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Oldest-Ever Proteins Extracted From 3.8-Million-Year-Old Ostrich Shells

Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes: Scientists have smashed through another time barrier in their search for ancient proteins from fossilized teeth and bones, adding to growing excitement about the promise of using proteins to study extinct animals and humans that lived more than 1 million years ago. Until now, the oldest sequenced proteins are largely acknowledged to come from a 700, 000-year-old horse in Canada’s Yukon territory, despite claims of extraction from much older dinosaurs. Now geneticists report that they have extracted proteins from 3.8-million-year-old ostrich egg shells in Laetoli, Tanzania, and from the 1.7-million-year-old tooth enamel of several extinct animals in Dmanisi, Georgia…extinct horses, rhinos, and deer, This raises the inevitable question. If we ever could clone a prehistoric species…should we? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Oldest-Ever Proteins Extracted From 3.8-Million-Year-Old Ostrich Shells

Run Android 6.0 Marshmallow on Your PC With Android-x86 6.0

This week saw the first stable release of Android-x86 6.0 (marshmallow-x86) — and a new version of Remix OS for PC, a PC-optimized version of Android. Slashdot reader prisoninmate quotes Softpedia: Android-x86 6.0 has been in the works since early this year, and it received a total of two RC (Release Candidate) builds during its entire development cycle, one in June and another in August. After joining the Remix OS team, Chih-Wei Huang now has all the reasons to update and improve its Android-x86 system for the latest Android releases. Therefore, as you might have guessed already, Android-x86 6.0 is the first stable version of the project to be based on Google’s Linux kernel-based Android 6.0 Marshmallow mobile operating system, and includes the most recent AOSP (Android Open Source Project) security updates too. Under the hood, Android-x86 6.0 is using the long-term supported Linux 4.4.20 kernel with an updated graphics stack based on Mesa 12.0.2 3D Graphics Library, and offers support for Samsung’s F2FS file system for SSD drives, better Wi-Fi support after resume and suspend, and initial HDMI audio support. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Run Android 6.0 Marshmallow on Your PC With Android-x86 6.0

Air Force Grounds $400 Billion F-35s Because of ‘Peeling and Crumbling’ Insulation

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Washington Post: Less than two months after declaring the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ready for combat, the Air Force on Friday announced that it was temporarily grounding 15 of the jets after it discovered that insulation was “peeling and crumbling” inside the fuel tanks. The setback is the latest for the $400 billion system, the most expensive in the history of the Pentagon. The problem comes as the program, which for years faced billions of dollars in cost overruns and significant schedule delays, had begun to make strides. The insulation problem affects a total of 57 aircraft, the Air Force said, 42 of which are still in production… In a statement, Lockheed Martin said that “the issue is confined to one supplier source and one batch of parts.” It emphasized that “this is not a technical or design issue; it is a supply chain manufacturing quality issue…” It is unclear how long the aircraft would be grounded, how long the problem would take to fix or what the larger affect on the program would be. âoeWhile nearing completion, the F-35 is still in development, and challenges are to be expected, ” said an Air Force spokeswoman, adding “The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we’re confident we’ll continue to do so.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Air Force Grounds $400 Billion F-35s Because of ‘Peeling and Crumbling’ Insulation

Microsoft Has More Open Source Contributors On GitHub Than Facebook and Google

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Next Web: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has really embraced open source over the past couple of years. GitHub, a site that is home to a number of the web’s biggest collaborative code projects, has counted more than 5.8 million active users on its platform over the past 12 months, and says that Microsoft has the most open source contributors. Microsoft has 16, 419 contributors, beating out Facebook’s 15, 682 contributors, Docker’s 14, 059 contributors, and Google’s 12, 140 contributors. The Next Web reports: “Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. In October 2014, it open sourced its .NET framework, which is the company’s programming infrastructure for building and running apps and services — a major move towards introducing more developers to its server-side stack. Since then, it’s open sourced its Chakra JavaScript engine, Visual Studio’s MSBuild compiling engine, the Computational Networks Toolkit for deep learning applications, its Xamarin tool for building cross-platform apps and most recently, PowerShell. It’s also worth noting that the company’s Visual Studio Code text editor made GitHub’s list of repositories with the most contributors. You can check out these lists, as well as other data from GitHub’s platform on this page.” GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath said in an interview with Fortune, “The big .Net project has more people outside of Microsoft contributing to it than people who work at Microsoft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Has More Open Source Contributors On GitHub Than Facebook and Google

Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong

MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple’s A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple’s new handset, as usual, Cupertino’s latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple’s SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro — also paired with 3GB of RAM — puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong

University of California Hires India-Based IT Outsourcer, Lays Off Tech Workers

dcblogs writes from a report via Computerworld: The University of California is laying off a group of IT workers at its San Francisco campus as part of a plan to move work offshore. Laying off IT workers as part of a shift to offshore is somewhere between rare and unheard-of in the public sector. The layoffs will happen at the end of February, but before the final day arrives the IT employees expect to train foreign replacements from India-based IT services firm HCL. The firm is working under a university contract valued at $50 million over five years. This layoff affects 17% of UCSF’s total IT staff, broken down this way: 49 IT permanent employees will lose their jobs, along with 12 contract employees and 18 vendor contractors. This number also includes 18 vacant IT positions that won’t be filled, according to the university. Governments and publicly supported institutions, such as UC, have contracted with offshore outsourcers, but usually it’s for new IT work or to supplement an existing project. The HCL contract with UCSF can be used by other UC campuses, which means the layoffs may expand across its 10 campuses. HCL is a top user of H-1B visa workers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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University of California Hires India-Based IT Outsourcer, Lays Off Tech Workers

Apple To Unveil ‘AirPods’ That Use Custom Bluetooth Chip

It’s no secret that Apple is planning to remove the headphone jack in its upcoming flagship smartphones. A new report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, which confirms rumors that Apple will indeed remove the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 to improve the device’s water resistance, suggests that Apple is developing earbuds called “AirPods” that will employ its own Bluetooth-like communication chip. Mac Rumors reports: “First and foremost, as has been rumored, Kuo suggests Apple is working on its own Bluetooth-like communication chip and its own Bluetooth headphones. Previous information suggests the Bluetooth chip will improve battery performance for longer battery life. The chip may be included in the wireless earbuds Apple has in development, which are said to be Bragi Dash-style wireless Bluetooth earbuds that are entirely wire free. The earbuds will be called “AirPods, ” based on trademark filings that have been discovered, and the product could be unveiled as early as September 7 alongside the iPhone 7. According to Kuo, Apple will sell its Apple-branded Bluetooth headphones alongside its Beats line of headphones, targeting the high-end market with the “AirPods” and the mid-range market with the Beats headphones. Kuo does not believe the company will package Bluetooth headphones with the iPhone 7. Instead, Apple is likely to ship the iPhone 7 with Lightning-based EarPods that feature a Lightning connector instead of a 3.5mm headphone jack.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple To Unveil ‘AirPods’ That Use Custom Bluetooth Chip

Giant Pandas Are No Longer Endangered

By the mercy of some higher power, the giant panda—an oversized mashup between a raccoon and a sloth whose offspring can’t shit on their own—is no longer endangered. At a meeting of the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii this weekend, experts took giant pandas off the IUCN’s official Red List, citing a population rebound in China. Read more…

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Giant Pandas Are No Longer Endangered

Penetration-Testing Distro Kali Linux 2016.2 Released

prisoninmate writes: What’s Kali Linux 2016.2? Well, it’s an updated Live ISO image of the popular GNU/Linux distribution designed for ethical hackers and security professionals who want to harden the security of their networks, which contains the latest software versions and enhancements for those who want to deploy the OS on new systems. It’s been quite some time since the last update to the official Kali Linux Live ISOs and new software releases are announced each day, which means that the packages included in the previous Kali Linux images are very old, and bugs and improvements are always implemented in the most recent versions of the respective security tools. Best of all, the new Kali Linux 2016.2 release comes in KDE, MATE, Xfce, LXDE, and Enlightenment E17 flavors. Their blog also points out that Kali recently appeared in an episode of Mr. Robot. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Penetration-Testing Distro Kali Linux 2016.2 Released