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American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discovering microRNA, tiny molecules that regulate gene expression. Their groundbreaking work in the 1990s revealed a new layer of genetic control, opening fresh avenues for understanding human development and disease. Ambros first identified microRNA in 1993, while Ruvkun later found similar molecules in humans and other species. These RNA fragments, about 100 times smaller than typical messenger RNA, can silence genes and fine-tune protein production. The discovery has spurred research into potential treatments for cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders. Several biotechnology companies are now developing drugs that target or mimic microRNAs.

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The decline of journalism has been attributed to many factors, from slow adaptation to the internet to the dominance of tech giants in advertising. But a veteran journalist offers a new perspective: the death of the hyperlink could be changing the fundamental nature of the internet, with significant implications for the news industry. Matt Pearce: There is a real bias against hyperlinking that has developed on platforms and apps over the last five years in particular. It's something that's kind of operating hand-in-hand with the rise of algorithmic recommendations. You see this on Elon Musk's version of Twitter, where posts with hyperlinks are degraded. Facebook itself has decided to detach itself from displaying a lot of links. That's why you get so much AI scum on Facebook these days. Instagram itself has always been kind of hostile to linking. TikTok as well... If you degrade hyperlinks, and you degrade this idea of the internet as something that refers you to other things, you instead have this stationary internet where a generative AI agent will hoover up and summarize all the information that's out there, and place it right in front of you so that you never have to leave the portal... That was a real epiphany to me, because the argument against one form of this legislation was, "My God, you'll destroy this fundamental way of how the internet works." I'm like, dude, these companies are already destroying the fundamental way of how the internet works. [...] If you look at what technology has done to journalism over the last 10 years, it was journalists who figured out how to make Twitter work for them. It was journalists who figured out how to be really good on Instagram and Tik Tok. I know there's this argument about content creators and versus journalists, but I'm like, we're all in the same ecosystem. If you're performing the functions of a journalist, you're a journalist. Some people are really good on different platforms. But it's hard to imagine a scenario where Google is going to be the party that creates a more humane, intelligent, responsive form of journalism.

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A U.S. federal judge has mandated significant changes to Google's Android app store operations. Judge James Donato's ruling in Epic v. Google requires Google to allow rival app stores within its Play Store and grant them access to its app catalog for three years, beginning November 2024. The order prohibits Google from requiring its payment system for Play Store apps and permits developers to inform users about alternative payment methods. Google is also barred from offering incentives for app launch exclusivity or sharing app revenue with potential app store competitors. The ruling restricts Google from providing financial perks to device makers and carriers for Play Store exclusivity.

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Apple has rolled out an update to macOS 15 Sequoia that addresses compatibility issues with third-party security software that emerged in the initial release. The update, macOS 15.0.1, aims to resolve problems affecting products from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. The compatibility problems had disrupted the functionality of several cybersecurity tools when macOS 15 first launched in September.

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Google is developing a version of Chrome for Android that supports browser extensions, a feature long absent from mobile versions, AndroidAuthority reports. The report adds: Specifically, the company is experimenting with "desktop" builds of Chrome for Android. These "desktop" builds are currently intended for Chromebooks as they transition to use more parts of Android, but there's hope the work will benefit mobile devices, too.

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The recent WordPress controversy is not the first time there's been tension between the WordPress community, the interests of Automattic as a business, and Matt Mullenweg's leadership as WordPress's benevolent dictator for life (BDFL). In particular, Mullenweg's focus on pushing WordPress to use a new "editing experience" called Gutenberg caused significant friction—and led to the ClassicPress fork. Users who want to preserve the "classic" WordPress experience without straying too far from the WordPress fold may want to look into ClassicPress.

Tech giants Amazon and Microsoft have inked major deals with U.S. nuclear power plants to fuel their energy-hungry data centers, marking a shift in the industry's power sourcing strategy. The move comes as AI-driven facilities strain companies' climate goals, pushing them towards carbon-free electricity sources. Microsoft plans to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island plant by 2028, while Amazon secured power from Pennsylvania's Susquehanna Nuclear facility in a $650 million deal. Google is also exploring nuclear options, including small modular reactors still under development. This trend could potentially triple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050, according to a Department of Energy report.

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Version 3.13 of the Python programming language has been released. The "What's New In Python 3.13" page has a summary of all the new features and changes. Highlights of the release include a basic JIT compiler, experimental support for free-threading, and much more. See the changelog for even more details.

U.S. exchanges' four-character limit for ETF tickers is creating fierce competition in the $10 trillion industry, particularly for single-stock funds. With 456,976 possible combinations, options narrow drastically when built around existing company tickers. MicroStrategy-inspired ETFs, for instance, leave issuers with just 52 choices using 'MST'. Memorable tickers are crucial for differentiation and can improve stock liquidity.

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The core of the Android operating system, as represented by the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), can only be considered one of the most successful open-source initiatives ever created; its user count is measured in the billions. But few would consider it to be a truly community-oriented project. At the 2024 Linux Plumbers Conference, Chris Simmonds asked why the AOSP community is so hard to find, and what might be done about the situation.

Version 2.47.0 of the Git source-code management system has been released. The changes include a long list of incremental improvements; see the announcement and this GitHub blog post for details.

U.S. public utility giant American Water says it has disconnected some of its systems after discovering that hackers breached its internal networks last week. From a report: American Water, which supplies drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people across the United States, confirmed the security incident in an 8-K regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The New Jersey-based company said in its filing that its water and wastewater facilities are "at this time" not affected and continue to operate without interruption, though the company noted that it's currently "unable to predict the full impact of this incident." American Water said it also notified law enforcement of the intrusion. The company said it discovered "unauthorized activity" within its networks on October 3 and promptly moved to disconnect affected systems. In a statement on its website, American Water said it is "pausing billing until further notice." "In an effort to protect our customers' data and to prevent any further harm to our environment, we disconnected or deactivated certain systems," Ruben E. Rodriguez, a spokesperson for American Water, told TechCrunch in a statement. "There will be no late charges for customers while these systems are unavailable." Rodriguez declined to state which systems were unavailable and also declined to comment on the nature of the cybersecurity incident.

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doc1623 writes: Advocacy groups behind a so-called suicide capsule said Sunday they have suspended the process of taking applications to use it -- which numbered over 370 last month -- as a criminal investigation into its first use in Switzerland is completed. The president of Switzerland-based The Last Resort, Florian Willet, is being held in pretrial detention, said the group and Exit International, an affiliate founded in Australia over a quarter century ago. Swiss police arrested Willet and several other people following the death of an unidentified 64-year-old woman from the U.S. Midwest who on Sept. 23 became the first person to use the device, known as the "Sarco," in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region near the German border. Others initially detained were released from custody, authorities have said.

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Amazon will likely eliminate around 14,000 corporate jobs by early next year as part of ongoing efforts to reduce costs, according to a note Morgan Stanley sent to clients that Slashdot has reviewed. Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley estimated Amazon could cut approximately 13,800 manager positions by the end of the first quarter of 2025, based on the company's stated goal of increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15%. "AMZN management's recent letter laying out an increased focus on efficiency should lead to further EBIT cushion and (potential) upside in '25," Nowak wrote. The potential headcount reduction could result in $2.1 billion to $3.6 billion in annual cost savings for Amazon, adding 3% to 5% to the company's 2025 operating profit, according to Nowak's analysis. Amazon has already cut over 27,000 jobs since late 2022 as part of a major cost-cutting push. The company employed 1.54 million people globally as of the end of June.

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Version 4.20 of the RPM Package Manager (RPM) has been released. Major changes in this release include a new plugin to prevent filesystem and network access by scriptlets, the BuildSystem directive for declaring the build system to be used by packaged software, and more. LWN covered the development of RPM 4.20 in September.

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (go-toolset:rhel8 and linux-firmware), Arch Linux (oath-toolkit), Debian (e2fsprogs, firefox-esr, libgsf, mediawiki, and oath-toolkit), Fedora (aws, chromium, firefox, p7zip, pgadmin4, python-gcsfs, unbound, webkitgtk, znc, znc-clientbuffer, and znc-push), Mageia (ghostscript and rootcerts nss firefox firefox-l10n), Oracle (kernel, oVirt 4.4 ovirt-engine, and thunderbird), SUSE (chromedriver, chromium, cups-filters, ffmpeg-7, frr, Mesa, openssl-3, openvpn, pcp, and redis), and Ubuntu (firefox and ruby-webrick).

Google's grip on the nearly $300 billion search advertising business is loosening. From a report: For years, the tech giant has seemed invincible in this corner of the ad market, which is the foundation of its business. Now, rivals are beginning to eat into its lead, and new offerings -- fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence and social video -- threaten to reshape the landscape. TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video platform, has recently started allowing brands to target ads based on users' search queries -- a direct challenge to Google's core business. Perplexity, an AI search startup backed by Jeff Bezos, plans to introduce ads later this month under its AI-generated answers. Until now, it has made revenue mostly from a $20-a-month subscription offering that grants access to more-powerful AI technology. The new initiatives add to the pressure on Google from the rise of Amazon.com, which has taken a chunk of search ad spending. Many consumers begin product searches on the e-commerce platform. Google's share of the U.S. search ad market is expected to drop below 50% next year for the first time in over a decade, according to the research firm eMarketer. Amazon is expected to have 22.3% of the market this year, with 17.6% growth, compared with Google's 50.5% share and its 7.6% growth.

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Linus has released 6.12-rc2 for testing.

Anyway, this isn't one of the small rc2's. But looking at historical trends, being a bigger rc2 isn't _that_ unusual, and nothing in here looks all that odd. Yes, the diffstat may look a bit unusual, in that we had a global header renaming (asm/unaligned.h -> linux/unaligned.h) and we had a couple of reverts that stand out as spikes in the stats, but everything else looks nice and small.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared the EFF's "Deeplink" blog post: EFF, along with the ACLU and the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief on Thursday asking a federal appellate court to continue to block Mississippi's HB 1126 — a bill that imposes age verification mandates on social media services across the internet. Our friend-of-the-court brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argues that HB 1126 is "an extraordinary censorship law that violates all internet users' First Amendment rights to speak and to access protected speech" online. HB 1126 forces social media sites to verify the age of every user and requires minors to get explicit parental consent before accessing online spaces. It also pressures them to monitor and censor content on broad, vaguely defined topics — many of which involve constitutionally protected speech. These sweeping provisions create significant barriers to the free and open internet and "force adults and minors alike to sacrifice anonymity, privacy, and security to engage in protected online expression." A federal district court already prevented HB 1126 from going into effect, ruling that it likely violated the First Amendment. At the heart of our opposition to HB 1126 is its dangerous impact on young people's free expression. Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online. "No legal authority permits lawmakers to burden adults' access to political, religious, educational, and artistic speech with restrictive age-verification regimes out of a concern for what minors might see" [argues the brief]. "Nor is there any legal authority that permits lawmakers to block minors categorically from engaging in protected expression on general purpose internet sites like those regulated by HB 1126..." "The law requires all users to verify their age before accessing social media, which could entirely block access for the millions of U.S. adults who lack government-issued ID..." And it also asks another question. "Would you want everything you do online to be linked to your government-issued ID?" And the blog post makes one more argument. "in an era where data breaches and identity theft are alarmingly common." So the bill "puts every user's personal data at risk... No one — neither minors nor adults — should have to sacrifice their privacy or anonymity in order to exercise their free speech rights online."

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An anonymous reader shared this post from the blog It's FOSS It has been more than two years since K-9 Mail (an open-source email client for Android) joined the Mozilla Thunderbird project. Instead of making a new mobile app from scratch, Mozilla decided to convert K-9 Mail slowly into the new Thunderbird Android app. While we have known about it for some time now, we finally have something to test: Thunderbird for Android (Beta). Mozilla is looking for users to test it and plans a stable release at the end of October. The new Thunderbird app is now available on the Play Store as a beta version for user testing. So, we are closer to the stable launch than ever before. The article includes a few screenshots of the app... "For the functionality side, you can expect things like light/dark theme, email signature, unified inbox, ability to enable/disable contact pictures, threaded view, and opt out of data usage collection for privacy..."

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