Science & TechnologyS


Laptop

Researchers 'Convinced' Duqu Malware Written By Same Group as Stuxnet

computer code on monitor
© Flickr / pablobdThe computer code behind the Duqu virus appears to built on the same code as infamous virus Stuxnet.
Researchers are fairly confident now that whoever wrote the Duqu malware also was involved in some way in developing the Stuxnet worm. They're also confident that they have not yet identified all of the individual components of Duqu, meaning that there are potentially some other capabilities that haven't been documented yet.

Despite its huge public profile, Duqu is not a widespread piece of malware. In fact, there probably aren't more than a few dozen infections at this point, experts say. The malware is being used in highly specific attacks against carefully chosen targets, and in virtually every known case, the attackers have used different encryption methods and different files. This makes detection difficult, and it also shows that the attackers aren't in a hurry. They're taking their time and being quite careful about the way that they conduct the attacks.

"I'd guess there are somewhere less than fifty infections around the world. It's a very small number of targets," Costin Raiu, director of global research and analysis at Kaspersky Lab, who has done much of the analysis of Duqu, said in a podcast interview.

Penis Pump

The octopus' 'human-like' intelligence

Octopus Intelligence
© Visuals Unlimited/CorbisAn octopus swims off the coast of Hawaii: The gangly sea creature has been observed using tools and has been known to recognize and remember humans, according to scientists

The eight-armed mollusk can use tools, recognize humans, and even play games. Time to bow down before our new cephalopod overlords?

Octopuses are smarter than we thought. A mounting pile of evidence suggests that the eight-armed sea creatures exhibit a number of "human-like" tendencies that put them on the same intellectual plane as the wilier house pets. Here's why scientists have new respect for invertebrate cephalopods:

What "human-like" tendencies have been exhibited?
One octopus in captivity was observed "cleaning the front of its den" after securing food, then carefully arranging rocks to cover the entrance before going to sleep. Such an endeavor requires "foresight, planning," and "even tool use," says Sy Montgomery at Orion Magazine. In another study, octopuses "learned to open childproof caps on Extra Strength Tylenol Pill bottles - a feat that eludes many humans."

Cow

The ongoing mystery of the magnetosensing cows

Cows
© Unknown
Back in 2008, a team of German researchers published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that claimed to demonstrate that cattle, when resting or grazing, actually align their bodies along the Earth's magnetic fields.

The team's results - which were based on satellite imagery of over 8,500 cattle from different regions around the globe - were compelling, but a recent attempt to replicate the researchers' findings has failed, inciting some pretty serious scientific squabble. So where does the great magnetic cow debate stand today?

The original findings, presented by a research team led by zoologist Hynek Burda, used images acquired from Google Earth to demonstrate the cows' magneto-reception capabilities.

Laptop

Neuronal Computer Chips Communicate Like Brain Cells

Neuronal Chip
© Guy Rachmuth/via MIT Neuronal Chip - This image shows a fabricated analog very-large-scale integration (VLSI) chip used to mimic neuronal processes involved in memory and learning.

Brain-like computers could soon become a lot more common. Earlier this year, we heard about a project involving DARPA and IBM to create a functioning neurosynaptic chip, which works somewhat like a brain in the way it learns and remembers. Now MIT engineers have designed a chip that mimics the function of a synapse in the brain, in its ability to model specific communications among neurons. The new chip could help researchers study the brain, and it could be used in neural prosthetic devices such as artificial retinas.

The MIT chip has 400 transistors, which together can emulate the activity of a single brain synapse. A synapse is the gap between neurons that enables the release and binding of neurotransmitters to and from dendrites. These transmitters are chemicals that activate ion channels in the neurons. The ion channels open and close to change the neuron's electrical potential, which then causes the cell to fire an electrical impulse.

The new chip works by mimicking the action of these ion channels, according to MIT News. The transistors allow current to flow through them continuously - unlike the on-off design common to so many other chips, but like the synaptic cleft "gate" in brain cells. By tweaking the chip transistors, MIT engineers can mimic specific ion channels in neurons - in this way, they can create any synaptic situation that would lead to the firing of an electrical impulse.

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Quantum Levitation


Meteor

How I Missed the Great Leonid Meteor Shower of 1966

Clouds ruined the party for this young boy, but for some the show was utterly spectacular.

Leonids
© Koen MiskotteThis image is a composition of 33 Leonids captured overnight from Nov. 18 to 19, 2001.
The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak this week, and every year, skywatchers hope to catch stunning displays of ultrafast meteors streak across the sky. This year is no different, but it comes on a special anniversary - the 45th anniversary of the Great Leonid Meteor Storm of 1966.

Forty-five years have come and gone and it still hurts.

In 1966, one of the most stupendous Leonid meteor displays ever witnessed took place over central and western North America. The Leonids occur every year on or around Nov. 18, when Earth glides through a diaphanous trail of dust left behind by the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Each year, stargazers are tempted with a drizzle of maybe a dozen ultrafast meteors streaking across the sky every hour.

But, every 33 years or so, a rare and dazzling Leonid storm can occur after the comet swoops near the sun, closely followed by thicker concentrations of dusty, icy particles no larger than the size of Rice Krispies. Earth then plows straight through the comet's refreshed wake, producing a stupendous meteor display.

1966 was one of those special years. And I missed it!

Attention

Best of the Web: Europe Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports!

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The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners [1] in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing.

The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the 27 member countries, adopted the rule "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety."

As a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation detailed earlier this month [2], X-ray body scanners use ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and cause cancer. Although the amount of radiation is extremely low, equivalent to the radiation a person would receive in a few minutes of flying, several research studies have concluded that a small number of cancer cases would result from scanning hundreds of millions of passengers a year.

Health

Deep-Chilling Trauma Patients to Try to Save Them

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© The Associated PressDr. Samuel Tisherman, a critical care specialist at the University of Pittsburgh, who is leading a study that early next year will test whether plunging critically injured trauma victims into deep hypothermia could help save their lives.
Suspended animation may not be just for sci-fi movies anymore: Trauma surgeons soon will try plunging some critically injured people into a deep chill - cooling their body temperatures as low as 50 degrees - in hopes of saving their lives.

Many trauma patients have injuries that should be fixable but they bleed to death before doctors can patch them up. The new theory: Putting them into extreme hypothermia just might allow them to survive without brain damage for about an hour so surgeons can do their work.

In a high-stakes experiment funded by the Defense Department, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is preparing to test that strategy on a handful of trauma victims who are bleeding so badly from gunshots, stab wounds or similar injuries that their hearts stop beating. Today when that happens, a mere 7 percent of patients survive.

Get cold enough and "you do OK with no blood for a while," says lead researcher Dr. Samuel Tisherman, a University of Pittsburgh critical care specialist. "We think we can buy time. We think it's better than anything else we have at the moment, and could have a significant impact in saving a bunch of patients."

Attention

Brains of Excessive Gamers Similar to Addicts

Playing Video Games
© R.Ashrafov / ShutterstockAdolescents playing over nine hours of video games a week show larger reward centers and higher brain activity when losing a gambling game.

The brains of teen video gamers look similar to those of addicts, with larger so-called reward centers, a new study suggests.

The reward center, focused around a brain region called the ventral striatum, releases "feel good" chemicals when we do something that helps us survive and reproduce - like eating or mating. Sometimes, as is the case with addiction, these brain regions become overactive in response to non-useful stimuli, like cocaine, alcohol, excessive sex or excessive gambling.

"Our participants did not reach formal criterions of addiction," study researcher Simone Kühn, of Ghent University in Belgium, said in an email to LiveScience. "But indeed especially the finding that they show more activity in a reward region ... might be a mechanism by which behavioral addiction develops."

The researchers can't tell if the gaming caused the brain changes, or if overactive reward centers led to excessive gaming.

Video

UK: Oxford Cabs to Receive Cameras, Record Passengers by 2015

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© londonphotos.sweb.cz
Oxford City Council in England has announced that all taxis within the city will be required to place cameras in their vehicles by April 2015.

The cameras fitted within the cabs will record all passengers on a daily basis. Both video and audio will be recorded and stored on a CCTV hard drive for 28 days, and the cameras will be placed within black cabs and private-hire vehicles. Taxi drivers licensed for the first time must have the required equipment as well as a panic button installed by April 6, 2012, while cabs already registered will have until April 2015 to obtain the cameras.

According to Oxford City Council, the footage from these cameras can be reviewed by police officers in the event of an investigation, but for no other purpose.

Civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch views the placement of cameras within cabs as "a total disregard for civil liberties." Big Brother Watch is even planning to file a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).