The Chinese military possesses dangerous first-strike cyberwar capabilities that include special units charged with developing viruses to attack enemy computer networks, a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) report has warned.
"The PLA [People's Liberation Army] has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, and tactics and measures to protect friendly computer systems and networks," the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on China's military power said.
"In 2005, the PLA began to incorporate offensive CNO [computer network operations] into its exercises, primarily in first strikes against enemy networks."
The report shows how the Chinese military's thinking on information warfare has changed in recent years, says Andrew Macpherson, director of the technical analysis group at the University of New Hampshire's Justiceworks and a research assistant professor of Justice Studies.
On average the Venetians who lived during the glory days of the Republic were rather small, just five feet five inches in height; they were well nourished, and if they lacked sugar and fat the result was excellent teeth with no cavities.
These are among the first findings of a group of archaeologists exploring a treasure trove of Venetian history that has been locked away and forgotten for centuries: the graves of Lazzaretto, an island in the Venetian lagoon whichbecame the world's first isolation hospital.
Following an outbreak of the plague in 1348, the Doge and his advisers put their minds to thinking up a way to prevent a recurrence. The upshot, at the beginning of the 15th century, was the world's first isolation hospital occupying the entire small island.
In 1630 the hospital was dissolved and the island taken over by a military garrison; later it was used to hold stray dogs. In the 1960s it was abandoned altogether.
A problem with Russian computers on board the International Space Station has been caused by a solar panel installed by American astronauts.
There are intriguing new clues in the mystery of how the woolly mammoth met its demise in North America more than 10,000 years ago.
For decades, scientists have debated whether the giant, elephant-like beasts were driven to extinction by the arrival of overzealous human hunters or by global warming at the end of the Pleistocene era, the last great Ice Age. Some say it was a combination of the two.
Recently, a group of more than two dozen scientists offered a new explanation. They have found signs that a comet -- or multiple fragments of one -- exploded over Canada about 12,900 years ago with the force equivalent to millions of nuclear weapons. That unleashed, they said, a tremendous shock wave that destroyed much of what was in its path and ignited wildfires across North America.
SETH BORENSTEIN
APFri, 15 Jun 2007 02:51 UTC
The populations of 20 common American birds - from the fence-sitting meadowlark to the whippoorwill with its haunting call - are half what they were 40 years ago, according to an analysis released Thursday.
Astronomers have announced yet more bad news for the much-lamented former planet Pluto. Kicked out of the club of planets last year into a new category of dwarf planet, it is not even the biggest of those, scientists have found.
Ed Stoddard
ReutersThu, 14 Jun 2007 23:52 UTC
HOUSTON - NASA said on Thursday that a new power feed could be the source of potentially catastrophic computer glitches aboard the $100 billion International Space Station but it hoped the problem would be resolved.
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| ©AP Photo/Current Anthropology, Bohuslav Klima
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| A triple burial site in Dolni Vestonice, in the Moravian region of Czech Republic, thought to be approximately 27,000 years old.
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NEW YORK - Investigations of prehistoric burial sites in Europe indicate that the region's population may have practiced ritual human sacrifice, according to a new study.
Almost 300 million people worldwide are now accessing the internet using fast broadband connections, fuelling the growth of social networking services such as MySpace and generating thousands of hours of video through websites such as YouTube.
There are more than 1.1 billion of the world's estimated 6.6 billion people online and almost a third of them are now accessing the internet on high-speed lines. According to the internet consultancy Point Topic, 298 million people had broadband at the end of March and that is already estimated to have shot over 300 million. The statistics, however, paint a picture of a divided digital world.
Jared Black
vggen.comThu, 14 Jun 2007 17:33 UTC
Koch Media has announced that it will port recently released PC adventure game Secret Files: Tunguska to both the Nintendo DS and Wii. 10TACLE Studios will handle development of the DS version, while Keen Games will handle development of the Wii version.
