Apple is ‘looking into’ this video of an exploding iPhone 7 Plus
Is Apple about to have its own explosive battery debacle?
According to Mashable, 18-year-old Brianna Olivas posted this video of a smoking iPhone 7 Plus to Twitter. She bought the phone in January, and the day before the explosion, she reportedly went to the Sprint store because it wouldn’t turn on. But after running diagnostics, they determined it was fine. The phone worked normally until the next morning, when she said it “blew up” and “more smoke started coming out of the phone”.
So my IPhone 7 plus blew up this morning ???? was not even using it, literally no explanation for this pic.twitter.com/sQ8CJt4Y69
— Bree✨ (@briannaolivas_) February 23, 2017
@briannaolivas_ pic.twitter.com/MLllo8DvSa
— Bree✨ (@briannaolivas_) February 23, 2017
Olivas told Gizmodo she charged the phone with an official Apple charger and that she never really had a problem with it before. It failed to switch on she reportedly took it to an Apple store where employees ran diagnostic tests but found no faults. When asked about the incident, an Apple spokesperson said Apple is “in touch with the customer and looking into it”. Naturally, we’re all thinking about Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.
Samsung’s ill-fated phablet was recalled twice and then ultimately abandoned by the company. But here’s the thing: Don’t overreact. This iPhone 7 explosion could be a one-time incident, and not some widespread battery flaw for the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus.
Olivas said she has already given the phone to Apple, and the company provided her with a replacement device. We should know more in the coming days after Apple conducts its tests.
How used cars became a security nightmare
Application security for connected cars is far less mature than anyone should be comfortable with. This was clear at the RSA information security conference last week in San Francisco, where two presentations demonstrated different ways cars can be remotely controlled or even stolen by non-owners. All because the people designing connected car apps literally didn’t think things through and consider the possibility of second owners — or hackers.
At the RSA security conference last week in San Francisco, IBM’s X-Force Red leader Charles Henderson told a twisted tale of a car he couldn’t get rid of. Despite the fact that he’d sold his old car and gotten a new one, his previous vehicle’s controls were still accessible through the its shoddy app.
Being a hacker, he was very careful when he traded his old car in at the dealership. He wanted to make sure none of his personal information went with it, so he performed factory resets on everything and de-authorized all the accounts connected to the car.
He took great pains to make sure the car was transferred securely.
When he got home with his new vehicle, he noticed the old one was still listed on his app. He waited for it to go away.
He thought it would take a few days to clear out of the connected car system. Days turned into weeks, then months. After two years, he became a car app hacker to figure out exactly what was going on. Shockingly, as noted in his RSA talk, “four years later, I still have control of the car.” He added, “If I was a criminal, I could’ve stolen the car.”
As a professional bug hunter, Henderson couldn’t resist looking under the app’s hood. He quickly realized that everything about security in the world of connected cars revolves around the first owner. They literally haven’t thought through what happens when someone sells it.
Henderson tested four major auto manufacturers and found they all use apps that allow previous owners to access them from a mobile device. In his talk, he was careful not to tell us who the car’s manufacturer is. And he discovered that only the manufacturer can remove users from a car.
The new car owners remain unaware. “There’s nothing on the dashboard that tells you ‘the following people have access to the car.’”
Worse, when he enlisted other IBM employees to look into the problem Henderson said they found a total of four car manufacturers failing to properly control access to cars after resale.
Meanwhile, the dealers came up with a band-aid fix. They tweaked the app to limit its ability to geolocate the car down to a kilometer. Which defeats much of the purpose of having geolocation, of course.
Henderson noted that it also relies on the user’s phone to report location as a way to verify owner access. He probably didn’t need to explain to the audience at RSA just how easy that is to fake. “My phone tells lies convincingly,” he joked.
It’s as if the app makers didn’t consider that a car might be resold, and have a second owner. Which, of course, is nuts.
The next day at RSA conference, researchers Mikhail Kuzin and Victor Chebyshev examined app security for the seven most popular car apps for Android. “Unfortunately,” they said, “all of the apps turned out to be vulnerable to attacks in one way or another.”
They discovered that all of the apps have “unencrypted user credentials” as well as “little in the way of protection against reverse-engineering or the insertion of malware into apps.” Many stored login, password, and the car’s VIN number in plaintext. In one instance, “the username and password that had been entered during registration were displayed on the screen immediately after a login attempt.”
Kuzin and Chebyshev detailed their findings in a post, explaining that the breadth of security failures in these apps “allows any interested individual to take the app, modify it at his own discretion, and begin distributing it among potential victims.”
Not everyone can do it, of course. First a user has to be tricked into downloading a modified version of the car’s app, which is easy enough with a tainted SMS link or phishing email. Meaning, all someone has to do is infect your phone with malware. “Despite that,” they said, “the attack is quite surreptitious in nature, so the user will not notice anything out of the ordinary until his car has been stolen.”
But what about actually starting the car, you ask? “The thing is, a key is needed for a car in order for it to start moving.”
The researchers explained that after getting in, “car thieves use a programming unit to write a new key into the car’s on-board system. Now, let us recall that almost all of the described apps allow for the doors to be unlocked, that is, deactivation of the car’s alarm system. Thus, an evildoer can covertly and quickly perform all of the actions in order to steal a car without breaking or drilling anything.”
Just as app designers failed to consider what happens when a car is sold, Kaspersky’s researchers noted that “nobody imagined a situation where the phone of the owner is compromised.”
A few years ago we might’ve see these kinds of security mistakes as a unavoidable part of an immature connected car market. Now, in our world of daily hacks, breaches, and slow-motion security nightmares, these flaws come off as churlish neglect.
Apparently once our hard-earned cash is forked over and the car’s off the lot it’s good luck, pal.
Image: djedzura via Getty Images (Disarmed)
Google is shutting down Spaces
Google’s oh-so-brief Spaces experiment didn’t even last a year before the company decided to shut it down. According to a note from the Spaces team today, they’ve made a “tough decision” and the group-sharing social network will lock down in read-only mode on March 3rd, then completely shut down on April 17th.
Assuming they actually used the service at all, users can still save, print or delete what little content they may have posted until then. After April 17th, Spaces will get the Google Wave treatment and disappear completely from the internet.
Source: Google
Facebook claims a technical error automatically logged users out
Were you logged out of Facebook earlier today? You weren’t alone. A rash of folks were signed out of their account and some were told that their accounts may have been compromised. As such, the social network locked access and sent out password reset emails to affected folks. Problem is, the emails didn’t do the trick for everyone. Things seem to be back to normal now, however.
Facebook has issued the following statement in response:
“Earlier today an error in one of our systems designed to help prevent suspicious account access sent a small set of people to our account recovery flow unnecessarily. We have fixed the issue and are in the process of clearing the affected accounts from this recovery flow. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
What’s more, a source tells us that this was the result of a technical error (sounds familiar) and there’s no reason to think your account was at risk. And if you got an error earlier, there shouldn’t be anything that you need to do to reinstate your account. “[Users] can go through the flow,” the source said, “but if they take no action, we will clear the recovery flow on their behalf very soon.”
Facebook wasn’t alone in this type of error either. Some Google users had a similar issue last night, which might explain any Google OnHub issues. The folks in Mountain View said there’s nothing to worry about there, as well.
.@facebook I need my problem fixed. I can’t get in touch with anyone at your company and I can’t verify my account. Sorry isn’t good enough. pic.twitter.com/JDD0dRYSHA
— Jason Liebman (@jayliebs) February 24, 2017
We know some of you had issues signing in today. Please try again now. Rest easy — your account’s security was not affected.
— Google (@Google) February 24, 2017
Huawei MediaPad M3 Tablet: A true mid-level Android option (review)
Introduction
Today’s tablet world lacks a lot of parity. On one hand you have the premium devices like the iPad lineup, or the Samsung Galaxy Tab line. While these devices are extremely durable, high-performing, and very pretty, their respective prices can make them prohibitive for a lot of potential buyers.
But the problem is that the alternatives to these high-end devices (and I’m talking specifically of the Android space here) drop off rather quickly, into a sea of B-brand (and sometimes “what brand?”) tablets that can go from merely adequate to god-awful to use. To find a truly good but not super-high-end Android tablet has become somewhat of a unicorn hunt.
Enter the Huawei MediaPad M3 8.0 tablet. For about $300 (buy here from Amazon), you get a pretty nice set of specifications:
- 2560 x 1600 IPS display
- 4 GB RAM
- Ultra-thin bezels
- Fingerprint sensor
- Dual Harmon/Kardon speakers
- MicroSD slot for cards up to 128 GB
- 5100 mAh battery
While the Huawei makes no claims at being an iPad slayer, it also in no uncertain terms has to, either. I believe there’s a lot of folks in the tablet market who are looking for a device that isn’t bottom-dollar cheap (and works like it), nor is very nice but happens to cost as much as a very decent laptop. Let’s take a tour of the M3 and see how it stands up, shall we?
Unboxing
The MediaPad M3 arrives in a stylish white, square box. Opening you find the tablet itself front and center, with access panels for the charging plug & cord, and the SD slot access tool & lithe manual. Hidden within the cover is a complimentary screen protector.
In all it’s a very modern, clean presentation, giving you just what you need without any extraneous distractions. Sadly no earbuds come with the 32 GB model; though the 64 GB version arrives with a very nice set of AKG earbuds in tow.
Feel & Finish
The tablet itself is a great combination of density and thinness; it has a great iPad-like 
heft to it without feeling bulky (Sorry, I know this is an Android-based website, but Apple has always gotten it right with tablet design in my book.).
I tend to have bigger hands than most, so consider the source when I say that the Huawei is darn near a one-hand device, just beyond phablet. Now that I write that and look back at the tablet, it has a definite smartphone look to it.
Power & volume buttons.
Micro-USB.
Headphone jack at the top.
The shell is uni-body CNC-machined aluminum, and is quite nice to look at as well as feel in your hands. the back is a very, very light etch; but nothing that provides any real added grip. The front side bezels are tiny; so small that I’m not sure it remains a feature. What I mean is that holding the tablet in portrait mode, it becomes all-too-easy to touch the screen, creating a likely not-wanted action on the device.
While the left side is devoid of any features, the right side has both the power/sleep and volume buttons (again, like a lot of phones out there). The top has a traditional 3.5 mm headphone jack and one speaker. The bottom has a mic port, micro-USB (no USB-C here) port, the 2nd speaker, and the SD card slot.
On the front you have a single multi-function home button, as well as an 8-megapixel selfie camera….a similar 8-megapixel shooter resides at the rear, sans flash. There is no Fglspecial “Camera” section to this review: It’s a tablet. It has cameras. They work. They’re OK but not great. And they’re on a tablet. Let’s move on.
Display
Here is one of the tablet’s prime features; a very nice 2560 x 1600 IPS display that is pretty impressive. Colors are well-saturated right out of the box. Huawei also includes the option to manually adjust the temperature of the device, which can have quite a visual impact. Also built in is an “eye comfort” setting, which takes a lot of blue hues out of the display for late-night viewing (the idea that the reduction in blues reduce the potential interruption in sleep patterns). The one caveat with this display is glare: there is tons of it, and unless you have the brightness cranked up and angle it right, viewing this beauty in the sunshine is likely a no-go.
Super-glare.
If there is one complaint to lodge against this display, it’s the glossiness of it, which can cause a crazy amount of glare. Also, combined with the fact that Huawei feels obliged to throw in a screen protector gives me the feeling that this screen could be a scratch magnet. Please note I have not experienced any scratches, but I’m borderline obsessive with protecting my devices.
Audio
Prime feature #2 is the audio system built into the MediaPad M3. The highlight are the Harmon/Kardon-branded dual speakers on this device, coupled with some fancy hardware and audio software in the inside. This is probably the loudest non-computer I’ve ever heard; and it’s not just loud for loudness-sake. The audio is quite good all the way up, relatively speaking….but please don’t mistake this for a pair of real speakers. As the volume goes up, the depth thins out. While never getting “tinny”, a small amount of vibration appears on the shell, which I guess would be expected. It won’t fill a room for a party, but for personal listening it’s more than enough.
On the 64 GB version a pair of very nice AKG earbuds come with, but alas our review model is only 32. Sigh.
Performance
Here’s where the ‘mid-level’ of this review title hits home. Looking at the specs, you may believe that this tablet could be a higher-end performance machine. But in real life it didn’t quite get there…..though it’s in no way a slouch.
Playing higher frame-rate games will cause occasional graphic stutter, though only occasionally. It’s just enough to be noticeable while reviewing the unit. And definitely sits on the higher end of the extreme-heavy tablet market. This is certainly no Black Friday discount tablet, but it also shouldn’t guarantee perfect performance, either.
The interface is what Huawei calls EMUI, an Apple-like skin (my take) on stock Android. The review tablet runs EMUI 4.1 but EMUI 5.0 is out there and imminent.
Again, it’s OK. I have such a hard time rendering judgement on stuff like this. It works, it’s kinda pretty. But I do and probably always will prefer stock Android, so there. If you do want to read up more about EMUI, here’s a link.
One interesting nugget I found on this tablet is that there isn’t the traditional 3-button layout (back, home, recent apps) along the bottom of the device. There is just a single physical home button bottom-center. It’s not mechanical, just a capacitive/touch button, along with a fingerprint sensor.
Touching the button also acts as a ‘back’ button, if you’re several clicks into something. Swiping up or down takes you directly to a Google search page, while a left or right swipe will bring you to a EMUI-esque recent apps screen to peruse.
The fingerprint sensor works, but it can take up to a full second or more for recognition and action once scanned.
Overall
Overall I really liked the MediaPad M3. I consider myself “techie-frugal”, in that I like nice stuff that works consistently, but I’ll be darned if I’m paying what the likes of Apple is demanding.
The MediaPad M3 falls in what I consider my “just-right” slot of performance, quality, and price. What you get is a super-nice display and audio, a smooth interface, and almost top-end gaming performance. And you could buy almost two of these for the price of one iPad Pro (and 25% less than a Galaxy Tab S2).
If you’re looking to get out of the discount tablet jungle, but not comfortable with shelling over top-end dollars for a new tablet, I highly, highly recommend the Huawei MediaPad M3 8.0.
You can pick one up via this link on Amazon.
Twin Peaks (2017): The return, how and when to watch it
Today, 24 February, is a special day for Twin Peaks fans.
It’s the anniversary of the day Special Agent Dale Cooper first stepped foot in Twin Peaks, and Showtime is celebrating the occasion by releasing two new posters and two new teasers, all with the purpose of getting you excited about the third season of the series, which returns to Showtime in May with a special two-hour season premiere. So, in honour of Twin Peaks day, here’s everything you need to know about the new show.What is Twin Peaks?
The original Twin Peaks is a TV drama created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered in 1990 on ABC and aired until 1991. It’s an about an investigation — headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who’s played by Kyle MacLachlan — into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, who’s played by Sheryl Lee, in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington.
The show is known for its creepy tone, campy characters, off beat humor, surrealism, melodrama, and supernatural elements, all of which are also trademark characteristics of Lynch and his work.
Dear Twitter Friends, the rumors are not what they seem ….. It is !!!Happening again. #TwinPeaks returns on @SHO_Network
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) May 16, 2015
Despite a tiny hiccup, Twin Peaks is returning to the TV, with the original co-creators, Frost and Lynch, at the helm (and as as writers). It’s been revived as a miniseries on Showtime. Although originally slated to premiere in 2016, it was delayed to 2017. Many original cast members, including MacLachlan as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, are slated to appear in the Showtime revival.
Lynch is directing each episode of the third series.
When will Twin Peaks (2017) return?
In January, Showtime revealed Twin Peaks would return on 21 May, with a two-hour premiere.
How can you watch the Twin Peaks (2017) premiere?
US
The Twin Peaks (2017) world premiere is 21 May at 9pm ET/PT in two-parts on air, demand, and online. Following the premiere, Showtime Anytime and On Demand subscribers will immediately have access to episodes three and four, which will air on Showtime on 28 May at 9pm.
UK
Brits can watch the premiere’s simulcast on Sky Atlantic and Now TV on 22 May at 2am local time. It will be repeated on 23 May at 9pm local time.
How many episodes are in the miniseries?
There are 18 episodes total. After episodes three and four air on 28 May, single episodes will air in the subsequent weeks.
However, last August, Showtime boss David Nevins had teased that we shouldn’t expect a one-a-week regular slot: “I want to embrace the unusualness of it, and I think it is quite possible we’re not going to do a traditional release pattern… I can definitely see longer episodes or the question of how we release it linearly and for those who want to stream it.”
Where can you watch the Twin Peaks (2017) trailer?
Here are a few of the teaser trailers and a production trailer:
Hackers circumvent ‘air gap’ security with a drone that ‘reads’ the lights on a computer
Why it matters to you
If you’re worried about a drone peering outside your window to steal your data, cover up your computer’s blinking lights.
If you weren’t concerned about the sight of a drone hovering outside your window peering in at you (and, for the record, you probably should be!), you certainly will when you hear that it could be extracting sensitive data from your computer.
That is according to researchers in the Cyber Security Research Labs at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel, who have demonstrated an espionage technique that would make James Bond blush, in which a quadcopter films the flashing LED lights on a computer and uses this to steal your data, via a Morse code-style message.
“In this work, we found a novel method to extract data from a computer in a very covert and speedy way,” researcher Mordechai Guri, the research and development manager at Cyber Security Research Labs, told Digital Trends.
More: Meet Danger Drone, a flying computer designed to hack into all your unprotected devices
The attack method is designed to get around computers which use an “air gap” to protect them, basically removing them from the internet so they can’t be hacked in traditional ways.
Fortunately, things are a bit more complicated than simply getting a camera-equipped drone to play peeping tom. To work, the targeted computer first needs to be infected with malware on a USB or SD card, so would-be villains will need to think of a clever way to smuggle one of those into your office before they even think about firing up a UAV.
No, it’s not enormously practical — but due to the speed that LED lights can blink (faster than a human eye), it is possible for hackers to achieve up to 4,000 bits-per-second in data transfer. A couple of megabytes an hour means that it would take aggressors a long time to extract your HD copy of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but it does mean that stealing an encryption key wouldn’t take too long.
“We’re academic researchers. We don’t deal with use-cases, but just establish and analyze possible ways to do this,” Guri said. “Certainly, this is not a usual regular grade attack. However, there are organizations such as banks that have air-gapped computers with valuable, sensitive information they want to keep private. In that case, it’s not unimaginable that we may see more extreme methods used to extract data.”
So how should they protect against such an ultra high-tech attack? Ironically, in the most low-fi ways possible. “You could try putting tape over the LEDs, but that’s not an elegant solution,” Guri continued. “Another solution would be to have the computer in a room with blacked-out windows or curtains to reduce the optical visibility of the computer from outside.”
So, basically, the anti-hacking security version of ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’ advice.
Hackers circumvent ‘air gap’ security with a drone that ‘reads’ the lights on a computer
Why it matters to you
If you’re worried about a drone peering outside your window to steal your data, cover up your computer’s blinking lights.
If you weren’t concerned about the sight of a drone hovering outside your window peering in at you (and, for the record, you probably should be!), you certainly will when you hear that it could be extracting sensitive data from your computer.
That is according to researchers in the Cyber Security Research Labs at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel, who have demonstrated an espionage technique that would make James Bond blush, in which a quadcopter films the flashing LED lights on a computer and uses this to steal your data, via a Morse code-style message.
“In this work, we found a novel method to extract data from a computer in a very covert and speedy way,” researcher Mordechai Guri, the research and development manager at Cyber Security Research Labs, told Digital Trends.
More: Meet Danger Drone, a flying computer designed to hack into all your unprotected devices
The attack method is designed to get around computers which use an “air gap” to protect them, basically removing them from the internet so they can’t be hacked in traditional ways.
Fortunately, things are a bit more complicated than simply getting a camera-equipped drone to play peeping tom. To work, the targeted computer first needs to be infected with malware on a USB or SD card, so would-be villains will need to think of a clever way to smuggle one of those into your office before they even think about firing up a UAV.
No, it’s not enormously practical — but due to the speed that LED lights can blink (faster than a human eye), it is possible for hackers to achieve up to 4,000 bits-per-second in data transfer. A couple of megabytes an hour means that it would take aggressors a long time to extract your HD copy of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but it does mean that stealing an encryption key wouldn’t take too long.
“We’re academic researchers. We don’t deal with use-cases, but just establish and analyze possible ways to do this,” Guri said. “Certainly, this is not a usual regular grade attack. However, there are organizations such as banks that have air-gapped computers with valuable, sensitive information they want to keep private. In that case, it’s not unimaginable that we may see more extreme methods used to extract data.”
So how should they protect against such an ultra high-tech attack? Ironically, in the most low-fi ways possible. “You could try putting tape over the LEDs, but that’s not an elegant solution,” Guri continued. “Another solution would be to have the computer in a room with blacked-out windows or curtains to reduce the optical visibility of the computer from outside.”
So, basically, the anti-hacking security version of ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’ advice.
Upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU achieves new Cinebench world record
Why it matters to you
This achievement only goes to show how AMD’s new Zen processor design can offer a huge performance gain for less cost and power usage.
Earlier this week, AMD officially revealed the first three desktop processors from its new Ryzen family: the Ryzen 7 1800X, the Ryzen 7 1700X, and the Ryzen 7 1700. The CPUs were introduced during a special event for the press, but AMD also invited professional overclockers to come in and push the new Ryzen processors to their limits. The result was one team overclocking the 1800X to a hefty 5.2GHz with all eight cores active.
However, the team didn’t overclock the chip using mere CPU coolers. According to team member Rodrigo Avelino, they used liquid nitrogen (LN2) and lots of voltage. Thus, thanks to the pushed speed and the -200 Celsius temperature, the Ryzen 7 1800X managed to score a 2,449cb in Cinebench R15, breaking the previous world record of 2,410cb. The core voltage reached 1.875 volts while the core speed hit an exact 5,201.07MHz.
As a refresher, here are the out-of-the-box specs for the Ryzen 7 1800X and its two siblings:
1800X
1700X
1700
Code name:
Summit Ridge
Summit Ridge
Summit Ridge
Architecture:
Zen
Zen
Zen
Socket type:
AM4
AM4
AM4
Core count:
8
8
8
Thread count:
16
16
16
Base speed:
3.6GHz
3.4GHz
3.0GHz
Boost speed:
4.0GHz
3.8GHz
3.7GHz
L2 Cache:
4MB
4MB
4MB
L3 Cache:
16MB
16MB
16MB
Max power draw:
95 watts
95 watts
65 watts
Price:
$500 (no cooler)
$400 (no cooler)
$330 (with cooler)
Availability:
March 2
March 2
March 2
As the specs show, the 1800X has a base speed of 3.6GHz and a boost speed of 4.0GHz, thus the overclocking team pushed the chip way past its normal overclocking boundaries. All three processors are unlocked, enabling customers to crank the speeds beyond their limits, and could see even faster speeds than this week’s new Cinebench R15 world record using lots more liquid nitrogen and even liquid helium.
More: AMD’s new Ryzen chips are available for pre-order today, but you might want to hurry
The big deal here is that right out of the box, AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X processor provides the same if not better performance than competing eight-core CPUs sold by Intel costing $1,000 or more. The company demonstrated during its Ryzen coming-out party that the $400 Ryzen 7 1700X matched Intel’s Core i7-6900K chip, which currently still costs $1,089 despite the Ryzen reveal.
Here’s a chart to show the difference between the AMD chips and their closest Intel competitors:
Ryzen 7 1800X
Core i7-6900K
Ryzen 7 1700X
Core i7-6800K
Ryzen 7 1700
Core i7-7700K
Core count:
8
8
8
6
8
4
Thread count:
16
16
16
12
16
8
Base speed:
3.6GHz
3.2GHz
3.4GHz
3.4GHz
3.0GHz
4.2GHz
Boost speed:
4.0GHz
3.7GHz
3.8GHz
3.6GHz
3.7GHz
4.5GHz
Cache:
20MB
20MB
20MB
15MB
20MB
8MB
Max power draw:
95 watts
140 watts
95 watts
140 watts
65 watts
91 watts
Price:
$500
$1,089
$400
$441
$330
$350
Not only is AMD going after Intel with a doubled-performance-per-price-point offer, the company is also packing more performance per watt. As seen above, the 1800X achieves higher clock speeds but consumes less power than Intel’s chip at half the cost. That said, Ryzen has seemingly raised the bar for benchmarking CPUs in Cinebench R15.
You may soon be able to shell out for snail-based pain medicine
Why it matters to you
Snail venom could be the key ingredient in a new type of long-acting pain medication that’s free of addictive opioids.
When it comes to treating chronic pain, your first thought may not be that the answer could reside in the venom of a tiny, red-shelled marine snail that feeds on a specific type of marine “fireworm.”
That’s possibly where you should have been looking, however, based on a new article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The paper describes a compound which blocks pain, discovered by scientists at the University of Utah, with support from researchers at the University of Florence, Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, A. T. Still University, University of Mississippi Medical Center, and biotech company Kineta.
Not only was the effect of the compound long-lasting, with its effects continuing for 72 hours after being injected into rodents, but it was also free of highly-addictive opioids, which kill 91 Americans every single day from drug overdoses.
More: Like a futuristic Band-Aid, this wearable patch relieves at the push of a button
The compound is derived from petide, a chemical component found in the venom of the particular snail in question, which uses it both to help immobilize prey and as a defense mechanism.
“There are hundreds of species of snail, which hunt a wide variety of prey, such as fish, worms, and other snails,” Dr. J. Michael McIntosh, a professor of psychiatry and biology at the University of Utah, told Digital Trends. “They each have a unique cocktail of 200 or so components in their venom. Once we find a particular compound of interest, we can then begin surveying the other species of snails to see if we can find improved versions of that compound. As we did our tests, we found petide in the venom of the conus regis snail.”
The original petide worked well in rodent tests, although the team made further synthetic modifications to the compound based on differences in the receptors of humans. Now, they’re working to develop the compounds for clinical trials in humans. “It’s in pre-clinical stages at the moment,” McIntosh said. “We hope to advance that over the next year or two, so as to do drug testing in humans.”
AIVAnet 