Scientists cook up meatballs made from the flesh of a woolly mammoth
In June, a gold miner made a shocking discovery in Yukon, Canada, as the digger found the remains of a woolly baby mammoth incased in permafrost.
This woolly baby mammoth is one of many mammoths that have been found encased in permafrost, which has preserved their skin, fur, and tissue for thousands of years. From these carcasses, researchers are able to extract the DNA sequence of the mammoth, which can then be combined with other animal DNA sequences. Australian cultured meat startup, Vow, did this very thing, with the company announcing the creation of woolly mammoth meatballs, made using the DNA sequence of one of the biggest animals to walk the Earth.
A new report from CNN has revealed the team made the meatballs as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the potential of lab-grown or cultured meat, and it is a cruelty-free alternative to typically sourced meat. The idea behind the implementation of the mammoth meatballs is more symbolic, if anything, as its creators want it to be viewed as an important part of the wildlife that has been lost and for humans to reconsider how they are sourcing their food.
Continue reading: Scientists cook up meatballs made from the flesh of a woolly mammoth (full post)
Hackers discover they can remotely make Tesla's honk uncontrollably
A team of security researchers found a slew of vulnerabilities within Tesla's that give them control over a few different parts of the vehicle.
The security researchers work for Synacktiv, a security research firm that supported the team presenting their findings at the Pwn2Own conference in Vancouver last week. The researchers explained that a string of three vulnerabilities within the software allowed them to take control system to turn off the car lights, honk the horn, open the trunk, activate the windshield wipers, and play with the infotainment system.
Notably, the researchers explained the first security vulnerability was discovered in the vehicle's Bluetooth settings, and the second vulnerability gave the hackers enough vulnerability to become root, or in layman's terms, obtain the highest level of administrative access to the system. Once the security researchers gained root access, they were able to execute code in the infotainment system that gave them control of the security gateway, a component that sends specific commands to the vehicle.
Continue reading: Hackers discover they can remotely make Tesla's honk uncontrollably (full post)
Multiple reports of fireballs streaking across the US night sky
Residents across Florida were shocked to witness a group of fireballs streaking across the night sky on Thursday, March 23, 2023.
The event stunned onlookers as they witnessed what began with a single fireball breaking up into multiple fireballs that burned through the night sky until they went out. Immediately a slew of videos and images made their rounds on social media, joined by rampant speculation about what the fireballs could be. The American Meteor Society (AMS) confirmed the existence of the fireballs and corrected the definition, writing the object "was not a fireball", which is a space rock falling to Earth, but a rocket that was re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
The AMS stated on its website that the object was most likely the KZ-1A rocket 4th stage that launched from China on March 22, 2023. This rocket was designed to launch and deploy satellites in Earth's orbit, but only a day before the fiery sightings it made a post-deployment burn that led it to an uncontrolled reentry over Florida just 24 hours later, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Continue reading: Multiple reports of fireballs streaking across the US night sky (full post)
Scientists think they've discovered an jaw-dropping amount of water on the Moon
Humans know there is water on the Moon, but how much exactly is completely up for debate. New research suggests there is much more than we first anticipated.
Originally humans believed the Moon was a dry, desolate place, but samples obtained by NASA's Apollo mission revealed to scientists tiny microscopic glass beads that form when pieces of space rock collide with the surface of another object. After the impact, these beads rapidly cool and preserve their contents which researchers examined. The beads contained hydration signatures, which were created, in part, with help from the Sun as the solar wind containing hydrogen ions combines with oxygen that's within the lunar soil.
So, here's what the newest research suggests. Solar wind battering the surface of the Sun is combining hydrogen ions with oxygen already present within the lunar soil. The impact glass can store this water, with researchers estimating that each glass bead is capable of holding up to 2,000 micrograms of water, or 0.002 grams of water, for every gram of the particle's mass. Notably, the researchers continued to explain within their study that evidence garnered from hydration analysis suggests that these impact beads can accumulate water over just a few years.
Massive hole appears on the Sun as Earth braces for strong solar wind impact
In what appears to be the second giant hole appearing on the Sun, scientists have reported that Earth may be smacked by a stream of solar wind traveling as fast as 1.8 million miles per hour.
The discovery of the Sun's new hole, which is more accurately defined as a coronal hole, comes after the discovery of an extremely large coronal hole that's estimated to be 30 times the size of Earth. For reference, the newest hole is estimated to be anywhere between 18 and 20 Earths in diameter. Notably, the larger of the two holes has already begun rotating away from Earth, while the smaller, recently discovered coronal hole has come into view, leading researchers to warn that Earth may be struck with a stream of solar wind pouring out of the Sun.
Researchers write that the potential stream of solar wind, which is expected to hit Earth by Friday or Saturday morning, won't damage any human infrastructure but may cause auroras to appear closer to the equator, where sightings are much more rare. For those that don't know, coronal holes release streams of solar wind into space, and while they are quite common, they don't typically appear near the Sun's equator, as these ones have.
Budget AM5-based MSI A620 motherboard listed on retail sites for less than $100
Cheap AM5 motherboards are right around the corner, with the entry-level A620 boards for Ryzen 7000 CPUs set to launch soon. And we might be seeing prices drop below the USD 100 barrier, making them excellent options for budget-conscious gamers putting together a new build.
Retail listing for the new MSI Pro A620M-E motherboard, image credit: Momomo_US
Two overseas (or local, depending on where you're reading this) retailers have listed the new MSI Pro A620M-E motherboard - Polish site BuyIT and the Slovakian-based Edis Computers. The listings arrive via @Momomo_US.
With the price conversion to USD, you're looking at roughly $80 for the budget AM5 motherboard. No images or details for the MSI Pro A620M-E motherboard were listed, so we can only speculate based on our knowledge.
Forza Horizon 5 DLSS 3 update is available now, NVIDIA ICAT updated too
DLSS 3 support comes to the popular and critically acclaimed racing game Forza Horizon 5 this week, offering a massive performance boost to GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs. NVIDIA notes that with DLSS 3 support available in 29 games, the adoption rate is seven times faster than the first six months of DLSS 2.
4K Forza Horizon 5 benchmarks with DLSS 3, image credit: NVIDIA
With the announcement, NVIDIA has showcased some internal Forza Horizon 5 benchmarks for the GeForce RTX 40 Series (RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and RTX 4070 Ti) with DLSS 3 enabled using max settings and the "Extreme" ray tracing mode.
At 4K (3840x2160), all three RTX 40 Series cards (with DLSS in Performance Mode) can deliver average frame rates higher than 120 fps. At 1440p, this number jumps considerably, with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 pushing past 200 fps and the RTX 4070 Ti hitting an average frame rate of 175 fps.
A new report states GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060 are both coming in May
A new report at Wccftech citing sources states that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and the GeForce RTX 4060 are expected to launch in May. This follows several rumors that the GeForce RTX 4070 launch is happening on April 13. So we're only a month or so away from the bulk of the GeForce RTX 40 Series - including mainstream models - being available to purchase.
The info doesn't stop there, as the report also includes some information relating to the GPU specs, with the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti set to use the AD106-350-A1 GPU, which features 4352 CUDA Cores and 8GB of GDDR6 memory running at 18 Gbps on a 128-bit bus offering 288 GB/s of bandwidth.
The latter may sound like a massive step down over the high-end models, but the addition of 32MB of L2 cache presents a massive increase over the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. Regarding performance, the numbers point to RTX 3070 Ti-like numbers for the RTX 4060 Ti.
Apple Music Classical finally launches, but only on iPhone for now
After months and months of rumors and the app making appearances in iOS beta code, Apple Music Classical is now available for download in the App Store.
The Apple Music Classical app is a free download, but you'll need to be an Apple Music subscriber in order to listen. You can be a subscriber at any tier, it seems, and you'll get access to Apple Music Classical as soon as you sign in.
Once you do sign in you'll notice an app that has been designed with Classical Music in mind. Apple says that everything has been built specifically for classical music, including new search capabilities that deal better with the unique nature of classical music.
Continue reading: Apple Music Classical finally launches, but only on iPhone for now (full post)
Apple's latest software updates fix dozens of security exploits
Apple released iOS 16.4 and macOS Ventura 13.3 to the public earlier this week and the two updates brought with them a number of new features and improvements - not least more than 20 new emojis. But there were more important things going on under the hood.
According to one report, Apple's security website details that there were dozens of security fixes implemented across iOS 16.4 and macOS Ventura 13.3. And because the rest of Apple's software is based on versions of those releases, those same fixes applied to watchOS 9.,4 and tvOS 16.4 as well.
One example of a fix related to a security threat that could leave an app able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges, with Apple saying that it impacted the iPhone 8 or later, all iPad Pro models, and a number of iPad Air, iPad, and iPad mini tablets.
Continue reading: Apple's latest software updates fix dozens of security exploits (full post)