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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Finalists in Nasa's Spacecraft Sweepstakes: A Drone on Titan, and a Comet-Chaser
From ACM News

Finalists in Nasa's Spacecraft Sweepstakes: A Drone on Titan, and a Comet-Chaser

Would you like NASA to fly a drone across Saturn's largest moon, or to send a probe to collect samples from a duck-shaped comet?

Can America's Power Grid Survive an Electromagnetic Attack? 
From ACM News

Can America's Power Grid Survive an Electromagnetic Attack? 

Last month, federal agencies and utility executives held GridEx IV, a biennial event where officials responsible for hundreds of local utilities game out scenarios...

Researchers Steer the Flow of Electrical Current With Spinning Light
From ACM TechNews

Researchers Steer the Flow of Electrical Current With Spinning Light

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a device to demonstrate a way to control the direction of the photocurrent within semiconductor materials...

Researchers Fooled a Google AI Into Thinking a Rifle Was a Helicopter
From ACM News

Researchers Fooled a Google AI Into Thinking a Rifle Was a Helicopter

Tech giants love to tout how good their computers are at identifying what's depicted in a photograph.

Crispr in 2018: Coming to a Human Near You
From ACM News

Crispr in 2018: Coming to a Human Near You

Ever since scientists first used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit living human cells in 2013, they've been saying that the possibilities for using it to treat disease are virtually...

'oumuamua Probably Isn't a Spaceship, But It Could Have Passengers
From ACM News

'oumuamua Probably Isn't a Spaceship, But It Could Have Passengers

Last Wednesday, at 3:45 pm, scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project trained the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia on 'Oumuamua—the mysterious, oblong...

Could Bitcoin Technology Help Science?
From ACM News

Could Bitcoin Technology Help Science?

The much-hyped technology behind Bitcoin, known as blockchain, has intoxicated investors around the world and is now making tentative inroads into science, spurred...

Artificial Intelligence, Nasa Data ­sed to Discover Eighth Planet Circling Distant Star
From ACM News

Artificial Intelligence, Nasa Data ­sed to Discover Eighth Planet Circling Distant Star

Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star, with the recent discovery of an eighth planet circling Kepler-90, a Sun-like star...

Stealth Turns 40: Looking Back at the First Flight of Have Blue
From ACM Careers

Stealth Turns 40: Looking Back at the First Flight of Have Blue

On December 1, 1977, a truly strange bird took flight for the first time in the skies over a desolate corner of Nevada.

The Evolution of Trust in a Digital Economy
From ACM News

The Evolution of Trust in a Digital Economy

To participate in today's global economy, ordinary people must accept an asymmetrical bargain: their lives are transparent to states, banks and corporations, whereas...

Unprecedented Malware Targets Industrial Safety Systems in the Middle East
From ACM News

Unprecedented Malware Targets Industrial Safety Systems in the Middle East

Since Stuxnet first targeted and destroyed uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran last decade, the cybersecurity world has waited for the next step in that digital...

Bright Areas on Ceres Suggest Geologic Activity
From ACM News

Bright Areas on Ceres Suggest Geologic Activity

If you could fly aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the surface of dwarf planet Ceres would generally look quite dark, but with notable exceptions.

Nasa's Juno Probes the Depths of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
From ACM News

Nasa's Juno Probes the Depths of Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Data collected by NASA's Juno spacecraft during its first pass over Jupiter's Great Red Spot in July 2017 indicate that this iconic feature penetrates well below...

It's Super Hard to Find Humans in the Fcc's Net Neutrality Comments
From ACM News

It's Super Hard to Find Humans in the Fcc's Net Neutrality Comments

The Federal Communications Commissions''public comment period on its plans to repeal net neutrality protections was bombarded with bots, memes, and input from people...

Google Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Sequence
From ACM News

Google Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Sequence

Today, a teaspoon of spit and a hundred bucks is all you need to get a snapshot of your DNA. But getting the full picture—all 3 billion base pairs of your genome—requires...

Alien Probe or Galactic Driftwood? Seti Tunes In to 'oumuamua
From ACM News

Alien Probe or Galactic Driftwood? Seti Tunes In to 'oumuamua

Ever since its discovery in mid-October as it passed by Earth already outbound from our solar system, the mysterious object dubbed 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "first...

Scientists 'inject' Information Into Monkeys' Brains
From ACM News

Scientists 'inject' Information Into Monkeys' Brains

When you drive toward an intersection, the sight of the light turning red will (or should) make you step on the brake. This action happens thanks to a chain of...

'malware-Free' Attacks Mount in Big Breaches, Crowdstrike Finds
From ACM News

'malware-Free' Attacks Mount in Big Breaches, Crowdstrike Finds

Despite the rise of massive crypto-ransomware attacks, an even more troubling trend emerged in data gathered by the security firm CrowdStrike this past year and...

Dubious Claim of Week: Air Force's 'emp Missile' Could Disable N. Korean Icbms
From ACM News

Dubious Claim of Week: Air Force's 'emp Missile' Could Disable N. Korean Icbms

On Monday, NBC Nightly News broadcast a report claiming that White House officials had discussed using an experimental weapon to disrupt or disable a North Korean...

Found: Most Distant Black Hole
From ACM News

Found: Most Distant Black Hole

Scientists have uncovered a rare relic from the early universe: the farthest known supermassive black hole. This matter-eating beast is 800 million times the mass...
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