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Ars Technica's John Timmer reports: In Monday's issue of Nature Geoscience, a team of UK-based researchers tackle a big one: Mars' dichotomy, the somewhat nebulous boundary between its relatively elevated southern half, and the low basin that occupies its northern hemisphere, a feature that some have proposed also served as an ancient shoreline. The new work suggests that the edge of the dichotomy was eroded back by hundreds of kilometers during the time when an ocean might have occupied Mars' northern hemisphere. [...] The new work focuses on an area called Mawrth Vallis, which sits at the edge of the dichotomy. Relative to the northern basin, it's a kilometer-high plateau cut by a major outflow channel that seems to have been caused by one or more massive floods. The slopes surrounding the plateau feature different types of clay-derived minerals, suggesting the area had been subject to interactions between the original materials and water. Rather than focusing on the plateau itself, the work focuses on the neighboring lowlands, which include a large region dotted with thousands of buttes and mesas that rise roughly a kilometer above the surrounding plains. Using data from the ESA's Mars Express mission, they determine that these features tend to top out at the same height as the nearby plateau. And, using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they determined that the clays present along the slopes match those found on the plateau as well. Their conclusion from this is that the mesas and buttes are the remains of what was once a far larger plateau, which was largely eroded away on the side facing the northern basin. And that erosion took place across a pretty significant distance, as the buttes extend hundreds of kilometers away from the present highlands. And, just as at the highland plateau, these mounds hint at a water-based process that modified the rocks from the top down. That's because the deeper clays are often magnesium-rich, which tends to happen when water comes in contact with volcanic rocks or material with similar chemistry. Closer to the surface, things transition to aluminum- and iron-rich clays. These clays can occur when the water source is acidic or can be simply due to longer exposure to water, as the magnesium clays are a bit more soluble. The huge area covered by these mounds gives a sense of just how significant this erosion was. "The dichotomy boundary has receded several hundred kilometers," the researchers note. "Nearly all intervening material -- approximately 57,000 cubic kilometers over an area of 284,000 square kilometers west of Ares Vallis alone -- has been removed, leaving only remnant mounds." Based on the distribution of the different clays, the team argues that their water-driven formation took place before the erosion of the material. This would indicate that water-rock interactions were going on over a very wide region early in the history of Mars, which likely required an extensive hydrological cycle on the red planet. As the researchers note, a nearby ocean would have improved the chances of exposing this region to water, but the exposure could also have been due to processes like melting at the base of an ice cap. Complicating matters further, many of the mounds top out below one proposed shoreline of the northern ocean and above a second. It's possible that a receding ocean could have contributed to their erosion. But, at the same time, some of the features of a proposed shoreline now appear to have been caused by the general erosion of the original plateau, and may not be associated with an ocean at all.

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order today delaying the TikTok ban for 75 days. The Verge reports: The order, issued on Trump's first day of office, is meant to effectively extend the deadline established by The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for ByteDance to sell its stake by undercutting penalties on American companies like Apple and Google working with TikTok. It directs the Attorney General "not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today to allow my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way." The AG is supposed to "issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred." The order furthermore instructs the Department of Justice to "take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act" and says they should be barred from doing so "for any conduct that occurred during the above-specified period or any period prior to the issuance of this order, including the period of time from January 19, 2025, to the signing of this order." It remains unclear whether Trump can legally pause the ban. It's also unclear how he plans to enforce a 50 percent "joint venture" ownership with the company, a move he announced on Sunday.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: The surge of interest in AI is creating a massive demand for computing power. Around the world, companies are trying to keep up with the vast amount of GPUs needed to power more and more advanced AI models. While GPUs are not the only option for running an AI model, they have become the hardware of choice due to their ability to efficiently handle multiple operations simultaneously -- a critical feature when developing deep learning models. But not every AI startup has the capital to invest in the huge numbers of GPUs now required to run a cutting-edge model. For some, it's a better deal to outsource it. This has led to the rise of a new business: GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS). In recent years, companies like Hyperbolic, Kinesis, Runpod, and Vast.ai have sprouted up to remotely offer their clients the needed processing power. [...] Studies have shown that more than half of the existing GPUs are not in use at any given time. Whether we're talking personal computers or colossal server farms, a lot of processing capacity is under-utilized. What Kinesis does is identify idle compute -- both for GPUs and CPUs -- in servers worldwide and compile them into a single computing source for companies to use. Kinesis partners with universities, data centers, companies, and individuals who are willing to sell their unused computing power. Through a special software installed on their servers, Kinesis detects idle processing units, preps them, and offers them to their clients for temporary use. [...] The biggest advantage of GPUaaS is economical. By removing the need to purchase and maintain the physical infrastructure, it allows companies to avoid investing in servers and IT management, and to instead put their resources toward improving their own deep learning, large language, and large vision models. It also lets customers pay for the exact amount of GPUs they use, saving the costs of the inevitable idle compute that would come with their own servers. The report notes that GPUaaS is growing in profitability. "In 2023, the industry's market size was valued at US $3.23 billion; in 2024, it grew to $4.31 billion," reports IEEE. "It's expected to rise to $49.84 billion by 2032."

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Many of the world's largest tech companies, including Meta, Google, TikTok, and X, have pledged to European lawmakers that they will do more to prevent and remove illegal hate speech on their platforms. The revised set of voluntary commitments unveiled on Monday aim to help platforms "demonstrate their compliance" with the Digital Services Act (DSA) obligations regarding illegal content moderation. The Verge reports: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Dailymotion, Jeuxvideo.com, Rakuten Viber, and Microsoft-hosted consumer services have all signed the "Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online Plus" -- which is not a terribly named streaming service but an update to a 2016 Code. The revised code commits signatories to transparency around hate speech detection and reduction, to allowing third-party monitors to assess how hate speech notices are reviewed by the platforms, and to review "at least two-thirds of hate speech notices" within 24 hours. These EU Codes of Conduct are voluntary commitments and companies face no penalties if they decide to back out of the agreement [...].

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The notorious hacker IntelBroker claims to have stolen data from HPE systems, including source code, private repositories, digital certificates, and access to certain services. SecurityWeek reports: The compromised data allegedly includes source code for products such as Zerto and iLO, private GitHub repositories, digital certificates, Docker builds, and even some personal information that the hacker described as "old user PII for deliveries." IntelBroker is also offering access to some services used by HPE, including APIs, WePay, GitHub and GitLab. Contacted by SecurityWeek, HPE said it's aware of the breach claims and is conducting an investigation. "HPE became aware on January 16 of claims being made by a group called IntelBroker that it was in possession of information belonging to HPE. HPE immediately activated our cyber response protocols, disabled related credentials, and launched an investigation to evaluate the validity of the claims," said HPE spokesperson Adam R. Bauer. "There is no operational impact to our business at this time, nor evidence that customer information is involved," Bauer added.

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The CIA has developed a chatbot to talk to virtual versions of foreign presidents and prime ministers. "Understanding leaders around the world is one of the CIA's most important jobs. Teams of analysts comb through intelligence collected by spies and publicly available information to create profiles of leaders that can predict behaviors," reports the New York Times. "A chatbot powered by artificial intelligence now helps do that work." From the report: The chatbot is part of the spy agency's drive to improve the tools available to CIA analysts and its officers in the field, and to better understand adversaries' technical advances. Core to the effort is to make it easier for companies to work with the most secretive agency. William Burns, CIA director for the past four years, prioritized improving the agency's technology and understanding of how it is used. Incoming Trump administration officials say they plan to build on those initiatives, not tear them down. [...] The CIA has long used digital tools, spy gadgets and even AI. But with the development of new forms of AI, including the large language models that power chatbots, the agency has stepped up its investments. Making better use of AI, Burns said, is crucial to US competition with China. And better AI models have helped the agency's analysts "digest the avalanche of open-source information out there," he said. The new tools have also helped analysts process clandestinely acquired information, Burns said. New technologies developed by the agency are helping spies navigate cities in authoritarian countries where governments use AI-powered cameras to conduct constant surveillance on their population and foreign spies.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Meta is among a long list of companies being sued for allegedly using pirated material to train its AI models. Meta has never denied using copyrighted works but stressed that it would rely on a fair use defense. However, with rightsholders in one case asking for torrent client data and 'seeding lists' for millions of books allegedly shared in public, the case now takes a geeky turn. [...] A few weeks ago, the plaintiffs asked for permission to submit a third amended complaint (PDF). After uncovering Meta's use of BitTorrent to source copyright-infringing training data from pirate shadow library, LibGen, the request was justified, they argued. Specifically, the authors say that Meta willingly used BitTorrent to download pirated books from LibGen, knowing that was legally problematic. As a result, Meta allegedly shared copies of these books with other people, as is common with the use of BitTorrent. "By downloading through the bit torrent protocol, Meta knew it was facilitating further copyright infringement by acting as a distribution point for other users of pirated books," the amended complaint notes. "Put another way, by opting to use a bit torrent system to download LibGen's voluminous collection of pirated books, Meta 'seeded' pirated books to other users worldwide." Meta believed that the allegations weren't sufficiently new to warrant an update to the complaint. The company argued that it was already a well-known fact that it used books from these third-party sources, including LibGen. However, the authors maintained that the 'torrent' angle is novel and important enough to warrant an update. Last week, United States District Judge Vince Chhabria agreed, allowing the introduction of these new allegations. In addition to greenlighting the amended complaint, the Judge also allowed the authors to conduct further testimony on the "seeding" angle. "[E]vidence about seeding is relevant to the existing claim because it is potentially relevant to the plaintiffs' assertion of willful infringement or to Meta's fair use defense," Judge Chhabria wrote last week. With the court recognizing the relevance of Meta's torrenting activity, the plaintiffs requested reconsideration of an earlier order, where discovery on BitTorrent-related matters was denied. Through a filing submitted last Wednesday, the plaintiffs hope to compel Meta to produce its BitTorrent logs and settings, including peer lists and seeding data. "The Order denied Plaintiffs' motion to compel production of torrenting data, including Meta's BitTorrent client, application logs, and peer lists. This data will evidence how much content Meta torrented from shadow libraries and how much it seeded to third parties as a host of this stolen IP," they write. While archiving lists of seeders is not a typical feature for a torrent client, the authors are requesting Meta to disclose any relevant data. In addition, they also want the court to reconsider its ruling regarding the crime-fraud exception. That's important, they suggest, as Meta's legal counsel was allegedly involved in matters related to torrenting. "Meta, with the involvement of in-house counsel, decided to obtain copyrighted works without permission from online databases of copyrighted works that 'we know to be pirated, such as LibGen," they write. The authors allege that this involved "seeding" files and that Meta attempted to "conceal its actions" by limiting the amount of data shared with the public. One Meta employee also asked for guidance, as "torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right."

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Meta announced a new video editing app called Edits to fill the gap left by ByteDance's CapCut editor, which was temporarily removed from the App Store and Google Play Store as part of the TikTok ban. While the ban was lifted, the new app serves to capitalize on the uncertainty of TikTok's future. TechCrunch reports: Instagram head Adam Mosseri (pictured above) said on Threads that the app will launch next month on iOS, with an Android version following later. He added that the company is working with select creators to gather feedback about the app. "Today we're announcing a new app called 'Edits,' for those of you who are passionate about making videos on your phone. There's a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it's our job to provide the best possible tools for creators," he wrote. Mosseri said the app will have a suite of creative tools, including a dedicated tab for inspiration, a tab for keeping track of ideas, and a high-quality camera. Plus, it will have the ability to share draft versions of creations with friends or collaborators. He added that creators would be able to see insights on how videos made through Edits are performing on Instagram after publishing. In a separate post, he emphasized that the app is "more for creators than casual video makers," which is hard to quantify in measurable terms.

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Donald and Melania Trump have launched a pair of meme coins just before President Trump was sworn into office. The coins are already worth billions of dollars, raising "serious ethical questions and conflicts of interest," said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. CNN reports: Melania Trump launched her cryptocurrency $MELANIA in a social media post Sunday, sending her husband's cryptocurrency $TRUMP, announced two days earlier, plummeting. "The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now. https://melaniameme.com," the future first lady wrote on X Sunday. Meme coins are a type of highly volatile cryptocurrency inspired by popular internet or cultural trends. They carry no intrinsic value but can soar, or plummet, in price. "My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE!" Trump wrote on X Friday. "It's time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to http://gettrumpmemes.com -- Have Fun!" Both coins are trading on the Solana blockchain. [...] $TRUMP is the first cryptocurrency endorsed by the incoming president, who once trashed bitcoin as "based on thin air." [...] While executive branch employees must follow conflict of interest criminal statutes that prevent them from participating in matters that impact their own financial interests, the law does not apply to the president or the vice president. [...] The Trump coin's market capitalization, which is based on the 200 million coins circulating, is capped at $13 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The meme coin's website said there will be 1 billion Trump coins over the next three years. Both $MELANIA and $TRUMP's websites contain disclaimers saying the coins are "intended to function as a support for, and engagement with" the values of their respective brands and "are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type." The website says the meme coin is not politically affiliated. But 80% of the coin's supply is held by Trump Organization-affiliate CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which are both subject to a three-year unlocking schedule -- so they cannot sell all of their holdings at once. Trump coin's fully diluted value (which reflects the eventual total supply of Trump coins) stood at around $54 billion as of Monday morning, according to CoinMarketCap. At that value, the 80% linked to Trump is worth a staggering $43 billion, at least on paper. The $TRUMP coin's website says it is "the only official Trump meme. Now, you can get your piece of history. This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn't back down, no matter the odds," the website reads. "Trump owning 80% and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it," Nick Tomaino, a former Coinbase executive, said in a post on X. "Trump should be airdropping to the people rather than enriching himself or his team on this."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A powerful AI tool can predict with high accuracy the location of photos based on features inside the image itself -- such as vegetation, architecture, and the distance between buildings -- in seconds, with the company now marketing the tool to law enforcement officers and government agencies. Called GeoSpy, made by a firm called Graylark Technologies out of Boston, the tool has also been used for months by members of the public, with many making videos marveling at the technology, and some asking for help with stalking specific women. The company's founder has aggressively pushed back against such requests, and GeoSpy closed off public access to the tool after 404 Media contacted him for comment. Based on 404 Media's own tests and conversations with other people who have used it and investors, GeoSpy could radically change what information can be learned from photos posted online, and by whom. Law enforcement officers with very little necessary training, private threat intelligence companies, and stalkers could, and in some cases already are, using this technology. Dedicated open source intelligence (OSINT) professionals can of course do this too, but the training and skillset necessary can take years to build up. GeoSpy allows essentially anyone to do it. "We are working on something for LE [law enforcement] but it's ," Daniel Heinen, the founder of Graylark and GeoSpy, wrote in a message to the GeoSpy community Discord in July. GeoSpy has been trained on millions of images from around the world, according to marketing material available online. From that, the tool is able to recognize "distinct geographical markers such as architectural styles, soil characteristics, and their spatial relationships." That marketing material says GeoSpy has strong coverage in the United States, but that it also "maintains global capabilities for location identification." [...] GeoSpy has not received much media attention, but it has become something of a sensation on YouTube. Multiple content creators have tested out the tool, and some try to feed it harder and harder challenges. Now that it's been shut off to the public, users have to request access, which is "available exclusively to qualified law enforcement agencies, enterprise users and government entities," according to the company's website. The law enforcement-version of GeoSpy is more powerful than what was publicly available, according to Heinen's Discord posts. "Geospy.ai is a demo," he wrote in September. "The real work is the law enforcement models."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: An organization developing math benchmarks for AI didn't disclose that it had received funding from OpenAI until relatively recently, drawing allegations of impropriety from some in the AI community. Epoch AI, a nonprofit primarily funded by Open Philanthropy, a research and grantmaking foundation, revealed on December 20 that OpenAI had supported the creation of FrontierMath. FrontierMath, a test with expert-level problems designed to measure an AI's mathematical skills, was one of the benchmarks OpenAI used to demo its upcoming flagship AI, o3. In a post on the forum LessWrong, a contractor for Epoch AI going by the username "Meemi" says that many contributors to the FrontierMath benchmark weren't informed of OpenAI's involvement until it was made public. "The communication about this has been non-transparent," Meemi wrote. "In my view Epoch AI should have disclosed OpenAI funding, and contractors should have transparent information about the potential of their work being used for capabilities, when choosing whether to work on a benchmark."

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France's low-carbon electricity output surged to more than 95% of annual power production for the first time in 2024, as rising nuclear and hydro generation squeezed the use of fossil fuels. From a report: Rebounding atomic production together with record output from renewables boosted France's electricity production to a five-year high of 536.5 terawatt hours, transmission network operator Reseau de Transport d'Electricite said in a statement on Monday. Net exports almost doubled to record of 89 terawatt hours as domestic demand remain subdued due to sluggish economic growth. Electricite de France SA's nuclear fleet -- the backbone of western Europe's power system -- has largely recovered from maintenance issues that worsened the continent's energy crisis in 2022. That's helping keep a lid on electricity prices, even as the cost of natural gas has risen since Russia's attack on Ukraine.

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Hackers could steal sensitive personal data from former startup employees by exploiting abandoned company domains and Google login systems, security researcher Dylan Ayrey revealed at ShmooCon conference. The vulnerability particularly affects startups that relied on "Sign in with Google" features for their business software. Ayrey, CEO of Truffle Security, demonstrated the flaw by purchasing one failed startup's domain and accessing ChatGPT, Slack, Notion, Zoom and an HR system containing Social Security numbers. His research found 116,000 website domains from failed tech startups currently available for sale. While Google offers preventive measures through its OAuth "sub-identifier" system, some providers avoid it due to reliability concerns - which Google disputes. The company initially dismissed Ayrey's finding as a fraud issue before reversing course and awarding him a $1,337 bounty. Google has since updated its documentation but hasn't implemented a technical fix, TechCrunch reports.

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Canon has launched a new iOS livestreaming app that allows users to switch between three camera views -- but initially excludes support for Canon cameras. The "Live Switcher Mobile" app, compatible only with Apple devices, offers automated camera switching and streaming to platforms including YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook through RTMP protocol. The free version supports 720p resolution with ads and watermarks, while an $18 monthly subscription unlocks 1080p quality and additional features. Canon plans to add support for its cameras in future updates, it says. Further reading: Canon Draws Fire for Charging Subscription Fee To Use Cameras as Webcams.

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Beijing will host the world's first human-robot half-marathon in April, with dozens of humanoid robots competing alongside 12,000 human runners in the capital's Daxing district. The robots, from more than 20 companies, must be between 0.5 and 2 meters tall, bipedal, and capable of walking or running without wheels, according to local authorities. Both remote-controlled and autonomous robots can participate, with battery changes permitted during the 21km (13 miles) race.

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Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday in a ceremony inside the U.S. Capitol's Rotunda, returning to the White House after defeating Kamala Harris. Trump, 78, took the oath of office before a packed crowd of lawmakers, dignitaries, and supporters, with Chief Justice John Roberts administering the ceremony. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama attended, continuing a tradition of peaceful transitions of power. In a notable show of corporate support, top technology executives including Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Tesla's Elon Musk sat in prominent positions near the stage. Prior to the ceremony, Biden and Trump shared a limousine ride to the Capitol, maintaining another inaugural tradition despite their fierce rivalry. Biden, 82, issued several last-minute pardons before departing office, including one for Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier.

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A recent poll from the Pew Research Center shows more and more teens are turning to ChatGPT for help with their homework. Three things to know: 1. According to the survey, 26% of students ages 13-17 are using the artificial intelligence bot to help them with their assignments. 2. That's double the number from 2023, when 13% reported the same habit when completing assignments. 3. Comfort levels with using ChatGPT for different types of assignments vary among students: 54% found that using it to research new topics, for example, was an acceptable use of the tool. But only 18% said the same for using it to write an essay.

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Technology giants must do more to co-operate with law enforcement on encryption or they risk threatening European democracy, according to the head of Europol, as the agency gears up to renew pressure on companies at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. From a report: Catherine De Bolle told the Financial Times she will meet Big Tech groups in the Swiss mountain resort to discuss the matter, claiming that companies had a "social responsibility" to give the police access to encrypted messages that are used by criminals to remain anonymous. "Anonymity is not a fundamental right," said the EU law enforcement agency's executive director. "When we have a search warrant and we are in front of a house and the door is locked, and you know that the criminal is inside of the house, the population will not accept that you cannot enter." In a digital environment, the police needed to be able to decode these messages to fight crime, she added. "You will not be able to enforce democracy [without it]."

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Nokia accurately predicted the iPhone would revolutionize the smartphone industry in a confidential analysis prepared the day after Apple unveiled the device in 2007, according to internal documents recently released by Nokia's Design Archive at Aalto University in Finland. The presentation praised the iPhone's touchscreen interface and recognized Apple's unprecedented control over carrier relationships, though it misjudged the importance of web browsing and Java support.

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The European Commission intends to propose a ban on the use of PFAS, or "forever chemicals", in consumer products, with exemptions for essential industrial uses, the EU's environment chief told Reuters. From a report: PFAS, or Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, do not break down in the environment, raising concerns about the consequences of them building up in ecosystems, drinking water and the human body. They are used in thousands of items, from cosmetics and non-stick pans to aircraft and wind turbines, due to their resistance to extreme temperatures and corrosion. "What we know we are looking for is a ban in consumer products," EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told Reuters in an interview. "This is something that is important for us human beings, of course, but also for the environment, but I think also for the industry so they know how they can phase out PFAS."

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