Science News
Russian scientists reach lake under Antarctica
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) — After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years — a lake that may hold life from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets.
Reaching Lake Vostok is a major discovery avidly anticipated by scientists around the world hoping that it may allow a glimpse into microbial life forms, not visible to the naked eye, that existed before the Ice Age. It may also provide precious material that would help look for life on the ice-crusted moons of Jupiter and Saturn or under Mars' polar ice caps where conditions could be similar.
"It's like exploring another planet, except this one is ours," Columbia University glaciologist Robin Bell told The Associated Press by email.
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Signal for Higgs Boson Particle Gains Strength
The latest analyses from the Large Hadron Collider boost the case for the particle's existence, but there's no new data
By Geoff Brumfiel and Nature News Blog
Today the two main experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, submitted the results of their latest analyses. The new papers boost the case for December’s announcement of a possible Higgs signal, but let’s not get too excited.
First, there’s no new data in there—the LHC stopped colliding protons back in November, and these latest results are just rehashes that earlier run. In the case of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), physicists have been able to look at another possible kind of Higgs decay, and that allows them to boost their Higgs signal from 2.5σ to 3.1σ. Taken together with data from the other detector, ATLAS, Higgs overall signal now unofficially stands at about 4.3σ. In other words, if statistics are to be believed, then this signal has about a 99.996 percent chance of being right.
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Model analyzes shape-memory alloys for use in earthquake-resistant structures
Georgia Institute of Technology Research News
Recent earthquake damage has exposed the vulnerability of existing structures to strong ground movement. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers are analyzing shape-memory alloys for their potential use in constructing seismic-resistant structures.
"Shape-memory alloys exhibit unique characteristics that you would want for earthquake-resistant building and bridge design and retrofit applications: they have the ability to dissipate significant energy without significant degradation or permanent deformation," said Reginald DesRoches, a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a model that combines thermodynamics and mechanical equations to assess what happens when shape-memory alloys are subjected to loading from strong motion. The researchers are using the model to analyze how shape-memory alloys in a variety of components -- cables, bars, plates and helical springs -- respond to different loading conditions. From that information, they can determine the optimal characteristics of the material for earthquake applications.
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Sandia Labs engineers create 'self-guided' bullet
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Figuring out how to pack a processor and other electronics into a machine gun bullet has been a challenge for engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, so weapons experts say the miniature guidance system the lab has developed is a breakthrough.
Three years in the making, the bullet prototype represents another step toward a next-generation battlefield that scientists and experts expect to be saturated with technology and information.
"In the laboratory, I'm able to make machines so incredibly small it kind of boggles my mind," said Red Jones, one of the Sandia researchers who helped develop the laser-guided .50-caliber bullet. "Where we're headed, we're going to be limited only by our imagination."
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Technology News
EPIC sues FTC over Google privacy plan
Privacy advocate asks the court to require the FTC to enforce a 2011 privacy agreement with Google
By Grant Gross
IDG News Service - The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, asking a court to force the agency to take action against Google over planned changes in the company's collection of personal data.
EPIC, in briefs filed Wednesday, asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to require the FTC to enforce a 2011 privacy agreement between the agency and Google over the company's fumbled rollout of its Buzz social networking service.
Google's January announcement that it would consolidate user data over 60 of its services is a "clear violation" of that privacy agreement, EPIC said in court papers. Google has announced it will roll out the changes to its terms of service on March 1.
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Trustwave admits issuing man-in-the-middle digital certificate; Mozilla debates punishment
The issuing of subordinate root certificates to companies, so they can snoop on SSL-encrypted traffic, is a common industry practice
By Lucian Constantin
IDG News Service - Digital Certificate Authority (CA) Trustwave revealed that it has issued a digital certificate that enabled an unnamed private company to spy on SSL-protected connections within its corporate network, an action that prompted the Mozilla community to debate whether the CA's root certificate should be removed from Firefox.
The certificate issued by Trustwave is known as a subordinate root and enabled its owner to sign digital certificates for virtually any domain on the Internet. The certificate was to be used within a private network within a data loss prevention system, Trustwave said in a blog post on Saturday.
The CA took steps to ensure that the subordinate root could not be stolen or abused. The certificate was stored in a Hardware Security Module, a device built specifically for the management of digital keys, which ensured that its extraction was impossible, Trustwave said.
The company also performed on-site physical security audits to make sure that the system can't be removed from the premises and used to intercept SSL-encrypted (Secure Sockets Layer-encrypted) traffic on another network.
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Analyst: Apple took 80% of handset profits in Q4
Dylan McGrath
SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Inc.'s iPhone captured 19.1 percent of the global smartphone market share in 2011, up from 16 percent in 2010, according to Canacorrd Genuity analyst Michael Walkley. Based on the timing of the iPhone 4S refresh in October, Walkley expects Apple to gain more market share in the first quarter of this year, when be projects iPhone's market share to be about 23.8 percent.
Google's Android operating system maintained its lead among smartphone OSes in the fourth quarter, with about 50 percent market share, down from 56 percent in the third quarter, according to Walkley.
Based on Apple's fourth quarter market share gains and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s strong gains within the Android smartphone market, Walkley estimates that the two companies combined to take roughly 95 percent of all smartphone profits in the fourth quarter.
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Nokia: No "Plan B" should Windows Phone fail
Sylvie Barak
SAN FRANCISCO-- Nokia is placing all of its bets on a Windows Phone strategy with no “Plan B,” according to the firm’s European manager, ahead of the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.
Nokia will reportedly release a new Windows Phone device at the show, pegged to be a high-end smartphone sporting an “unusual software feature,” according to sources at a Nokia partner, as reported by Forbes.
Meanwhile, Victor Saejis, the Finnish phone maker’s European Manager has told Swedish financial daily Dagens Industri that his company has no contingency in the event its Windows Phone strategy falls flat, noting, "Plan B is that Plan A is to succeed."
With fierce competition from Android and iOS, Nokia is raising the stakes with Windows Phone and not hedging its bets.
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Environmental News
Ocean Microbe Communities Changing, but Long-Term Environmental Impact Is Unclear
Oregon State University
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2012) — As oceans warm due to climate change, water layers will mix less and affect the microbes and plankton that pump carbon out of the atmosphere -- but researchers say it's still unclear whether these processes will further increase global warming or decrease it.
The forces at work are enormous and the stakes huge, said Oregon State University scientists in an article published February 10 in the journal Science. But inadequate ocean monitoring and lack of agreement on how to assess microbial diversity has made it difficult to reach a consensus on what the future may hold, they said.
"We're just beginning to understand microbial diversity in the oceans and what that may mean to the environment," said Stephen Giovannoni, an OSU professor of microbiology. "However, a large portion of the carbon emitted from human activities ends up in the oceans, which with both their mass of water and biological processes act as a huge buffer against climate change. These are extremely important issues."
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Chemists Harvest Light to Create 'Green' Tool for Pharmaceuticals
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2012) — A team of University of Arkansas researchers, including an Honors College undergraduate student, has created a new, "green" method for developing medicines. The researchers used energy from an ordinary 13-watt compact fluorescent light bulb to create an organic molecule that may be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's and other brain diseases.
The finding, coauthored by Soumitra Maity, Mingzhao Zhu, Ryan Spencer Shinabery and Nan Zheng, is published in the current issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
"Our chemical reaction provides a new structure, a new building block for pharmaceutical companies that has not been available before," said Zheng, an assistant professor of chemistry in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences who leads the team. "It's a very unusual scaffold, very lipophilic and non-polar, which is what you need to cross the blood brain barrier."
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First Next-Gen US Reactor Designed to Avoid Fukushima Repeat
By Jeremy Hsu
The United States has approved construction of new nuclear reactors for the first time in three decades. The two new reactors approved today (Feb. 9) for Georgia would represent the first U.S. versions of next-generation reactor designs that have begun appearing in China.
These "third-generation" reactors are said to be safer, with longer-lasting batteries and passive cooling systems powered by gravity so that they can survive longer during emergencies without outside power.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved construction of the two reactors at an existing nuclear power plant in Vogtle, Ga., in a 4-1 vote.
"The last plant that got to this stage of the [approval] process did so in 1978," said Harold McFarlane, manager of the nuclear science and technology directorate at Idaho National Laboratory. "We think it's a very significant step going forward. It is the first of the new generation."
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Where's the snow? Not in Lower 48, but elsewhere
By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Snow has been missing in action for much of the U.S. the last couple months. But it's not just snow. It's practically the season that's gone AWOL.
"What winter?" asked Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center. For the Lower 48, January was the third-least snowy on record, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records for the amount of ground covered by snow go back to 1967.
Last year, more than half the nation was covered in snow as a Groundhog Day blizzard barreled across the country, killing 36 people and causing $1.8 billion in damage. This year, less than a fifth of the country outside of Alaska has snow on the ground.
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Medical News
Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus
Whether you want to smash a forehand like Federer, or just be an Xbox hero, there is a shocking short cut to getting the brain of an expert
by Sally Adee
I'm close to tears behind my thin cover of sandbags as 20 screaming, masked men run towards me at full speed, strapped into suicide bomb vests and clutching rifles. For every one I manage to shoot dead, three new assailants pop up from nowhere. I'm clearly not shooting fast enough, and panic and incompetence are making me continually jam my rifle.
My salvation lies in the fact that my attackers are only a video, projected on screens to the front and sides. It's the very simulation that trains US troops to take their first steps with a rifle, and everything about it has been engineered to feel like an overpowering assault. But I am failing miserably. In fact, I'm so demoralised that I'm tempted to put down the rifle and leave.
Then they put the electrodes on me.
I am in a lab in Carlsbad, California, in pursuit of an elusive mental state known as "flow" - that feeling of effortless concentration that characterises outstanding performance in all kinds of skills.
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Substance P Causes Seizures in Patients Infected by Pork Tapeworm
Baylor College of Medicine
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2012) — A neuropeptide called Substance P is the cause of seizures in patients with brains infected by the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium), said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appears online in the open access journal PLoS Pathogens.
"Neurocysticercosis or the tapeworm parasitic infection in the brain, is the major cause of acquired seizures," said Dr. Prema Robinson, assistant professor of medicine -- infectious diseases, and corresponding author of the report. "It is particularly important to understand the source of these seizures in order to develop ways to treat and prevent them."
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Diet Soda Linked to Heart Disease Risk
By Remy Melina
Diet soda may seem to be a healthier alternative to calorie-laden regular soda, but a new study shows that people who regularly drink diet soft drinks may be putting their hearts at risk.
Those who drank diet soda on a daily basis were at an increased risk of experiencing stroke, heart attack and death due to these conditions, according to the study.
"Our results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink consumption and vascular outcomes," study researcher Hannah Gardener, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, said in a statement.[5 Experts Answer: Is Diet Soda Bad for You?]
To analyze the relationship between both diet and regular soft drink consumption and heart disease, researchers studied the data of 2,564 participants in the Northern Manhattan Study, which was designed to determine stroke incidence, risk factors and prognosis in a multiethnic urban population.
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S.C. Tribe Suing Beer Companies For Alcohol Problems
Grant Schulte, Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An American Indian tribe sued some of the world's largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Nebraska also targets four off-site beer stores in Whiteclay, a Nebraska Panhandle town that, despite having only about a dozen residents, sold nearly 5 million cans of beer in 2010. Most of its customers come from the Pine Ridge reservation on the town's border.
Leaders of the tribe blame the Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol abuse and bootlegging on the reservation, where all alcohol is banned.
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Space News
Photos of the Day: Calibration Target on Curiosity
By NASA
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the robotic arm of NASA's Curiosity rover will use a calibration target attached to a shoulder joint of the arm.
This image combines a close-up of the calibration target with a view of the rover to illustrate the target's location on the rover. The MAHLI calibration target includes a penny, color chips, a metric standardized bar graphic, and (just below the penny) a stair-step pattern for depth calibration.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission launched on Nov. 26, 2011. It will deliver the rover Curiosity to Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. With MAHLI and nine other science instruments, Curiosity will investigate whether the area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.
Two instruments at the end of the robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will use calibration targets attached to a shoulder joint of the arm. One of these is the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), which is an adjustable-focus color camera. The other is the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), which can identify chemical elements in rocks and soil. This photograph, taken in August 2011 as the spacecraft was being prepared for launch, shows the MAHLI calibration target positioned above the APXS calibration target.
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Scientists Say NASA Cutting Missions to Mars
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
Scientists say NASA is about to propose major cuts in its exploration of other planets, especially Mars. And NASA's former science chief is calling it irrational.
With limited money for science and an over-budget new space telescope, the space agency essentially had to make a choice in where it wanted to explore: the neighboring planet or the far-off cosmos.
Mars lost.
Two scientists who were briefed on the 2013 NASA budget that will be released next week said the space agency is eliminating two proposed joint missions with Europeans to explore Mars in 2016 and 2018. NASA had agreed to pay $1.4 billion for those missions. Some Mars missions will continue, but the fate of future flights is unclear, including the much-sought flight to return rocks from the red planet.
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'Space: 2099' to Be Revived for Television
ITV Studios America and HDFILMS, the company behind ABC's reimagining of "V," are prepping a contemporary iteration of the 1970s space franchise.
by Lacey Rose
ITV Studios America and HDFILMS announced plans for a reimagining of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's famed franchise of the 1970s, then called Space: 1999. The news comes months after Fox and producer Seth MacFarlane announced they would be reviving Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey, a 1980s miniseries from Carl Sagan.
"Science fiction is a powerful format capable of visualizing the human condition in thought-provoking ways," said HDFilms president Jace Hall, who will spearhead the effort and serve as an executive producer. The project is in the development phase and has yet to be shopped to networks.
"While we are indeed re-imagining the franchise and bringing something new and relevant to today’s audiences," continued Hall, who recently revived V at ABC, "I feel strongly that some of the overall tones set by the original Space: 1999 television show represent an exciting platform to explore possibilities.”
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Stratos Space Jump: Can You Fall Faster Than the Speed of Sound?
By Rhett Allain
It seems like the Red Bull Stratos jump (redbullstratos.com) is back on track. For those of you not familiar, the basic idea is fairly simple. Felix Baumgartner will take a balloon ride up to an altitude of 120,000 feet and then jump out. The project was temporarily on hold due to some legal issues, but it seems to be settled now.
Yes, I know I have already talked about the Stratos jump many times. But that was then, this is now. How about I try to answer some of the questions that might come up?
Will he jump from outer space?
I guess the answer to this question depends on how you define ‘outer space.’ Perhaps the common definition is “the region where there is no atmosphere.” The problem with this is that the Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t just abruptly end. The transition from space to the Earth’s atmosphere is more like a hill rather than a step.
If you want some values, most people consider the International Space Station to be in outer space. This orbits the Earth at about 300 km above the surface (or 980,000 feet). You could say all the way down to 100 km (330,000 feet) is pretty close to space. So, 120,000 feet isn’t quite there. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still way up there.
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Odd News
Nike Launching Space Sneakers for NBA Stars
By Robert Z. Pearlman
Three icons of professional basketball will don special space-themed sneakers when they take the court for the NBA All-Star Game in Orlando later this month.
LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Kobe Bryant will wear special edition Nike shoes styled after NASA spacesuits and inspired by astronauts. Their fans will also be able to purchase the same sneakers as well as others designed by Nike to evoke central Florida's association with space exploration.
The basketball players' collection features what Nike calls a "galactic theme" on the LeBron 9, Nike Zoom KD IV and Nike Zoom Kobe VII System shoes. The new sportswear collection extends the style to Nike Dunk, Nike Flight One and Nike Foamposite One models.
Graphics on all the shoes "pay homage to the supernova — arguably the most powerful force in the universe," Nike said in a statement, while the sneaker's outsoles glow in the dark and individual 'mission patches' adorn each shoe as a nod to the astronauts' mission badges.
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