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UK: Smart meters in homes could be hacked

Alastair Jamieson
The Daily Telegraph
Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:50 UTC
Plans to install gas and electricity smart meters in every home by 2020 pose a "national cyber security risk" because the devices could be hacked into, one of the government's own data security consultants has warned.

Experts say the compulsory monitors, designed to reduce energy consumption, could be programmed to cripple the national grid or to steal valuable household data, breaching the privacy of millions.

The government wants every home in Britain to have the devices, which give users information on how to save energy and send real-time data direct to utility companies, eliminating the need for customers to stay at home for meter readings or to receive estimated bills.

They also pave the way for a national 'smart grid', backed by David Cameron's Conservatives, which would use the data to manage national demand more efficiently and advise households when it is cheapest to switch on appliances.

However, smart meters can be infected with a 'worm', similar to the viruses that attack personal computers, which can spread from one smart meter to the whole grid.
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Info

Mini-Stonehenge find 'important'


British Broadcasting Corporation
Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:37 UTC
Image
Preseli spotted dolerite was mined in the Welsh Mountains 200 miles away
Archaeologists have discovered a mini-Stonehenge, a mile from the site of Wiltshire's famous stone circle.

"Bluehenge", named after the hue of the 27 stones from Wales which once formed it, has been described by researchers as a "very important" find.

All that now exists of the 5,000-year-old site is a series of holes where the dolerite monoliths once stood.
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Laptop

Automated attacks push malware on Facebook

Dan Goodin
The Register
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:01 UTC
Hackers have figured out how to create computer-generated Facebook profiles and are using them to trick unsuspecting users into installing malware, a security researcher warned Thursday.

The fraudulent profiles display the same picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, but with slightly different names and birthdates, said Roger Thompson, chief of research at security firm AVG Technologies. Each invites visitors to click on what purports to be a video link that ultimately tries to trick viewers into installing rogue anti-virus software.

AVG's LinkScanner product, which monitors webpages in real time to make sure they're not malicious, has encountered "hundreds" of separate pages. But because AVG only sees a page when one of its subscribers tries to click on one, Thompson suspects the total number of fake profiles is in the thousands.
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Meteor

Quick Rebound From Marine Mass Extinction Event, New Findings Show


Science Daily
Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:55 UTC
Image
© Don Davis/NASAAn artist's rendering of the asteroid impact that took place 65 million years ago and likely killed off nearly every large vertebrate species on the planet, including, many think, the dinosaurs.
In 1980, Luis Alvarez and his collaborators stunned the world with their discovery that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago probably killed off the dinosaurs and much of the the world's living organisms. But ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about how long it took for life to return to the devastated planet and for ecosystems to bounce back.

Now, researchers from MIT and their collaborators have found that at least some forms of microscopic marine life - the so called "primary producers," or photosynthetic organisms such as algae and cyanobacteria in the ocean - recovered within about a century after the mass extinction. Previous research had indicated the process might have taken millions of years.

It has taken so long to uncover the quick recovery because previous studies looked mostly at fossils in the layers of sediment from that period, and apparently the initial recovery was dominated by tiny, soft-bodied organisms such as cyanobacteria, which do not have shells or other hard body parts that leave fossil traces. The new research looked instead for "chemical fossils" - traces of organic molecules (compounds composed of mostly carbon and hydrogen) that can reveal the presence of specific types of organisms, even though all other parts of the organisms themselves are long gone.
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Brick Wall

Wi-Fi signals used to see through walls

Claudine Beaumont
The Daily Telegraph
Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:24 UTC
Wi-Fi walls
© TelegraphResearchers from the University of Utah have found a way of harnessing Wi-Fi signals to see through walls
Scientists at the University of Utah in the United States have found a way to harness Wi-Fi signals to 'see' through solid walls

The researchers say that the variation of radio signals in a wireless network can reveal the movements of people behind closed doors or even a wall.

Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari, from the University of Utah, have used the principle of variance-based radio tomographic imaging. The system works by measuring interference between the nodes of wireless devices. If someone passes through that field, the device registers a change in the levels of resistance, and feeds that information back to a computer.

The system can currently only see about three feet through a wall, and is so far only capable of sensing motion. At this stage, it is not sophisticated enough to generate an actual image of what lies beyond the wall, but the research team is confident that this feature could be developed in time.
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Telescope

Tonight's Harvest Moon


New Scientist
Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:50 UTC
Image
© Monika Landy-GyebnarHarvest Moon
Tonight's full Moon has a special name--the Harvest Moon. It's the full moon closest to the northern autumnal equinox (Sept. 22). In years past, farmers depended on the light of the Harvest Moon to gather ripening crops late into the night. Now, electric bulbs do that job, albeit not quite as beautifully as the original lunar lamp.

"I was walking to work early this morning when I noticed the warm yellow Harvest Moon beaming through the boxy streetlights," says photographer Monika Landy-Gyebnar of Veszprém, Hungary. "The old, scarry face of Moon looked at the modern lamps of a modern world just as an aging, wise teacher looks around in a classroom full of bustling young boys. It was a moment pulled out of Time and recorded forever in this photo and my memory."
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Info

Using Synthetic Evolution to Study the Brain: Researchers Model Key Part of Neurons

Bill Kath
McCormick News
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:15 UTC
The human brain has evolved over millions of years to become a vast network of billions of neurons and synaptic connections. Understanding it is one of humankind's greatest pursuits.

But to understand how the brain processes information, researchers must first understand the very basics of neurons - even down to how proteins inside the neurons act to change the neuron's voltage.
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Magnify

Physicists observe magnetism in gas for the first time


University of Toronto
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:11 UTC
An international team of physicists has for the first time observed magnetic behaviour in an atomic gas, addressing a decades-old debate as to whether it is possible for a gas or liquid to become ferromagnetic and exhibit magnetic properties.

"Magnets are all around us - holding postcards on the refrigerator, pointing to magnetic north on a compass, and in speakers and headphones - yet some mysteries remain," says Joseph H. Thywissen, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto and a visiting member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based team leading the research. "We have perhaps found the simplest situation in which permanent magnetism can exist."
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Telescope

Hell planet where rock falls as rain found

Tom Chivers
The Telegraph
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:51 UTC
COROT-7b
© European Southern ObservatoryAn artist's impression of COROT-7b, where pebbles fall as rain
COROT-7b, an alien planet where a rain of pebbles falls from clouds of rock vapour into lakes of molten lava, has been found by astronomers.

Computer models of COROT-7b, a planet orbiting an orange dwarf star in the constellation Monoceros, 490 light years away, suggest that the world has a surface temperature hot enough to boil rock.

The research, by scientists at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, conjures up a vision of hell.
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Hourglass

Reconsidering the neolithic Choirokoitia settlement in Cyprus


Cyprus Mail
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:17 UTC
Choirokoitia
© patrick550Choirokoitia ruins
Archaeologists have had to change their views on the status of the Neolithic site of Choirokoitia following excavations that revealed new information about the area.

According to the Department of Antiquities of the Ministry of Communications and Works, the excavations at the Neolithic site that were carried out in July and August by the National Centre of Scientific Research of France under the direction of Dr A Le Brun, turned up significant results.

Research had commenced in 2005 on the north side of the hill aiming to determine the outline of the walls, which constituted the successive boundaries of the settlement.
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