Science & TechnologyS


Sun

Solar storm two years ago narrowly missed Earth

Jason Samenow
Washington Post
Wed, 23 Jul 2014 13:38 UTC
Image
© NASASolar coronal mass ejection, July 23 2012
On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth's atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known ascoronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.

Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth. Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.

Baker tells NASA:
"I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did."
"If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire."
Read More...
Network

UK decriminalizes online file sharing of video games, music and films


RT.com
Thu, 24 Jul 2014 11:59 UTC
file sharing
© Reuters / Carlos Barria
The British government has decriminalized the act of online video game, music and film piracy, after branding harsher punishment plans as "unworkable."

Beginning in 2015, internet users who persistently file-share will be sent a series of warning letters explaining that their actions are illegal. However, authorities will take no further action if the user continues downloading the material.

The aim of the letters is to boost consumer awareness of the array of legitimate online media outlets such as Netflix, and deter people from using file-sharing software.

The new scheme, named the 'Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP),' came after years of talks between internet service providers (ISPs), politicians, and the music and film industries.

Major ISPs, including BT, Virgin, and Sky, have already signed up to VCAP. Other ISPs are expected to follow suit.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of UK music trade body BPI, said VCAP was about "persuading the persuadable, such as parents who do not know what is going on with their net connection."

Comment: Not only is criminalizing online piracy unworkable, it seems the effect on the industry is minimal at any rate.

Online file sharing, pirating has minimal impact on motion picture industry
Study finds file-sharers buy ten times more music

Read More...
Eye 2

Google faces lawsuit for offering data-mined consumer data to advertisers


RT.com
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 17:56 UTC
Google te espia
© Desconocido
A federal judge has denied Google Inc's attempt to dismiss a privacy lawsuit brought against the technology giant for commingling user data across its different products and offering that data to advertisers without permission.

US District Judge Paul Grewal ruled Monday evening that Google has to face the breach of contract and fraud claims brought by users of Android devices who downloaded at least one Android application through Google Play.

"Like Rocky rising from Apollo's uppercut in the 14th round, plaintiffs' complaint has sustained much damage but just manages to stand," Grewal wrote in a 28-page decision, referring to the 'Rocky' film series while alluding to how close his decision ultimately was. Two earlier versions of the lawsuit were previously dismissed by Grewal.

Grewal did dismiss on Monday other aspects of the current lawsuit, including claims brought by users who say they were compelled to switch away from Android devices to non-Android devices after Google altered its privacy policy in 2012 that allowed the data commingling.
Read More...
Cut

Scientists cut HIV out of human genome using enzymes


RT
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 21:12 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett
US scientists have physically cut the HIV virus out of infected cells by using enzymes. The method could, in theory, lead to a permanent cure for AIDS, though researchers warn there is still a long way to go.

Scientists from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia have pioneered a technique which uses a targeting strand of RNA (called guide RNA, or gRNA) that locates the virus. A "DNA snipping" enzyme (called a nuclease) then removes it from the infected cell. The cell, now free of the HIV virus, then repairs itself.

Cells armed with the nuclease-RNA combination proved impervious to HIV infection, the research states.

"This is an important step on the path toward a permanent cure for AIDS. It's an exciting discovery, but it's not yet ready to go into the clinic. It's a proof of concept that we're moving in the right direction," said Dr. Khalili, director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at Temple and lead author of the study.

The editing process was successful in several cell types that can harbor HIV-1, including microglia and macrophages, as well as T-lymphocytes. "T-cells and monocytic cells are the main cell types infected by HIV-1, so they are the most important targets for this technology," Khalili said.
Read More...
Cell Phone

Top security researcher found secret backdoors in Apple devices running latest iOS


RT
Thu, 24 Jul 2014 00:22 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Getty Images / Justin Sullivan
A security researcher considered to be among the foremost experts in his field says that more than a half-billion mobile devices running Apple's latest iOS operating system contain secret backdoors.

Jonathan Zdziarski, also known by his online alias "NerveGas," told the audience attending his Friday morning presentation at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City that around 600 million Apple devices, including iPhones and tablets, contain hidden features that allow data to be surreptitiously slurped from those devices.

During Zdziarski's HOPE presentation, "Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices," the researcher revealed that several undocumented forensic services are installed on every new iPhone and iPad, making it easier that ever for a third-party to pull data from those devices in order to compromise a target and take hold of their personal information, including pictures, text messages, voice recordings and more.
Read More...
Beaker

Study finds over 100 genes linked to schizophrenia


RT
Wed, 23 Jul 2014 03:39 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Stefan Wermuth
Researchers identified more than 80 previously undiscovered genes which may be related to the development of schizophrenia, bringing the total of potentially associated genes to over 100, the largest international study ever published on the subject says.

"We identify 128 independent associations spanning 108 conservatively defined loci that meet genome-wide significance, 83 of which have not been previously reported," the abstract of the study, published in Nature magazine on Tuesday, states.

The findings are the result of the collaboration of Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), which included more than 80 institutions such as the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and others around the world.

The identification of specific triggers which could lead to schizophrenia help boost the development of new ways to treat the mental illness, which has been stalling for the last 60 years, according to Michael O'Donovan, a psychiatrist who led the study from the UK's Cardiff University.

Schizophrenia is known to impact one in 100 people. Characteristics of the disease include hallucinations and delusions. Some patients hear voices and report symptoms of paranoia.
Read More...
Syringe

As above, so below? Horseshoe crabs harvested for their blue blood

Alexis C. Madrigal
The Atlantic
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:46 UTC
horseshoe crabs
© PBSA still from the PBS Nature documentary Crash
The thing about the blood that everyone notices first: It's blue, baby blue. The marvelous thing about horseshoe crab blood, though, isn't the color. It's a chemical found only in the amoebocytes of its blood cells that can detect mere traces of bacterial presence and trap them in inescapable clots.

To take advantage of this biological idiosyncrasy, pharmaceutical companies burst the cells that contain the chemical, called coagulogen. Then, they can use the coagulogen to detect contamination in any solution that might come into contact with blood. If there are dangerous bacterial endotoxins in the liquid - even at a concentration of one part per trillion - the horseshoe crab blood extract will go to work, turning the solution into what scientist Fred Bang, who co-discovered the substance, called a "gel."

"This gel immobilized the bacteria but did not kill them," Bang wrote in the 1956 paper announcing the substance. "The gel or clot was stable and tough and remained so for several weeks at room temperature."

If there is no bacterial contamination, then the coagulation does not occur, and the solution can be considered free of bacteria. It's a simple, nearly instantaneous test that goes by the name of the LAL, or Limulus amebocyte lysate, test (after the species name of the crab, Limulus polyphemus). The LAL testreplaced the rather horrifying prospect of possibly contaminated substances being tested on "large colonies of rabbits." Pharma companies didn't like the rabbit process, either, because it was slow and expensive.
Read More...
Robot

Robots are set to conduct National Security clearance interviews

Stephen Buranyi
Motherboard
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 12:32 UTC
Robot
© NCAAThe US government robot that will be asking you about your drug abuse.

Advancing a career in the US government might soon require an interview with a computer generated head who wants to know about that time you took ketamine.

Psychologists at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) are developing an interview system that uses a responsive on-screen avatar for the first stage of the national security clearance process.

Initial screening for a variety of government jobs currently requires applicants to fill out a form disclosing past drug use, criminal activity, and mental health issues, which is then reviewed during an interview - with a human.

But a recent NCCA study published in the journal Computers and Human Behavior asserts that not only would a computer-generated interviewer be less "time consuming, labor intensive, and costly to the Federal Government," people are actually more likely to admit things to the robot.

The study used US Army basic trainees as volunteer subjects for a mock national security clearance interview. The trainees were not told that the questions would be asked by a robot. After being hooked up to electrodes for cardiographic and electrodermal (heart and skin) responses the volunteers were told that the interview would be with a computer avatar, and were left alone in a chamber with their on-screen interrogator.

The program used for the study was capable of responding to vocal cues and taking multiple conversation paths depending on the subject's answers. The researchers were hoping to leverage the power of presence: the idea that people recognize another sentient being in the environment, and are more responsive as a result.
Read More...
Bulb

Transition phase: NASA's Fermi finds a 'transformer' pulsar


Science Daily
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 05:28 UTC
Image
© NASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterThese artist's renderings show one model of pulsar J1023 before (top) and after (bottom) its radio beacon (green) vanished. Normally, the pulsar's wind staves off the companion's gas stream. When the stream surges, an accretion disk forms and gamma-ray particle jets (magenta) obscure the radio beam.
In late June 2013, an exceptional binary containing a rapidly spinning neutron star underwent a dramatic change in behavior never before observed. The pulsar's radio beacon vanished, while at the same time the system brightened fivefold in gamma rays, the most powerful form of light, according to measurements by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

"It's almost as if someone flipped a switch, morphing the system from a lower-energy state to a higher-energy one," said Benjamin Stappers, an astrophysicist at the University of Manchester, England, who led an international effort to understand this striking transformation. "The change appears to reflect an erratic interaction between the pulsar and its companion, one that allows us an opportunity to explore a rare transitional phase in the life of this binary."

A binary consists of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. This system, known as AY Sextantis, is located about 4,400 light-years away in the constellation Sextans. It pairs a 1.7-millisecond pulsar named PSR J1023+0038 -- J1023 for short -- with a star containing about one-fifth the mass of the sun. The stars complete an orbit in only 4.8 hours, which places them so close together that the pulsar will gradually evaporate its companion.

Comment: For a lot more information about our 'electric universe' including solar cycles, plasma phenomenon, the Sun's dark companion and the cyclical impact on humanity, read: Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection: The Secret History of the World - Book 3

Read More...
Robot

The third machine age could destroy us

Annalee Newitz
io9
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:02 UTC
Robot Caregiver
© American Psychological Association
There have been one and a half machine ages already. The first began in the nineteenth century, with machines taking over manual labor. Then in the twentieth century machines began taking over mental labor (they still are). When the third age comes, says one sociologist, we're doomed.

Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has written an interesting article in response to the idea that we need robots to do "emotional labor" like caring for children and the elderly. She identifies the third machine age as one where machines take over the realm of emotional labor, whether that's teaching Kindergarten or working as a nurse.

Basically, she's using emotional labor as shorthand to describe a broad range of caretaking professions, especially in heath and medicine, that are currently booming.

Though she worries about handing over this deeply human kind of work to machines, she makes a deeper point about why this third machine age may be the last. Because it continues in the tradition of our previous machine ages, which have all eliminated jobs and created massive unemployment and social unrest.
Read More...