Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide January 1974

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

Wake up, babe! There’s a new planet around Beta Pictoris!

Webb spotted a new giant planet hiding in one of the most studied planetary systems in our galaxy. Beta Pictoris is a young nearby star, with two known planets, one of them (“b”) being one of the first exoplanets ever directly imaged. The new planet (“d”) was discovered not by identifying a bright point of light - but by detecting its unique atmospheric chemical fingerprint.

Beta Pic d is likely twice the mass of Jupiter, and the smallest of the three known giant planets in this system. It orbits at a distance of about 30 astronomical units, putting it somewhere around where Neptune is located in our own system.

Astronomers found Beta Pic d while studying the atmosphere of Beta Pic b with Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph. NIRSpec has a special mode (using something called an Integral Field Unit) that returns not only spectral data but spatial data. This can give us an image of the object being studied and also allow us to map motion. An unexpected blob was spotted in the IFU imaging - with the distinctive signature of carbon monoxide. Astronomers were able to figure out the object’s speed, position, and alignment with the debris disk of the star, making it clear that this object was orbiting Beta Pic and not just something in the background.

Why wasn’t this found sooner? Beta Pic’s debris disk is really bright and scatters light from the star, making it hard to tell planets from other structures. Webb effectively ignored the dust and was able to hone in on the signature of the planet.

The researchers plan to continue analyzing Webb's observations to better determine the planet's temperature, atmospheric composition, and orbit, providing an even more detailed view of one of astronomy's most iconic planetary systems.

Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-discovers-hidde...

Artist Concept Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Image Description: Artist's concept of the Beta Pictoris planetary system. One edge of a smooth, dusty disk that looks like cloud wisps extends across the upper third of the image at an angle from 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock. Just below that, in the left third of the image, the star glows white and is small. Just to the left of the star there is a tiny white dot, planet Beta Pictoris c. To the right of the star, about twice the distance between Beta Pictoris c and the star is another bright dot, representing planet Beta Pictoris b. A third planet, Beta Pictoris d is larger than the other two, and appears in the right third of the illustration. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands, and the side facing the star is illuminated. Below this planet, the other wispy edge of the dusty disk that circles the star crosses the bottom right corner of the illustration below Beta Pictoris d from 4 o’clock to 7 o’clock. The black background of space is speckled with distant stars. The words "Artist's Concept" appears at the lower left corner.

Vanillasludge posted a photo:

Greg Adams Photography posted a photo:

ajpscs posted a photo:

the SQUARE
STEAL THE NIGHT
© ajpscs

De laatste hittegolf heeft in Nederland drie weken lang gezorgd voor een onverwacht hoge sterfte. Ernstige hitte veroorzaakt snel voor een piek in de oversterfte, anders dan kou. De regionale verschillen zijn binnen Europa wel groot, leert onderzoek.

Voor het eerst in de geschiedenis van het WK voetbal zal er tijdens de finale een halftime show plaatsvinden.

Anders dan in Turkije zit het in Nederland wel goed met de vrijheid van meningsuiting. Maar deze vrijheid komt niet zonder verantwoordelijkheid, schrijft Aylin Bilic. Dit is haar laatste column voor NRC.

De Koenigs-collectie is een van de meest geclaimde kunstverzamelingen. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen weigert mee te werken aan de claim van een Joodse bank die de werken in 1940 onder druk verkocht. Waarom is de strijd om deze collectie na bijna een eeuw nog niet gestreden?

Geen tourist traps of overvolle musea, maar verborgen parels en rafelranden: in deze zomerserie tonen NRC-correspondenten minder bekende cultuurlocaties in grote Europese cultuursteden. Aflevering 3: Parijs.

De acteur uit het West-Friese Schagen was geknipt voor boef of rechercheur, maar hij kon veel meer. In en buiten zijn werk was Geel een opvallende verschijning, die zich even makkelijk bewoog in de intellectueel angehauchte wereld van het kunsttoneel als in het volkse Amsterdamse uitgaansleven.

Microsoft’s worst nightmare - a prolific zero-day vulnerability hunter who calls themselves Nightmare Eclipse - published yet another zero-day on Tuesday, a vulnerability allowing attackers to mount user hives, including partial exploit code. Suspected of being a disgruntled former Microsoft engineer, based on the sophistication of their prior vulnerabilities, NightmareEclipse came good on their promise to release another zero-day on July 14. Whether it lives up to the promised “bone-shattering” standard touted in June is up for debate, however. Called “LegacyHive,” the proof of concept (PoC) code for the zero-day local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability targets Windows’ user hives - the section of the Windows Registry that stores a user's specific desktop settings, application preferences, and environment configurations. The code exploits a weakness in profsvc, the Windows User Profile Service, and the way in which it loads hives. If exploited correctly it could grant regular users privileged read-write access to target other users' hives. Matei Badanoiu, lead security researcher at Pentest-Tools.com, said that while the exploit could prove useful for attackers who had already gained a foothold in a target environment, it falls short of providing a fuller system compromise. “What caught my attention is the difference between what the public proof of concept actually demonstrates and what a full compromise would require,” he told The Register. “LegacyHive is a local privilege escalation in the Windows User Profile Service. It abuses arbitrary registry hive loading, so a standard user can mount another user’s hive, including an administrator’s, into their own classes root. “For an attacker who already has a foothold, that is a genuinely useful primitive. Bundling it with credential access and persistence into ‘full compromise’ is more of an ambition than the released code.” The LegacyHive publication differs from some of NightmareEclipse’s earlier drops in that the PoC code is stripped back in an effort to prevent widespread exploitation. According to the bug hunter, there is more than one way of exploiting the profsvc flaw. The public PoC requires additional user credentials for it to work, and is limited to the usrclass.dat hive. NightmareEclipse said the original PoC, which differs from the one they published, does not require additional user credentials to exploit the bug, and it works beyond the usrclass.dat hive, “but you would need some brain cells to make the PoC do it.” This represents a divergence from NightmareEclipse’s previous approaches. As Badanoiu pointed out to us, some of NightmareEclipse’s earlier drops, such as BlueHammer and RedSun, went from PoC to widespread exploitation within days. LegacyHive, however, comes without a fully working PoC and a CVE identifier. Regardless, security experts told The Register that cyber practitioners should respond promptly since capable attackers could probably build a reliable exploit, despite the gaps left in the PoC by NightmareEclipse. “Threat intelligence teams are advised to act with some urgency here,” said Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress. “Huntress observed NightmareEclipse's prior LPE and defence evasion tools rapidly deployed threat actors and ransomware groups shortly after publication. “Given this history, we’d expect that capable actors will reverse-engineer the missing components of the LegacyHive PoC to build fully weaponized versions in short order.” The timing NightmareEclipse may have changed their approach to releasing full working PoCs to the public, perhaps a reflection of Microsoft’s suggestion of preparing legal action against the bug hunter, but the nuisance timing of the vulnerability disclosures remains. They dropped the details for LegacyHive shortly after Microsoft released its monthly Patch Tuesday updates, which contained an unprecedented 622 fixes. Agha said timing the disclosure in this way maximizes the exposure window before a patch can be developed, causing more trouble for Microsoft. The Register asked the Windows-maker about LegacyHive and whether it was planning to release a fix before August’s patches, but it did not immediately respond. NightmareEclipse claims their latest zero-day works against Windows machines that are fully patched according to July’s fixes. Microsoft previously issued a quiet remedy for one of NightmareEclipse’s earlier zero-days, RoguePlanet, last week, although the company did not go into any details about what the mitigation entailed. ®

Amazon Web Services is facing a lawsuit alleging it published false and misleading statements about the water use and sustainability of its Northern Virginia datacenters, "falsely" portraying those operations as environmentally responsible. The complaint, case number CL26002535-00 filed with the Circuit Court of Arlington County last week, seen by The Register, states that AWS has never publicly disclosed its actual water consumption in the region, known as the world's "datacenter capital." Despite this, the filing says, AWS has repeatedly published assertions regarding its water use and sustainability credentials that the suit alleges to be false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. By doing so, it has hidden the true scale of its water consumption, preventing policymakers and the public from independently assessing the accuracy of its claims, the complaint adds. The named plaintiff in this case is Dr Nathan Wangusi, a water resources scientist who served as the water sustainability program manager at AWS for almost three years until September 2024. The lawsuit says Dr Wangusi obtained detailed billing and water consumption records for AWS facilities in Northern Virginia using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to water utilities in the region covering 2023 through 2026. The US's Freedom of Information Act gives any person – a private citizen, a foreign national, or a corporation – the statutory right to request access to federal agency records. The lawsuit claims that these FOIA records "materially differ" from the publicly reported water use figures disclosed by AWS. In particular, the complaint pours cold water – pun intended – on some assertions AWS made in a blog post last month, and covered by The Register at the time. For example, AWS said that in Northern Virginia, it had "dropped water use by 42 percent year-over-year, even as demand for computing continued to grow." AWS, however, did not disclose the comparison period, reporting boundary, or methodology underlying that figure, making independent verification impossible, Dr Wangusi claims in the lawsuit. The complaint goes on to allege: In addition, the filing claims that AWS did not reveal whether its published water withdrawal figures apply only to its own datacenters, or whether they include colocation facilities in the region operated by Equinix, QTS, Digital Realty, and Iron Mountain, where AWS also has infrastructure deployed. Liquid courage The complaint also questions AWS's statement that it is "75 percent of the way to water positive." In Northern Virginia, where AWS made the water positive commitment, the lawsuit claims that FOIA data and Amazon's own portfolio show returns covering 22 to 25 percent of documented consumption. The plaintiff alleges that, by contrast, the 75 percent figure is a global metric that counts 17 projects still under construction. Another representation Dr Wangusi alleges is misleading is a claim that AWS datacenters in Northern Virginia operate "ninety-seven percent of the year by pulling outside air and not using any water." In contrast, or so the lawsuit states, the utility records all show AWS facilities withdrawing water all year round, from January 2023 to December 2026, including the winter months when AWS says that water cooling is largely unnecessary. Datacenter lobbying group Virginia Connects is named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit. The complaint claims the outfit, which promotes datacenter benefits to Virginia stakeholders, conducted a coordinated video advertising campaign on the same date that AWS published its "42 percent reduction" claim, promoting many of the same narratives that the complaint is characterizing as "false". Dr Wangusi claims Virginia Connects is controlled by the same individuals who govern the Data Center Coalition (DCC) trade association, of which AWS is an Executive Member, and alleges that the so-called "coordinated" campaign constitutes conspiracy to commit deceptive trade practices under Virginia law. According to the lawsuit, the legal case was filed after Dr Wangusi found no state agencies were willing to take action over discrepancies he saw in AWS’s self-reported water use and its actual recorded consumption. The complaint claims neither the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), "the State Water Control Board, local water utilities, nor affected communities possess authority to independently determine whether AWS's public water-use, water-positive, replenishment, water-stewardship, and sustainability representations are accurate, misleading, or substantiated." The filing claims Dr Wangusi submitted a complaint to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which responded that Virginia law does not require datacenters to report water withdrawals to it, and that it lacks authority to independently verify usage. A complaint to the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia resulted in a referral back to DEQ, the lawsuit states. The filing – which includes Dr Wangusi's correspondence with the agencies attached as exhibits – added that the "FOIA Advisory Council likewise advised that factual disputes concerning public disclosures are matters reserved to the courts. Accordingly, Plaintiff exhausted all available administrative remedies before filing this action." Dr Wangusi is seeking a jury trial for the case, and wants the court to rule that the published water use, and sustainability claims are materially false or misleading, and order AWS to submit to the Virginia State Water Control Board and DEQ a complete accounting of its Northern Virginia water withdrawals. If the judgement goes against it, AWS would also be required to publish corrective disclosures within 30 days of judgment, disclosing its actual water consumption figures, the methodologies, and the supporting data underlying its claims. "Hyperscalers, including AWS and its competitors, continue to face public scrutiny over the integrity of their claims around environmental impact and resource usage for datacenters,” Omdia senior analyst for Sustainable Ecosystems, Ben Caddy told The Register. “Without stricter obligations for hyperscalers to be transparent about their resource use at a facility-specific level, it’s likely that these companies will continue to face more legal and reputational challenges about the local and global environmental impacts of their facilities,” he added. We asked Amazon for a statement regarding this lawsuit, but the corporation declined to comment, other than to insist its water replenishment and withdrawal data for 2025 were assured by a third-party provider. ®

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Young Street, Parkside, South Australia

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Young Street, Parkside, South Australia

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Young Street, Parkside, South Australia

Kijk zo werken OPLOSSINGEN in Nederland. Een negentienjarige Syriër mishandelt drie personen, onder wie twee vrouwen, in Harderwijk. Knakker zit in het azc Harderwijk dat al dicht had moeten zijn maar niet dicht kan, omdat de VVD de poort van Pamperpark Nederland wagenwijd open laat staan. De gemeente heeft nu kei-hard ingegrepen tegen die agressyriër: meneer heeft een 'locatieverbod' gekregen. "Hij is niet meer welkom in het azc in Harderwijk." Zo zijn ze in Harderwijk mooi van 'm af en hebben ze elders in Nederland last van deze lul. Wij stempelen 'm af: PROBLEM SOLVED!

Tot een paar decennia terug was de wereld één grote manosfeer. Wanneer ontstond die scheve man-vrouwverhouding precies?

‘Stel jezelf de vraag: welke patriarchale opvattingen heb ik nog?’

Opinie: Waarom we de diepere laag van de manosfeer moeten zien

Hoe de iconische antihelden uit ‘Taxi Driver’ en ‘American Psycho’ onbedoeld rolmodellen werden voor de manosfeer

De manosfeer heeft vrouwenhaat niet uitgevonden. Zij heeft hem slechts zichtbaarder, harder en winstgevender gemaakt

Help, hoe stoppen we de manosfeer?

Hoe beïnvloedt de manosfeer Nederlandse 15-jarigen op TikTok?

Wie iets wil doen aan de manosfeer, moet beginnen bij de algoritmes

Wat krijgen Nederlandse 15-jarigen mee van de manosfeer?

Samen sporten tegen de manosfeer

Empathie voor de belevingswereld van jongeren kan tegenwicht bieden aan de manosfeer

Hoe praat je met je kind over de manosfeer? ‘Ze denken al snel: daar gáán we weer’

De drie belangrijkste inzichten uit het Volkskrant-onderzoek onder 15-jarigen en de manosfeer

Aantrekkingskracht manosfeer komt door zingevingscrisis

Manosfeer dringt het klaslokaal binnen: veel leraren maken zich zorgen over invloed van oerconservatieve geluiden

Waarom doet het tweeduizend jaar oude stoïcisme het zo goed in de manosfeer?

1 januari - hier begon het gezeik dus

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​Een week na de NAVO-top in Ankara haalt de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump opnieuw hard uit: als de NAVO niet zal helpen bij de oorlog met Iran, dreigt hij de Noord-Atlantische Oceaan af te sluiten.

“Als je goed kijkt, zie je dat er tussen de NAVO-landen en de Verenigde Staten een cruciale doorgang ligt van zo’n 76 miljoen vierkante kilometer”, schrijft Trump op TruthSocial. “De spatader van de wereldeconomie.”

Trump geeft aan dat als de NAVO de Verenigde Staten niet snel steunt bij aanvallen op Iran, hij zich genoodzaakt voelt om deze tactisch gelegen oceaan af te sluiten. “Ieder schip dat deze doorgang zal nemen, zal worden geblokkeerd. De Noord-Atlantische Oceaan is binnenkort volledig dicht.”

Trump overweegt nog wel enkele schepen door te laten, in ruil voor een tol van 20 procent van alle vervoerde lading.

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