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The race is on to build the world’s most complex machine
The Economist on how the most advanced chips are made:
asml’s most advanced machine is mind-boggling. It works by firing 50,000 droplets of molten tin into a vacuum chamber. Each droplet takes a double hit—first from a weak laser pulse that flattens it into a tiny pancake, then from a powerful laser that vaporises it. The process turns each droplet into hot plasma, reaching nearly 220,000°C, roughly 40 times hotter than the surface of the Sun, and emits light of extremely short wavelength (extreme ultraviolet, or euv). This light is then reflected by a series of mirrors so smooth that imperfections are measured in trillionths of a metre. The mirrors focus the light onto a mask or template that contains blueprints of the chip’s circuits. Finally the rays bounce from the mask onto a silicon wafer coated with light-sensitive chemicals, imprinting the design onto the chip.
Anyone Can Buy Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany - Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/phone-data-us-soldiers-spies-nuclear-germany/
More than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany—and the Pentagon is powerless to stop it.
Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China |The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-nuclear-site-hacked-groups-russia-china
It is still not known if the malware has been eradicated. It may mean some of Sellafield’s most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring for leaks of dangerous material and checking for fires, have been compromised.
Sources suggest it is likely foreign hackers have accessed the highest echelons of confidential material at the site, which sprawls across 6 sq km (2 sq miles) on the Cumbrian coast and is one of the most hazardous in the world.
Sellafield covers 6 sq km on the Cumbrian coast and is one of the most hazardous nuclear sites in the world. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
The full extent of any data loss and any ongoing risks to systems was made harder to quantify by Sellafield’s failure to alert nuclear regulators for several years, sources said.
Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water | MIT News
https://news.mit.edu/2023/desalination-system-could-produce-freshwater-cheaper-0927
MIT engineers and collaborators developed a solar-powered device that avoids salt-clogging issues of other designs.
Scientists Working in Antarctica Unwittingly Started to Develop a New Accent | Open Culture
“The findings revealed subtle but measurable changes in the speech of the overwintering staff during their time in Antarctica,” writes Mental Floss’ Brett Reynolds. “One change was convergence, where individuals in a close-knit group unconsciously begin to adopt similar speech characteristics.
US issues first ever fine for space junk to Dish Network – BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66993647
The US government has issued its first ever fine to a company for leaving space junk orbiting the Earth.
The Federal Communications Commission fined Dish Network $150,000 (£125,000) for failing to move an old satellite far enough away from others in use.
Risk of extinction by AI should be global priority, say experts | The Guardian
Hundreds of tech leaders call for world to treat AI as danger on par with pandemics and nuclear war
Hibernation artificially triggered in potential space travel breakthrough | The Guardian
… scientists showed that hibernation can be artificially triggered in rodents using ultrasonic pulses.
The advance is seen as significant because the technique was effective in rats – animals that do not naturally hibernate. This raises the prospect that humans may also retain a vestigial hibernation circuit in the brain that could be artificially reactivated.
“If this proves feasible in humans, we could envision astronauts wearing a helmet-like device designed to target the hypothalamus region for inducing a hypothermia and hypometabolism state,” said Hong Chen, an associate professor at Washington University in St Louis, who led the work.