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Scientists at San Francisco-based biotech start-up Muufri -- (get it, moo free?) -- have developed a formula to re-create cow milk: six proteins for structure and function and eight fatty acids for flavor and richness, according to Muufri’s website. The milk product is also free of lactose and cholesterol and because it’s created in a lab, its seen as a sustainable alternative to traditional dairy cattle operations. According to Muufri, lactose is “partially indigestible by 75 percent of adults,” so the decision to leave it out creates a healthier product. Founders of Muufri, Ryan Pandya, Perumal Gandhi and Isha Datar,...

The EU will soon unveil a plan for taxing major internet companies like Amazon and Facebook by imposing a levy of two to six percent on revenues in every country where they operate, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. “The range will be from two to six percent, but closer to two than to six,” Le Maire told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. The European Commission has said it will present by end March an overhaul of its tax rules, which currently allow US digital economy giants to report their income from across the bloc in any...

Companies around the globe are scrambling to comply with new European privacy regulations that take effect a little more than three months from now. But many security experts are worried that the changes being ushered in by the rush to adhere to the law may make it more difficult to track down cybercriminals and less likely that organizations will be willing to share data about new online threats. On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes effect. The law, enacted by the European Parliament, requires technology companies to get affirmative consent for any information they collect on...

Elon Musk’s plan to use satellites to beam Internet to Earth just got a key endorsement Wednesday from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. Pai issued a statement Wednesday in support of the project and urged his colleagues to follow suit: Following careful review of this application by our International Bureau’s excellent satellite engineering experts, I have asked my colleagues to join me in supporting this application and moving to unleash the power of satellite constellations to provide high-speed Internet to rural Americans. If adopted, it would be the first approval given to an American-based company to provide broadband services...

Intel has started releasing new microcode updates that should address one of the Spectre vulnerabilities after the first round of patches caused significant problems for many users. The company has so far released new firmware updates only for its Skylake processors, but expects updates to become available for other platforms as well in the coming days. Customers and partners have been provided beta updates to ensure that they can be extensively tested before being moved into production. The chipmaker started releasing microcode patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities shortly after the attack methods were disclosed by researchers. However, the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple's stock is backtracking from its recent highs amid mounting concerns that iPhone X sales will fall short of the high hopes for a device that brought facial recognition technology and a $1,000 price tag to the company's flagship product line. Speculation about disappointing demand for the iPhone X have been swirling for the past week, contributing to a 6 percent decline in Apple's stock since it hit an all-time high of $180.10 on Jan. 18. The shares lost $3.55 to close Monday at $167.96, translating into a nearly $60 billion loss in the company's market...

While airport terminal architecture has a solid history of style and innovation, rarely is a proposal put forth to utterly redesign the runway. But that’s precisely the aim of Henk Hesselink, a Dutch scientist working with the Netherlands Aerospace Centre. Dubbed the “endless runway”, Hesselink’s brainchild is a 360-degree landing strip measuring more than two miles in diameter. Since airplanes would be able to approach and take off from any direction around the proposed circle, they wouldn’t have to fight against crosswinds. And three planes would be able to take off or land at the same time.

Intel told Chinese firms about chip flaw before US gov: report Intel Corporation initially warned a handful of customers, including several Chinese technology firms, about security flaws within its processor chips, while at the same time not telling the U.S. government, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Security experts told the newspaper that the decision could have allowed Chinese tech companies to flag the vulnerabilities to Beijing, giving the Chinese government opportunity to exploit them. Jake Williams, head of the security company Rendition Infosec and former National Security Agency (NSA) employee, told the Journal that it is a “near certainty”...

Google says it is discontinuing its fact-check feature because it proved to be too faulty for public use, directly attributing the decision to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The company has no date set for when it will return, if ever. “We launched the reviewed claims feature at the end of last year as an experiment with the aim of helping people quickly learn more about news publications,” a spokeswoman for Google told TheDCNF, while also adding that TheDCNF was the catalyst for the recent move. “We said previously that we encountered challenges in our systems that...

Users have complained that the updates released by Microsoft last week for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities cause Windows to break down on some computers with AMD processors. Several individuals whose computers rely on AMD processors, particularly older Athlon models, say they are unable to start Windows 10 after installing KB4056892, an update released by Microsoft in response to the disclosure of serious flaws affecting Intel, AMD and ARM processors. The security holes have been dubbed Spectre and Meltdown and they allow malicious applications to bypass memory isolation mechanisms and access passwords, photos, documents, emails, and other sensitive information. Both...

The company says the practice deals with problems -- like unexpected shutdowns -- caused by aging batteries or cold conditions. If you think your older iPhone seems to run slower, you're not crazy. Apple on Wednesday said a software feature released last year makes your phone operate more slowly to offset problems with its aging lithium ion battery. As batteries get older, they don't hold their charges as well as newer batteries, and can have worse problems when the charge is low or the temperature is cold. The aging battery means your phone could have trouble operating or might unexpectedly...

Audio: Mayor predicted people will 'get killed' on Amtrak route "It’s virtually inevitable that someone is going to get killed that wouldn’t be killed otherwise," Lakewood Mayor Don Anderson warned WSDOT about the new high-speed route. Author: Susannah Frame Published: 10:37 PM PST December 18, 2017 Two weeks before a high-speed Amtrak train derailed near DuPont, Lakewood Mayor Don Anderson warned the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) that the route could be deadly without additional safety precautions.

. . . The typical scene of the conventional method which attaches a plate to the outer surface of a broken rib, has the patient on his side, a slab of flesh from waist to armpit folded back to reveal the pale ribs and the red intercostal muscles . . . The surgery is so hard on patients that it is only used in cases with multiple breaks especially of adjacent ribs. Such a cluster of broken ribs causes"Flail chest," a condition where that section of the rib cage moves opposite the way it's supposed to move, interfering with...

Commercial satellite imagery of the Sinpo South Shipyard from November 5 indicates that North Korea is on an aggressive schedule to build and deploy its first operational ballistic missile submarine. The continued movement of parts and components into and out of the parts yards adjacent to the construction halls indicates an ongoing shipbuilding program. The presence of what appear to be sections of a submarine’s pressure hull in the yards suggests construction of a new submarine, possibly the SINPO-C ballistic missile submarine (SSB)[1]—the follow-on to the current SINPO-class experimental ballistic missile submarine (SSBA).[2] A probable launch canister support, or launch...

A mantle plume producing almost as much heat as Yellowstone supervolcano appears to be melting part of West Antarctica from beneath. Researchers at NASA have discovered a huge upwelling of hot rock under Marie Byrd Land, which lies between the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea, is creating vast lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. The presence of a huge mantle plume could explain why the region is so unstable today, and why it collapsed so quickly at the end of the last Ice Age, 11,000 years ago.

BERKELEY — It didn’t take long for fake news about the shooter in Sunday’s church massacre to spread across the internet. Now, a pair of computer-savvy UC Berkeley students are trying to do what lawmakers have been begging Twitter to do for months: call out automated bot accounts that spew false, deliberately divisive political propaganda under the dangerous guise of being real people with legitimate views. On Halloween, while most of their fellow students were donning costumes and preparing for a night of celebration, Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte officially launched Botcheck.me, a Google Chrome browser extension and website that...

Opera released an overhaul of its browser today, and claims to have grown its market share substantially in the year since it was acquired by a Chinese private equity company a year ago. ... Golden Brick capital completed the acquisition a year ago. Its website explains: "The Group is focused on investments in China, Russia and other countries and regions of 'One belt, One Road' area to maximize return for investors and meanwhile dedicate to the national strategy and economic development."

Plants grown in this 'smart' greenhouse fared as well or better than plants grown in conventional greenhouses. The first crops of tomatoes and cucumbers grown inside electricity-generating solar greenhouses were as healthy as those raised in conventional greenhouses, signaling that "smart" greenhouses hold great promise for dual-use farming and renewable electricity production. "We have demonstrated that 'smart greenhouses' can capture solar energy for electricity without reducing plant growth, which is pretty exciting," said Michael Loik, professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lead author on a paper that appears in the current issue of the...

The Army's Kestrel Eye microsatellite holds the promise of providing tactical imagery to soldiers on the ground. WASHINGTON — It’s been years in the making. A very small, low cost, visible imagery satellite that soldiers in the field will be able to control, giving them access to real-time intelligence. The U.S. Army’s Kestrel Eye microsatellite was deployed into space from the International Space Station and activated Tuesday at 05:45 am EST. If all goes as planned, the 110-pound spacecraft could become a catalyst for broader adoption of small satellites for military missions. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command...

Cassini might have gotten a very emotional send-off at the close of its 20-year journey, but it's not the only long-term space mission being retired this season. Today, the joint NASA-German Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has ended operations after 15 years, three times longer than expected. Its mission: Precisely measure Earth's gravitational field from a pair of satellites. Both satellites were needed for GRACE to perform its mission, so when yet another of GRACE-2's batteries failed and contact was lost in September, the writing seemed to be on the wall. The mission team worked heroically to bring it...