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Submission + - Mandatory Drug Test @ Work Includes Follicle Test 1

Submitted by
trinifox
trinifox writes: "At a major 3 letter NYSE O&G service company spanning most of the globe, a policy has been rolled out dictating the T&C for mandatory drug testing for all new hires. It also covers 'random' & 'reasonable suspicion' selection of current employees. Along with the regular battery of tests, they are now also including hair follicle testing. The T&C indicate that a refusal would be immediate dismissal. My question is, is there any assurance that the collected materials (DNA & other wise) will not be used for any other purpose, such as insurance, promotions, or even resale for research purposes. With almost 100k employees in almost every country in the globe, this is quite a valuable snapshot of the human race. Am I just simply paranoid and baseless to thing this?"
Biotech

Submission + - Mechanism for Suppression of HIV Replication

Submitted by dragonorb
dragonorb writes: Virax Holdings Limited (ASX:VHL) announced today that VIR201 HIV vaccine clearly demonstrates an immune response confirming the results of viral load suppression from the Phase I/IIa clinical trial completed in Australia. This data has been presented by a group of Virax collaborators led by Professor Martyn French from Royal Perth Hospital at the prestigious International AIDS Society conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

http://www.virax.com.au/announcements/2009_asx_announcements/pages/ASX_332.aspx
Security

Submission + - SSL Flaw by (Browser) Design? (startcom.org)

Submitted by
Eddy Nigg
Eddy Nigg writes: "A while ago, the two security "white hats" Alexander Sotirov and Mike Zusman announced that they are going to publish a tool for exploiting EV SSL secured sites at the Black Hat Security Conference at the end of this month. Some sites reported the alleged attack on EV SSL secured sites as a means to prove that Extended Validation (EV) digital certificates aren't any more secure than regular SSL certificates. That's obviously an interesting claim since EV certificates traditionally costs quite a lot more than those that don't turn the address bar of the browsers green.

But is it really an attack on EV SSL secured sites? Does it indicate that such web sites aren't any more secure than others?"
Power

Submission + - Radar could save bats from wind turbines

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32034204/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Bats use sonar to navigate and hunt. Many have been killed by wind turbines, however, which their sonar doesn't seem to recognize as a danger. Surprisingly, radar signals could help keep bats away from wind turbines, scientists have now discovered.

Although wind power promises to be a clean source of energy, some researchers have raised concerns that wind turbines inadvertently kill bats and other flying creatures. For instance, in 2004, over the course of six weeks, roughly 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed at two wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, respectively. The bats might not be killed by the wind turbine blades directly, but instead by the sudden drop in air pressure the swinging rotors induce, which in turn cause their lungs to over-expand and burst surrounding blood vessels.

The researchers discovered that radar helped keep bats away, reducing bat activity by 30 to 40 percent. The radar did not keep insects away, which suggests that however the radar works as a deterrent, it does so by influencing the bats directly and not just their food.

Radar signals can lead to small but rapid spikes of heat in the head that generate sound waves, which in turn stimulate the ear.

"A bat's hearing is much more sensitive than ours," Racey noted. "It may be so sensitive that even a tiny amount of sound caused by electromagnetic radiation is enough to drive them out of there."

Future research can design a radar system optimized at deterring bats.

So how does radar keep bats away? The researchers explained that a great deal of research suggests that people can actually hear radar pulses.

"This was noticed when radar arrays first started up during World War II," Racey said. "A portion of radar operators said they heard clicks in their ears when they were switched on."
Space

Submission + - Thirty Meter Telescope to be Built in Hawaii (tmt.org) 1

Submitted by
Shag
Shag writes: "The planners of the Thirty Meter Telescope have chosen a plateau near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii as the site where the telescope will be constructed. (Cerro Armazones, in Chile, was the other possibility.) The telescope will use a mirror of hexagonal segments, like those first used at the Keck Observatory, but where each Keck telescope mirror is made up of 36 segments, the TMT mirror will have 494. Construction is expected to take close to a decade, once the permitting process is completed."
Networking

Submission + - SPAM: Introducing the ICSI Netalyzr 1

Submitted by nweaver
nweaver writes: How healthy is your Internet connection? Do you know if some outbound services are blocked? Are there hidden proxies or HTTP caches? Are there problems with your DNS server? We have developed a free service to help answer these questions: the ICSI Netalyzr, now publically available. This Java applet, developed by researchers at the International Computer Science Institute, allows you to probe your own network to discover various properties and problems. The numerous tests include discovering hidden HTTP proxies and caches, checks for port filtering, IPv6 connectivity, latency, bandwidth, and buffer properties, and DNS server health.
Link to Original Source
The Internet

Submission + - Senior Wikipedia Figure Quits, Forged Bogus Edits 5

Submitted by
nandemoari
nandemoari writes: "One of the most powerful figures at Wikipedia has resigned after it was discovered he'd been editing entries under bogus names. David Boothroyd, who is also a British politician, had even used the fake account to edit the pages of political opponents. In the British tabloids the issue has been a political one, since Boothroyd is an elected member of the Labour party. However, the issue at Wikipedia is a procedural one. Using multiple accounts (also known as 'sock puppetry'), is highly frowned upon as it can be used to artificially boost the support for a particular position or belief."
Movies

Submission + - SPAM: Pixar's next three films to be sequels?

Submitted by
brumgrunt
brumgrunt writes: "Should we be worried? As Pixar proves itself once more to be home to some of the most original and daring blockbusters on the planet with Up, does the news that its next three films are likely to be sequels — with the confirmation of Monsters, Inc 2 — give cause for concern? Den Of Geek wonders if commercial pressures are catching up with one of the finest movie companies on the planet... [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
United States

Submission + - Honor the Fallen with New Google Earth Layer

Submitted by
nandemoari
nandemoari writes: "A new Google Earth tool helps people find local (and not so local) families as well as media related to those troops who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's a worthy reminder that these wars are far from over. The new feature is called Map the Fallen, a new Google Earth layer released Sunday by Google engineer Sean Askay. It holds data on the 5,700-plus service members who have died during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The highly interactive feature allows users to view photographs, learn details about how a serviceman or woman passed, and visit web sites dedicated to the fallen. Some of these sites even include photos, comments, and other media produced by family members. It's a useful feature that can help students (and just about anyone else) understand the impact war has on average Americans."
The Internet

Submission + - Wolfram Alpha No Longer In Beta

Submitted by
nandemoari
nandemoari writes: "Wolfram Alpha, the online "computational knowledge engine" was recently launched. The site, which has been in testing for a few weeks but is now fully operational, is the work of British physicist Stephen Wolfram. He's best known for developing the argument that the wider universe runs on logical rules, just like the language of computer programs. The major difference with Wolfram Alpha is that it does not work by taking a search term and trying to find websites that may be relevant. Instead, its goal is to use data, both from the Internet and from otherwise publicly unavailable sources, to give a specific answer to a question. It's reported that the service uses trillions of pieces of data from credible sources."
The Military

Submission + - DOD to Share Threat Data with Critical Industries

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that for the past two years, the Defense Department has been collaborating with critical industries to stem the loss of important defense industry data — by some estimates at least $100 billion worth in the past two years, reflecting the cost to produce the data and its value to adversaries and the Pentagon is considering ways to share its threat data with other industries, including telecommunications and Internet service providers, that handle vastly larger amounts of data, including phone calls and private e-mails. The threat scenarios, experts say, are chilling: a months-long blackout of much of the United States, wide-scale corruption of electronic banking data, a disabling of the air traffic control system. The Defense Department's Cyber Crime Center is the clearinghouse for the threat data from the National Security Agency, military agencies, the DHS and industry. The goal of the program is swifter, more coordinated response to threats facing the defense industry but the Pentagon's trial program with industry illuminates the promise and the pitfalls of such partnerships: a reluctance of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to release threat data they consider classified and the companies' fear of losing control over personal or proprietary information. "This isn't just about national security," says Barbara Fast, vice president of Boeing Cyber Solutions. "It's about the economic well-being of the United States.""
Databases

Submission + - Batteries.com massive credit card security breach!

Submitted by
MonkeyMan
MonkeyMan writes: "I received a letter May 15, 2009 from batteries.com detailing a massive security breach where I'm assuming ALL their credit card information stored on their databases has been hacked and downloaded from a period of February 25th to sometime in March. I personally have had thousands of charges on my credit card made by somebody in the United Kingdom and it looks like the operation is very sophisticated. Some of the charges occurred within 1 second of each other and must have been automated because one of the companies, British Airways indicated that they do not permit an airline ticket to be purchased by somebody and paid for by somebody else, and the card "looked" like it was issued in the UK, which it was not. I suspect thousands of other victims are seeing charges on their cards too. If you have done business with batteries.com, immediately contact your bank, the FTC, and credit bureau, because identity theft is sure to follow."

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