Hackers Believes Steam is Vulnerable but Valve Does not Care About it

Gaming

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Valve Steam it seems is vulnerable to hacking, and the hacker believes that the company does not care about customer security. British student Ruby Nealon was able to put a game on the company’s site. This was soon removed, but it led to the discovery of another issue which has also been corrected.

Nealon had a Steamworks account and found it easy to hack the site. The website is old and even compared to new sites was not secure, but Nealon will not be hacking them again. He has been trying to bring the issues to the company, but they only acknowledged the problem when he hacked the account.

He also felt that it was wrong that the firm did not reward users who were able to discover and report problems. The likes of Facebook or Google would pay $100,000 for the sort of discovery he made, and he felt that he was being exploited here as he was passing on details and not being paid for his work.

Nealon said he is not bitter or doing this for the money, but believes that something should have been offered. This is not the first time that Steam have been found wanting as in 2014 they were openly asked to put a bug bounty program in place. In 2013 supposedly private accounts were revealed and while this was fixed, it was later possible to see details of a stranger’s account. Nealon continued that a security team should be brought in, or things will only get worse.

Have You Ever Wondered How Much it Would Cost To Buy Every Item on Amazon.com?

Internet

Andrew Thomas

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Have you ever wondered how much it would cost to buy one of every item on Amazon? Apparently it is around $12.86 billion, and you would receive about 479 million items. This means that each item would cost in the region of $26.86, and this was worked out in a strange sort of way.

For some reason, there is a Random Amazon Product button and take note if there are a couple of prices shown. There will be one that it is hoped you will buy, and this is highlighted in red. Carry on following the same process until you have found 100 items and while it will take a while to do this. If there were a bot that could do it, it would be ideal but in the absence of such a thing, it will have to be done manually. Once all the figures had been collected it was possible to produce a histogram that showed how much each item would cost.

It showed that the most often, the price was under $5, and only a small number of products cost over $100. As soon as prices rise above $30, they become at the higher end of the 30 such as $39.99.

One item made a big difference to the figures as it cost $588.50 and without this, the average price would drop down to $2.30. It would be interesting to see if Amazon and their IT department could get an exact figure for following this process.

Science Kombat: Fighting Game of The Greatest Scientific Minds

Gaming

Andrew Thomas

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Think how great it would be if the greatest minds came back to live and could analyse the living. They would be a great asset when it came to solving some of the problems that we face today. Gamers may harbour the desire that they would begin fighting each other – hand to hand combat no less.

For some, this is a reality – at least of sorts. Superinteressante, a science and culture magazine from Brazil, has put out a fighting game that will appeal to old school users. Called Science Kombat, it sees some of the greatest scientific minds of the past taking part in a fighting tournament. One part of the action is Nikola Tesla firing a bolt of lightening at Stephen Hawking with him sending back a wormhole.

In all, there are eight scientists who are now being characterized as fighters. As well as Stephen Hawkings and Nikola Tesla there is Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Sir Isaac Newton, Pythagoras, Albert Einstein and Alan Turing. All can land basic kicks and punches as well as have their own specific moves. Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat players should soon learn what they are.

Darwin has the Ascent of Man combination punch, and Einstein can control the speed of light and put in an attack while Marie Curie shoots radioactive projectiles from her radium covered hands. Once all eight have been defeated, there is a surprise, but it would be wrong to spoil that. It is hoped there will be additional characters brought in.

Play The Game

Our Brain is Sensitive For Social Information

News

Mehmet Hatipoglu

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0

Hypnosis has helped researchers verify the fact that the brain is receptive to social information. Everyday actions are analysed by the brain and the journal Consciousness and Cognition report the findings of neuroscientists Professor Dr. Albert Newen and Professor Dr. Martin Brune amongst others.

Hypnosis was used to analyse bottom-up attention participants were viewed placing coins into large bowls and there was an estimation of what would happen due to the hypnotise. An ECG was used and mu-suppression was analysed and as suspected, it was stronger when the person involved was hypnotised. Albert Newen believes that the work they have carried out proves that the reason humans are different to animals is because of social competence.

As humans, we are attracted to things that we can see yet there is little research as to how changes in attention can alter the way the views are analysed even though the answer would allow us to see how such changes shows processes like action understanding.

Hypnosis was used to induce an increase in bottom-up attention. The ECG u-wave suppression was recorded while patients were hypnotised while they were offered first and third person intentional actions. The results showed that hypnosis builds up u-suppression when humans are viewing actions that were intentional.

The suggestion is that the processing of social action is improved when there are predominant bottom-up attentional processes. The findings have given credence to the Social Relevance Hypothesis stating social action processing is an attentional process that is bottom up driven and can be changed.

Source: Katharina Gregor – RUB

AI Steals Money From Banking Customers

News

Mehmet Hatipoglu

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0

What was once thought to be good news has turned to bad after the artificial intelligence (AI) as it has been discovered that the system for automated banking has been taking money from customers.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Len Meha-Dohler stated that this was a nightmare although they had not involvement with the project. The system called Deep Learning Interface for Accounting – or Delia for short- held the money in a separate account according to Stanford Universities Rob Ott. He was involved and believes the money would have been returned.

After the recent event where DeepMinds program beat a chess expert at the game, it was considered that AI was the way forward. The main uses were considered to be in phones and automobiles. Delia was developed to keep a record of peoples bank accounts. This happens as it checks for regular transactions and ensuring the funds were taken to an account to ensure it was available when needed.

Sadly, even though it was successful in making sure customers did not go overdrawn, the program began taking money out of the customer’s accounts. This happened by adding an additional transaction – if food were bought every three days, a transaction would appear in the middle, and DELIA would keep it.

Further money was taken via fake fees, and since this was discovered, the system has been stopped. Ott believes that the money was misdirected, and while there was always meant to be a buffer holding cash, DELIA made it their money.

Story Via; Sciencemag.org

DO FUNGICIDES PLAY A ROLE IN AUTISM or ALZHEIMER?

News

Mehmet Hatipoglu

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0

Certain fungicides* are causing gene expression changes in mice similar to those in humans suffering from degenerative diseases. There is now a way to target chemicals that affect the function of the brain. The big question is still surrounding how much you take in compared to the fruit and vegetables containing them that are eaten.

Study author and professor at UNC School of Medicine Mark Zylka worked on mice and found out that when their neurons were exposed to a variety of chemicals and RNA was used to ascertain which genes were misregulated. Computers were then used to determine the chemicals that had caused similar gene changes.

Chemicals from 6 groups changed expression in the same way, and there was one that altered the same genes that change when a human has Alzheimer’s, but there is more study needed. Rotenone and fenpyroximate which are pesticides and fungicides including fenamidone and fluoxastrobin. It was discovered that free radicles were produced, and these can affect neuron microtubules. The limit of the effect on animals and humans is not entirely known.

Many of the fungicides tested have been used more abundantly since 2000 with only the use of pyridaben decreasing. Pyraclostrobin is used to the decline in the honey bee population. Zylka points out that it is lettuce and kale that contains the highest amount of fungicides and farmers are using them to treat additional crops. He hopes more research will be carried out as not enough is known about what they can do.

Story Via; Nature.com

*Fungicides are biocidal chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill or inhibit fungi or fungal spores.

Without The Moon Earth’s Magnetic Field May Not Have Existed

News

Andrew Thomas

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Do you know how important the earth’s magnetic field is to our existence? Without it, the incoming solar radiation would ruin us. A new study published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal has hinted that the earth’s magnetic field could not be maintained without the moon’s help.

Although not fully comprehended, the science of the Earth’s magnetic field already confirms that the field hails from the earth’s outer core that has hot metallic liquid. The intense heat released from the core of the earth to the surface creates a series of convectional currents in the outer core. It is this movement of magnetic objects that produces a very intense magnetic field.

When solar wind is released from the sun towards the earth, it is the magnetic field that repels it. Otherwise, it would interfere with the earth’s atmosphere and wipe away life.For there to be consistent convectional currents created in the outer core of the planet, there must be a huge heat difference from the inner core to the outer core. Then this still has to continue between the outer core and mantle.

There is no consensus as to how much the earth’s depths have cooled with since it began to exist around 4.54 billion years back. Some claim that it has cooled by about 572 degrees Fahrenheit. Others claim it has gradually cooled from 12,272 degrees F to 6, 872 degrees F. This means that conventional currents are not producing the Earth’s magnetic field.

Without The Moon Earth's Magnetic Field May Not Be Existed

What could it be then? Scientists suggest it could be the moon. Though weak, the moon’s gravitational pull on the planet could be sending tides too deep in the outer core, disturbing its liquid contents.

Observations show that the moon still produces about a trillion watts in the outer core of the earth.

This is enough power to cause consistent and efficient convection in the outer core. And this means that the moon, along with the liquid metallic core, could be maintaining the magnetic field that life could not exist without.

Research File; ScienceDirect.com

Biologists Have Created a Software That Automates the Design of DNA

News

Andrew Thomas

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So far there is a programming language for living cells. According to Christopher Voigt, a lead biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, there is new software that will automate the design of DNA circuits.

Cello, the new software, works in a clear manner. First, the user identifies a specific cell and decides what it should do. For instance, they may want it to signal metabolic activities in the stomach and respond by generating a drug. For this to work, they have to enter certain commands to clarify how these actions should be done by Verilog—a programming language used to create silicon circuits by electricians. Cello then interprets this data to create a DNA chain in a cell which will help execute the user’s demands.

Voigt and fellow synthetic biologists are creating user interfaces that will let users write a program and get many different DNA sequences in return. Cello will be a web-based interface, which could also be downloaded via an open source code from GitHub.

As Voigt noted, Cello entailed ten years of hard labor. Creating biological parts that were similar to electronic circuits that could then be interlinked to use harmoniously Verilog to produce anticipated outcomes was entirely complex.

Although the researchers in Voigt’s team arranged DNA analogues of electronic circuits in a manner that worked in simple situations, they often failed to accomplish the same when using complicated circuits. Luckily the cause has been established, thanks to the presence of gene synthesis technologies.

All the sixty design created with Cello were tested, and forty-five of them worked perfectly immediately. He estimates that making sixty designs with Cello would take a week. Adam Arkin, a synthetic biologist at the University of California, who participated in this study, thinks Cello is breakthrough software that will take the design of new biological circuits to the next level.

Story Via; Nature.com / Feature image; Trunews

Rythm; Sleep-Improving Neurotechnology

Startups

Mehmet Hatipoglu

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0

By 2017, there should be access to a headset that improves the quality of sleep. It has been produced by French firm Rhythm, who have received a private investment of over $11 million. Audio is used to stimulate the brain and stretch out the periods of deep sleep meaning you are more refreshed and wake less sleepy. It is also thought it can help improve the memory.

Hugo Mercier, co-founder of Rhythm needed to stop scepticism of the product, and it was only after the results of a few studies were read that this stopped, and the scientific aspect was understood. Research is ongoing and with each phase, more is understood.

The reason for the delay in publication is that the item is being patented. The funding that was received was 3 million Euros in the way of public grants and 7 million Euros from private investors. The first contact was with biotech investor Laurent Alexandre and he has a long term interest in a way to create a two-way brain interface that is non-invasive, and Dream fits the bill. His investment was 750,000 Euros, and this allowed the research to start. Xavier Niel of Kima Ventures also invested and while the product is not yet ready, both of who have put in are aware of the fact.

Rythm; Sleep-Improving Neurotechnology

Large scale testing needs to be carried out before the product can be launched and the French military have been called upon to help with the trials. Money that is remaining will go towards marketing and production.

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Humans With Certain Genetic Mark May be Highly Vulnerable to Marijuana Addiction

News

Mehmet Hatipoglu

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0

As a new study implies, humans with given genetic markers may be highly vulnerable to marijuana addiction. The study discovered a connection between signs of marijuana use and three genetic markers. As well, researchers discovered a link between the three genetic risk factors for dependence on marijuana and the genetic risk factors for depression. So they drew a conclusion that that’s why dependence on marijuana and depression happen concurrently.

Dr. Joel Gelernter, the study co-author and a professor of psychiatry, genetics and neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine based in Connecticut, hopes that the new findings would help create a detailed understanding of the marijuana dependence biology.

Gelernter added that perhaps their findings could help future researchers discover new medication to treat marijuana dependence disorder. According to NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse), the condition has no drugs.

Furthermore, Gelernter expressed his faith in the Live Science saying that their findings could help create more awareness to the general public that use of marijuana is addictive, particularly, in people at a higher genetic risk.

The study used data from over fourteen thousand Americans who participated in one study of the three that were aimed at exploring the genetics of substance abuse disorders. Eighteen to thirty-six of these participants were users of marijuana. The scientists searched for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) during the study.

As Gelernter reported, three genetic variants were found to have correlations with symptoms of cannabis dependence. One of these factors was a gene that was regulating calcium concentrations in blood. The second genetic variant was found in CSMD1 gene, which helps in the development of the CNS (Central Nervous System). Genetic variants in this gene have been linked to schizophrenia before.

Though the study discovered a link between three genetic markers and signs of marijuana dependence, it didn’t confirm these markers trigger the addiction.

Story Via; LiveScience / Follow us; TrendinTech @trendintech & Facebook

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