(Photo: Pawel Czerwinski/Unsplash)If you’ve ever undergone a surgical procedure (or even experienced something as “mild” as strep throat), you’ve probably been prescribed antibiotics. These handy little medications are vital to protecting the body from complete bacterial overrun, but like most things, they come with a slew of possible side effects: nausea, diarrhea, and fungal infections to name a few. When these complications arise, it can feel like the patient is replacing one health problem with another. Scientists are working to reduce these complications with a “engineered live biotherapeutic” that protects the human gut from antibiotics. Researchers from MIT and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have modified a strain of Lactococcus lactis (a bacteria involved in cheese production) to disrupt the part of antibiotic medications that pose a risk to one’s gut health.
The open-source software project coreboot hit a major milestone this week when Linux developers at successfully installed it to an Alder Lake motherboard. According to , the programmers were able to install on an MSI Z690 Alder Lake motherboard. Coreboot is an open source BIOS, designed to boot in one second while offering security and flexibility. The idea is that instead of using whatever your motherboard vendor cooked up, you could just run an open source BIOS instead. This would theoretically give you more options in how you run your PC. One of the best features of Coreboot is that you can’t brick your PC by updating it.
Overclocking is a bit of a dying art these days. Both Intel and AMD have allowed their CPUs to boost within certain clock speed ranges without any user interference for years now. For a lot of people, that’s good enough. Hardcore users still like to fiddle with clocks, however, often in the hope of squeezing a few additional percentage points of “free” performance from the system. This is less the case with AMD’s Ryzen family of CPUs, however, because these CPUs have never been particularly good at overclocking. The company is reportedly looking to change that with Zen 4.
(Photo: Kotivalo/Wikimedia Commons)In a massive potential disappointment for Russia, Finland and Sweden are poised to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) this summer. The move would bump the total number of NATO members from 30 to 32. It would aso further unite western forces during what’s already a period of impressive European unification. Finland is expected to submit its application by June, with Sweden following shortly behind. Both Nordic countries have a long history of being relatively nonaligned. Sweden famously preserved its political neutrality during and after WWII. In a more complicated fashion, Finland entered into an enforceable treaty of neutrality (called the Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance of 1948) with the USSR in 1948, but this came to an end when Finland and post-Soviet Russia agreed to the treaty in 1992.
(Photo: Start11 from Stardock)When Microsoft launched Windows 11 it proudly touted its redesigned taskbar and Start Menu. Not everyone was as excited about the new designs as Microsoft. The company moved the Start Menu to the middle of the display. It also anchored the taskbar to the bottom of the screen. Thankfully Microsoft provides the option to move the Start Menu back to its rightful place in the left corner. The taskbar, however, remains cemented in-place. A lot of people figured it was just a launch restriction, but it now appears Microsoft may never allow the taskbar to move.
AMD’s first V-cache enabled CPU is launching soon, but a Peruvian tech site already has one. It bought it at retail and a few days ago it posted its first set of benchmarks. Now the website has followed up on those tests with even more gaming benchmarks. Though the previous single game test was a clear win for AMD, this time around the results are much closer. Overall AMD’s new flagship gaming CPU is evenly matched by Intel’s top-shelf silicon in a lot of games, but in others it’s a decisive AMD victory. For this round adjusted its testing setup to even the playing field.
(Photo: Caspar Rae/Unsplash)Solar panels are an excellent alternative to more traditional energy sources, but they come with a caveat: they can only be used during the day. That is, until now. Sid Assawaworrarit, an electrical engineer and PhD candidate at Stanford University, is leading the effort to make ordinary solar panels functional at night. Assaworrarit has been successful so far. He and his colleagues have created a device that helps regular solar panels generate electricity using the fluctuating temperature of ambient air. As it turns out, solar panels can kind of work in reverse; solar panels emit infrared radiation even in the absence of light.
An important test for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is slated to get underway (again). Earlier this year, NASA assembled the Artemis 1 SLS rocket and at Kennedy Space Center. However, issues with fans on the tower and a valve in the rocket itself delayed the “wet dress” rehearsal. Now, that test is getting back underway, with the all-important countdown , reports Ars Technica. NASA has been working on the SLS for more than a decade. The goal of the project was to create a launch vehicle that could lift heavy payloads and transport them farther out in the solar system.
(Photo: Oxana Melis/Unsplash)Remember when everyone swore Amazon’s zillions of products would soon be delivered via drone? (Everyone including himself?) Well, it isn’t just you who hasn’t been receiving their discounted merchandise by drone over the last few years. Amazon has apparently been struggling with the delivery program of its dreams, despite the significant amount of time, money, and manpower it’s already sunk into the project. Amazon’s drone delivery program has reportedly been “beset by technical challenges, high turnover, and safety concerns.” That’s according to a new by Bloomberg. Internal company documents reveal several safety features failed and caused a brush fire when Amazon took its delivery drones for a test drive last year.
