TLDR 2021-11-30

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to reverse Meta's acquisition of Giphy by December 1. Facebook announced the deal in May 2020, but antitrust regulators stopped the sale to investigate whether the merger would harm competition. Provisional findings said that the sale would give Meta an unfair advantage over rival platforms. While both companies are from the US, the CMA has jurisdiction over any acquisition where the combined parties control over 25% of a particular good or service supplied in the UK.

Parag Agrawal is taking over Twitter as CEO. Agrawal has been with the company for over a decade. One of his biggest projects with the company has been the decentralized Bluesky platform, which has picked up steam in the past few months. His years of experience with the company and work in helping modernize Twitter's tech stack makes him an interesting choice for CEO. Many more details about Agrawal's career at Twitter are available in the article.

Scientists from Japan have successfully manipulated mice memories using a neural-optic system. The experiment involved putting mice in a dark chamber that gave them electric shocks to make them anxious around the chamber. Mice that received the treatment forgot about the dangerous environment and entered it again. The treatment involved illuminating certain neurons to inhibit a protein essential to consolidating memory during sleep. The technology provides a method for isolating memory formation and could lead to a range of treatments for mental disorders.

Xenobots are living robots formed from the stem cells of the African clawed frog. They can move, work together in groups, and self-heal. The bots can also reproduce through kinetic replication. They can gather stem cells and use them to make new xenobots in days. Researchers used artificial intelligence to design xenobots that were more effective at this type of replication, which resulted in a design that resembled Pac-Man. Xenobots are still an early technology, but they have a host of potential uses, including collecting microplastics from the oceans, inspecting root systems, and regenerative medicine.

This repository contains build scripts and configurations for building CPython for Emscripten. Emscripten can compile code into WebAssembly and run it on the web, Node.js, or other WASM runtimes. It has been used to convert many real-world codebases to WebAssembly, including Unreal Engine 4 and the Unity engine.

This library contains tools, methodologies, and resources for integrating security throughout the entire IT lifecycle. In a DevSecOps Model, security is integrated as early as possible in the lifecycle of software development. This approach minimizes vulnerabilities in production and the costs associated with fixing security flaws.

Surgeons at Duke University were the first to implant a new generation of Total Artificial Heart (TAH) after receiving FDA approval for human trials. The TAH has a variable heart rate that adjusts based on patient activity and can be used as a complete replacement for living donor hearts. Each device costs around $190,000, plus the costs of critical care staff and other medications. The device could solve long waitlists and high costs so that a heart will always be available for any patient in need.

Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new limit on the total transaction calldata in a block to decrease the overall gas cost over the Ethereum network. Decreasing the calldata gas cost could create a security risk, but Buterin's proposal aims to balance that risk. If accepted, the network will require a scheduled network upgrade and miners will need to comply with the new rules. The community is discussing other options to combat the rise of gas fees. The increase in fees has resulted in users switching to lower-cost Ethereum Virtual-Machine compatible networks.