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schwit1 writes: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a planet outside our solar system that looks as black as fresh asphalt because it eats light rather than reflecting it back into space. This light-eating prowess is due to the planet's unique capability to trap at least 94 percent of the visible starlight falling into its atmosphere. The oddball exoplanet, called WASP-12b, is one of a class of so-called "hot Jupiters," gigantic, gaseous planets that orbit very close to their host star and are heated to extreme temperatures. The planet's atmosphere is so hot that most molecules are unable to survive on the blistering day side of the planet, where the temperature is 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore, clouds probably cannot form to reflect light back into space. Instead, incoming light penetrates deep into the planet's atmosphere where it is absorbed by hydrogen atoms and converted to heat energy. "We did not expect to find such a dark exoplanet," said Taylor Bell of McGill University and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, lead researcher of the Hubble study. "Most hot Jupiters reflect about 40 percent of starlight."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: At the Bloomberg Global Business Forum today, Carlyle Group co-founder and CEO David Rubenstein asked Microsoft founder Bill Gates to account for one of the most baffling questions of the digital era: Why does it take three fingers to lock or log in to a PC, and why did Gates ever think that was a good idea? Grimacing slightly, Gates deflected responsibility for the crtl-alt-delete key command, saying, "clearly, the people involved should have put another key on to make that work." Rubenstein pressed him: does he regret the decision? "You can't go back and change the small things in your life without putting the other things at risk," Gates said. But: "Sure. If I could make one small edit I would make that a single key operation." Gates has made the confession before. In 2013, he blamed IBM for the issue, saying, "The guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes TechRepublic: On Wednesday, IBM revealed the Open Liberty project, open sourcing its WebSphere Liberty code on GitHub to support Java microservices and cloud-native apps. The company created Liberty five years ago to help developers more quickly and easily create applications using agile and DevOps principles, according to an IBM developerWorks blog post from Ian Robinson, WebSphere Foundation chief architect at IBM... Developers can also choose to move to the commercial versions of WebSphere Liberty at any time, he noted, which include technical support and more specialized features... "We hope Open Liberty will help more developers turn their ideas into full-fledged, enterprise ready apps," Robinson wrote. "We also hope it will broaden the WebSphere family to include more ideas and innovations to benefit the broader Java community of developers at organizations big and small." IBM argues that Open Liberty, along with the OpenJ9 VM they open sourced last week, "provides the full Java stack from IBM with a fully open licensing model." Interestingly, Slashdot ran a story asking "IBM WebSphere SE To Be Opened?" -- back in 2000.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A "catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic" is causing a host of potentially fatal diseases, a leading expert has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Professor Matthew Walker, director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, said that sleep deprivation affected "every aspect of our biology" and was widespread in modern society. And yet the problem was not being taken seriously by politicians and employers, with a desire to get a decent night's sleep often stigmatised as a sign of laziness, he said. Electric lights, television and computer screens, longer commutes, the blurring of the line between work and personal time, and a host of other aspects of modern life have contributed to sleep deprivation, which is defined as less than seven hours a night. But this has been linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, obesity and poor mental health among other health problems. In short, a lack of sleep is killing us.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tens of millions of years after it disappeared under the waters of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have completed the first explorations of what some scientists are calling a hidden continent. From a report: During a two-month ocean voyage this summer, a team of more than 30 scientists from 12 countries explored the submerged landmass of Zealandia on an advanced research vessel and collected samples from the seabed. Scientists were able to drill into the ocean floor at depths of more than 4,000 feet, collecting more than 8,000 feet of sediment cores that provides a window into 70 million years of geologic history, reports Georgie Burgess for ABC News. More than 8,000 fossils from hundreds of species were also collected in the drilling, giving scientists a glimpse at terrestrial life that lived tens of millions of years ago in the area. "The discovery of microscopic shells of organisms that lived in warm shallow seas, and of spores and pollen from land plants, reveal that the geography and climate of Zealandia were dramatically different in the past," expedition leader Gerald Dickens said in a statement. While more than 90 percent of Zealandia is now submerged under more than a kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) of water, when it was above the surface, it likely provided a path that many land animals and plants could have used to spread across the South Pacific, notes Naaman Zhou of the Guardian.

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled revised plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he ended his talk with a pretty incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long-distance travel on Earth. From a report: Musk showed a demonstration of the idea onstage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take "most long-distance trips" in just 30 minutes, and go "anywhere on Earth in under an hour" for around the same price as an economy airline ticket. Musk proposed using SpaceX's forthcoming mega-rocket (codenamed Big Fucking Rocket or BFR for short) to lift a massive spaceship into orbit around the Earth. The ship would then settle down on floating landing pads near major cities. Both the new rocket and spaceship are currently theoretical, though Musk did say that he hopes to begin construction on the rocket in the next six to nine months. In SpaceX's video that illustrates the idea, passengers take a large boat from a dock in New York City to a floating launchpad out in the water. There, they board the same rocket that Musk wants to use to send humans to Mars by 2024. But instead of heading off to another planet once they leave the Earth's atmosphere, the ship separates and breaks off toward another city -- Shanghai. Just 39 minutes and some 7,000 miles later, the ship reenters the atmosphere and touches down on another floating pad, much like the way SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 rockets at sea. Other routes proposed in the video include Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes, London to Dubai or New York in 29 minutes, and Los Angeles to Toronto in 24 minutes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 was the first Slashdot reader to bring us the news. Newsweek reports: Archaeologists believe they have found the key to unlocking a mystery almost as old as the Great Pyramid itself: Who built the structure and how were they able to transport two-ton blocks of stone to the ancient wonder more than 4,500 years ago...? Experts had long established that the stones from the pyramid's chambers were transported from as far away as Luxor, more than 500 miles to the south of Giza, the location of the Great Pyramid, but had never agreed how they got there. However, the diary of an overseer, uncovered in the seaport of Wadi al-Jafr, appears to answer the age-old question, showing the ancient Egyptians harnessed the power of the Nile to transport the giant blocks of stone. According to a new British documentary Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, which aired on the U.K.'s Channel 4 on Sunday, the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, was built using an intricate system of waterways which allowed thousands of workers to pull the massive stones, floated on boats, into place with ropes. Along with the papyrus diary of the overseer, known as Merer, the archaeologists uncovered a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks. The ancient text described how Merer's team dug huge canals to channel the water of the Nile to the pyramid.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: One of the main reasons RSS is so beloved of news gatherers is that it catches everything a site publishes -- not just the articles that have proved popular with other users, not just the articles from today, not just the articles that happened to be tweeted out while you were actually staring at Twitter. Everything. In our age of information overload that might seem like a bad idea, but RSS also cuts out everything you don't want to hear about. You're in full control of what's in your feed and what isn't, so you don't get friends and colleagues throwing links into your feeds that you've got no interest in reading. Perhaps most importantly, you don't need to be constantly online and constantly refreshing your feeds to make sure you don't miss anything. It's like putting a recording schedule in place for the shows you know you definitely want to catch rather than flicking through the channels hoping you land on something interesting. There's no rush with RSS -- you don't miss out on a day's worth of news, or TV recaps, or game reviews if you're offline for 24 hours. It's all waiting for you when you get back. And if you're on holiday and the unread article count starts to get scarily high, just hit the mark all as read button and you're back to a clean slate.

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The first gene therapy treatment has been approved for use in the United States. The FDA greenlit a procedure that uses a patient's own cells to combat a particular type of leukemia, but will only permit it for children and young adults up to age 25.

Over the past few weeks, concern has been growing regarding the contamination of eggs for sale in a number of EU countries with the chemical Fipronil. Currently seven different countries have discovered contaminated eggs, and it has led to large number of eggs being withdrawn from sale. So, what is Fipronil, how has it gotten […]

Zack Whittaker, reporting for ZDNet: A security researcher who in May stopped an outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware has been arrested and detained after attending the Def Con conference in Las Vegas. Marcus Hutchins, 23, a British national, was arrested at Las Vegas airport on Wednesday by US Marshals, several close friends confirmed to ZDNet. A friend told ZDNet that he was "was pulled by Marshals at the lounge" after clearing security. He was briefly detained in a federal facility in Nevada until he was moved. "We went to see him this morning and we had already been moved," said the friend. Hutchins is now understood to be in custody at an FBI field office in the state. Motherboard first broke the story on Thursday. Update: A Motherboard reporter tweets, "Here's the indictment accusing @MalwareTechBlog of running the Kronos banking malware." Update 2: New DOJ statement: Gregory J. Haanstad, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, announced that on July 11, 2017, following a two-year long investigation, a federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment against Marcus Hutchins, also known as "Malwaretech," for his role in creating and distributing the Kronos banking Trojan.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nothing makes me feel like more of a breakfast or dinner hero than remembering that I have jars of boozy bacon jam in the fridge. This rich spread could turn a sleeve of stale crackers into a pretty stellar dinner, but when you fold it into warm pasta with fresh corn, sweet tomatoes, and basil, or mix it with maple syrup for pancakes, then you'll feel like giving yourself a gold star for having the foresight to make it.

Boozy bacon jam is also a practical way to preserve bacon that might need using up. You cook the bacon, caramelize some onions, and hold the two together with a little maple syrup, a decent amount of bourbon, and a splash of vinegar. The resulting spread is chunky, with plenty of smoky, savory flavor and back notes of sweetness and bourbon. Making bacon jam is the greatest gift you can give to your future self.

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The shortlisted images in this year's Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year have now been selected.

hipsterenglishteacher:

I bet this was found in the bottom of a Mesopotamian teacher’s desk. “Hammurabi, bring me that right now. You will leave a mark on this world if you keep playing with foolish trinkets. Now get back to your studies.” 

Apple gave Sir Peter's studio, Wingnut AR, special access to its augmented reality developer kit.

Fresh berries are one of summer's great pleasures, but they don't come cheap — which makes it even more disappointing when a basket of strawberries or raspberries turns to moldy mush within days of purchase. Washing them before storage usually accelerates the deterioration, but Cook's Illustrated has a washing method that actually keeps the berries fresh longer in storage. Here's what they recommend.

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Get ready to wish this week was next week. Why? IKEA's 2018 catalog hits stores next Wednesday (that's August 2 — you can request your copy now and you can also browse it online on August 7). Exciting, right?

We couldn't agree with you more: This is always our favorite time of year. Will there be something that's even more versatile than the RÅSKOG cart? What amazing — and totally affordable! — tabletop finds will be on offer? What will their kitchens look like? So many questions!

Luckily, we have a few answers. In that we got a sneak peek at the catalog. Here are 10 new kitchen-related things we're most excited about.

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This past weekend, I knew I needed to get out of town. My dog, Charlie, was acting like a Hoover, eating every piece of trash in his path; my apartment was basically sweating due to the 95-and-humid-as-a-Russian-bath-house temperatures; and the combination was putting me in the foulest of moods.

This mindset was not improved during my drive to Livingston Manor, a charming little town in Sullivan County, New York. Under normal circumstances, it takes somewhere between two and three hours to reach this part of the Catskills; that day, it took me as long to get out of the city and again as long to navigate my way to my destination. Many expletives were uttered en route.

When I arrived at The DeBruce, I was hungry, tired, and desperately in need of a drink.

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Highlights from the life of Shigeaki Hinohara, one of Japan's most famous doctors, who has died aged 105.

What do you do if it's way too hot but you just can't stay away from your favourite boardgame?

Our correspondent visits the ancient city of Harar as it celebrates its 1,010th anniversary.

A Kenyan artist imagines what the Maasai people would look like in space

evnw:

deservingporcupine:

seksilelulaatikko:

Olisiko teillä hetki aikaa puhua puurosta

Translation from Finnish: “Do you have a moment to talk about the porridge.”

I do