Tag Archives: Disguise

Why a Broken Phone Chip Might Be a Blessing in Disguise

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Manufacturing Computer Chips Process

The Imperfect Art of Computer Chip Manufacturing

Credit: Apple

Apple is increasingly utilizing defective chips to produce budget-friendly laptops. Although this may sound counterintuitive, it highlights a widely accepted technique known as “binning,” which minimizes production costs and environmental waste in smartphones and laptops.

The term “binning” originates from agriculture, where high-quality fruits and vegetables are sold to premium markets, while those in poor condition are allocated to other customers, and the least desirable items may be recycled as animal feed. This segregation ensures minimal waste, a practice echoed in semiconductor manufacturing.

For instance, take the new MacBook Neo, which incorporates the A18 Pro system featuring five GPU cores, offering users a more cost-effective Apple laptop option. Previously, the A18 Pro was found in the iPhone 16 Pro with six functional GPU cores. Reports suggest that Apple is utilizing A18 Pro chips stored in a bin with one defective core, thereby optimizing the use of discarded components. Although Apple hasn’t commented on this, industry experts like New Scientist indicate that manufacturers across various sectors, from electronics to automotive, routinely adopt this practice.

According to Owen Guy, a researcher from Swansea University in the UK, semiconductor chips are produced in large quantities on 300-mm silicon wafers housing trillions of individual transistors. Sophisticated machinery performs countless operations on these wafers, generating layers of circuits, insulators, and chemicals just nanometers thick. In truth, the complexity of this procedure often makes it astonishing that chips work at all, rather than the occurrence of defects.

“At each stage of the process, there is a small chance that something may go awry,” says Guy.

The proportion of errors on a single wafer dictates the yield, or the quantity of chips that meet the required specifications. Yields can reach up to 99 percent for standard silicon chips, a material employed since the 1960s, but often improve for advanced chip designs and newer substrate materials like silicon carbide and gallium nitride.

“The critical question is the number and severity of defects. Unless there’s a so-called fatal flaw, functioning chips can still exist even when they have imperfections,” Guy explains.

Imagine achieving a yield of 90%, where 9 out of 10 chips perform as expected. In such a scenario, one chip is destined for the bin. If one core is defective, it may be classified as a different product, featuring five cores instead of six. Alternatively, it might be regulated to operate at lower voltages or frequencies or rated for higher power consumption or temperature. There will always be customers eager to use these chips.

Researcher Tony Kenyon from University College London states that users often remain unaware of any issues. Error-correction software is employed to isolate faulty transistors in memory chips, avoiding potential data loss or rerouting computations around flawed processor cores to prevent software crashes.

“A deeper look under the hood reveals that certain components of the chip may not function. This is widely prevalent. Many believe all chips are uniform, but the reality is far more complex,” Kenyon asserts.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Discover Nature’s Perfect Disguise: The Vibrant Hot Pink Phase of Tropical Bush Crickets

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Recent studies by Panamanian entomologists reveal that leaf-mimicking katydid species, specifically the Alota festae, start their life cycle in a vibrant pink hue, transitioning to green within days. This transformation not only mirrors the color changes of rainforest leaves, which often turn red or pink before fully maturing, but also serves as a sophisticated adaptive camouflage strategy previously misinterpreted as a genetic anomaly.

Striking hot pink female Alota festae, photographed on March 27, 2025, at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Image credit: Zeke W. Rowe.

Commonly referred to as bush crickets, Alota festae is a medium-sized katydid (measuring 2.7 cm and weighing 1 g) native to Panama, Colombia, and Suriname. These insects are usually non-sexually dimorphic, exhibiting a light green coloration and broad, rounded forewings that help them blend into their environment, resembling young plants.

On March 27, 2025, Dr. Benito Wainwright from the University of St Andrews and his colleagues made a groundbreaking discovery while studying a female Alota festae at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute field station on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. This specimen showcased an unexpected and vivid hot pink coloration.

“The discovery was quite surprising,” noted Dr. Wainwright. “It’s so uncommon that, under natural conditions, we observed its color shift from deep pink to green.”

Dr. Wainwright elaborated, “Instead of being a rare genetic mutation, this phenomenon could very well be a finely tuned survival tactic aligned with the lifecycle of the rainforest leaves the katydid mimics.”

During their research, the team maintained the insects at natural ambient temperature and humidity for 30 days. After just four days in captivity, the brilliant pink hue faded into a softer pastel pink.

Photographic documentation was made every 24 hours to meticulously track the katydid’s coloration changes. By April 7, 2025, the insect had transitioned entirely to green, rendering it indistinguishable from the more prevalent green variant.

Though pink katydids have been observed in scientific literature since 1878, they were previously viewed as rare mutations with potential disadvantages. This marks the first documented instance of a katydid exhibiting a complete color change within a single life stage.

Dr. Matt Greenwell from the University of Reading commented, “The complexities of tropical forests reveal how precisely certain animals have evolved to adapt. A bright pink insect in an emerald-green forest might seem vulnerable to predators, much like a worker in a high-visibility jacket. The gradual color adaptation reflects the dynamic nature of rainforests and stands as a remarkable example of natural camouflage.”

The team’s findings are detailed in a recent study published on March 7, 2026, in the journal Ecology, which can be accessed here.

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J. Benito Wainwright et al. 2026. Pink Cricket Club: Dramatic color changes in katydids disguised as neotropical leaves (Alota festae Griffini, 1896). Ecology 107 (3): e70333; doi: 10.1002/ecy.70333

Source: www.sci.news

The Bone Collector: Caterpillar Donning a Disguise of Dead Insect Body Parts

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Bone collector caterpillar from the Waianae Mountains of Oahu, Hawaii

Daniel Rubinov et al. 2025

The newly described “Bone Collector” caterpillar species disguises itself as dead insect body parts, allowing them to live in spiders and poach their prey. This is the only caterpillar known to use such a scary camouflage or have a roommate-like spider, a carnivorous animal and a booty cannibalism.

Daniel Rubinoff At the University of Hawaii, Manoa and his colleagues discovered a caterpillar while hiking the Waianae Mountains of Oahu over 20 years ago. They were looking for other species in the same genus, Low mass tumorAlso known as the Hawaiian Fancy Case Caterpillar. “I saw this little, tiny sac covered in a bit of a bug and honestly, I didn’t know what it was,” Rubinov says. “Then we’ll get it back [to the lab]and we realize there is a bit of a caterpillar there.

Newly described species of Low mass tumor – Has not yet received the scientific name – lives in a co-neck inside the trunk of a tree, among rocks and other enclosed spaces. It is the length of its claws and feeds on insects trapped in spider nets. “Only 0.13% of all caterpillars on the planet are carnivorous,” says Rubinoff. “That’s why it’s very difficult for caterpillars to evolve to eat meat.”

Bone collectors avoid becoming the prey itself in creepy ways. Decorate the silk case with fragments of dead insects and molted exoskeletons of spiders. Before disguising it, the creature carefully sizes each body part that may contain the ant’s head, beetle’s abdomen, or fly wings.

Bone Collector Caterpillar (left) uses his horrifying disguise to live safely in a spider (right)

Daniel Rubinov et al. 2025

“It’s probably the only way to survive with the spider, by covering yourself with the skin of the spider’s own shed and small pieces of past meals,” says Rubinov. This will make the caterpillars smell and taste more like garbage bags than juicy snacks for Arknido Housemates. After about 2-3 months it transforms into moth, smaller than the grain of rice.

If bone collectors are not fully accessorized, this caterpillar is also a cannibal. Researchers learned this after placing two larvae in the same cage, leading to one larger bet for smaller, weaker siblings. This is why only one bone collector is displayed per Spider Web, says Rubinoff.

Researchers have discovered only 62 of these creatures over more than 150 field studies conducted over approximately 22 years.

Genetic analysis shows that the lineage is more than 3 million years old than Oahu, meaning it was once again spreading. “Since humans arrived in places like this, we have lost many native species,” says Rubinoff. “Both we were able to find is a miracle [the bone collector]and it’s really sad that they are so restricted to this one place.

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Source: www.newscientist.com