Science & TechnologyS


Camcorder

British Police Surveillance System Can Turn Off Mobile Phones

Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Flickr user nolifebeforecoffee
Police in London possess a surveillance technology that sounds like something straight out of science fiction: a mobile GSM device that pretends to be a cellular tower, tricking nearby phones into connecting to it, then intercepting all their communications.

The system was developed by the British firm Datong plc, according to The Guardian, which noted that the U.S. Secret Service and a number of Middle Eastern regimes also patronize the company.

The signal this device projects covers an area for 10 miles around, and the variety of data it can produce is specific enough to track the exact location of any mobile device on the network. It can even be used to shut off all mobile devices in its range.

The full range of its capabilities are classified, The Guardian added, and Datong plc did not comment on the initial report. The Metropolitan Police refused to say when or where the device has been used, if at all.
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Info

Do Animals Know Right from Wrong? New Clues Point to 'Yes'

Natalie Wolchover
Life's Little Mysteries
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:38 UTC
Guilty Dog
© YouTube | puckeredpetebreweryTank the dog caught red-handed after digging through the trash.

In a famous YouTube video, Tank the dog sure does look guilty when his owner comes home to find trash scattered everywhere, and the trash can lid incriminatingly stuck on Tank's head. But does the dog really know he misbehaved, or is he just trying to look submissive because his owner is yelling at him?

In another new video from the BBC Frozen Planet series, Adelie penguins are seen gathering stones to build their nests. One penguin stealthily steals a stone from his neighbor's nest every time the neighbor goes a-gathering. Does the penguin thief know its covert actions are wrong?

These are some of the scenarios that interest ethologists, or scientists who study animal behavior. For years, these scientists categorically ruled out the possibility that animals might have a sense of morality - that they know right from wrong. Lately, though, the tide is turning.

"People used to like to make that stark division between human and nonhuman animals," said ethologist Marc Bekoff. "But there's just no doubt that the scientific evidence for animal morality is accumulating as more and more animals are studied."
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Display

Fertility Chip Measures Sperm in Home Test Accurately


Science Daily
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:11 UTC
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© University of TwenteSchematic drawing of the fertility chip with fluid channels and electrodes.
Loes Segerink, a researcher at the University of Twente has developed a "fertility chip" that can accurately count sperm and measure their motility. The chip can be inserted into a compact device for one-off use. A home test kit will soon make it possible for men to test their sperm in a familiar environment. As a result, there is a greater chance of obtaining a correct diagnosis, also the method is simple and inexpensive. Segerink's doctoral defence will take place on 4 November 2011.

The lab-on-a-chip developed by Segerink measures sperm concentration. The importance of the sperm concentration is that the fertility standard states that a millilitre of ejaculate should contain at least 20 million sperm. A second important aspect of fertility is motility. This too can be measured using the lab-on-a-chip. Simple home test kits are already commercially available. These indicate whether the concentration is "above or below the standard value." These tests are too limited, however, as they do not give accurate concentration readings.
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Info

Chinese Scientists Make Blood from Rice

Mary Quinn O'Connor
Fox News
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
Dracula
© Universal Pictures
Dracula may have a square meal at last.

Researchers in China believe they have found a way to produce and harvest large quantities of human serum albumin (HSA) -- a blood protein that is widely used in drug and vaccine production -- from ordinary grains of rice.

"It looks like an interesting technological step forward," Dr. Richard J. Benjamin, chief medical officer for the American National Red Cross, told FoxNews.com. "It could potentially produce large quantities in a reasonable time."

According to the study, Yang He and his colleagues discovered a way to produce the protein in rice seeds and were able to purify the HSA from it, obtaining about 2.75 grams of HSA per kilogram of rice. The protein was tested on rats and they found that the rice-produced HSA was chemically equivalent to the blood-derived version.

"The disadvantage of what we currently use is that it is a blood product, which means it could transmit infection," Benjamin noted.
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Light Saber

World's Most Powerful Laser to Tear Apart the Vacuum of Space

Richard Gray
The Telegraph
Sun, 30 Oct 2011 07:11 UTC
Image
A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space could be built in Britain as part major new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe.

Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.

Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space - the vacuum.

Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.

They also believe it could even allow them to prove whether extra-dimensions exist.
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Bizarro Earth

Plate tectonics may control reversals in the Earth's magnetic field


PhysOrg
Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:28 UTC
Earth Magnetic Field
© Unknown
The Earth's magnetic field has reversed many times at an irregular rate throughout its history. Long periods without reversal have been interspersed with eras of frequent reversals. What is the reason for these reversals and their irregularity? Researchers from CNRS and the Institut de Physique du Globe, France, have shed new light on the issue by demonstrating that, over the last 300 million years, reversal frequency has depended on the distribution of tectonic plates on the surface of the globe. This result does not imply that terrestrial plates themselves trigger the switch over of the magnetic field. Instead, it establishes that although the reversal phenomenon takes place, in fine, within the Earth's liquid core, it is nevertheless sensitive to what happens outside the core and more specifically in the Earth's mantle. This work is published on 16 October 2011 in Geophysical Research Letters.
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Genetically Modified Mosquito Could Help Battle Dengue Fever


redOrbit
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:01 UTC
GMO Mosquito
© redOrbit

Scientists have found that a genetically modified mosquito could help tackle dengue fever and other insect-borne diseases.

Researchers found that the genetically modified males mated successfully with wild females in a dengue-affected part of the Cayman Islands.

They said that mating has not been proven in the wild, and could cut the number of disease-carrying mosquitoes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) believes there may be 50 million cases every year.

Scientists realized in the 1940s that sterile males could help control insects that carried disease or areas with agricultural pests.

When females breed with the sterile males, there would be fewer mosquitoes around that could transmit the disease.

The screwworm fly was eradicated from the Caribbean island of Curacao in the 1950s by using males sterilized by radiation.
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Info

Smart Chimp Gets Speech Like a Human

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:00 UTC
Panzee
© Carolyn Richardson, Division of University RelationsThis 25-year-old chimpanzee named "Panzee" understands more than 130 English language words.

A 25-year-old chimpanzee named "Panzee" has just demonstrated that speech perception is not a uniquely human trait.

Well-educated Panzee understands more than 130 English language words and even recognizes words in sine-wave form, a type of synthetic speech that reduces language to three whistle-like tones. This shows that she isn't just responding to a particular person's voice or emotions, but instead she is processing and perceiving speech as humans do.

"The results suggest that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans may have had the capability to perceive speech-like sounds before the evolution of speech, and that early humans were taking advantage of this latent ability when speech did eventually emerge," said Lisa Heimbauer who presented a talk today on the chimp at the 162nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego.

Heimbauer, a doctoral candidate and researcher at Georgia State University's Language Research Center, and colleagues Michael Owren and Michael Beran tested Panzee on her ability to understand words communicated via sine-wave speech, which replicates the estimated frequency and amplitude patterns of natural utterances. "Tickle," "M&M," "lemonade," and "sparkler" were just a few of the test words.
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Binoculars

Big Brother: Britain Police Tracking Mobile Phones with New Surveillance System

Tiffany Kaiser
Daily Tech
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:04 UTC
Image
© telegraph.co.uk
Critics say the new system is not proportionate under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA)

The UK has committed some Big Brother-like acts in the recent past, such as collecting citizens' email, phone and Web history. The Metropolitan police are now continuing such acts by launching a new technology that tracks all mobile handsets in a set area.

This surveillance system is referred to as "Listed X" under government protocol, and was made by Leeds-based compant Datong plc, which specializes in surveillance technology for law enforcement, military, special forces and security agencies.

The system has the ability to emit a signal over an area of up to 10 sq km. This signal returns the IMSI and IMEI identity codes of all mobile handsets in that area by acting like a mobile phone network, and the recipient of these codes is able to track the devices. Those with these uniqie codes can also intercept SMS messages and phone calls, collect information about the user and even turn phones off remotely.
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Sheriff

US, Indiana State Police will use new license plate reading technology to crack down on suspended drivers

Andrew Walker
The Star Press
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:49 UTC
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© photo providedThe Indiana State Police is now using the License Plate Reader (LPR) system on its vehicles, which can read the license plates of nearby vehicles at a rate of up to 1,800 per minute. ISP hopes the LPR will reduce the number of people driving with suspended licenses or no license
More than 5 percent of Indiana motorists currently have a suspended driver's license.

And though local law enforcement can't catch every person driving while suspended or with a revoked license, the Indiana State Police is banking on a developing piece of technology to improve upon these efforts.

By buying and installing a new License Plate Reader (LPR) system on troopers' vehicles, ISP officials say those driving illegally on the state's roadways now stand a much better chance of being caught.

"It's just another tool in our tool belt for us to use to help catch violators of the law," said Sgt. John Bowling with the ISP Pendleton District. "It's another new piece of technology, and we're excited to have it."

According to an ISP news release, the LPR system -- which is mounted to the trunk of a state police cruiser -- can scan license plates at a rate of 1,800 per minute as the cruiser passes by vehicles while parked or when vehicles pass the state police vehicle on the highway.
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