Science & TechnologyS


Cell Phone

How to foil the NSA and GCHQ with strong encryption

Egan Orion
The Inquirer
Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:05 UTC
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© Inquirer
"Ye are many - they are few." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

The most interesting device shown at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week was the secure Blackphone developed by Silent Circle and Geeksphone.

The Blackphone features anonymous search, automatic disabling of non-trusted WiFi hotspots, and private texting, calling and file transfer capabilities. It's available to the general public, and bundles additional security features that apparently go beyond the basic messaging security provided by Blackberry to enterprise customers in its Blackberry Messaging (BBM) service.

US-based aerospace and defence firm Boeing also unveiled its own Black phone - not to be confused with the Silent Circle and Geeksphone Blackphone - at MWC this week, but that appears to be restricted for sale only to government security agencies and defence industry customers, and therefore likely won't be available to the public through mobile operators or in retail shops.
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Sherlock

Ancient mysteries behind leprosy: The oldest human-specific infection

Jim Newman
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Thu, 20 Feb 2014 15:37 UTC
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Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is finally unearthing some of the ancient mysteries behind leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, which has plagued mankind throughout history. The new research findings appear in the current edition of journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. According to this new hypothesis, the disease might be the oldest human-specific infection, with roots that likely stem back millions of years.

There are hundreds of thousands of new cases of leprosy worldwide each year, but the disease is rare in the United States, with 100-200 new cases annually. Leprosy is known for attacking a patient's skin and nerves. Effective antimicrobial treatments exist today. However, when misdiagnosed or untreated, the disease can lead to extensive skin lesions, deformities in the patient's face and extremities, disabilities, and even death. Leprosy carries a social stigma and diagnosis is frequently and notoriously delayed.

An incidental yet important discovery

Work led by MD Anderson pathologist Xiang-Yang Han, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in laboratory medicine, resulted in the discovery in 2008 of a new leprosy-causing species, called Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Before that time, only one species of bacteria, called Mycobacterium leprae, was known to cause leprosy.

In the past several years, Han and other researchers have found the new leprosy agent in patients from Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Singapore, and Myanmar. Han's team, in collaboration with Francisco Silva, an evolutionary geneticist from Spain, analyzed 20 genes of Mycobacterium lepromatosis and compared them with those of Mycobacterium leprae.
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Info

Reciprocity and parrots: Griffin the grey parrot appears to understand benefits of sharing, study suggests


sciencedaily.com
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:27 UTC
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© University of LincolnGriffin the grey parrot.
A study into whether grey parrots understand the notion of sharing suggests that they can learn the benefits of reciprocity. The research involved a grey parrot called Griffin, who consistently favoured the option of 'sharing' with two different human partners.

A study into whether grey parrots understand the notion of sharing suggests that they can learn the benefits of reciprocity. The research involved a grey parrot called Griffin, who consistently favoured the option of 'sharing' with two different human partners.

Griffin was presented with a choice of four different coloured cups. A green cup (the sharing option) meant he and his partner each got treats. A pink cup represented the selfish choice as only Griffin got a treat, an orange cup was the giving option as only his partner got a treat, and a violet cup denoted the spiteful selection as no one got treats.

With few exceptions he consistently favoured green for each human partner, indicating he understood the benefits of choosing the 'sharing' option.
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Question

Canadian-Taiwanese program discovers new celestial bodies in inner Oort Cloud


Want China Times
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 20:51 UTC
Oort Cloud
© Wikimedia Commons
A Canadian-Taiwanese program co-sponsored by Taiwan's National Science Council has made discoveries beyond Neptune that are expected to help solve some of the mysteries of the solar system.

In four years of observation using the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope, the team of scientists discovered a sizable object in the inner Oort Cloud, in addition to more than 90 smaller ones, said team member Chen Ying-tung, a research assistant of the Taipei-based Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The recently discovered object is about 300 kilometers in diameter and is second only to a dwarf planet named Sedna identified in 2003 in the inner Oort Cloud, said Chen.
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Alarm Clock

Earth's rotation slowing? A leap second

Alexis C. Madrigal
The Atlantic
Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:35 UTC

The mechanics of the leap year are well known: We add a day to February every four years to maintain the synchronization of our earthly calendar with the celestial reality of the Earth's orbit.

Weeelllll, it turns out that a similar phenomenon plays out on a much smaller time scale. Along with the leap year, there is the leap second.

Here, let Demetrios Matsakis explain. He's the chief scientist for time services at the US Naval Observatory and the star of one of the best videos you're ever going to watch, Where Time Comes From (which I've embedded above). This is an outtake from that video, which was produced by the genius Katherine Wells.

"Until 1971, our standard of time was the rotation of the Earth," Matsakis says. "One turn of the Earth was one day, divided into hours, minutes, and seconds."

This version of time, variability included, has a name: Universal Time 1, or UT1. So, 86,400 seconds in a day (24*60*60). Simple.
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Comet 2

NEOWISE spies its first comet, C/2014 C3 (NEOWISE)


JPL NASA
Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:23 UTC
Comet C2014 C3 (NEOWISE)
© JPL NASAComet NEOWISE was first observed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft on Valentine's Day, 2014.
NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft has spotted a never-before-seen comet -- its first such discovery since coming out of hibernation late last year.

"We are so pleased to have discovered this frozen visitor from the outermost reaches of our solar system," said Amy Mainzer, the mission's principal investigator from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This comet is a weirdo - it is in a retrograde orbit, meaning that it orbits the sun in the opposite sense from Earth and the other planets."

Officially named "C/2014 C3 (NEOWISE)", the first comet discovery of the renewed mission came on Feb. 14 when the comet was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth. Although the comet's orbit is still a bit uncertain, it appears to have arrived from its most distant point in the region of the outer planets. The mission's sophisticated software picked out the moving object against a background of stationary stars. As NEOWISE circled Earth, scanning the sky, it observed the comet six times over half a day before the object moved out of its view.
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Magic Wand

Mysterious flashing 'Earthquake Lights' maybe explained?

Charles Q. Choi
Live Science
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:15 UTC
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A false color snapshot of cracks in a sheared powder bed above a typical voltage signal. Whenever a crack opens, the voltage drops by about 100 volts.
Mysterious flashes of lightning sometimes herald earthquakes, and now scientists may have discovered why: Shifting grains surrounding faults in the Earth may generate an electric charge.

This strange flickering, known as earthquake lights, can occur before or during quakes. Recent findings suggest earthquake lights seem to happen at rifts where pieces of the Earth are pulling apart from each other.

Normal lightning results from the buildup of electrical charge in clouds. However, lab experiments now suggest earthquake lights may instead originate from the buildup of electrical charge in the ground surrounding geological faults.

'Improbable' effects

Applied physicist Troy Shinbrot, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, and his colleagues looked at three different kinds of particles - plastic disks, glass particles and organic powders, such as flour - that stick and slip in much the same way the Earth does in earthquake zones. He and his colleagues studyelectric charge in powders, which, for example, can make pharmaceutical mixtures separate or stick to surfaces in unwanted ways in factories.
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Brick Wall

Tornado alley: Can giant walls protect the U.S.?

Doyle Rice
USA Today
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:45 UTC
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© Storm Prediction CenterTornado Alley is located in the Plains states from the Dakotas to Texas.
The walls would need to be about 1,000 feet high and 150 feet wide

One scientist thinks we can protect parts of the central USA from ferocious tornadoes by building several gigantic walls across Tornado Alley:

"If we build three east-west great walls in the American Midwest .... one in North Dakota, one along the border between Kansas and Oklahoma to the east, and the third one in south Texas and Louisiana, we will diminish the tornado threats in the Tornado Alley forever," according to physicist Rongjia Tao of Temple University.

The walls would need to be about 1,000 feet high and 150 feet wide, he said. Tao is presenting his research next week at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver.

He said that major tornadoes in Tornado Alley are created from the violent clashes between the northbound warm air flow and southbound cold air flow. He adds that because there are no west-to-east mountains in Tornado Alley to weaken the air flow, collisions between warm and cold air create turbulence and supercells that spawn tornadoes.

Tornado Alley is generally defined as the Plains states from the Dakotas to Texas.
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Attention

Physicists plan to wipe out Earth's Van Allen belts with radio waves

Graham Templeton
Geek
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 08:30 UTC
Van Allen Belt
© Geek.com
It was just last year that physicists thought they found the origin of Earth's Van Allen radiation belts - and now a prominent group of them want those belts dead! It's understandable, given the frustration these areas of space can cause to modern astrophysicists; if you want to launch a satellite or telescope, let alone a human being, the Van Allen belts will be a painful thorn in your side.

So, says a growing group of astrophysicists, why not wipe them out altogether? It might seem odd to hear scientists propose destroying a feature of the natural world, but there is a decent scientific argument to be made that these belts provide us nothing useful, and that we could lose them without a single negative effect.

The Van Allen belts are huge, dual-lobed areas of space around the Earth which are filled with high-velocity charged particles - electrons and protons whipping around the planet at near-relativistic speeds. For years it was thought that we had two distinct belts - but just recently that was updated to three. The belts, we now know, are caused by Earth's own magnetic field, which acts like a huge particle accelerator to ramp these ions up to dangerous speeds.

Apollo astronauts were guinea-pigs in figuring out the human effects of traveling through the Van Allen belts - but we now know they're mostly dangerous to electrical equipment. The belts pulse and morph with the changing of the seasons, and a manned mission can usually get through with only a minimal increase in radiation exposure.
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Saturn

The count keeps rising: 715 new planets discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope


The Guardian
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 12:02 UTC
discovered planets
© CorbisFour of the newly-discovered planets were two and a half times the size of Earth.
Kepler space telescope's discoveries include four planets that could hold liquid surface water, believed to be key for life

Scientists added a record 715 more planets to the list of known worlds beyond the solar system, boosting the overall tally to nearly 1,700, astronomers said on Wednesday.

The additions include four planets about two and a half times as big as Earth that are the right distance from their parent stars for liquid surface water, which is believed to be key for life.

The discoveries were made with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope before it was sidelined by a pointing system problem last year. The telescope, launched in 2009, spent four productive years staring at 160,000 target stars for signs of planets passing by, relative to the telescope's line of sight.

The tally of planets announced at a Nasa press conference on Wednesday boosted Kepler's confirmed planet count from 246 to 961.

Combined with other telescopes' results, the headcount of planets beyond the solar system, or exoplanets, now numbers nearly 1,700.

"We almost doubled, just today, the number of planets known to humanity," astronomer Douglas Hudgins, head of exoplanet exploration at Nasa headquarters in Washington, told reporters on a conference call.

The population boom is due to a new verification technique that analyses potential planets in batches rather than one at a time. The method was developed after scientists realised that most planets, like those in the solar system, have sibling worlds orbiting a common parent star.
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