☕️ Earth's Second Moon Has Vanished, Scientists Say.

Good morning. “Enshittification” is officially the biggest word of the year according to the national dictionary of Australia. “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

That rage you feel as you deal with every single piece of tech in your life? It’s caused by enshittification and the dictionaries are taking notice.

Why does QAL VPN have so many bugs? Sweet universe save me from this tide of enshittification.

—Dylan J. Dance

SCIENCE

🌎 Earth's 'mini moon' may have been a chunk of our actual moon and it has vanished. Planet Earth is parting with a 33-foot asteroid that's been orbiting it for two months. Named 2024 PT5, it may be a fragment blasted off the moon by an impacting, crater-forming asteroid. This harmless "mini moon" has been moving in a horseshoe-shaped orbit influenced by Earth's gravity since September. NASA will observe it closely when it passes by at 1.1 million miles in January before it zips away, not to return until 2055. "It’s an interesting object worthy of study," said Raul de la Fuente Marcos, an astrophysicist from Complutense University of Madrid, highlighting its potential to provide insight into lunar materials that escaped our moon's surface​.

🩺 World's most common heart valve disease linked to insulin resistance. A new study finds insulin resistance as a major risk factor for aortic stenosis, the world’s most common heart valve disease. "This novel finding highlights that insulin resistance may be a significant and modifiable risk factor for AS," said lead author Dr. Johanna Kuusisto. The research underscores the importance of managing metabolic health to reduce risks of AS​.

🌌 Record-breaking run on Frontier sets new bar for simulating the universe in exascale era. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory used the world's fastest supercomputer, Frontier, to simulate the universe at a scale never before possible. By utilizing approximately 9,000 compute nodes, the Frontier simulations modeled both dark matter and conventional matter interactions, setting a new benchmark in cosmological research. "It’s not only the sheer size of the physical domain, which is necessary to make direct comparison to modern survey observations enabled by Frontier," explained Salman Habib, leader of the HACC research team. This achievement will help researchers better understand the universe's formation and evolution through computational power that can handle billions of calculations per second​.

🧬 Synthetic Dimension Breakthrough Propels Quantum Tech to New Heights. Researchers from INRS have developed a new type of photonic lattice that enables advanced manipulation of quantum states of light. Their work opens possibilities for efficient quantum computing and secure communication, using technology that integrates with existing telecommunications infrastructure. “This discovery demonstrates the potential of high-performance quantum systems using accessible devices,” says Stefania Sciara, a co-author of the study.

🌋 Ancient Lava Tubes Reveal Hidden Clues to Life Beyond Earth. Scientists have found that lava tubes on Earth, such as those in the La Corona system in Lanzarote, Spain, could serve as models for searching for life on Mars. This research highlights the potential for such caves to harbor biosignatures. According to lead researcher Bogdan Onac, the lava tubes create a protective environment that preserves evidence of past ecosystems, which could be crucial in planetary exploration.

TECH

🧠 Mathematicians Develop AI to Forecast Market Interest Rates. Ateneo de Manila University researchers have created AI tools to help predict market interest rates. Their deep learning models successfully forecasted trends in Philippine Benchmark Valuation rates, showcasing their robustness in economic prediction. “Interest rates are among the most important macroeconomic factors considered by both government and private entities when making investment and policy decisions,” the team stated.

📽️ OpenAI’s Sora video generator appears to have leaked. A group calling itself "Sora PR Puppets" released unauthorized access to Sora, OpenAI's upcoming video-generating AI, via Hugging Face. This leak, intended as a protest, allowed public generation of videos for a few hours before access was revoked. "What we don’t agree with is how this artist program has been rolled out and how the tool is shaping up ahead of a possible public release," the group stated.

🤖 'This is a marriage of AI and quantum' as new technology gives AI the power to feel surfaces for the first time. Scientists have developed a quantum-enhanced AI that can "feel" surfaces, using lasers to scan and interpret their texture. "This is a marriage of AI and quantum," said Daniel Tafone, co-author of the study, adding that this could have medical applications, such as measuring skin roughness linked to early cancer detection.

HEALTH

🍻 How long ring fingers can point to a love of alcohol. Researchers found that the ratio of a person's ring finger length to their index finger is linked to alcohol consumption, suggesting prenatal hormone levels could influence drinking behavior. "It is known that alcohol-dependent patients have very long 4th digits relative to their 2nd digits, suggesting high testosterone relative to estrogen exposure before birth," said Professor John Manning​.

💤 New Study Shows How Light Sleep Improves Your Cognition. A recent study reveals how light sleep (NREM sleep) boosts cognitive performance by synchronizing brain activity. Researchers from Rice University and Houston Methodist found that this sleep stage enhances brainpower and that its effects can even be replicated with electrical stimulation. “During sleep, we observed an increase in low-frequency delta wave activity, which led to improved accuracy in information processing,” explains Dr. Natasha Kharas, the study's lead author​.

💊 Diabetes Drug Metformin Might Help Fight Lung Cancer. New research from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that the diabetes drug metformin could enhance the effects of immunotherapy for lung cancer, particularly in overweight patients. “We observed longer recurrence-free survival in overweight patients who took metformin and underwent surgery,” said Dr. Sai Yendamuri, who led the study. This finding might pave the way for targeted treatments for specific patient groups.

SPACE

🛰️ Satellite space junk might wreak havoc on the stratosphere. Rising numbers of deorbiting satellites could contribute to harmful metals and chemicals entering the stratosphere, impacting ozone levels and climate. "Hundreds of defunct satellites plunge through Earth’s atmosphere yearly, and the count is rising," warned researcher Carolyn Gramling.

CLIMATE

🌊 Quantum Mechanism Identified as a Key to Accelerating Ocean Temperatures. Researchers at the University of Technology, Sydney, have identified a quantum mechanism that could explain the accelerating rise in ocean temperatures, which current climate models fail to predict. “The solution to this conundrum is that the energy stored in oceans is not only heat but also quantum pairs of photons,” said Emeritus Professor Smith, shedding new light on oceanic heat dynamics.

WORLD

🔋 Bolivia Announces $1 Billion Deal with China to Build Lithium Plants. Bolivia has signed a $1 billion agreement with China’s CBC to build two lithium carbonate production plants. The plants, situated in the Uyuni salt flats, will help Bolivia become a key player in the lithium market, which is crucial for electric vehicle batteries. President Luis Arce stated, “This agreement paves the way for Bolivia to be an important player in determining the international price of lithium”​.

🪙 'Supergiant' gold deposit discovered in China is one of the largest on Earth—and is worth more than $80 billion. Over 40 veins of gold ore have been discovered at the Wangu gold field in Hunan province, containing an estimated 1,100 tons of gold. "Many drilled rock cores showed visible gold," said Chen Rulin, an ore-prospecting expert. This discovery has driven gold prices to near-record highs​.

🦈 Largest great white shark caught on a Queensland drumline. A 5.62-meter female great white shark, the largest ever caught in Queensland's drumline program since 1962, was found dead earlier this year. Researchers are studying its tissue, but "to lose such a large breeding female and her pups is a devastating loss to the eastern population of white sharks," said Lauren Sandeman of Humane Society International​.