Rtersieva

French police have dismantled a network selling the small metal souvenirs to tourists across Paris.

Two mathematicians have found what they say is a hole at the heart of a proof that has convulsed the mathematics community for nearly six years. Quanta Magazine: In a report [PDF] posted online Thursday, Peter Scholze of the University of Bonn and Jakob Stix of Goethe University Frankfurt describe what Stix calls a "serious, unfixable gap" within a mammoth series of papers by Shinichi Mochizuki, a mathematician at Kyoto University who is renowned for his brilliance. Posted online in 2012, Mochizuki's papers supposedly prove the abc conjecture, one of the most far-reaching problems in number theory. Despite multiple conferences dedicated to explicating Mochizuki's proof, number theorists have struggled to come to grips with its underlying ideas. His series of papers, which total more than 500 pages, are written in an impenetrable style, and refer back to a further 500 pages or so of previous work by Mochizuki, creating what one mathematician, Brian Conrad of Stanford University, has called "a sense of infinite regress." Between 12 and 18 mathematicians who have studied the proof in depth believe it is correct, wrote Ivan Fesenko of the University of Nottingham in an email. But only mathematicians in "Mochizuki's orbit" have vouched for the proof's correctness, Conrad commented in a blog discussion last December. "There is nobody else out there who has been willing to say even off the record that they are confident the proof is complete." Nevertheless, wrote Frank Calegari of the University of Chicago in a December blog post, "mathematicians are very loath to claim that there is a problem with Mochizuki's argument because they can't point to any definitive error." That has now changed. In their report, Scholze and Stix argue that a line of reasoning near the end of the proof of "Corollary 3.12" in Mochizuki's third of four papers is fundamentally flawed. The corollary is central to Mochizuki's proposed abc proof. "I think the abc conjecture is still open," Scholze said. "Anybody has a chance of proving it."

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Zorro shares a report from Study Finds: [...] A new study shows we may just have to chalk it up to our brains simply being hardwired to prefer hanging on the couch instead of the chin-up bar. Researchers from the University of British Columbia and University of Geneva sought to better understand the brain chemistry behind what they refer to as the "exercise paradox." This happens when people pledge to engage in regular physical fitness, but instead find themselves becoming less active. "Conserving energy has been essential for humans' survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators," explains Matthew Boisgontier, a postdoctoral researcher in UBC's brain behavior lab at the department of physical therapy, and senior author of the study, in a UBC release. So Boisgontier and his co-authors recruited 29 young adults who wanted to improve the level of exercise in their lives to take part in a computerized test. The test required them to move a human figure on the screen either towards images of physical activities or away from images of sedentary activities that would randomly appear, and then again vice versa. Participants were hooked up to an electroencephalograph to monitor their brain activity during the exercise. The results showed that participants tended to move towards the active images or away from the sedentary ones at the fastest rates. "We found that participants took 32 milliseconds less to move away from the sedentary image, which is considerable for a task like this," says study co-author Boris Cheval, of the University of Geneva, in a university release, adding that this finding went against the so-called exercise paradox.

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Learn what foods pair best with crisp and clean beers, like pilsner, amber lager, blonde ale, helles, kölsch, maibock, and märzen. Read More

Photographer Tommy Trenchard captures South Africa's wild flower phenomenon.

I was seduced by a chocolate chip muffin today..

Instagram: @hombre_mcsteez

The aubergine (or eggplant) is a fascinating fruit. And yes, you read that correctly – the aubergine is technically a fruit, not a vegetable. If you’ve ever wondered why they soak up oil like a sponge, and rapidly brown when cut, read on! Aubergines come in many different varieties, and not all of them are […]

Will Townsend, a senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy research firm, writes: As it relates to networking, the Linux Foundation is currently focused on a number of projects that are bringing top networking vendors, operators, service providers, and users together. Among the top initiatives are the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK). In this article, I would like to dive into both of these initiatives and share my perspective on how each is transforming the nature of networking [Editor's note: the website may have auto-playing videos; an alternative link was not available]. It makes sense that ONAP's releases are named after global cities, considering the platform's growing global footprint. ONAP is aimed at bringing real-time automation and orchestration to both physical and virtualized network functions. The first release in the fall of 2017, named Amsterdam, delivered a unified architecture for providing closed-loop networking automation. The underlying framework ensured a level of modularity to facilitate future functionality as well as standards harmonization and critical upstream partner collaboration. Initial use cases centered on Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) services as well as Virtualized Consumer Premise Equipment (vCPE). Both are extremely cost disruptive from a deployment and management perspective and deliver enhanced service provider agility. What I find extremely compelling is that Amsterdam was only an eight-month development cycle from start to release. That's an amazing feat even in the fast-paced technology industry. [...] DPDK was an effort initially led by Intel at its inception nearly eight years ago, but became a part of the Linux Foundation back in 2017. At a high level, the technology accelerates packet processing workloads running on a variety of CPU architectures. DPDK is aimed at improving overall network performance, delivering enhanced encryption for improved security and optimizing lower latency applications that require lightning-fast response time. The transformative power of 5G networks lies in their potential to deliver low latency for applications such as augmented/virtual reality and self-driving cars -- DPDK will further extend that performance for next-generation wireless wide area networks. I had the opportunity recently to speak to project chair Jim St. Leger after the fifth DPDK release, and I was impressed with the depth and breadth of the open source project. Over 25 companies and 160 technologists are involved in advancing the effort. With the proliferation of data, cord cutting at home, and growing consumption of video over wired and wireless networks, high-quality compression techniques will dramatically improve performance and reliability. DPDK appears to be poised to contribute significantly to that effort.

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One young woman stopped all her medication after taking up swimming in cold water every week.

Officials in Hanoi say the practice could negatively affect the city's image as a "civilised capital".

Designed to run on minimal hardware, Elive is very much a passion project of its leader, Samuel F Baggen. Based on Debian, the first version took a bow in 2005. The second stable version made an appearance in 2010 and it has been a long eight years for the third stable version to become available. The Register: Elive has an impressively low bar to entry, with hardware requirements for the distribution coming in at 256 MB RAM and a 500 MHz CPU, meaning that some very elderly silicon is theoretically going to be able to enjoy the highly polished Enlightenment desktop. "Theoretically" because after The Register took Elive 3.0.0 out for a spin on a relatively low-powered laptop, we'd frankly baulk at running it on anything much slower than a 533MHz Core 2 with at least 512 MB RAM. However, the Enlightenment UI is undeniably an attractive desktop, particularly if a macOS-alike dock is your thing, and runs at an impressive lick even on hardware that lacks graphics acceleration. At its core, Elive is based on the Debian 8 distribution (aka Jessie), using the 3.16 kernel and version 0.17.6 of the Enlightenment X11 Window Manager. It comes replete with a full set of applications, including the ubiquitous LibreOffice and Gimp, along with a variety of productivity and entertainment tools, some of which are Elive's own. Unlike the previous version of Elive, 3.0.0 removes the requirement of donating to the project in order to install the thing locally (although Baggen was quick to tell The Reg that cost-free alternatives existed, but often with annoying processes).

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   "Firestorm Productions" разпространиха следното съобщение: HAGGARD & SOUND STORM Немските симфоник метъл класици се завръщат в България с уникално шоу на ...

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   По-рано тази година, на 6 април, KAMELOT пуснаха на музикалния пазар новия си, 12-и студиен албум "The Shadow Theory".    Сега, ...

Отвъд забързаното ежедневие на градския живот, където стрелките на часовника се въртят неумолимо, съществуват потънали в забвение малки села, захвърлени в затънтени крайчета на родината. Там времето заникъде не бърза. Спряло е, да си почине.

Всяко лято от десетина години насам не пропускам да намина към язовирите Голям Беглик или Широка Поляна. Докато преди се дивях на страхотните изпарения рано утрин и обикалях като гламав насам-натам, за да запечатам някой страхотен момент, сега просто се наслаждавам на уединението.

Би ми било съвестно, ако не стана рано поне една сутрин и не се помотая наоколо, докато всички все още дремят.

Еуфорията да запечатвам стотици кадри сред този пленителен пейзаж се е изпарила през годините. Наблюдавам как изгряващото слънце озарява в златно боровата гора, без да се чувствам длъжен да заснема всяка една секунда от този приказен момент.

Колкото и да е малка България, все още се намират места, до които не съм успял да се докосна. Такива са например околностите на Хаджидимово, които биха наподобявали Тоскана, стига земята да беше обработена така прилежно.

Приликата е още по-силна заради странния, особено висок манастир, издигащ се насред полята, също както кулите, които са неизменна част от тосканския пейзаж.

Самият манастир си има часовникова кула и е много по-различен от типичните български манастири.

В подножието на Южен Пирин, близо да гръцката граница, навремето е кипял живот, съдейки по огромните църкви в селата.

Църквите са извънредно големи и до всяка една се извисява висока камбанария.

Селцата сега са запустели, но тази запустялост не е потискаща, а навява меланхолия.

От механата в село Делчево се разкрива обзорна гледка към низината.

И тук църквата е идентична. Изглежда така, сякаш е вкопана в земята.

Къщите едва се крепят на старите си основи, но и в това има нещо меланхолично.

Някои села, като Лещен са прескочили отвъд забвението, където активно се възстовяват и строят нови къщи в типичния за региона стил.

Тук камъкът е в основата на строителството. Всички покриви са покрити с каменни керемиди.

Ковачевица е перла в короната. Не само, че всичко е от камък, а и сградите са завидно високи.

Камък и дърво - квинтесенцията на живота.

За разлика от повечето села наоколо, тук усърдно се обновяват дори и улиците в характерен за селото почерк.

Ако Ковачевица удивлява с дръзка каменна визия, Долен е селото където времето е спряло да тече отпреди две столетия.

Всяка крачка връща часовника назад. Дядо с магаре и каручка биха се вписали идеално.

Растителност безмилостно поглъща изоставени къщи и дворове.

Църквата не се извисява високо насред селото, а като че ли нарочно е скътана в ниското, така че да не дразни башибозука.

Часовникът е спрял хода си по тези места, неподвластни на шеметния вихър на времето.

What happens when a dead star meets a black hole? The answer appears to be a brief zombie awakening, according to a new paper. Let me explain.

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Cholera cases in Yemen have been slashed by a new system that predicts where outbreaks will occur. From a report: Last year, there were more than 50,000 new cases in just one week -- this year, the numbers plummeted to about 2,500. The system has enabled aid workers to focus efforts on prevention several weeks in advance of an outbreak -- by monitoring rainfall. It comes as the UN says it is concerned about a possible "third wave" of the epidemic. The deployment of the technology has been coordinated by the UK's Department for International Development. [...] The UK's overseas aid department has worked with the Met Office to develop a system that predicts where cholera will occur four weeks ahead of time. The Met Office produces a rainfall forecast for Yemen. Using its supercomputers, it is to determine the specific amount of rain that will fall and pinpoint the areas it will hit within a 10km (six-mile) radius. These are important because downpours overwhelm the sewerage system and spread the infection. The forecasts are used in conjunction with a computer model developed by Prof Rita Colwell, at the University of Maryland, and Dr Antar Jutla, at West Virginia University. Together, this information enables scientists to predict the areas most likely to experience an outbreak, up to four weeks in advance.

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Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has made Windows 95 into an electron app that you can run on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The source code and app installers are available on GitHub. According to The Verge, "apps like Wordpad, phone dialer, MS Paint, and Minesweeper all run like you'd expect," but "Internet Explorer isn't fully functional as it simply refused to load pages." From the report: The app is only 129MB in size and you can download it over at Github for both macOS and Windows. Once it's running it surprisingly only takes up around 200MB of RAM, even when running all of the old Windows 95 system utilities, apps, and games. If you run into any issues with the app you can always reset the Windows 95 instance inside the app and start over again. Enjoy this quirky trip down memory lane.

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I can never seem to keep succulents around..

Full video on instagram: @hombre_mcsteez

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank."

If you happen to have a box of spaghetti in your pantry, try this experiment: Pull out a single spaghetti stick and hold it at both ends. Now bend it until it breaks. How many fragments did you make? If the answer is three or more, pull out another stick and try again. Can you break the noodle in two? If not, you're in very good company. From a report: The spaghetti challenge has flummoxed even the likes of famed physicist Richard Feynman '39, who once spent a good portion of an evening breaking pasta and looking for a theoretical explanation for why the sticks refused to snap in two. Feynman's kitchen experiment remained unresolved until 2005, when physicists from France pieced together a theory to describe the forces at work when spaghetti -- and any long, thin rod -- is bent. They found that when a stick is bent evenly from both ends, it will break near the center, where it is most curved. This initial break triggers a "snap-back" effect and a bending wave, or vibration, that further fractures the stick. Their theory, which won the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize, seemed to solve Feynman's puzzle. But a question remained: Could spaghetti ever be coerced to break in two? The answer, according to a new MIT study, is yes -- with a twist. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that they have found a way to break spaghetti in two, by both bending and twisting the dry noodles. They carried out experiments with hundreds of spaghetti sticks, bending and twisting them with an apparatus they built specifically for the task. The team found that if a stick is twisted past a certain critical degree, then slowly bent in half, it will, against all odds, break in two. The researchers say the results may have applications beyond culinary curiosities, such as enhancing the understanding of crack formation and how to control fractures in other rod-like materials such as multifiber structures, engineered nanotubes, or even microtubules in cells.

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Macaw parrot Jessie "kept swearing, much to our amusement", the London Fire Brigade says.

You're probably in disbelief at this recipe title, but yes, you can make tasty pancakes with just two ingredients: baked sweet potato and eggs. (And, if you like, a pinch of salt and cinnamon, too). This protein-packed breakfast option is perfect for weekday mornings when you don't want a smoothie or a grain bowl, but still want to work in some vegetables at the beginning of the day.

These pancakes have a crispy, caramelized outside and creamy, sweet interior — and they're perfect for serving with maple syrup or nut butters.

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There is no singular cause of mental illness. Any number of things—our genes, environment, and even social mores—play a role in determining whether someone’s mental health will deteriorate to the point of being diagnosable as a disease. But researchers from Johns Hopkins have stumbled onto a possible trigger for manic…

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Six times per week, an empty plane used to fly from London’s Heathrow Airport to Cardiff, Wales. The next day, the plane would make the return trip without a single passenger. Half As Interesting, the second channel from Planelopnik-approved Wendover Productions, details why ghost flights like this sometimes operate…

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Fourteen of France's footballers are eligible to play for African nations, but what are Africa's other remaining World Cup links?

Deriding Africa's former colonial rulers will not solve the continent's many problems, writes Nigerian journalist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."

The owl was seen bathing in a pool of water in Thixendale in North Yorkshire.

Rwandans are embracing dogs as pets in spite of the country’s dark canine history.