22151824
submission
arisvega writes:
Terrafugia’s car/plane vehicle called the Transition, has received approval from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) clearing the way for delivery to customers sometime next year. Last year it received approval to fly as a “light sport aircraft” from the Federal Aviation Administration, but not before being given a special exemption to fly 110 pounds heavier than other’s in its class. This time around it had to convince the NHTSA to allow a special exemption for its Plexiglas windows and aircraft landing capable tires. The current price of $250,000 may or may not be the final price.
21677594
submission
arisvega writes:
Iran plans to send a live monkey into space in the summer, the country's top space official said after the launch of the Rassad-1 satellite, state television reported on its website on Thursday.
"The Kavoshgar-5 rocket will be launched during the month of Mordad (July 23 to August 23) with a 285-kilogramme capsule carrying a monkey to an altitude of 120 kilometres (74 miles)," said Hamid Fazeli, head of Iran's Space Organisation. No mentioning on retrieving the monkey, though.
21595764
submission
arisvega writes:
Three suspected members of the Anonymous hacking group have been arrested in Spain, said to have been involved in co-ordinating the group's activity in that country.
Anonymous has claimed responsibility for attacks on Sony, Spanish banks and co-ordinated action in defence of whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.
A statement from the Spanish national police force said that a computer seized in the home of one person it arrested was used in the hacks, and it involved Spanish cyber police combing through millions of lines of chat logs to identify who was behind the group's activities.
Some of the attacks made by Anonymous members used a web-based tool called Loic to bombard target sites with data. The websites of PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon were all targeted using this tool.
It seems that Loic did a poor job of hiding the identity of the people using it. It is believed that some police forces have already moved against the group based on this information.
21595272
submission
arisvega writes:
The website of Spain's national police force has been briefly knocked offline by hacker collective Anonymous.
The attack on the site was carried out in retaliation for the arrest of three Spanish men the police claimed were 'core' members of the group.
The hackers managed to keep www.policia.es offline for about an hour from 2130 GMT on 12 June.
Spanish authorities would not confirm that Anonymous was behind the attack, saying only that the site was offline.
However, a statement was posted on a website linked to Anonymous, claimed responsibility for the hack, which it called #OpPolicia.
21565382
submission
arisvega writes:
A group of hackers known as Anonymous has taken down a Turkish government website in a protest against recently introduced Internet filters that many consider to be censorship. They also appear to have published a manifesto.
Turkey has a long history of Internet censorship, with the country's ISPs having blocked YouTube and numerous other sites in the the past couple of years.
“(The Turkish government) has blocked thousands of websites and blogs while abusive legal proceedings against online journalists persist. The government now wants to impose a new filtering system on the 22nd of August that will make it possible to keep records of all the people’s internet activity. Though it remains opaque why and how the system will be put in place, it is clear that the government is taking censorship to the next level.
21401486
submission
arisvega writes:
A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.
The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.
The story only came to light after the teenager's mother became suspicious.
The case highlights China's black market in organ trafficking. A scarcity of organ donors has led to a flourishing trade.
21401310
submission
arisvega writes:
Talking about "corporate mentality" you think google spoils some of its employees with massage? One of the world's biggest insurance companies organised an orgy with prostitutes for its top salesmen at a Hungarian spa.
Ergo, a division of German firm Munich Re, has confirmed that this happened in 2007.
Gerhard Schneibel, journalist for the media organisation Deutsche Welle, told BBC Radio 5 live: "There was plenty of alcohol and 20 prostitutes there."
"They had colour-coded arm-bands, apparently," Schneibel explained to 5 live Breakfast.
"One was for regular hostesses, the other was for prostitutes, and the white ribbon was for prostitutes reserved for top management."
21378290
submission
arisvega writes:
Penguins, which most of us know and respect, face numerous challenges on staying warm. For Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), huddling is the key to survival during the Antarctic winter. Penguins in a huddle are packed so tightly that individual movements become impossible, reminiscent of a jamming transition in compacted colloids. This huddle structure is continuously reorganized to give each penguin a chance to spend sufficient time inside the huddle, compared with time spent on the periphery. This study aspires to show that Emperor penguins move collectively in a highly coordinated manner to ensure mobility while at the same time keeping the huddle packed. Every 30–60 seconds, all penguins make small steps that travel as a wave through the entire huddle. Over time, these small movements lead to large-scale reorganization of the huddle, and those dynamics of penguin huddling are governed by intermittency and approach to kinetic arrest in striking analogy with inert non-equilibrium systems, including soft glasses and colloids. If you find the paper itself too scientific, skip directly to the timelapse video of those masters of cuteness.
19074178
submission
arisvega writes:
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has begun his court battle against extradition from the UK to Sweden.
He faces allegations of sexual assault against two women, which he denies.
Mr Assange, 39, argues Swedish prosecutors had no right to issue a warrant for his arrest because he has not yet been charged with any offences.
At the extradition hearing, in London's Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, his lawyers are also challenging the move on human rights grounds.
Mr Assange's legal team, led by Geoffrey Robertson QC, argues that if their client is forced to return to Sweden he could be extradited to the US, or even Guantanamo Bay, to face separate charges relating to the publication of secret documents by Wikileaks.
19044758
submission
arisvega writes:
Leading space scientists gathered in Paris this week to discuss how to spend more than a billion euros. The options? Well, try to choose between these three:
(1) a 20m-long telescope called IXO that could see the very "edge" of a black hole; or (2) a trio of satellites collectively known as LISA which might be able to detect the ripples in space-time left by the moment of creation itself; or (3) a pair of spacecraft that would visit two of the most promising locations for life beyond Earth in our Solar System.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please place your bets now.
18744320
submission
arisvega writes:
Just after seven years since the discovery of a fossilized Pterodactyl egg that shed a lot of light to the enigma of the oviparous nature of the creature, a newly discovered fossil of what appears to be a fossilized pterodactyl mother alongside its egg offers new clues about these flying reptiles, and makes paleontologists very excited indeed.
18659300
submission
arisvega writes:
They are the first results from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), designed to capture colors blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
The images show the star-forming region in unprecedented clarity.
Further study could yield insight into stars that are just lighting up, one of astronomy's "holy grails".
The results were presented at the American Astronomical Society's annual meeting in Seattle, US.
"The real unique thing is that you have a platform you can change out instruments on," said Terry Herter, an astronomer at the University of Cornell, and lead scientist on Sofia's first science mission known as Forcast (Faint Object Infrared Camera for the Sofia Telescope). "There's a set of stars in there that are very newly born," Professor Herter said.
"The holy grail of astronomy has always been to find stars just turning on. One of the things we can do with Sofia is look in detail at the earliest generations of stars."
18659126
submission
arisvega writes:
A former Swiss banker has passed on data containing account details of 2,000 prominent people to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
The data — which is not yet available on the Wikileaks website — was held on two discs handed over by Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in London.
"I'm against the system. I know how the system works," said Mr Elmer at the press conference. He said a sophisticated network existed to funnel illicit money into secret offshore accounts. "I've been there. I've done the job. I know what is the day-to-day business," he said, explaining why he thought it important to identify himself as the source. He said he was put in prison in Switzerland for 30 days for violating Swiss banking rules, and that he was offered money and the withdrawal of charges against him in order to buy his silence.
The data included the offshore accounts of about 40 politicians, he said, and covered accounts at three banks, including his former employer.
The banker also said that he and his wife had written a letter to German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck, offering to provide the data for free, but received no response.
Mr Elmer — who runs his own whistle-blowing website — said the data he was providing had been passed to him by various sources that he would keep anonymous.
"I am taking the responsibility for this," he said.
18658924
submission
arisvega writes:
Chinese President Hu Jintao has said the international currency system dominated by the US dollar is a "product of the past".
Mr Hu also said China was taking steps to replace it with the yuan, its own currency, but acknowledged that would be a "fairly long process".
The remarks to the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal came in the form of written responses to questions. Mr Hu also reiterated criticism of a decision by the US Federal Reserve to inject $600bn into the economy, which some argue will weaken the dollar at the expense of other countries' exports.
"The monetary policy of the United States has a major impact on global liquidity and capital flows and therefore, the liquidity of the US dollar should be kept at a reasonable and stable level," President Hu said.
