggest threats to peyote continue to be rapid land development, poaching, and rooting by feral pigs -- problems that responsible harvesting by peyoteros can't solve." While there has been an increase in the number of indigenous people growing peyote in greenhouses, this is only a temporary solution to the conservation crisis. Davis is advocating for conservation easements or tax breaks for landowners to encourage the protection of peyote. She also said it will be necessary to push for the DEA to reschedule peyote, which is still considered a Schedule I substance that has "no currently accepted medical use." This makes it exceedingly hard for individuals to become licensed peyoteros.

aafrn writes: Microsoft is sending users who search for Office 2019 download links via its Bing search engine to a website that teaches them the basics about pirating the company's Office suite. This happens every time users search for the term "office 2019 download" on Bing. The result is a Bing search card (highlighted search results) that links to a piracy tutorial that teaches users how to install uTorrent, download a torrent file, and install an Office crack file. Fortunately, the torrent download links are down, but experts believe the link was used to spread malware.

On Sunday night, a comet that orbits between Jupiter and the sun will make its closest approach to Earth in centuries. According to Tony Farnham, a research scientist in the astronomy department at the University of Maryland, the comet will appear as a bright, fuzzy ball with a greenish-gray tint. "You've got a one-kilometer solid nuclear in the middle, and gas is going out hundreds of thousands of miles," says Tony. The comet glows green because the gases emit light in green wavelengths. The New York Times reports: The ball of gas and dust, sometimes referred to as the "Christmas comet," was named 46P/Wirtanen, after the astronomer Carl Wirtanen, who discovered it in 1948. It orbits the sun once every 5.4 years, passing by Earth approximately every 11 years, but its distance varies and it is rarely this close. As the comet passes by, it will be 30 times farther from Earth than the moon, NASA said. The proximity of 46P/Wirtanen provides an opportunity to research the tail of the comet and see farther into the nucleus. The comet is visible now but it will shine even brighter on Sunday as it reaches its closest approach, 7.1 million miles from Earth. That may sound really far, but it is among the 10 closest approaches by a comet in 70 years, NASA said. Only a few of those could be seen with the naked eye. Don't worry if you miss the comet on Sunday. It should be just as visible for a week or two because its appearance will change gradually. After it moves on, it won't be this close to Earth again for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Online charts can help pinpoint its location.

Cydia, the App Store for jailbroken devices, is shutting down purchases as its creator moves to shut down the store entirely in the near future. "Cydia's creator Saurik made the announcement on Reddit after a bug was discovered in the platform that may have put user data at risk," iPhonehacks reports. "This bug prompted Saurik to clarify the issue and reveal that he has been planning on shutting down Cydia for quite a while now." From the report: The founder clarifies that the bug only puts a limited number of users at risk who are logged into Cydia and browse a repository with untrusted content -- a scenario which Saurik has strongly advised against right from day one. Plus, he also says that this is not a data leak and he has not lost access to PayPal authorization tokens. Coming to the harsh reality, Saurik says that he has been looking to shut down Cydia Store before the end of this year. The reports of a data leak have acted as a catalyst to bring the timetable further up. There are multiple reasons as to why he is looking to shut down the service including the fact that he has to pay for the hefty hosting bills from his own pocket. Saurik has already gone ahead and shut down the ability to buy jailbreak tweaks in Cydia. This means that one can no longer use the Cydia Store to buy jailbreak tweaks on a jailbroken iPhone. On the bright side, Saurik does intend to allow users to download jailbreak tweaks that they have already paid for. Saurik will also make a more formal announcement about the shutting down of Cydia sometime soon. Do note that this change relates only to Cydia Store and not Cydia the installer which is used to install tweaks on a jailbroken device. The latter will continue to work as usual.

Last week, Samsung introduced its latest smartphone, the Galaxy A8s. Not only is it the first phone of theirs with a laser-drilled hole in the display for the front-facing camera sensor, but it is also their first phone to ditch the headphone jack. Slashdot reader TheFakeTimCook shares a report from Mac Rumors that takes a closer look at the move and the hypocrisy behind it: [The A8s] is also Samsung's first smartphone without a headphone jack, much to the amusement of iPhone users, as Samsung has mocked Apple for over two years over its decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2016, a trend that has continued through to the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. While on stage unveiling the new Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, for example, Samsung executive Justin Denison made sure to point out that the device came with a headphone jack. "Want to know what else it comes with?" he asked. "An audio jack. I'm just saying," he answered, smirking as the audience laughed. And earlier this year, Samsung mocked the iPhone X's lack of a headphone jack in one of its "Ingenius" ads promoting the Galaxy S9. Samsung isn't the first tech giant to mock Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack, only to follow suit. Google poked fun at the iPhone 7's lack of headphone jack while unveiling its original Pixel smartphone in 2016, and then the Pixel 2 launched without one just a year later.

Thelasko quotes a report from Ars Technica: A half century ago, computer history took a giant leap when Douglas Engelbart -- then a mid-career 43-year-old engineer at Stanford Research Institute in the heart of Silicon Valley -- gave what has come to be known as the "mother of all demos." On December 9, 1968 at a computer conference in San Francisco, Engelbart showed off the first inklings of numerous technologies that we all now take for granted: video conferencing, a modern desktop-style user interface, word processing, hypertext, the mouse, collaborative editing, among many others. Even before his famous demonstration, Engelbart outlined his vision of the future more than a half-century ago in his historic 1962 paper, "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework." To open the 90-minute-long presentation, Engelbart posited a question that almost seems trivial to us in the early 21st century: "If in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display, backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day, and was instantly responsible -- responsive -- to every action you had, how much value would you derive from that?" By 1968, Engelbart had created what he called the "oN-Line System," or NLS, a proto-Intranet. The ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet itself, would not be established until late the following year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: You might guess that a surefire way to make a hit video on YouTube would be to gather a bunch of YouTube megastars, film them riffing on some of the year's most popular YouTube themes and release it as a year-in-review spectacular. You would be wrong. YouTube tested that theory this week, releasing its annual "YouTube Rewind" year-end retrospective. The eight-minute video was a jam-packed montage of YouTube meta-humor, featuring a who's-who of YouTube stars along with conventional celebrities. The video was slickly produced and wholesome, with lots of references to the popular video game Fortnite, shout-outs to popular video formats, and earnest paeans to YouTube's diversity and inclusiveness. It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity, but the video started a firestorm, and led to a mass-downvoting campaign that became a meme of its own. Within 48 hours, the video had been "disliked" more than four million times. On Thursday, it became the most-disliked video in the history of the website, gathering more than 10 million dislikes and beating out the previous record-holder, the music video for Justin Bieber's "Baby." The issue that upset so many YouTube fans, it turns out, was what the Rewind video did not show. Many of the most notable YouTube moments of the year -- such as the August boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, two YouTube stars who fought in a highly publicized spectacle watched by millions -- went unmentioned. And some prominent YouTubers were absent, including Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. "PewDiePie," one of the most popular creators in YouTube's history, who had appeared in the Rewind videos as recently as 2016. Some YouTubers enjoyed the video. But to many, it felt like evidence that YouTube the company was snubbing YouTube the community by featuring mainstream celebrities in addition to the platform's homegrown creators, and by glossing over major moments in favor of advertiser-friendly scenes. The Times says the Rewind controversy "is indicative of a larger issue at YouTube, which is trying to promote itself as a bastion of cool, inclusive creativity while being accused of radicalizing a generation of young people by pushing them toward increasingly extreme content, and allowing reactionary cranks and conspiracy theorists to dominate its platform." "But people like Mr. Kjellberg and Mr. Paul -- stars who rose to prominence through YouTube, and still garner tens of millions of views every month -- remain in a kind of dysfunctional relationship with the platform. YouTube doesn't want to endorse their behavior in its official promotions, but it doesn't want to alienate their large, passionate audiences, either," reports the NYT. "And since no other platform can rival the large audiences and earning potential YouTube gives these creators, they are stuck in a kind of unhappy purgatory -- making aggrieved videos about how badly YouTube has wronged them, while also tiptoeing to avoid crossing any lines that might get them barred, or prevent them from making money from their videos." This tension is at the heart of the controversy over YouTube Rewind. "A YouTube recap that includes only displays of tolerance and pluralism is a little like a Weather Channel highlight reel featuring only footage of sunny days -- it might be more pleasant to look at, but it doesn't reflect the actual weather..."

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Instagram has placed more hashtags which could promote eating disorders on an "unsearchable" list after a BBC investigation found that users were finding ways around the platform's filters. The photo-sharing network has also added health warnings to several alternative spellings or terms which reference eating disorders, some of which are popular hashtags on the platform. BBC Trending found that certain terms promoting bulimia were still searchable - and that the Instagram search bar was suggesting alternative spellings and phrasings for known terms which some see as glamorizing or encouraging eating disorders In one case, the search box offered 38 alternative spellings of a popular term. Starting in 2012, the photo-sharing site started to make some terms unsearchable, to avoid users being able to navigate directly to often shocking images, and posts that promote the idea that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice rather than a mental illness. If someone enters the unsearchable terms into the platform's search box, no results will come up. An Instagram spokesperson said in a statement: "We do not tolerate content that encourages eating disorders and we use powerful tools and technologies -- including in-app reporting and machine learning -- to help identify and remove it. However, we recognize this is a complex issue and we want people struggling with their mental health to be able to access support on Instagram when and where they need it."