Welcome to the September 29, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Nigerian Hacktivists Are Taking on Big Oil
IEEE Spectrum
Lucas Laursen
September 27, 2023
A group of Nigerian hacker-activists aims to collect and share data to increase public awareness of pollution caused by oil spills. The Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) is organizing a low-cost air pollution monitoring network, and last year the group began installing the first of 15 air quality sensors in and around the city of Port Harcourt. The sensors monitor particulate matter, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure to test for air pollution and hopefully determine its origin. MAJI has deployed two community networks to provide Internet access. MAJI's Okoro Onyekachi said the organization releases its data through a Web portal, radio, and social and print media in the hope of having a greater impact on polluters.
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Scientists Maneuver Robot Through Living Lung Tissue
UNC Health News
September 21, 2023
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and Vanderbilt University designed a robot needle that can be steered through living lung tissue while avoiding critical structures. UNC's Jason Akulian said, "This technology allows us to reach targets we can't otherwise reach with a standard or even robotic bronchoscope. It gives you that extra few centimeters or few millimeters even, which would help immensely with pursuing small targets in the lungs." The nickel-titanium needle uses controlled thrust to move forward and backward; laser etching increases the needle’s flexibility, allowing it to maneuver through tissue and steer around obstacles. Artificial intelligence-driven software instructs the robot to travel from one point to another using a three-dimensional model of the lung derived from computed tomography scans.
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X Scraps Tool to Report Electoral Fake News
BBC News
Mariko Oi
September 28, 2023
Researchers at online media integrity initiative Reset.Tech Australia said social media platform X has disabled a tool that allows users to report electoral misinformation. The researchers analyzed more than 6,000 social media posts across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube, finding X had the largest "ratio of discoverability" of disinformation. Reset.Tech Australia said the feature remains available only in the European Union, where it allows users to report "negative effects on civic disorders or elections." Reset.Tech Australia called the tool's removal "extremely concerning," as Australia will hold a referendum on Indigenous people's rights in October.
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Nanopore Sequencing, DNA Barcoding Method Gives Hope of Personalized Medicine
Imperial College London (U.K.)
Hayley Dunning
September 25, 2023
Researchers at the U.K.'s Imperial College London and Oxford Nanopore Technologies have developed a method for mapping dozens of unique biomarkers simultaneously to diagnose disease. The researchers mix a blood sample with DNA "barcodes," short DNA sequence tags that each encode a probe that binds to a different biomarker. They then inject the solution into Oxford Nanopore's MinION device to read each barcode's electrical signature, which a machine learning algorithm processes to identify each biomarker type and concentration. The team demonstrated this approach can quantify 50 microRNA molecules in healthy patient blood. Imperial's Alex Ivanov said, "In principle, we are close to enabling a technology being suitable for clinics, where, in the long run, we hope it could provide a wealth of individualized information for patients with a range of conditions."
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Scientists Hail Pioneering Software in Hunt for Alien Life
The Guardian (U.K.)
Ian Sample
September 25, 2023
Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), Purdue University, and Johns Hopkins University have trained software to differentiate chemical mixtures produced by living organisms from those generated by environmental or other events. The researchers subjected 134 samples from living and non-living objects to the pyrolysis-GC-MS process, which broke down each sample's organic molecules. They then used machine learning and mathematical modeling to train the software, which was able to identify samples with non-biological, life, and fossilized life origins. Preliminary tests showed the program could distinguish between biological and non-biological samples with 90% accuracy. CIS' Robert Hazen suggested the signs-of-life detector could transform the search for alien life, as well as delve more deeply into the origins and chemical processes of life on Earth.
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Accelerating Sustainable Semiconductors with 'Multielement Ink'
Berkeley Lab News Center
Theresa Duque
September 28, 2023
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have created "multielement ink," described as the first "high-entropy" semiconductor material that can be fabricated at low or room temperatures. The researchers synthesized high-entropy crystalline halide perovskites from a low- or room-temperature solution much faster than conventional semiconductor manufacturing methods. The multielement ink halide perovskite maintained ambient-air stability for at least six months. Former Berkeley Lab researcher Maria Folgueras said these crystals "can be incorporated into an electronic device without destroying the other necessary layers, thus allowing for the easier design of electronic devices and for more widespread use of high-entropy materials in electronic devices."
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Computer Memory Survives Temperatures over 500 Degrees Celsius
New Scientist
Alex Wilkins
September 29, 2023
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory have produced a computer memory device from scandium aluminum nitride that can withstand temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius (932 degrees Fahrenheit). The researchers sandwiched the semiconductor between layers of platinum and nickel, and found the resulting device could retain its memory for least six hours in temperatures topping 500 degrees Celsius. Penn's Deep Jariwala said the device could theoretically operate longer and at higher temperatures. He also said an extremely thin version of the device could potentially store up to a few kilobytes of data.
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Screen-Printed Flexible Sensors Allow Earbuds to Record Brain Activity, Exercise Levels
UC San Diego Today
September 28, 2023
Flexible, screen-printed sensors designed by University of California, San Diego engineers can enable earbuds to record the human brain's electrical activity and lactate concentrations during exercise. The spring-loaded sensors maintain contact and adjust as the earbuds move, while a transparent hydrogel film enhances sweat collection. Once in communication with the sensors, the earbuds can wirelessly transmit data for visualization and additional analysis on a smartphone or a laptop. The researchers found the sensors were just as effective in gathering data as commercial electroencephalogram measurements and lactate-containing blood samples.
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MilliMobile Self-Driving Robot is Powered by Light, Radio Waves
University of Washington News
Stefan Milne
September 27, 2023
The self-driving MilliMobile robot created by University of Washington (UW) researchers is powered by ambient light or radio waves. The four-wheeled robot harvests power from a solar panel-like collector and can travel 10 meters (30 feet) an hour on variable surfaces, carry nearly three times its own weight, and move automatically toward light sources to allow it to run indefinitely on harvested energy. Onboard sensors and tiny computing chips enable MilliMobile to self-navigate, mapping its surroundings by sampling data at multiple points, said UW's Zachary Englhardt. The robot also can transmit data over 200 meters (650 feet) via Bluetooth. The researchers tested MilliMobile indoors and outdoors, finding it can operate even under very low light conditions.
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Google User Data Has Become a Favorite Police Shortcut
Bloomberg
Julia Love; Davey Alba
September 28, 2023
Law enforcement routinely taps user data from Google, including location and search data, to aid in investigations. Police say obtaining such data by warrant can uncover important leads, but privacy advocates worry when officers sift through data on innocent people. To acquire potential leads, law enforcement specifies parameters like geographic coordinates or search terms and asks Google to supply hits. Google reported receiving a record 60,472 search warrants for user data in the U.S. last year, over twice as many as in 2019. Police also are probing new data sources, with officers in San Francisco and the Phoenix, AZ, area issuing warrants for video footage captured by driverless cars on the cities' streets.
*May Require Paid Registration
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Vega's Fuel-Free CubeSats to Keep Formation with Wings
The European Space Agency
September 27, 2023
Three ANSER (Advanced Nanosatellite Systems for Earth-observation Research) CubeSats from INTA, the Spanish Institute of Aerospace Technology, will be aboard the next flight of the European Space Agency's Vega launcher, in order to image Iberian lakes and reservoirs and assess their quality. The shoebox-sized satellites will fly like a flock of birds in formation via wing-like flaps that control their relative positions by taking advantage of trace amounts of air in the upper atmosphere. INTA's Santiago Rodriguez Bustabad said, "A specially-developed algorithm will be used to plan these 'Differential Lift and Drag' maneuvers on the ground for telecommand uplink to the satellites." The lead satellite has a panchromatic camera to detect clouds and pre-validate the utility of the hyperspectral images before processing on the ground, while two follower satellites host miniaturized hyperspectral cameras incorporating micro-spectrometers.
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New York Bans Facial Recognition in Schools
Associated Press
Carolyn Thompson
September 27, 2023
New York State has prohibited facial recognition in schools, following last month's report by the state’s Office of Information Technology Services acknowledging that the risks of the technology's use may outweigh its security benefits. The analysis cited facial recognition's "potentially higher rate of false positives for people of color, non-binary and transgender people, women, the elderly, and children." The report added that biotechnology would not prevent students from entering schools "unless an administrator or staff member first noticed that the student was in crisis, had made some sort of threat, or indicated in some other way that they could be a threat to school security." Decisions on digital fingerprinting and other biometric solutions are left up to local districts, per New York Education Commissioner Betty Rosa's directive.
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